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The City I Love
Sunday, February 25, 2007

Well well, I have been tagged to talk about the city I love.

I don't know if small towns qualify, I assume they don't, so I will not talk (extensively) about my favourite town Shusha in Occupied Azerbaijan, with its breathtaking beauty and simplicity, its pulverized roads and empty streets, the few Ladas that are a luxury for the few inhabitants that have been able to appropriate them from the fleeing expelled Azeris, the uphill climbs that you have to labour through while the kids laugh at you as they run from one street to the other and you wonder, what the hell, do they have imaginary wings? The ghost town called Shusha, with its amazing mixture of Azerbaijani-Turkic and Persian architecture in what remains of its houses and buildings, the Persian Mosque that was spared from destruction for fear of Iranian retaliation, this place so void of... hope, people, life... So... lifeless, so saddening, so... unnatural in the absence of its original inhabitants, yet so beautiful... a town whose hope hinges on the sound of a car, signaling the arrival of foreigners who would perhaps bring help, candies to the kids, clothes, anything. What more can I say, these are the victims (and tools) of nationalism. So poor, so uneducated, so manipulated, and sooo neglected. Instead of building houses, helping people survive, the first thing their 'leaders' did was renovate the church, another tool for manipulation. Foreigners go there on a sort of clownish 'pilgrimage' to a land they call 'theirs', a land they say was 'liberated' (another word for the ethnic cleansing of its Azeri inhabitants), to encourage the misery of these people. Some of them could not even live for half a day in the houses that the war they cheered for destroyed. I saw some of the American girls, they were extremely upset, one of them was crying. Not for the miserable conditions that the war had brought about for the current inhabitants or the previous expelled ones. But because they could not find a toilet to use and they had to relieve themselves au naturelle. These people should be condemned to ten years of hard labour in one of the Azeri refugee camps. That should teach them the meaning of 'liberation'.

Got carried away for a bit there, didn't I...
Back to the city I love... I suppose it'd have to be Las Vegas. OK, OK, I am joking. What were you thinking, geez, these people have the statue of Lenin in the heart of capitalism. They must've been truly pissed off to do something like that. Ideological bankruptcy calls for desperate measures and equally desperate symbolisms.

So it is Beirut...
  1. بيروت العروبة - The Beirut of (the dead) Arabism whose inhabitants insist that Arabism is alive and kicking while chanting "Allah, Hariri, Tarik Jdide" or "Allah, Nasrallah, wl Dahiye kella" or "Aounak jeyi min Allah?" etc etc. Lest you think we are not diverse, we also are home to a sizeable population of clowns who insist Beirut is (not was) Phoenician, and that Lebanon is god's chosen country. Not only did these people prove that god exists, they also know that it is god's chosen country. Tell me, how, how? can one not love this city?
  2. بيروت "أحبّ الحياة"ا - The Beirut of "I love life". Oh yes, you didn't know? We love life. Wallah.
  3. بيروت الدراجات الناريةا - The Beirut of motorcycles. If you want to know what it feels like to want to kill someone, all you have to do is spend a few hours (if that) on the roads of Beirut, and then you will want to run over every single motorcycle-rider you see. Another great product of a great (god's chosen, don't forget) country.
  4. بيروت "وقعت بالجورة اليوم"ا - The Beirut of "My car fell in the pothole today". Not only do we love life, we also like it rough... Life, or rides, I mean.
  5. بيروت المطبّاتا - The Beirut of speedbumps. That's right, we only recently discovered speedbumps, so we are experimenting with them on every street.
  6. بيروت أضواء وإشارات المرورا - The Beirut of traffic lights and signs. "It's red, what was red again? Green is stop, red is go, right? Yalla go! No one stops anyway!" or "ya Elie, turn off those traffic lights, and call them to send a 'traffic policeman' to take care of the traffic!"
  7. ا"فلّوا من بيروتنا"ا- "Leave our Beirut". Didn't you know? Beirut belongs to some Lebanese and not others. To find out if you qualify for ownership or not, please contact Walid Eido at home (+961) 1 782782 or at his office (+961) 1 982100. But be careful, if you scare him, he will sell his blood to buy weapons. Don't come back (if you live to tell the tale) and tell me I didn't warn.
  8. بيروت العنصريةا - The Beirut of racism. "I got me a Sri Lankan maid today", "I retrieved my escaped maid today", "dirty Syrians", "dirty Palestinians", and the latest trend but definitely not a new phenomenon, "dirty Shi'ite".
  9. بيروت "راحت الكهرباء\إجت الكهرباء"ا - The Beirut of "the power went off, the power is back on". We even love life (and especially so) under candlelight.
  10. Did I say Beirutis love life? Yeah, we are unique. Really.
Um, well I have some more... may I?
  1. The falafel mixed with the (literally) breathtaking air of Beirut. You just can't not enjoy it.
  2. The cars that have passed the 'mecanique' test I don't know how. I think it's part of the I love life campaign.
  3. The 'jeeps' that are used for driving 'tests'.
  4. The non-standard-size official cards, a driver's license card being twice as big as the ID card.
  5. The $200 that I have to pay to get a Lebanese passport that Bush, Condie, et al would gladly use for toilet paper.
  6. The 'students' who come to university dressed up as if they are going to a wedding party.
  7. The 2-lane bridges that take more than 4 years to construct.
  8. The people who jump in front of your car trying to cross the street.
  9. The people who run across the highway, when the pedestrian bridge is only 2 meters away from them.
  10. Oh, we need "I love life" billboards to remind us that we love life. Yes, Beirut is so good that sometimes we forget that we love life. I mean, who wouldn't get carried away?
Beirut. The city I love (to hate). No no, I can't possibly say that. What would become of me if Walid Eido reads this post? No no... it should be: Beirut... the city I love. Do I qualify to claim ownership of Beirut, O wise man, O king of kings, O master of Beirut, Walid Eido???

So what should I do now, tag other people with the same question? Sasa? How does it go?

Edit: I tag... um.. the guys (?) over at Remarkz (any taker? Bech? something fun for a change, eh? :P ), MFL, and Mr. Propagandist. :P

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posted by Angry Anarchist @ 2/25/2007 04:00:00 PM, ,