Faces from Ashura 2011 - Nabatieh Lebanon

First photography experimentation...
As good as any first experimentation.

My Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beirut-exit/sets/72157628331969757/

Al-Akhbar Photo Blog:
Photos by Alia Hajju and Marwan Tahtah - Blood on marble

They killed Hama's shepherd ya Talal !!!

The room wasn't as I expected it to be. The large outdoor terrace of the cafe was closed. Getting into the small indoor section gave me the impression of entering a secret place. I was moved form hamra's street to a place that looks like Hermel's cafe during winter time: low ceiling, low light, people in winter cloths, and a heavy cigarette smoke.

Not far away from me a woman with long dark hair and big eyes was standing.

وقفوا العرب ع سلاحهن
لمن فردت الشَعر
تمنيت حالي دهب
تاصير متل الشام
وتغر مني حلب
وماعود فيي نام

It's only from the way she holds her cigarette and her high hills that I understood she wasn't one of  Talal Haidar's poems.

People came to listen to his poetry, most of them faces I know, most of them living in Beirut, most of them form Beirut's-interland-Bekaa Valley. Most of them exited from Hamra to Hermel riverside cafes just by stepping into the room.

Poems are singing Hama, Homs, Halab and Damascus, Balback and Houran Plain.. Poems about women, coffee and mares... poems about swords, and golden bracelets.

وديت مع راعي حماه

يشفلي الطقس الشمال

قللي السني جايي هوا

 بيوَقع الخَيّال

I closes my eyes and think of this plain .. warm and sunny.. far at the horizon a woman wearing gold bracelets is walking and you can hear the sound of the gold getting closer and closer.

A man on a horse riding towards her falls, he was shoot down by a sniper. Open my eyes there is blood between Homs and Hama.

They killed Hama shepherd ya Talal.

They killed him and tanks have taken over the arab tents, they have destroyed the wheat field and broke all coffee pots. Hama's shepherd is dead. People say he was killed people say he just died, people say he rose up.

لو كان عندي فرس
لضل عالعالي
بس ندهيني
بنرل على خيالي
يا بنت راعي الغنم
هالموت مقبالي
ردوا معي البواب
جايي هوا شمالي
في ناس
قالوا قتل
في ناس
قالوا مات
في ناس
قالوا فتح عتمة خياله
وفات

There is blood on Talal Haidar's land, there is people wearing keffiehs, people we don't know but who will soon construct a Victory Arch in Damascus. A people one. A real one.

Poems are Talal Haidar's poems. 

Beirut sea front

It is while walking with S. on Beirut sea front that I decided to construct a blog. The idea came to mind after I saw this arrow pointing toward nowhere indicating an emergency exit.

An emergency exit from a city of which inhabitants are divided between those who have left, those who came back, and those who are looking for the right occasion to leave.  You do not really stay in Beirut, and you do not really leave it. The city has its own equilibrium; it manages flows of people with its own rules. Not only in and out of its virtual walls but within the city segregations as well. A complex mosaic of neighborhoods delaminated by constantly moving demarcation lines. The Arab University and Cola neighborhoods that were an integral part of my daily routine few years ago are totally unrevealed to me today.  Other have taken over their streets, their atmosphere has changed.

Its sea is a call for departure. In 2006 - from what used to be S. and I’s house and then became just S.’s house, before becoming an over-priced rent house near the sea front – I used to look at large military boats carrying people who decided to leave.  Leave the city running away from the war. On the wall of Ras-Beirut graffiti  - recalling 1982 blockade slogans – stated that Beirut is a city that will not surrender. Actually, the city wasn’t attacked and no one has asked for its surrender. The war was going on somewhere else. Beirut became a safe place for refugee’s families waiting to come back home. They would follow the news coming from the battlefield with fear and proud to have a son, a brother or a cousin fighting there. At that time, I was coming from Italy for the summer break. I looked at people leaving. S. and I decided to stay.

Five years later, walking on Beirut sea front looking at random large merchant boats and small fishing barks, I decide to exit. Leaving Beirut is not something you can do, you can escape, escape for a week end, escape for a week or escape and become a stranger. It is only by becoming a stranger that you really liberate your self of the city’s rules.