Sunday in Hamra

While fighting has intensified outside Beirut, things seem to be returning to some degree of uneasy normalcy here in the city. We took a long walk through Hamra today, something quite a few people seemed to have done as well. There were far more cars and pedestrians in the neighborhood than anytime since last Tuesday. It wasn't that much different than any other lazy Sunday afternoon in West Beirut. I was actually surprised by how relatively little evidence there is in the neighborhood that there had been fierce gun battles here for nearly 24 straight hours on Thursday and Friday. The main visual change now is that we see the flags and stencils of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party all over the neighborhood (the second photograph was taken by Dr. PVM):





It seems that in this case, the red SSNP symbol was painted over the communist hammer and sickle (this is the only one that we saw like this), but whether that was an act of aesthetic aggression or synthesis is another question. It could very well be the latter, as the SSNP became quite Marxist in the 1970s and, I presume, still is (I am still learning about this party, which had been completely invisible from the Lebanese political scene the whole time I've been here but now seems to have quite a presence, particularly in Hamra).

More prevalent, were symbols and flags that looked like this:



There aren't any Hezbollah or Amal symbols, further suggesting that the SSNP either took the lead in controlling this neighborhood or were the only ones who remembered to bring their paint.

Also in Hamra, are the remains of a few Hariri posters that used to cover the neighborhood to a greater degree than even the SSNP flags now do.



There were several stray bullet holes, but far fewer than I expected to see. And besides, much of Beirut's landscape is still riddled with bullet holes from the 1975-1990 Civil War:


(The Beirut Holiday Inn, which was heavily used as a sniper location during the 1975-1990 Civil War; source: www.michaeltotten.com)

So the only way to tell which ones were new was if the holes were in glass or in a new building.



Nearby, there is also Hariri's Future TV channel, which was set on fire on Wednesday (or was it Thursday?). This photo of its charred remains was taken by a colleague of mine:



As reported in the media, opposition gunmen have largely handed control over to the Lebanese military. There is not an ostensible presence of militas on the streets, but neither is there much of an army presence either. On the road toward Hariri's residence, there are tanks and military-controlled road-blocks (these pictures would have been better but we had to conceal our camera from the soldiers):



But on our way back to AUB, we walked down Sidani St., which, more than any other street in the neighborhood, was covered in SSNP flags. And exactly at the same point where we were on Thursday, when we started hearing gunfire very close to us, we noticed an abandoned building covered in SSNP flags and stencils and guarded by a non-uniformed man with a machine gun in his hand and an ammunition belt around his waist. He smiled when we walked by and gave us an earnest greeting, asking us, in German, whether we were German. "No, sorry!" we exclaimed, smiling and continuing our walk. I really wanted to get a photograph of him or of the building but my better half reminded me that months ago when she was out photographing the neighborhood, she had tried to take a picture of that very same building (without, then, all the political symbols) only to have a hand pushed into her lens, preventing her from getting the shot.

I heard from a friend in the neighborhood a few moments ago that other people continue to see non military snipers camped out in the upper floors of abandoned or under-construction buildings (of which there are plenty in Hamra).

This, coupled with the fact that fighting has ratcheted up considerably in areas outside Beirut (I just learned that a colleague witnessed a serious gunfight just outside her apartment in Saida, which left innocent civilians dead), is disconcerting, to say the least. And it puts the calmness that I'm seeing in Hamra in some perspective.

In light of all this, AUB just announced that the university will be closed on Monday.