The scene at the Third Middle School in the Christian neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh speaks volumes about how far Lebanon has come since the last war raged here 15 years ago–and also how far it could fall again.
More than 150 people, all of them Shiite Muslims, have taken refuge in the school from the fierce Israeli bombardment of Beirut’s mostly Shiite southern suburbs, and they are being cared for by Christian volunteers.
“All those differences are over now,” said Mariam Mehdi, 60, whose family of 10 took up residence in one of the school’s little classrooms three days ago, after enduring 48 terrifying hours of deafening bombardment in their southern Beirut neighborhood.
She remembers well the stages of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, during which Christians and Muslims, Sunnis, Shiites and Druze all fought one another in various combinations, along with help from the occupying armies of Israel and Syria.
But the treatment she has received since she arrived at the school has bolstered her confidence that those days will never return.
“That was all a long time ago and it will never come back,” she said, her eyes welling with tears as she described the kindness shown to her by the neighborhood’s Christians. “Now we are brothers and sisters together.”
A rare mood of national unity
As Israel sustains its campaign to root out the Hezbollah militia, whose guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers last week, Lebanon is in the grip of one of its rare moods of national unity.
Television stations are broadcasting patriotic songs. Cars wave Lebanese flags as they drive through the mostly deserted streets. Christians are sending blankets, food and toys to Shiites driven from their homes and proclaiming solidarity with the Islamic fundamentalist Hezbollah movement.
“Why am I here in this school? It’s because there’s no difference between me and anyone else here,” said Marwan Khoury, a 21-year-old biology student who volunteered to help the refugees at the school.
“We are all Lebanese, and this crisis is creating some kind of strength between us,” Khoury said.
Lurking beneath the bravado, however, are memories of Lebanon’s dark past, and concerns that Israel’s campaign to dislodge Hezbollah from southern Lebanon also could dislodge the fragile sectarian consensus that has sustained peace for the past 15 years.
Watching the refugees from the balcony of his hair salon in an apartment building overlooking the school, Chadi Makhoul, 35, acknowledged misgivings about their presence.
“I’m not happy about it, but, I’m not happy to see them die either,” said Makhoul, who, like many Lebanese of his generation, fought in the civil war, for a Christian militia.
“Ashrafiyeh is for Christians, not for Muslims, and that’s why they moved here. They think it will be quiet,” he said.
Lebanon’s Christians spent much of the civil war era allied with Israel, and most Christians assume their areas will be spared.
Christian areas also struck
But infrastructure in Christian areas has been hit, including the port, a power station and the main highway heading north. The 7-day-old Israeli onslaught has chilled life here as it has elsewhere in the country.
Makhoul has had only three customers since Israel began its bombing campaign last week, and he is worried about how long he can sustain his wife and 2-year-old son if the war continues.
“This isn’t Lebanon’s war, it’s Nasrallah’s war,” he said, referring to the Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has defiantly vowed to fight Israel to the finish.
“Nasrallah alone took Lebanon to war, and for that we have no work, all the foreigners have left and the fun is finished,” Makhoul said.
Differences over Hezbollah and its role as Lebanon’s only armed militia began to emerge a year ago, when the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri served as the trigger for a popular outpouring of anti-Syrian sentiment that united many Christians and Muslims and forced Syrian troops to end their 19-year occupation of Lebanon.
Hezbollah, an ally of Syria and Iran, stood apart from the Cedar Revolution, revealing a potential schism between the armed Shiite militia and the mostly middle-class Christian and Sunni Muslim revolutionaries seeking Syria’s departure.
Khoury, the student volunteer, barely remembers the civil war.
But he vividly recalls the unprecedented spirit of unity that filled Beirut’s streets with millions of Lebanese flag-waving protesters last year, himself among them, and that gives him encouragement.
But he’s worried about the intentions of Lebanon’s neighbors, and not only Israel. A year after Syria’s humiliating retreat from Lebanon, he suspects Syria would like to stir up old rivalries and restore its position as the arbiter of power among Lebanese.
“For now we are all united,” he said. “But after now? There is no guarantee.”
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lsly@tribune.com
