Beirut Comes Up Again, to Party and to Pray

September 14th, 2009

By Fareeda Ahmed

Beirut’s Ancient Roman ruins serve as the backdrop for Snoop Dogg rap concerts and Page-Sixer celebrity soirees: what better image is there to illustrate the coexistence (or tension) between old and new, faith and funk, partying and political turmoil?

Lebanon is a microcosm of the Muslim struggle to maintain a progressive culture amidst unpredictable political instability. And the beautiful thing about it is the city’s unique ability to balance two seemingly opposed qualities – to create harmony by clapping the hand it was dealt through its rich history with the hand that 50 Cent makes you wave in the air like you just don’t care. Beirut is truly making music.

This July’s image of Snoop Dogg belting to a Beirut audience that has suffered a siege of conflict and political turmoil since July ‘06 – when the Israeli army’s offensive dispersed the usual summer crowds and drove them under for the next three years – is just one more magazine clipping in the pastiche of Lebanon’s ever-broadening mosaic of cultural expansion and contraction.

This summer, as the tourists return, the artists move and shake, and the general scene of good times spreads once again through the city’s streets, it seems the old Beirut is back.

But the question I have to ask is – when is it really over? This cycle of bombastic and (literally) bombarded. When is it really for good?

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems like every few years the celebrities dip in, big name bands entertain the pop-savvy youth, and along comes another blast to blowout the subwoofers of party-city, and send the frontliners of the party zone running to the other side of the warfront.

It seems the Lebanese youth have a similar sense of uncertainty about their future, but for now, are content to rock on while the good times are rolling.

Perhaps the charm or intrigue, of the city is that Lebanon doesn’t deny its roots nor does it shun its more contemporary sounds. It balances both in one, and somehow creates a harmony from two seemingly opposite cultures.

I find this inspiring, that a place can be at once old and new, entrenched in tradition and history, while amplifying the most new-age sounds.

I wonder what it sounded like when the azaan played over one of the summer’s arts’ festival performances of La Traviata, calling Beirut to prayer as Violetta is called to her cathartic, tragic death.

One thing is sure: whatever it sounded like, I bet you can only hear something like that in Beirut.