hariri

picture captions:
1. lebanese army soldiers. observe the guns. there were quite a few of them around today, but, as the daily star noted, they were working to secure the demonstration, rather than stopping people from participating as they did last year out of fear.
2. my first glimpse of the crowd.
3. a decked out car, complete with posters, flags, and blown-out speakers blasting patriotic music.
4. a flag-cape.
5. these signs seemed to be more popular last year based on what i saw on tv, but there were still many of them today.
6. "live lebanon and die..." something. someone teach me arabic.
7. the an-nahar building and jibran tuéni.
8. hariri's mosque. it was supposed to open today, but i don't know if it did or not.
9. from left to right: no to cowboys (george w.), no to animals (gen. michel 'aoun), yes yes yes (lebanon).
10 and 11. good vantage points.
12. crowds and flags.
13 and 14. the site of the assassination.

***

today marks one year since the assassination of former lebanese prime minister, rafik al-hariri.

i went downtown with zoe and several hundred thousand others. zoe and i wanted to go to participate and observea historic event in lebanon. i can only assume that everyone else was going to pay respects and remember a man who played an instrumental role in rebuilding beirut after the war destroyed it. more importantly, though, the demonstration today was an expression of lebanese unity. this is what i gathered from the speeches and chanting:
- insults to syria's president, bashar al-asad -- "name your child elliot, name your child stupid, but don't name your child bashar!"
- calls for the complete removal of syria -- "yalla! suria! get out of here!" the massive demonstrations in the wake of the assassination last year resulted in mounting international pressure that forced syria to withdraw from lebanon after having occupied the country for 30 years. despite having officially left lebanon, however, syria still has an influence in lebanese politics, evidenced by emile lahoud -- called a syrian puppet -- still holding the post of president here. the relationship between the two countries is quite tenuous. there is no syrian embassy in lebanon, which syria says is because the two countries are "so close," but in diplomatic lingo, not having an embassy is tantamount to non-recognition. in a throwback to the days when lebanon and syria were united under the banner of greater syria, syria still maintains its pseudo-covert territorial ambitions with regard to its smaller neighbor. besides ideology, syria has practical interests here, as well, mostly in terms of business and finance. many people attribute the murders of hariri and several other prominent lebanese people in the last year to syria, saying that the latter is trying to destabilize lebanon to justify a continued presence here. judging by the u.n. inquiry, which implicated the syrian government at the highest levels in addition to the pro-syrian members of the lebanese government, and that all of the targets have been people who were openly critical of syria, this accusation hardly seems far-fetched, but there has yet to be any concrete assignment of blame.
- demands for truth -- al-haqiqa -- in response to the above.
- affirmations of lebanese unity, irrespective of religion.
- chants of hariri's nickname, abu baha-. as is customary in the arab world, parents are referred to as mother or father of their eldest son, or daughter, if there is no son.

the speakers included people i didn't know; hariri's son, saad; and walid jumblatt, the leader of the druze. the latter has apparently criticized hezbullah recently, calling for their disarmament. as a result, hezbullah didn't participate in the demonstration today. people i talked to said this was unfortunate: whether or not they agree with hezbullah's actions of late, they said, they are very patriotic lebanese and should have come.

as i walked toward downtown, i saw all sorts of vehicles plastered with posters of hariri, lebanese flags protruding from every window. everyone carried a flag -- some people even wore flags as shirts or bandanas or capes. there were posters and then scarves and ribbons of red, symbolizing hariri's political party, or bright blue, the color of his remembrance.

we rounded a corner and i saw, perhaps, 20,000 people. i've never seen so many people in my life and it was only a fraction of everyone there.

zoe and i walked past an-nahar (the daily), an important arabic newspaper. since i have arrived in beirut, there has been a massive poster of jibran tuéni, a staunch critic of syria who wrote for an-nahar until he was killed a few months ago.

we decided to make our way towards hariri's mosque. retrospectively, i have no idea how we made it as far as we did. the situation was comparable to stand-still traffic except that the cars were also on top of each other. we ended up quite close to where people were speaking and an old man pulled us up onto a platform, so we could see better, in theory. i couldn't see anything except the 15 people within two inches of me, the buildings, and the cameras suspended in the air. in exchange, though, the old man thought he could put his arm around me, which was creepy, so i moved out of his reach as soon as i could.

i suppose zoe and i were vulnerable. we speak english to each other and only sort of knew what was going on, so we're obviously tourists, she has blonde hair and blue eyes, and we were two women by ourselves. (we intended to meet two male friends, but we lost them on the way and there was something disabling cell phones in downtown, imaginably for security purposes.) initially, it was just scattered groping, maybe because of the complete lack of any semblance of personal space, but as the day continued, things became obviously not accidental and i began trying to smack people away and shooting dirty looks at everyone around me because i couldn't actually tell who the guilty party/ies was/were. my capacities to do either were very limited, though, because of the lack of space, and any success i had was met with replies like, "shu??" (what??) and "ana? la." (me? no.) after blatantly catching a guy, i tried to turn around and give him a really angry look, not knowing how to say, "stop it, you asshole," in arabic and he backed off and apologized. i started envying the muhajiba (a woman who wears a hejab) in front of me, assuming that no one was trying to grab her, although that also could have been because zoe and i were behind her and we certainly weren't interested in her ass.

we decided we'd had enough, but moving anywhere didn't look promising and the former offender took my hand and literally dragged me through the crowd, pushing people out of our way, and someone behind zoe pushed her after me. after several minutes, during which my feet hardly touched the ground, i was able to breathe again. zoe and i thanked the guy, who promptly asked for my number. maybe he thought the language barrier was irrelevant since he had proven that he was tough and could repent, but i saw it otherwise and i attempted to stifle my laughter as i turned him down.

on a positive note, or something, people were a lot more interested in us than our belongings and no one made any attempt to steal our things.

maybe zoe and i just had the misfortune to end up next to lots of sleazy guys, but i'm glad i went. it was an experience, for sure.