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.