Public Space in Beirut

It is that time of the year when the heat is pretty intense in Lebanon, and the only thing we want is to go to the beach and enjoy the little breeze that comes from the sea.

One of the big challenges one faces is a) going to an awesome beach that happens to be a beach club, where you have to pay loads of money to enter, listen to techno music and be maybe the victim of discrimination (see St. George Beach Club story here)  or b) go to a public beach were you can face poor maintenance and very dirty water (according to a local newspaper 85% of household water ends up in the shore without any treatment). Add to this little regulation on how beach fronts get exploited  (or no respect for regulation as this article indicates) and you find yourself with a coastline that is increasingly privatized, "VIP" and exclusive.

Little options for the simple, non- Louis Vuitton, beach goer.

But the beach is not the only public place that is getting very private in Lebanon. I have recently heard accounts of people regarding Beirut's exclusive marina, Zeitunay Bay.

Photo credit: Lebanon Pictures

This place is very fancy, with a series of exclusive restaurants overlooking the water. Everyone who is anyone in Beirut can be seen here, sipping a cappuccino or having a meal with friends and family. If you want to know what the latest fashion trends are in the world, just come here to see the Lebanese ladies display their best outfits.

This is all good. The downside is that there are LOADS of things that you cannot do in Zeitunay Bay (including not speaking loudly), as the guards around it and the signs gently (and not so gently) continiously remind you.

Photo credit: author's own

Two friends of mine have recently gone to Zeitunay Bay with a book and a sandwich to seat down and spend a quiet moment while enjoying the view. In both cases they have been told that they cannot eat  seating on the benches. You can sit there, you can drink a to-go Mocha, but you cannot eat. In other words, if you can't afford the restaurants, you don't eat in Zeitunay Bay.

And I guess that would be somehow OK if this was a private space as the sign point out, but let me clarify that this is a very public space. Yes, you pay to park your boat here, yes you pay to eat at the restaurant, but the access to the deck is open to the public, since it is, afterall, directly connected to the street. A friend of mine, which is not one to be shy to argue when she sees an injustice, sat down with the guard and then the manager asking them to tell her exactly where it is written that she cannot have a sandwich in that place. Besides an "it is our policy", they were not able to produce anything more substantive. And they could also do nothing to prevent her from continuing to eat. She was, afterall, doing nothing illegal.

Which brings me to my last point: public and private space in Beirut. I recently talked with a Lebanese friend who happens to be an anthropologist, specialized in Lebanon. She was telling me that one fascinating thing about the Lebanese is that the concept of public space doesn't really exist. It is more of an inside/outside phenomenon, where inside (my home, my relatives' homes, my people's space) is to be protected, cherished, polished and cleaned (indeed, Lebanese houses are gorgeous, spotless and tastfully decorated... on the inside) and outside doesn't really matter. Outside is not mine, so why bother taking care of it?

No surprise then that streets are dirty, people litter, there are no parcs and the little open space left is privatized. If the sense of public is equated to "not mine" then it is also subject to be made "mine" by paying a bribe, building a fence around it and charging to get in. I am afterall letting you in "my" space now.

So my question is... What happened to "our" space?

Green space in Beirut

For those of you who live in Beirut, you know that this city is not what you would call "green". Parks are not particularly common, especially since taking care of them is expensive. Near my house there is actually a park called "Sioufi Gardens" that is so run down that it is almost depressing to walk around it.

So you can only imagine our surprise when one day my husband and I found Horsh Beirut, this amazingly beautiful park in the middle of Beirut.

This park has been there forever, and was completely burned during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. From a pine forest of over 1,250,000 m2 in 1696 to a park of over 800,000 m2 in 1967 (≈ 5% of Municipal Beirut), today Horsh Beirut is only a park of 255,000 m2. But still, it is huge!

After the war Horsh Beirut was restored and opened to the public.

However, some said that the crowds were starting to do some real damage to it, while others were afraid that sectarian fights would erupt in its grounds, so the municipality closed it. Today it is this beautiful green space surrounded my closed gates, between the Muslim side and the Christian side of town that can only be seen when you pass it while driving.

Yup, this magical place is actually closed to the public. And most Beirutis have never entered the park.

We felt like little kids who were been given a candy, and had to give it back after the first bite. "What do you mean we can't go in?", we asked the guard.

So this weekend we beat the system and spent actually a whole morning in the park... How did we do that??

Well, with a group of 32 friends we took on helping Zahra, a lovely Lebanese woman in her late 40s who takes care of the "Greenhouse", a garden located in the heart of Horsh Beirut.

As you might imagine, the gigantic greenhouse was a bit run down too, and Zahra does not receive any funds from the municipality to buy new tools. "We work with what we have" she says, while showing me broken shovels, twisted scissors and old buckets.

With the help on an incredibly generous person, we were able to buy Zahra new tools. Our friends were totally on board to spend a Saturday morning getting dirty and enjoying the fresh air, the flowers and plants and the tremendously calming effect of working in a garden.

Zahra walked us around the park and showed us the trees and the medicinal plants that you can find in it: remedies for a tummy ache, leaves to kill feet fungi, trees that absorb bacteria and clean the air... We all felt healthier, more knowledgeable and connected to one another.

Zahra told us stories of reconciliation, personal growth and atonment. She recalled how she was afraid of the "others" after the war, and that through receiving little kids from different groups in the park, she has been able to embrace human beings, no matter what religious background they have. She has also brought together people who wouldn't normally come together, to have fun while working in the gardens.

I think these stories left us all full of hope and with a renewed optimism. Spending time in the park was healing for all of us. And the only thing it took was offering a couple of hours of our Saturday morning.

So whoever is reading this post and lives in Beirut: the park is NOT closed to volunteers. Just go to Horsh Beirut on a Saturday morning and ask to speak to Zahra from the greenhouse, or send her an e-mail to zouzou_wr@hotmail.com. She will welcome you with open arms.