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(Re)Walking the Walk
Alex Rowell
Now Lebanon
http://www.nowlebanon.com/BlogDetails.aspx?TID=2437&FID=6
June 5 2012
I appreciate that the WalkBeirut tour is old news for veteran NOW
Lebanon readers, but after three years and a significant re-shuffling
of the route, I hope I'll be pardoned for a brief update.
Starting now in Clemenceau, as opposed to Hamra as previously, this
four-hour trek led by AUB alumnus and WalkBeirut founder Ronnie Chatah
took me and some thirty others through over a dozen of the capital's
historic jewels last Sunday. Fancying myself, quite irrationally, as
an authority on Lebanese history, I was continuously and increasingly
annoyed to find Chatah's knowledge surpassing, even humiliating my own
at every turn. Indeed, the brilliance of his narration is his ability
to accommodate the utter novice ("Who was Yasser Arafat?" someone once
asked) while also sating the appetites of a more demanding audience.
In Qantari, you'll learn about the Armenian Christian sect that only
exists in Lebanon, as well as how to identify the specific Turkish,
French and Lebanese elements in the still-preserved architecture of
the neighbourhood. At the Holiday Inn - where a passing service driver
shouted "How many died there, how many?!" in a tone that seemed to
hold us personally responsible - you'll discover which room Arafat
stayed in, and what Ariel Sharon did when he took the building off
his nemesis. At the synagogue in Wadi Abu Jmeel, you'll learn about
the Lebanese Jewish woman who liked to tell visitors how she once
"slapped" Sharon "to the ground". The journey continues downtown
through the Roman baths, the Grand Serail, Place de l'Ã~Itoile and
Martyrs Square, where it would be no exaggeration to say that Chatah's
oratory turned epic. Somehow, he summarises more than a century of
the square's history in a way that manages to be fully political,
without being at all politicized.
Fittingly (as I would come to see it), the tour culminates at
Samir Kassir Square, where Chatah delivers a powerful - and, again,
apolitical - tribute to the historian who gave us the 600-page-long
magnum opus, Beirut. Explaining that Kassir's passion and bitterness
about the city's rapidly disappearing history was the very inspiration
for WalkBeirut itself, he invited an audience member - in this case, me
- to read out an Arabic sentence of Kassir's that neatly captures the
ethos of the whole enterprise: "عÙ~HدÙ~Hا Ø¥Ù~DÙ~I اÙ~Dشارع,
Ø¢Ù~JÙ~Gا اÙ~DرÙ~AاÙ~BØ~L تعÙ~HدÙ~Hا Ø¥Ù~DÙ~I اÙ~DÙ~HضÙ~HØ"
("Return to the street, dear friends/comrades, and you will return
to clarity"). Something we might all do more often.
Alex Rowell
Now Lebanon
http://www.nowlebanon.com/BlogDetails.aspx?TID=2437&FID=6
June 5 2012
I appreciate that the WalkBeirut tour is old news for veteran NOW
Lebanon readers, but after three years and a significant re-shuffling
of the route, I hope I'll be pardoned for a brief update.
Starting now in Clemenceau, as opposed to Hamra as previously, this
four-hour trek led by AUB alumnus and WalkBeirut founder Ronnie Chatah
took me and some thirty others through over a dozen of the capital's
historic jewels last Sunday. Fancying myself, quite irrationally, as
an authority on Lebanese history, I was continuously and increasingly
annoyed to find Chatah's knowledge surpassing, even humiliating my own
at every turn. Indeed, the brilliance of his narration is his ability
to accommodate the utter novice ("Who was Yasser Arafat?" someone once
asked) while also sating the appetites of a more demanding audience.
In Qantari, you'll learn about the Armenian Christian sect that only
exists in Lebanon, as well as how to identify the specific Turkish,
French and Lebanese elements in the still-preserved architecture of
the neighbourhood. At the Holiday Inn - where a passing service driver
shouted "How many died there, how many?!" in a tone that seemed to
hold us personally responsible - you'll discover which room Arafat
stayed in, and what Ariel Sharon did when he took the building off
his nemesis. At the synagogue in Wadi Abu Jmeel, you'll learn about
the Lebanese Jewish woman who liked to tell visitors how she once
"slapped" Sharon "to the ground". The journey continues downtown
through the Roman baths, the Grand Serail, Place de l'Ã~Itoile and
Martyrs Square, where it would be no exaggeration to say that Chatah's
oratory turned epic. Somehow, he summarises more than a century of
the square's history in a way that manages to be fully political,
without being at all politicized.
Fittingly (as I would come to see it), the tour culminates at
Samir Kassir Square, where Chatah delivers a powerful - and, again,
apolitical - tribute to the historian who gave us the 600-page-long
magnum opus, Beirut. Explaining that Kassir's passion and bitterness
about the city's rapidly disappearing history was the very inspiration
for WalkBeirut itself, he invited an audience member - in this case, me
- to read out an Arabic sentence of Kassir's that neatly captures the
ethos of the whole enterprise: "عÙ~HدÙ~Hا Ø¥Ù~DÙ~I اÙ~Dشارع,
Ø¢Ù~JÙ~Gا اÙ~DرÙ~AاÙ~BØ~L تعÙ~HدÙ~Hا Ø¥Ù~DÙ~I اÙ~DÙ~HضÙ~HØ"
("Return to the street, dear friends/comrades, and you will return
to clarity"). Something we might all do more often.