Hanady Salman* writes from Beirut on a tale of two Lebanons It was an event that this country has never witnessed before. Not that the country has not witnessed many unique events in its history. However, on 6 February 2008, the Secretary-General of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah, and the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Michel Aoun, appeared on television together to explain the "Agreement of Understanding" they had signed two years before. Watching the two men, who differ on almost every issue, sitting together, talking to each other, and, mostly, listening to each other, is an unprecedented sight in Lebanon. Nasrallah is a sheikh and a Shia sayed, or descendant of the prophet. He grew up in a poor Christian neighbourhood that he had to leave with his family when the Lebanese Civil War started in the mid-1970s. He moved between South Lebanon, Baalbak, Najaf in Iraq, and Qom in Iran for a while, studied Islam, became a sheikh, fought the Israelis in the south during the 1982 invasion, and was one of the founders of an organisation that grew to force Israel out of Lebanon in 2000 and defeat the main goal of the deadly war it launched in July 2006, namely to destroy Hizbullah. When Nasrallah was born in 1960, Michel Aoun was training to become a lieutenant in the Lebanese army he had joined in 1955. Aoun was born in 1935 to a lower-middle-class family that struggled to pay his tuition fees at the prestigious Freres School. The Civil War drove him out of the neighbourhood of Haret Hreik in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the same neighbourhood that Hizbullah chose some decades later for its headquarters. Aoun learnt French, English, Spanish and Italian. During his military career, he travelled to many Western countries, where he spent considerable amounts of time training, mostly in France and the US. His daughters grew up in upper-middle-class Lebanese circles. In 1984, when Nasrallah was fighting the Israelis in South Lebanon, Aoun became commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army. And in 1990, when the Syrians led Aoun out of the country, Hizbullah was preparing to join the Lebanese parliament and become a "legal" and established component of the country's political scene. During the 15 years Aoun spent in exile in France, Nasrallah's presence on the Lebanese scene grew in prominence and popularity. In 1992, he was elected secretary-general of Hizbullah; in 1997, his elder son Hadi was killed during a battle with the Israelis in South Lebanon; in 2000, Lebanon celebrated the Israeli withdrawal, mostly thanks to Hizbullah's efforts. The man himself, though, was confined to a sort of self-imposed house arrest in the southern suburbs of Beirut for security reasons. During the same 15 years, Aoun founded the Free Patriotic Movement and lobbied for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in international circles. This was the same Syrian presence that facilitated Nasrallah's accomplishments back home. These are two men who lived in a country where they were never supposed to meet, not even accidentally. They would not even walk on the same streets, meet the same people, speak the same language in their homes, go to the same restaurants, or shop at the same places. They don't even have the same accent. People with different backgrounds are not supposed to meet in Lebanon. You can grow up in Beirut, visit Paris 300 times, and die before you even think of seeing [the northern province of] Akkar. And you can live and die in Bint Jbeil in the South, and spend your whole life cherishing the memory of the only visit you ever paid to Baalbak in the Bekaa. This separation is not about different religious or political backgrounds. Rich Christians and rich Muslims are "best friends". Their kids go to the same schools, wear the same brands, ski together, and spend summers in the same countries. Their wives carry the same three-figure price-tagged bags, go to the same beauty parlours, and fancy the same luxurious restaurants. And the men like doing business together, keeping the money in the same circles, lobbying together to keep things the way they are. Only poor Lebanese never meet in this country. The Christian neighbourhood of Ain Al-Rumaneh is just one street away from the Shia neighbourhood of Shayyah. This is a deadly street and one that witnessed the ugliest atrocities of the Civil War. This is a street that regularly witnesses clashes between people living on both sides. Yet, families on both sides never get to know how similar they are: all struggling lower-middle-class families who can barely make ends meet. Their bitterness, their anger, goes in the wrong direction. For "the Other" is not someone who lives differently. The Other is someone who is very similar to themselves. It was on this street that Nasrallah and Aoun met publicly two years ago and announced they had decided to join efforts to achieve common goals, at least to achieve the goals they both have in common. Neither man asked the other to change radically. Neither ignored how different the other was. Back then, most people in the country thought it was a bad joke, or at best a tactical move to embarrass opponents. However, no one then knew that this move would have to face a cruel test in the shape of a war that in few weeks left at least 1,200 people dead, one million displaced, and a country half destroyed and totally divided. No one believed the agreement would withstand such a test. Yet, Aoun's followers opened their houses to Nasrallah's followers fleeing the Israeli fire and destruction. In these houses, both sides came to see how similar they were: the Other had a face now, a name, a few kids, tears and smiles. Putting a face to the Other was what it was. Regardless of what Aoun and Nasrallah represent politically, these are two men who have come a long way. Like few before them, they each decided to give up a little, to find common ground, and to take it from there. They say their ultimate goal is to build a country where the citizen is king. This is what they explicitly said last Wednesday. Nasrallah said he will never "want to establish an Islamic republic in Lebanon and disturb its diversity, which is the same diversity that allows" him to be what he wants to be. Aoun said that he wants a country of equal citizens. This is a first, and not only in Lebanon. Leaders who want the citizen to be king? Well, today at least in Lebanon two leaders went on record to announce that the concept of citizenship, with all that it entails, had found a tiny place on their busy agendas. * The writer is managing editor of As-Safir newspaper.
