As I jog past the hotel where Terry Waite stayed the night before being kidnapped, I almost run over a small woman in hijab headscarf and Nikes. I apologise, she smiles, we both jog on. So it is in the new Beirut. The pursuit of ecclesiastical hostages has given way to the pursuit of the body beautiful.
I head onwards, dodging carts selling freshly baked flatbreads, corncobs and cigarettes, past the rows of arching fishing poles like giant wands casting spells into the sea, and on through the happy tide of humanity that throngs the promenade — women in full chador, women in skimpy tank tops, young men ogling the tank-top girls, old men putting the world to rights.
All colours and creeds are here, drawn by the slow slink of the sun. On this Thursday evening, the Beirut Corniche feels like the centre of … what? The Middle East? The Mediterranean? The world? Please excuse this burst of lyricism. It comes from the buzz of finding a place you really like. Somewhere that makes you feel, yes, the world is good, it can work, it can be a beautiful place after all.
I hadn’t expected to like Beirut so much. To be honest, I was a little nervous coming here. In the current political climate, a long weekend in Lebanon seemed about as sensible as getting into a Jacuzzi full of crocodiles.
But from the moment I landed, my heart soared. The gargantuan lobby of my hotel, the magnificently marble Phoenicia (home to half the world’s press during the bad old days) was packed — UN soldiers, diplomats, wealthy Kuwaitis, even wealthier Saudis, and beautiful, tiny Lebanese women with big laughs.
Perhaps it’s the legacy of 16 years of civil war (1975-1991), during which death stalked every mundane corner, from shop to schoolyard, but Beirut in the new millennium feels completely and utterly alive. The late-1990s rebuilding boom continues unabated. The Phoenicia will soon have competition from a spanking-new Four Seasons and Hilton.
Apartments on the waterfront go for $3m.
The greatest symbol of rebirth is the downtown Solidere district. This pedestrianised quarter is the latest in a long line of Lebanese miracles (beginning with St George dispatching the dragon at the gates of Beirut in AD200). Thanks to the Solidere consortium, headed by wealthy Lebanese businessman and current prime minister Rafiq Hariri, an area the size of London’s West End rose from deep rubble in the 1990s. Today, some complain about its bland Disneyfied appearance, but I think the renovated Ottoman arcades are elegant, housing chic cafes, bars and designer boutiques (including that of the rising Lebanese fashion star Ellie Saab, creator of Halle Berry’s 2002 Oscar dress).
By day, the numerous cafes welcome strollers sipping cafés blancs (not coffee at all, as I discover painfully, but boiling rose-water). By night, Solidere buzzes with alfresco revellers, all dressed to impress. It’s Boston meets Barcelona, only cleaner, thanks to a small army of boiler-suited Syrian street-sweepers with ostrich-feather dusters.
Behind the main precinct of Rue al-Maarad is perhaps the only place in the world where a TGI Friday backs on to a Roman market — or at least a large pit strewn with columns and pedestals, uncovered during the rebuilding. I try to get a better look, but in 2004, Beirut archeological restoration seems to take second place to the creation of prime real estate. There’s no entrance.
Instead I admire the enormous St George Cathedral, originally built by the crusaders, which stands right next door to the scaffolding-clad Omani mosque, still under reconstruction. Everywhere I go in Beirut, churches and mosques are being built, often alongside each other. After all, this has always been a city of contrasts — old and new, Christian and Muslim, European and Arab, sacred and profane.
I pause on chic Rue Weygand, admiring the rooftop bar of the vast Virgin Megastore, the soaring Omani minarets, the gleaming glass Microsoft headquarters, and, across the road, a huge vacant shell of a building, riddled with bullet-hole acne. It’s a striking summary of Beirut in 2004 — a city accelerating forward, while trying to heal the wounds of the past.
I am driven around town by my guide, Hassan (Beirut driving is only for the professional or the criminally insane). “We don’t have rules here,” he smiles, a good slogan for a city in which red lights mean slow down, look, then accelerate at speed, horn blasting. As we charge through traffic, I admire numerous billboards that seem to suggest Beirutis have two obsessions in life — further education and hair removal. One of the few that doesn’t offer diploma or depilatory success depicts Syrian President Al-Assad, stating: “Syria remains at the heart of Arab nations.” “Syrians are snooty know-alls,” laughs Hassan. He suggests that even Muslim Lebanese would be happy to see them go (as proposed by the recent UN Resolution 1559 demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon).
