Suspended between the Byzantine and Arab eras, Egyptian and Ottoman rule, the confidence of memories of independence and the uncertainties of the current political discontent, Sahat Riad Al-Solh, or Riyad Al-Solh Square, stands proudly in the middle of Beirut's downtown area. It is a symbol of authority, and a place for the young and rebellious to state their cause. The square recently hit the headlines in a belated re-enactment of the once-promising Arab Spring. Protesters across class and party lines and ethnic and sectarian boundaries rose up against what they considered to be the corruption of a privileged political class that has put its own interests before those of the country as a whole. The trigger was the piles of garbage that have not been collected for several months. But the message goes deeper, and the confrontation is far from over. A country with a chequered past, controversial politics, and entrenched interests, Lebanon is held together by its ability to compromise at the eleventh hour and to make deals that calm fraying nerves at the point of despair. But every now and then, things don't work out as planned. Another famous square in Beirut, Sahat Al-Shohada (Martyrs Square), derives its name from the nationalists who opposed Ottoman rule and were executed in the square during World War One. Since then, Sahat Al-Shohada has been the symbol of a nation capable of standing up as one, a quality which has held true even at the worst moments of domestic conflict, according to local historian Mohamed Shams Al-Din. When protesters took to the streets of Beirut in 2005 following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri, they brought their fury to Sahat Al-Shohada. The power of their wrath was such that the Syrian army, believed connected to the assassination, had to pull out of Lebanon following a 20-year presence that at least a section of the Lebanese had branded as an “occupation.” However, those who more recently have wanted to vent their anger at the country's political class, established privilege, and corruption and ineptitude have chosen instead to head for Sahat Riad Al-Solh, where the cabinet headquarters are located. Traditionally, the Lebanese government is led by a Sunni politician, but it is nevertheless a symbol for the executive power that because of continued political bickering is blamed today for many of Lebanon's troubles. Standing in Sahat Riad Al-Solh today, one cannot help noticing the Ottoman style Al-Saraya Al-Kabir building, a commanding structure that houses the Lebanese cabinet. The square is named after Lebanon's first post-independence prime minister, Riad Al-Solh. A hero of the resistance movement against the French occupation, Al-Solh is credited along with former president Beshara Al-Khuri of laying the foundations of modern Lebanon, a multi-sectarian country with a durable commitment to democratic traditions. But the square is much older than that and was once at the heart of the city's Hellenistic culture. Even older civilisations, archaeologists believe, once sunk their roots in what is now downtown Beirut. In 1997, excavations conducted as part of renovating the downtown area revealed the remains of successive civilisations going back 5,000 years or more. Hundreds of buildings were demolished to allow for the modern revamping of the area by the real estate development company Solidere. It was then that archaeologists had rare glimpses into layers of Canaanite, Phoenician, Hellenistic and Roman debris and found clear evidence of the real estate booms of antiquity. Since the mid-twentieth century, the square has been connected with the power that Sunni politicians command in Beirut. Since Lebanon won its independence from France in 1943, Beirut has been a Sunni city at heart, though one blended with outlying Druze and Christian and later Shia neighbourhoods. According to historian Shams Al-Din, the Saraya building commanding the square was first built during the Egyptian rule of Lebanon. In 1831, Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mohamed Ali, chose this place as the headquarters for his army. The fortifications he built here allowed his soldiers a commanding view of the ships arriving by sea and the entire city of Beirut. When the Egyptians departed in 1845, the Ottomans took over the fortifications and continued to use them as military barracks. According to historian Hassan Hallaq, the military compound in the square was called a qoshla, Turkish for barracks. In 1882, Beirut became an Ottoman province and the barracks became the headquarters of the Ottoman wali, or governor. It was then that the barracks acquired their current name of Al-Saraya Al-Kabir, or the Grand Palace. At the turn of the 20th century, the square facing the Ottoman Saraya was christened the Sahat Al-Sabil Al-Hamidi, a reference to a drinking fountain. The Ottomans built this public drinking fountain, a four-faucet facility serving passers-by, in 1900 to commemorate the 25th year of the reign of Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918). Even in the 1970s, when people wanted to go to Sahat Riad Al-Solh they simply instructed their driver to take them to the sur, Arabic for “wall”. The reference was to the nearby historical walls of Beirut, which also gave their name to the square for a while. Many people also used to refer to the square as the Sahat Al-Sur, or Wall Square. The square was named after Riad Al-Solh after he was assassinated in 1951 in Jordan by supporters of the Syrian National Party seeking revenge for the execution of Anton Saadeh, a co-founder of their party. A statue of the former prime minister by Italian artist Renato Marino Mazzacurati was installed in the square soon afterwards. To make room for the square's new plan, the Al-Sabil Al-Hamidi fountain was disassembled and rebuilt in the Al-Sanaai Park in Al-Hamra. “The square went through major renovations in 1992 after the end of the civil war, when many buildings were demolished,” Shams Al-Din said. He added that not only Riad Al-Solh but also his entire family had taken an active interest in Lebanese and pan-Arab politics. Al-Solh's eldest daughter, Alia, promoted Lebanese national issues until her death in Paris in 2007. Another daughter, Lamia, married Prince Moulay Abdallah of Morocco, the brother of King Hassan II. A third daughter, Mona, was wedded to Prince Talal bin Abdel-Aziz of Saudi Arabia. Another daughter, Leila, held a ministerial post in Omar Karami's government in 2004. Two of Al-Solh's daughters married into prominent Shia families. In 1920, the Saraya building became the headquarters of the French governor of what was then the French mandate territory of Lebanon. In 1941 it was turned into the offices of the prime minister, and in 1943, right after independence, the entire Lebanese cabinet moved in. After the extensive damage caused by the civil war, the Saraya served as the offices of the Ministry of the Interior between 1994 and 1995. An extensive renovation, costing $30 million, was completed in 1998. Half of the cost was assumed by the government and the other half by then-prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri. Another important government building, the Lebanese parliament, is separated by one block from Sahat Riad Al-Solh and is therefore more associated with another nearby square, Sahat Al-Najmah. According to Shams Al-Din, Sahat Riad Al-Solh is nearly 48,000 square metres in size, while Sahat Al-Shohada is 103,000 square metres. Neither area allows for the gathering of one million people, despite claims to the contrary by the organisers of mass protests. The Saraya has sometimes been perceived as symbolising the power of an elitist government led by a Sunni, or at least this has been the image projected by recent demonstrators who object to the perceived incompetence of the Lebanese ruling classes. In late 2006, when protesters from the 8 May Alliance led by Hizbullah and Amal, together with Michel Aoun, took to the streets, they converged on Sahat Riad Al-Solh. What followed was one of Lebanon's longest political crises: a sit-in that went on for months and ended only in May 2008, following a peace deal in Doha. The lowest point in the crisis came on 7 May 2008 when Hizbullah and Amal supporters went on a rampage in Beirut and attacked the offices of Future Current. The civil protests of 2015 were different in that the demonstrations were less partisan. The activists behind the movement were indignant not at one participant in the government, but at all of them. Sick and tired of the squabbling that has brought basic amenities in the country to a standstill, the protesters did not spare any politician their venom. Even Hizbullah's charismatic secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, was marked out for insult and ridicule, disturbing many of his supporters who see him as a saintly character. “Kulon ya'ni kulon,” the demonstrators chanted. “All of you means all of you,” they insisted. To defend itself, the government installed a forbidding concrete wall in front of its offices. But this only provoked the protesters, who denounced the structure as an “apartheid wall”, eventually shaming the government into removing the offending barrier. Today the elitist nature of the square and its surroundings remains a burning issue. On one side of the debate are those who want Sahat Riad Al-Solh to remain a bastion of privilege and elegance, an image that many associate with the area's past. On the other side are leftists and other dissenters who denounce the government and its power bases as being corrupt and incompetent. When prominent businessman Nicola Shammas accused the protesters of wanting to turn downtown Beirut into a suq abu rakhusa, or flea market, the protesters challenged him by coming to the downtown area with baskets of cheap products and selling them in the streets. They were making the point that the poor, as much as the rich, have a claim on this part of the city's geography. This conflict of the rich versus the poor in Beirut has its origins in the late 1990s when Rafik Al-Hariri renovated the downtown area in a manner that made it no longer accessible to the middle classes. Once Solidere, the real estate development company leading the renovation programme, had finished its work, residential and commercial prices shot through the roof, turning the downtown area from a classless market zone into an exclusive playground for the super-rich. Since then, a major section of the Lebanese middle class has kept away from the downtown area, preferring to hang out in the more affordable Al-Hamra district. While Al-Hariri's supporters see the renovation of the downtown as a sign of unassailable success, their detractors have attempted to link it to the country's social malaise, thus denigrating Al-Hariri's achievements and his name, which is linked with this politically, economically and emotionally contested zone of Beirut.
