With uncertainty ahead, Serene Assir witnesses the latest transformation of Lebanon's capital He must have just finished for the day. Looking irritated, a businessman in an elegant grey suit and shades pushes through hundreds of men, women and children outside the modern yet traditional building that houses his downtown office. Sheer numbers make the path to his ultra- slick car difficult. He tries to remain composed, but the booming slogans blaring out from the PA system installed in Beirut's two main central squares make that difficult too. No one can hear him as he shouts out that he wants to get through, preferably without creasing his Armani jacket. And when he almost makes it, he comes to a wire barricade. He must find another route. Now the irritation builds up. He starts to push harder, like everyone else has to -- participants included -- when they want to get anywhere on the protest's heavier days. Finally he makes it out, breathes a sigh of relief, looking back and wondering just how it is that the area where he works -- the city's newest and most moneyed district -- has been transformed so brusquely. Welcome to Beirut. Just a fortnight ago, the famed downtown area was unlike any other capital city centre anywhere in the world. For while city centres usually mark a meeting point of rich and poor, tourists and beggars, buskers, lovers and conservatives, all claiming it equally as their own, it has always been clear just who downtown Beirut belongs to: the foreign and local elite. To anyone else, it was socially inaccessible. "I've never been here before," says Zein, from South Lebanon's Maroun Al-Ras, in the capital to participate in the nearly two- week-old round-the-clock protest calling for the creation of a national unity government. "And I can hardly believe I'm in the same country I was born and raised in." His feelings are hardly surprising. Glitzy downtown Beirut, first envisaged as it stands today by former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri and built by the Solidere company, was designed to be expensive. Built from hills of rubble after the Civil War that ended in 1990, the area lay on the miles-long east-west fault-line dividing the city during 15 years of inter-sectarian bloodshed. Reborn, the city centre's re- evaluated mission was to attract international business investment and tourism. Each golden-beige colonnade and perfectly smoothed tile in the pedestrian zones interconnecting the outer limits of the area known as "downtown" or "centre ville", but rarely wasat al-madina -- the Arabic equivalent, were designed to be aesthetically perfect. Today, that image has been turned on its head. The vast majority of cafés, restaurants and up-market clothing and gift shops are shut, closed since the protests began 1 December. Instead, thousands of people, many of them from the economically deprived and war-damaged south, are camping in tents set up by the movements they pay allegiance to, among them Hizbullah, the Amal movement, the Communist Party and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). Depending on the day, rallies start during the early or late afternoon, but by sundown Martyrs' and Riad Al-Sulh squares are filled to the brim with people, barely held in by the barricades set up by the Lebanese army in conjunction with Hizbullah's own security personnel. Participants and journalists are searched -- often more than once -- as they enter the area. Even from a distance, live and recorded speeches interspersed with political songs -- some produced for the occasion and others survivors from the summer war -- are clearly audible, bridges and roads leading in and out of the area permanently lined with protesters taking a rest or heading back to the throng, already draped in one of the opposition's star colours: yellow, orange or green. While the sea of Lebanese flags has become a permanent fixture of the undeniably vibrant rallies, so too have the regular crowds of young Lebanese dancing dabke to the beat of drums in the streets connecting Riad Al-Sulh and Martyrs' Squares, full of energy, only then to break out into chants in praise of Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, FPM head and presidential hopeful Michel Aoun, or parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri. Lining the streets are hundreds of people seated on the ground, smoking shisha, chatting, clapping, sleeping. For downtown purists, and supporters of the government, the sight is shocking. Some have described it as an occupation, others an invasion. "It really irritates me," said one 14 March supporter from Beirut, "that they have decided to vent their cause in our territory. They'd better be prepared to take the consequences of that." Indeed, following the Western-backed 14 March movement campaign to expel Syrian forces from Lebanon last year, the perception grew among 14 March supporters that the downtown area was theirs. The close affiliation between leading forces of 14 March and big capital in Lebanon makes the sight of downtown Beirut being shut down by the country's poorer citizens all the more difficult to bear. Among the participants in today's protests are dustmen, wives of men killed in the border areas during the summer war, the unemployed, mechanics and farmers. With each day that the protest continues, the country's heavily business and tourism-oriented economy is reported to be making major losses. According to economy correspondent Alphonse Deeb, 75 per cent of tourists who intended to spend their Christmas and Eid Al-Adha holidays in Lebanon have cancelled their trips. To be sure, this is not the first time that downtown Beirut has provided reason for soul-searching. In the midst of present continuous protests, as yet unanswered questions concerning the core of Lebanon's identity rise to the surface. Is Lebanon the passion of its people or their elegance? Is Beirut a synonym for banking, or is the city what it is for its political earthquakes, sea changes and resilience? For some, it is tempting to pronounce currently unfolding events as a revolution, but in the Lebanese context it's just another episode along the path of a broader journey whereby this nation understands and comes to terms with its vastly varied but small self. The hope to harbour and nurture is that the journey is a peaceful one.
