Two Lebanons

On Thursday when I returned to Lebanon, I caught the tail end of the celebrations for the prisoner exchange between Hizballah and Israel, rushing down to the coastal highway to watch marching bands welcome coffins containing the remains of martyred Arab fighters carried by tractor trailers bedecked with plastic flowers. The triumphalist tone of the celebrations (which I wrote about here and which shocked Israelis) is best understood in the context of Hizballah's effort to consolidate date power inside Lebanon in the aftermath of the 2006 war with Israel, and to protect its status as an armed group. Just weeks after Hizballah's brief takeover of Beirut and the Doha agreement, the prisoner exchange was a coming out party for the new Hizballah-dominated political order. From now on it's not entirely accurate to call the militia a state-within-a-state. It's going to become increasingly difficult to tell where the Resistance ends and Lebanon begins.

Not that you can see that yet. Three days after the prisoner exchange I went up into the Chouf mountains to attend the Beiteddine Music Festival to hear Brazilian legend Gilberto Gil and to dance samba in an 18th century Ottoman palace. Lebanon's summer festivals and the international acts that perform here are one of the most visible of the many ties to the wider cultural world. In between sets, Gil reminded the audience of Lebanon's special relationship with Brazil: apparently there are more Lebanese living in the South American country than there are in Lebanon. (At least that's what I think he said: he was speaking in French.)

Lebanon is a battlefield, the front line of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the western arc of the Rejectionist Crescent. And yet it is the cosmopolation, Levantine, entrepot Middle Eastern mid point of everything. These contraditions are entirely unsustainable -- as the 2006 war showed. The next war could end that illusion for good. And yet, Lebanon lives on.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut