Beirut basics - part IV : Spirit

However brutal, noisy, dirty or ugly it can sometimes be, Beirut remains the city where life, not shells, explodes against the backstage of the clearest sky ever, where East meets West in spirit, architecture, literature, people and vision. It is a city of old and new, constantly challenged, constantly moving, never the same and yet unchanged.

It is a place where Muslims wish merry Christmas, and Christians invite Muslims to Ramadan fast-breaking feasts without having to engage in polite conversations about religion. It is a place where church bells ring unabated while the muezzin chants to the glory of God. In Beirut, being Muslim or Christian, or both, is normal, no questions asked, no explanations to give or classes to take in order to understand the other.

Beirut is a place where a synagogue still stands after 20 years of war, damaged like all other Beirut buildings, but still there because no one destroyed it although they could have. It is a place where people meet to discuss diverging godly and earthly matters without having to justify where they came from, because they were simply born here.

It is a place where people work hard, as can be seen from the extraordinary dynamism of the city. It is a place where ambition can drive you high, or drive you out.

Beirut is no different than Lebanon, with diverse shapes, colors, places, communities, religions, ideas and people. But what makes it special is that it is a concentrate of Lebanon, making it a very special and unique place in the country, and indeed in the whole region close and far. No such other place exists in the Middle-East or the Arab world at large. Other cities may compete with Beirut on many of its attributes : Dubai is cosmopolitan and rich, Cairo is grand, historical and noisy, Damascus is filled with ancient palaces, mosques and churches, Amman is civilized, Tunis is wonderful, Istanbul is a meeting place of East and West, Casablanca is moving and partying... but Beirut is all this at once, all the time, all these elements are constantly competing with each other, yet seem to be needing each other to exist.

But in Beirut, ugliness can overshadow beauty, and poorness make richness shameful. In Beirut you can cry of despair and become hysterically happy, because of the city itself. It can drive you towards madness or reason, it can make you leave and yet yearn to come back.

The secret? A unique blend of self-regulated lawlessness, order, chaos, religion, richness, poverty, weather, people, but most of all, a love of life and a dynamism which is everywhere apparent. This blend is what gives the feeling of, as Beirutis say, "everything is possible".

This is what makes this city unique, at times unbearable yet simply unforgettable.