Know that friend who suddenly disappeared off of social media? No explanation, just went off the grid? It could be that they joined the burgeoning movement that thinks social media is bad and ruining the world and lives, etc. But, more like than not, especially in Lebanon, they might be a victim of sextortion.
Sextortion is when sexually explicit content is used to blackmail someone into paying money or doing something they don’t want to.
Our friends at SMEX Beirut did a nice video in Arabic explaining what usually goes down.
The point is, if you match with an Eastern European super-model whose Tinder profile or Facebook Profile pics are all professional-looking, I know you think you’re all studs and girls are waiting in line to bed you, but come on, use your brain a little. By the time you’re Skype-sexing her, all the revealing images and videos of you beating your meat will be with them, and sooner than later, they’ll threaten you with sending them to your significant other/parent/boss/friends etc. So, you end up sending Western Union payments to wherever-istan, and still getting blackmailed despite that.
If you’re a girl, think twice about who you send nudes to. If it’s a vindictive, macho Lebanese type who might use them against you when you inevitably dump him, that’s sextortion too. It doesn’t need to be a gang in Algeria or wherever doing the blackmail, it could be a disturbed guy that’s unable to accept you’re leaving him, and use nudes against you to stay with you.
The cybercrimes bureau, which you’re used to arresting and questioning people like me for speaking their mind, actually spend most of their time following cases of sextortion (hundreds of cases according to sources close to the bureau). In a country where being sexually liberated is an issue, people tend to get carried away when someone becomes sexually suggestive online. Don’t fall for it, try to keep your sexy time offline, or face the issue of most of Lebanon getting your nudes or sex tapes on their Whatsapps.
The Government Itself
We know for a fact that our own police forces would steep to incredible lows to entrap taxpayers they’re targeting. They often use fake backstories to lure you to their office, or send you emails or messages on social networks with phishing links
We know that the cybercrimes bureau has used this method to trace the location of “suspects” before, so make sure you never click weird links sent by obviously fake accounts. What’s also interesting, is that every time we go down to the streets, several prominent activists’ Facebook profiles get flooded with obviously fake friend requests, usually attractive women with foreign sounding names with a couple of pics and no mutual friends. These might be sextortion assholes who notice the accounts when they’re being tagged and shared heavily after the protests, or it could be the security appartus in Lebanon trying to unearth everyone’s social networks. Both cases are not good.
Be Smart
Always be cynical online. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Use Tinder and Faceboook and Instagram wisely. Don’t be so easy to trust folks with information they could use against you or to blackmail you. Ignore questionable friend requests, never click on shortened urls like “goog.gl/aswd” etc.
Don’t be a victim. Think, read carefully and don’t just say it’s just a friend request/skype sex/sexting. It could cause you a lot of unnecessary grief…
MARCH has been working hard on conflict resolution and peace building across many of Lebanon’s most marginalized communities since 2013.
Beb El Tebbeneh and Jabal Mohsen have been the focus of MARCH’s work for the past 3 years. After the success of Love and War on the the Rooftop play between fighters from both neighborhoods, we felt we needed to do more and that’s when Kahwetna — قهوتنا Café bi Kaffak cultural cafe was born on the former frontline of Syria Street, employing 5 former fighters full-time, and 5 part-time.
BEB EL DAHAB
Almost a year after Kahwetna — قهوتنا Café bi Kaffak’s opening, MARCH kicked off its Beb El Dahab Rebuilders Initiative in late 2016. The plan was to renovate 100 shops heavily damaged by the decades of fighting and neglect.
MARCH hired 80 young men, all former fighters, to renovate and revamp 100 stores on Syria Street and Muhajereen Street, overseen by experienced foremen, architects and engineers. Not forgetting the gender equality aspect, MARCH also trained 12 young women from the area in graphic design and marketing, who then went on to design all the shops’ signage and marketing material.
THE CELEBRATION
The rebuilding process is now complete, and MARCH has the extreme pleasure of inviting you to celebrate with us on April 2nd, 2017!
Syria Street and Muhajereen Street will be car-free on the day, with local shop owners and artisans displaying their authentic products with great deals and offers for everyone coming from Tripoli and beyond!
Kahwetna — قهوتنا Café bi Kaffak’s outdoor space will host many local NGOs doing amazing work across Tripoli and the Lebanon. This will include the first ever DONNER SANG COMPTER “Blood for Peace” drive, between fighters from the opposite side of the divide.
The festival features two big stages as well, with bands, singers, musicians, comedians and celebrities entertaining guests and visitors throughout the day. Guided walking tours will also be available for visitors who have never been to Beb El Tebbeneh and Jabal Mohsen!
SEE YOU THERE!
Many of you always ask if you can visit and how you can help with MARCH’s projects in Tripoli and elsewhere. This is your perfect chance to come and see what we do, meet our amazing team and see how you can be part of our ongoing and future projects. It’s also a perfect chance for you to discover Tripoli as we have now come to know and love it! ❤
Just before noon today, 7 people headed towards the Lebanese Ministry of Finance. Their plan was to attend a press conference held by Minister Hassan Khalil on the issue of the planned tax hike.
They weren’t allowed to attend, citing that there is not enough space. Then they were forcibly ejected by Lebanese army soldiers and beaten up, as the video below clearly shows.
If anything, this demonstrates how terrified the government is, scared that someone would ask them tough questions as their knife gets closer to Lebanese taxpayers’ necks. It also shows that all of them patting themselves on the back for the “freedom of information” law, is just empty talk, given that Lebanese taxpayers aren’t even allowed to attend a press conference.
This is NOT ministry of environment version 2, this isn’t a stunt organized by You Stink. The only identical thing is how brutish and inhumane the treatment by the armed forces was. Out of the 7, 3 are lawyers, 2 are students, one is a business owner and one is a movie director.
The minister suggested they meet up with him, but the individuals from For The Republic (Min Ajel El Joumhouriya) and USJ Secular Club preferred this talk happens in public, not behind closed doors, especially since a press conference was already scheduled. It also happened after they were manhandled and escorted to the street.
What I love most is the people whining about Hariri getting a few water bottles hurled at him after provoking peaceful protesters with his inaudible “speech” (I was a few meters away, and didn’t even know he was trying to talk before he turned around and left), but think it’s wrong to go and ask questions at a press conference that concerns us all.
Good news is none of them is talking about the taxes anymore. Bad news is that they’re back to resorting to police state tactics to try and quash peaceful dissent. Better news is that we’ve been through this before, and these scare tactics aren’t as effective anymore. Look at how many people came down yesterday, despite the fear the ISF and Army would go apeshit on protesters again.
On Frebruary 21, 2017, FPM MP Ibrahim Kanaan and Robert Ghanem proposed a law that aims to “waive the recognized sects in Lebanon from most taxes and fees, as well as all fines and penalties, and don’t get under surveillance.”
It’s amazing how rude Lebanese politicians have become, and how little they try to make their words sound even remotely sincere. So, the government is too broke to give a long overdue and much-deserved wage increase, but wants to give big banks, companies and religious institutions tax breaks at the same time. So, their only logical solution was tax the very same people you should be giving a wage increase, and give even more tax breaks to big companies. Brilliant!
Religious institutions are some of Lebanon’s richest and own a loooooot of lands and estates. Of course they should pay taxes and fines and penalties. How on earth can someone propose and defend a savage tax hike on every Lebanese citizen and small/medium business, except the ones that can actually afford it…
Stop overspending, make government spending transparent, remove all the ghost jobs and employees, stop the over-the-top-for-the-rest-of-your-life government benefits, stop renting fancy, empty ministries in hot shopping districts, stop getting 20+ car motorcades and a private army on our dime, don’t give unfair and unjustified tax breaks to your rich buddies… There are so many other ways of coming up with money for the silsleh…
And in case you were wondering, this law is on the next meeting’s agenda…
Stop the taxes. Stop the law giving tax breaks to “recognized sects”. Stop the lies.
Yesterday was beautiful. It was beautiful that so many people, independent or politically affiliated, went down to the streets to demand the tax hike get dropped. It was beautiful that it was peaceful, and that the riot police kept their cool while the protesters peacefully resolved attempts to start a riot amongst themselves.
A few hundred on Thursday ballooned to a few thousands on Sunday. It was all Lebanese flags, overwhelmingly peaceful and generally adamant their demands will be met this time. Reminders of what many thought went wrong the last time we were on the streets, were quickly invoked to resolve issues and coordinate better between all the groups on the ground. That’s why you saw several round-table style discussions with turns being taken to express an opinion and suggest what should be done throughout the day.
What’s significant is that demonstrators this time around were able to reconcile their differences and unite in their demands and their press appearances. The savage tax hike overshadowed the differences in opinion on a host of other issues plaguing Lebanon economically and politically.
It made the Prime Minister feel the need to attempt to go down and talk to the protesters. That was when the crowd became a little agitated, and water bottles flew at the PM’s motorcade. After a swift speech only the camera crews could hear, he quickly retreated back into the Grand Serail. Most protesters thought their demands were fairly simple: stop the taxes, and thus needed no further debate or negotiations before such attempts were stopped and reevaluated.
Personally, I think it was a very smart move by the PM to come down and try to face the crowd (behind rows of riot police and barriers). I just don’t think a dialog would have helped, when the law’s already almost up for a vote in parliament. Taxes need to be pulled, then we can have a long discussion about how maybe it’s better to not give tax breaks to big companies and big religious institutions, while we tax the shit out of everyone else.
The clues about what might happen in the next parliamentary and cabinet sessions are still not clear. What’s clear though, is that the government knows that it has crossed a line it cannot sustain, and that public outrage is even more widespread than it was in the garbage crisis. Already, we see talks of shifting focus to an electoral law first, then go back to the taxes issue later. Here though, is where the government always beats us in a war of attrition: we lose focus and get bored, they pass stuff under our noses when they think no one’s breathing down their neck anymore.
That’s why we must continue this pressure in the streets, next time they meet. For those that are saying it’s already too late, it’s not. Nothing is law yet. All that’s been approved are articles within that law (8 out of 22 so far I believe) but the draft law itself has not been passed yet. So, no taxes yet, and those dipshit merchants’ higher prices are just ripping you off using the taxes excuse…
For many popular uprisings, there’s usually a catalyzing figure. There is no doubt Samy Gemayel has been that figure in the current Lebanese taxpayers’ return to the streets in demanding their rights, against the savage tax hike across the board, with zero effort in curbing the corruption and wasteful spending of public money.
Samy’s help to the Lebanese taxpayers demanding for their rights since 2015 is not something new. If it weren’t for his leaks while he had ministers in the Salam government, we would have never known about the scandals with Sukleen and the horrific mismanagement and downright criminal handling of this humiliating scandal.
After his and his party’s refusal to join in the new government, they have become a voice that is aligned with what we have been demanding for two years now. The past week, his party members were a constant figure in the streets alongside the usual suspects, like the You Stink supporters and other defenders of Lebanese taxpayers’ rights.
One moment that caught my attention was when I was in Riad El Solh, with friends that are on different sides of the political divide, discussing our hopes for Sunday and how we can stop the horrific, inhumane tax hikes the illegitimate parliamentarians were trying to shove down our throats.
So, I know this might come as a shock to many, but I applaud Samy Gemayel for his audacity in standing up the country’s politicians. So much so, that some of them are threatening Kataeb members of parliament with the removal of their parliamentarian immunity, because they effectively derailed the taxes vote (which the PM and several others were very public about in trying to blame it on the Kataeb and Samy). To the Kataeb, I say this is a threat you should be proud of!
The Original Video
This video, made by Ma32oul Page on Facebook, which went viral, is what pushed many to the streets. In it, Samy talks about an octogenarian taxi driver, Adnan, who was working the late night shift. It was heartbreaking. Especially since I went up with a 70-year-old service driver, on my way to Thursday’s protest…
Based on Samy’s story, I kinda concluded he was an Uber driver. With some help from friends who are in the Kataeb, we tracked him down and shot this video, which I am releasing here for the first time.
Where We Stand Now
It’s more than just garbage now. This is an existential threat to most of us. The unsustainable situation we are in is only deteriorating, more so since the new “3ahd” we were promised would change things.
Tomorrow, you need to come down to Riad El Solh at 12PM. There is no excuse not to. We have succeeded in halting most of the savage tax hike, but if we know anything about our politicians, it’s that they will always try to pass these things when they feel we’re not watching them. Just look at the tax breaks to big companies they want to pass this week, as they increase our own… They never tried that when the Kataeb were in the cabinet, cause they always vetoed it. Now that they’re not there, and they think we aren’t watching, they’re trying to give millions of dollars in tax breaks to HUGE companies, while they milk us dry of every last lira… Unacceptable.
You HAVE to come down tomorrow. We have done so much already, and now, even people that are in political parties are going down with us to the streets, which is why other party leaders are shying away from their evil tax scheme now, realizing that the young and educated who support them, are unhappy with their blatant disregard for Lebanese taxpayers, so close on the eve of elections in Lebanon. Let’s show them that if they dare pass this savage tax hike, they can kiss their parliamentary seats goodbye. So, if you are an independent, or politically affiliated, or couldn’t give a fuck either way, come down tomorrow.
I remember when the garbage started piling on the streets, I was chatting with a good friend of mine and one of the folks behind the early “You Stink” days. He was asking my opinion on whether to call the movement “Ya Nazif” or “Tol3et Ree7etkon” (I was on team Tol3et Ree7tekon if you’re wondering). Little did I know back then how huge this would become, and what would come out of it.
Before delving into the analysis, let’s recap what happened.
July 2015
A couple of dozen protesters head down to the Central District of Beirut, and ignite the protest movement demanding a sustainable and environmental solution to the humiliating garbage crisis, which was the result of gross incompetence and criminal corruption by Lebanon’s ruling elite.
August 2015
In the face of rabid, savage police brutality and several political faux-pas, You Stink’s calls to go to the streets swell the numbers of protesters. For the first time in Lebanon’s history, young, independent, secular, transparent and angry men and women go down to the streets. They forced the spineless Tamam Salam cabinet to erect its famous wall of shame, then remove it, then erect it again, demonstrating how caught off guard the politicians and their parties were by the popular unrest.
October 2015
The ISF escalate their violence against peaceful protesters, and violent scuffles break out, deterring many from going back down to the streets to avoid the unchecked police state tactics against peaceful, unarmed Lebanese taxpayers demanding the most basic of rights: to not drown in garbage as the politicians try to divide the dwindling pie.
Notable Facts
The above were all protests and actions called for by You Stink. There were several instances where other groups, with a different agenda, tried to piggy back on You Stink’s momentum, dragging it into petty politics and the usual smear campaign tactics of the warlords-turned-politicians of Lebanon. I’m not talking about the “mundaseen” here, but politically affiliated movements that tried to ride the wave You Stink created to try and become relevant again.
These protests were the first crowdsourced ones in Lebanon’s history, with financial transparency that made Lebanese politicians weave stories about embassies and espionage to try and explain the money whose source everyone could see online: the protesters themselves. The media coverage, with constant live on many local broadcasters, and consistent coverage on international ones, made the garbage issue known worldwide, and shamed Lebanon’s leadership which stood, mouth open, trying to figure out how they can profit off of the situation in vain.
The Report Card’s As
Telecom sector revenues from the early 2000s were released from the grip of Lebanon’s Finance Ministry, and handed to who it was meant for: the municipalities. This is perhaps the biggest accomplishment of You Stink’s movement
The minister involved with the shameful mismanagement of the garbage crisis, Minister of Environment Mohamad Machnouk, was effectively excised from his job, not having the guts to resign, he stopped doing his job while your taxes kept paying for his salary
The government scrambled to find solutions, and even though they were far from ideal and had their personal bank accounts primarily in mind, they were forced to do the work our taxes pay them to do.
The government’s violent, human rights violating overreaction against protesters with babies and children, showed the true face of Lebanon’s government: one that is helpless in the face of violent drug lords and real criminals, but savage in their attacks on innocent taxpayers demanding what is right, peacefully.
Report Card’s Bs (Indirect Consequences)
Awareness. For the first time ever, folks who would sit at home and complain, got out of their living rooms and came together. Without a political party, without funding, without organization, they all got up and marched down to the streets to try and force the government into proper action
Independent lists in Lebanon’s municipal elections, across the nation. If you told someone in 2014 that almost every district in Lebanon would have lists of independent candidates running which included environmentalists, seculars and a gender-balanced lists, they would have probably laughed and said “maybe in a hundred years”. Well, it took one year of activating in the streets for that to become a reality, and included Beirut Madinati’s mindblowing 40% in the face of all the ruling political parties combined. In many towns, independent candidates won seats, riding the wave of awakening that had driven so many of us to the streets.
The Dalieh project in Raouche was stopped, due to public pressure and protests from the folks at The Dalieh Campaign and many of the same groups that had protested the garbage crisis.
Under popular pressure, Horsh Beirut was opened to the public for the first time in decades. It took till this year, till the current government felt the pressure from the streets was gone, for it to shut it down again and begin constructing a hospital on the last remaining green space in the concrete mess that is Beirut’s non-existent urban planning. Nahnoo and several other groups were instrumental in the initial reopening.
The illegal project of Eden Rock on Beirut’s last public beach, Ramlet El Bayda, was stopped by two major judicial verdicts thanks to public pressure and amazing work by Beirut Madinati activists and Legal Agenda among others. Judicial verdicts that the spineless Lebanese government has failed to execute till this day, in blatant, shameful and despicable disregard for the Lebanese justice system who dealt a verdict in favor of Lebanese taxpayers for once, not the ruling elite.
The Freedom of Information law, which stipulates that any taxpayer can demand information from public institutions and bodies. Even though many of those institutions will and are disobeying these requests, the mere fact we have access to this information, legally now, can be a game-changer in a country like Lebanon, whose administration is synonymous with opaqueness and corruption.
Report Card’s Cs
You Stink rearranged the entire political status quo in Lebanon. Suddenly, former sworn enemies till the bitter end, became BFFs. Today, we see the Lebanese Forces (LF) in the same cabinet as Hezbollah. If Geagea from 2014 saw what Geagea in 2016 did, he might have had a stroke. The LF’s raison d’etre for many years was just opposing and contradicting every word and move Hezbollah (HA) does, suddenly, they are in the same cabinet, conspiring together against the Lebanese taxpayer.
At the same time, less than a year before, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) was calling the Future Movement (FM) ISIS members, with banners depicting Tamam Salam as an ISIS member in a suit. The FM was calling Aoun a mentally ill person. Less than a year after the uprising, Hariri made Aoun president, and Aoun made Hariri prime minister.
If You Stink decide to open a conflict resolution firm, they’d have won the Nobel prize for physics for reconciling what decades of war, sectarian rhetoric and consecutive crises couldn’t… Who knew all it’d take is for Lebanon’s youth to come together spontaneously and say: enough.
What Should Happen Next
It didn’t “fizzle out”
From July 2015 to March 2016, You Stink did things that will go down in history as some of the smartest, most resilient movements Lebanon has ever seen. From protests, to smart stunts and actions and a page which has a quarter of a million supporters.
However, protesting forever is never the answer, and I was glad they stopped actions on the ground to leave space for all the independent municipal elections candidates to run beautiful campaigns and win seats on many places across Lebanon. Also, if they had continued with the “3ahd jdid”, you’d get the usual “give them a chance to govern! (as if they didn’t have several decades already). We have a president now, everything will be fixed!” Well, almost 5 months in, things have only gotten worse.
They increased the pensions of dead presidents, prime ministers, speakers of parliament, members of parliament and ministers from 75% to 100%, even after they die, indefinitely. This without passing the wage increase for all other Lebanese, the actual taxpayers. They’re also passing a savage tax hike, with the excuse to find revenue to fund the wage increase, which they have yet to do if it doesn’t concern their own salaries, which they never have a problem increasing without revenue streams first. They’re planning another extension of this illegitimate parliament’s term. The list goes on and on…
Some More Discipline This Time
Don’t fall into the trap of the politicians, and start asking questions that only serve their purpose. Who cares who the spokesperson is? Who cares about their personal lives? Who believes any of us are spies? This is bigger than all of that, and this time, the stakes are much higher. If protests reignite, they need to be better organized and with clear objectives we can achieve. It mustn’t be a platform for ideologues to pedal dead political ideologies whenever they see a camera and run to recite the speeches they practice in front of their bathroom mirrors.
Enough lies. Enough corruption. Enough audacity. The tax hike, with zero reform concerning the billions in corruption and mismanagement of taxpayer money, is not ok. It never should be. Protest fatigue? Suck it up. Nothing will change? A lot has, but a lot more needs to be. Protests don’t solve anything? Sure, then give us an alternative that doesn’t include applying for visas somewhere far away. We need to do this if we are to win seats in the upcoming parliamentary elections. We need to remind people of how horrifyingly incompetent thieves the current ruling class are, and that the octogenarian warlords need to retire, and leave some space for the young to try and fix the disasters they have plunged us in with their sheer stupidity and unchecked, unpunished greed.
Wondergaap was born when Michel Maouad, Rayan Sayegh, Ryan Fayad and Kevin Abboud discovered their mutual love for music and their admiration of the same musical influences. The result was a Beirut-based Post Pop, Indie Rock band, best described on their own page as “Nourished by the scent of pine trees, fuelled by the sound of crackling firewood and soaked with wonder-filled conversations.”
When I was offered the chance to be the first to release their awesome new music video, I of course said yes, and I’ve embedded it below for all of you to enjoy!
I absolutely loved the artwork of “Soda on the Roof”, and the music video kept true to that “wonder-filled”, daze-like, non-chalant, dreamy attitude. The video follows three young women around the usual beloved Beirut spots, and ends with them, you guessed it, drinking soda! The retro feel of the footage and the gonzo-style, roving camera motions that make you feel you’re part of the story, in the car with them, shopping for mucnhies at the supermarket, going into bars and everything else they do.
Here’s their new music video for Tellit!
Here are the lyrics:
You found a soda on the roof So why don’t you, never you, didn’t you No complaints I had when you said the truth So why don’t you sit down on a chair Rest and find ice
Who told you to go up and search on the roof Ouhh! Such a doof idea It was your choice, No dice not wise So it’s a must to sit down on a chair Rest and find ice
Driving so much onto Trying to rest and find ice Getting so much of you…
If you like what you hear, make sure to follow Wondergaap on their different social networks: Facebook, SoundCloud, YouTube and Instagram
Parking in Beirut is an absolute nightmare. Anyone who lives, works or studies in the capital knows the horror of parking in the city. Whether it’s trying to park in gridlocked traffic, the park meters that are far and rarely ever work, the valet mafias that violently occupy any free parking spot, the empty towers that replace most parking lots, the violation of parking lots of the 3000LBP price and charging as much as 5000, 7000 and even 10000LBP… The list goes on and on.
Possible High-Tech Solutions?
There are several folks trying to do something about this. There’s a company called ABSC, that’s importing Korean-made, ferris-wheel like parking structures. I was first made aware of them when I saw one in a parking lot in Zouk Mikael. You park in the empty car compartment, then you select a 4-digit password. To hail your car when you wanna leave, you just punch in the 4-digit password again and your car will be ready to drive away in in 90 seconds.
Another company, SPCL, felt the Korean version of the automated parking structures was too expensive to make economic sense, so they decided to create their own right here in Lebanon.
This is that blue building you might have noticed and wondered what that might be. It’s right next to the Fiat bridge in the Mathaf area, and no, it’s not a training building for security forces, nor a rock-climbing structure. It’s a locally-produced automatic parking structure that the company feels might be the solution for the seemingly impossible parking problem in Beirut.
Here’s a video of how the Lebanese version works
How Much Will This Cost?
It would definitely be a great solution for buildings without enough parking spots, but there are two concerns that came to my mind. The first, how much it’d cost to get and maintain these automated parking structures. Second, how much it’d cost us to park in them. If it’s for a residential building, you won’t have to pay every time you park, obviously. However, if you’re going somewhere public like the bank or a shop, will the price tag be too high? Especially since regular parking lots are charging up to 7000 and 10000 LBP, how much would a high-tech option cost? Or rather, how much will they charge us to park in them with such exorbitant, unchecked current parking rates? And no other option to park in Beirut. And very little viable public transport options…
Not All Gloom and Doom
I think the prices will be an extra burden on our wallets, but, I’m also excited that local companies are taking the initiative and trying to find and create solutions to problems the Lebanese authorities never even bother with (they’re too busy drafting tax hikes to solve issues like urban planning and that boring stuff).
Maybe more entrepreneurs and engineers here should start coming up with solutions the Lebanese government, busy extending for itself and hiking taxes on the lower and dwindling middle class, never even tries to do. Can’t wait to try one of those systems! Will let you know about it when I do.
For us, the post-war generation, it’s just that awesome building that took forever to renovate. Beit Beirut though, is one of the only surviving symbols of Lebanon’s Civil War, a war most Lebanese try to forget and never try to come to terms with.
History
It was built in 1924, and was called “The Barakat House”, designed by Youssef Aftimus. It was a posh residential complex, with 8 spacious apartments for Beirut’s middle class families. Shortly after the Lebanese Civil War started, it became a perch for snipers, especially Christian militias, since its strategic location meant controlling the vital Sodeco junction.
In the 1990s, it was supposed to be demolished. However, brilliant Lebanese heritage activists resisted, and after years of advocating and protests, by groups like “Association pour la Protection des Sites et Anciennes Demeures au Liban” (APSAD), the decision to demolish it was reversed, and instead, its ownership was transferred to the Beirut Municipality.
After partnering up with the French Embassy in Beirut, and the Paris Municipality, the building was renovated and became part of a huge complex that would house a library, a museum and urban cultural center on the former, bloody demarcation line between East and West Beirut. Despite several years delay, Beit Beirut is ready, but the usual political indecisiveness means that it’s still not open to the public except on rare occasions. Until now…
We’ve been hard at work in some of Beirut’s most neglected neighborhoods for the past few months. In mid-April, around the date of the start of the Lebanese Civil War, MARCH will present the culmination of these many months of hard work. I won’t say more now, but it’ll be a chance for the public to come and see this magical, beautifully renovated place, as well see what we’ve been up to in our beloved capital.
Stay tuned for more, and follow me on Instagram for more pics like this!
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