the story of a Green Line and a Yellow Building (adult version)

Near the once-called green line, which severed Beirut during the long-drawn-out civil war, lies a pale, deeply stricken yellow building.
For almost seventeen years, the Lebanese, who entered a tedious phase of convalescence since the end of violence in 1990, were faced with the memory of their war every time they passed by this building.
The traces of shrapnel and bullets covering its walls mirrored the atrocity of the past conflict. The faded elegance of its columns and structures talked of the lost glory of the entire city.
Epitomizing that sharp contrast between beauty and horror so representative of Beirut’s metamorphosis, the building in its worn state was an ideal memorial of the Lebanese civil war.
Recently, the yellow building was suddenly concealed from view. It was not condemned to demolition like most traditional houses sadly are in this country. It is actually still standing in its wrecked state albeit completely hidden behind a gigantic poster with the drawing of its soon-to-be-revamped version.
On a first impression, the idea that the edifice will be restored and thus saved from the dejecting fate of destruction is heartwarming. A closer examination of the poster brings to light the destiny of the yellow building. Below the drawing, one can read in big letters: “A Museum for the Memory of Beirut,” a project initiated by the municipality of Beirut.
So after all, Beirut -which bolsters one of the most complex modern histories in the world- will be endowed with a museum documenting and exhibiting the various stages of its past!
My mind kept buzzing with questions for a moment. The visitors of the to be museum will see models of the city’s old tramway? They will have the chance to marvel at a sample of objects sold in its old downtown Souks in the 40s and 50s? They will listen to the accounts of an ex-sniper? They will be able to hear the voice of an ordinary mother telling how she breast fed her baby in a shelter as the city was being shelled?
It was actually naïf to even hint at questions like these. Rabih Mroue, one of Lebanon’s most outstanding artists, was recently banned from showing his latest play in Beirut. His “crime” was tackling the still-too-sensitive topic of the war –a phase that we have officially and supposedly put behind us seventeen years ago.
So, it comes as no surprise to learn that Beirut’s “Memory Museum” will eventually contain only a bunch of potteries and coins unearthed by archeological digs. Of course archeological findings are not to be undermined but it’s rather insulting to reduce the “memory” of Beirut to its ancient history.
In what looks like a practice common to authoritarian regimes, Lebanese officials have decided that Beirut’s citizens do not possess the maturity needed to reflect on the history of their city beyond Antiquity. Beirut under the Roman Empire was deemed the most recent phase that is benign enough to be exposed without jeopardizing “coexistence and national unity.”
Since the assassination of Premier Rafik Hariri, the past, specifically that pertaining to the civil war, has been constantly evoked in a selective and amputated manner. Remembrance has been appropriated by the country’s political class and merely used as a tool to gain influence. Parcels of the country’s history have been carefully trimmed and packaged to fit a certain narrow political paradigm.
However, bold attempts to shed light on the past through its various phases and convolutions are never really allowed to spill into the public sphere.
Actually, the “ritual” of covering the ravaged yellow building with a thin intact trompe l’oeil appearance reveals the official policy of dealing with the past, which merely consists in refurbishing the surface while keeping the core rotten and unhealed.
The state rationale is that remembering is dangerous when it is performed by the populace. Judging by a supposedly imminent risk of Lebanon falling again into the precipices of internal fighting, any productive debate on the past is silenced.
We’re told that the quest for understanding preceding events generates conflicts; therefore, any kind of even minimal reflection on the past should be shunned.
But why can’t we simply revive all versions of the past and place them side-by-side in a museum or another form of public space? By accepting that Beirut had divergent and multifaceted realities, we would be truly honoring the numerous and conflicting memories of the city.
Until the day we’re deemed capable of processing our collective memories, let’s simply leave the yellow building speak for itself. © El Periodista