Reconstructing Beirut: Memory and Space in a Postwar Arab City

Notes

notes intRoDuction 1. The word “Solidere” is an acronym for the French term “Société libanaise pour le développement et la reconstruction Centre Ville du Beyrouth,” which means “The Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of the Beirut Central District.” Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (killed by a car bomb in February 2005) was a shareholder and a strong supporter of the company’s plans. The company’s role and politics will be discussed in Chapter Two. 2. The Ministry of the Displaced asked the displaced families to register their names to receive compensation for evacuating the buildings where they lived during the war. The government’s policies toward the displaced population will be discussed in Chapter Six. chaPteR one 1. I visited Beirut for the first time in the summer of 1995 to conduct preliminary research about the rebuilding of postwar Beirut. I returned to Beirut in 1996 and 1997, living in the city for a total of over eighteen months. 2. After Solidere demolished many buildings in the downtown area, archaeologists were able to conduct salvage excavations. 3. In Brazil and Egypt, local governments used space as a symbol of modernity to justify carrying out major projects to restructure urban space and to assert their power. 4. The Green Line ran through the downtown area, dividing it into two. Areas surrounding the dividing line became strategic locations and battlefields for militias that changed throughout the war. 5. A number of anthropologists wrote about the politics of conducting field research among their own communities and discussed the role of the so-called native/indigenous anthropologist. See Abu-Lughod (1991), Altorki and El-Solh (1988), Jones (1995), Narayan (1993), and Paerregaard (2002). 6. The few Palestinians who were able to acquire Lebanese citizenship often concealed their identity. For an excellent analysis of the conditions of Palestinians in Lebanon, see Sayigh (1994) and Peteet (1996, 1997, 2005). 7. See King and Scheid 2006 for information about the anthropology in Lebanon. 8. Altorki and El-Solh (1988), Arab Women in the Field: Studying Your Own Society, is the first published book about the experiences of Arab women anthropologists. 9. Baydoun (1999), Gilsenan (1996), Machnouk (1994). For a thorough critique about using statistics in social sciences, see Asad (1994). 10. In Arabic, the word balad means “country.” Before the war and immediately in its aftermath, residents of Beirut continued to call the downtown area the city center (wasaţ al-balad). Wasaţ al-balad literally means “the center of the country.” 11. Initially, I believed that the speakers were talking about the building that accommodated the offices of Solidere. In the early phase of the reconstruction project, Solidere renovated one building in the midst of the war-torn central district that housed its offices. chaPteR two 1. During the war, secular, revolutionary, and nonreligious parties found themselves operating in a way similar to that of sectarian war militias. Although nonsectarian parties adopted secular ideologies, these parties were associated with the sectarian background of their leaders. For example, the Progressive Socialist Party, with its charismatic leader Kamal Jumblat, was seen as a Druze party. For a discussion about the role of sectarianism in Lebanese political groups, see AbuKhalil (1985) and Dagher (2000). 2. Rafik Hariri became the prime minister in 1992 and was reelected in 2000. He resigned in October 2004 to protest Syria’s intervention to extend the presidency of Emile Lahoud for three more years. Hariri was killed on February 14, 2005, by a car bomb (Fisk 2005). 3. In his study “The Genesis of a Mosque: Negotiating Sacred Space in Downtown Beirut,” Ward Vloeberghs (2008) presents the conflict of interest between developers, archaeologists, and historians of ancient Beirut. 4. Madina is the Arabic feminine word that means “city.” In Arabic literature, the city is often referred to by the feminine pronoun. 5. Before the war, the Orient building housed a major theater and various offices and shops. 6. The Tabula Rasa method is one where the city center is completely demolished and rebuilt with a new design (Davey 2000). 7. It is important to note that in most of these accounts, periods of decay were presented as a deviation from the normal state, even though some of these periods lasted longer than peaceful times. 8. Rafik Hariri’s city of origin is Sidon (Sayda), located south of Beirut. 142 notes to Pages 17–31 9. For scholarly works about...