Lebanon Adrift by Samir Khalaf

Author:Samir Khalaf
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780863568343
Publisher: SAQI

VENUES FOR SELF-EXPRESSION AND CONVIVIALITY

Beirut’s cosmopolitanism was not, naturally, limited to movie-going and other popular forms of entertainment. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Beirut was also in the throes of all the transformations associated with social mobilization, mass communications and popular consumerism. This was also the interlude when Beirut, more than other coastal cities and those of the interior, was undergoing its rapid and unrelenting urbanization. It was then that Beirut’s image as a cosmopolitan, sophisticated, polyglot meeting place of world cultures was being established. It was also then that opportunities to seek and fulfill conspicuous consumption increased almost exponentially.

All the socio-cultural indicators, crude and refined, attest to this overriding reality. From the sharp increases in the flow of domestic and foreign mail, number of telephones and passenger vehicles to the more stupendous growth in the volume and diversity of media exposure (particularly TV, radio and movie attendance), all spoke of appreciable increases in degrees of physical and psychic mobility and high levels of consumption throughout society. On these and other related indices, Lebanon enjoyed disproportionately higher rates than those observed in adjoining Arab states.

If one were to look for one defining element which accounts for Beirut’s cosmopolitanism and the changing character of popular culture and mass consumerism, then certainly what stand out are some of its playful, convivial and carefree attributes. These residues of its traditional folklore reinforce its receptivity to being immersed in changing patterns of consumerism, fashions and taste as venues of self-expression and validation of one’s identity. It is also these attributes that generate greater prospects for aesthetic sensibilities germane to the proliferation of cultural and artistic expressions capable of transcending the rigidities of time and space. This is why, perhaps, as a metaphor, the Bourj as an urban setting approximates some of the redemptive features of a playground. As an ideal type a playground after all conjures up images of an open space conducive to both personal, intimate and familiar ties along with more fluid, protean and changeable encounters. Indeed, as we have seen, throughout its checkered history, the Bourj has always been adept at accommodating both the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’. But both, as will be elaborated later, are forms of false consciousness. As restless and traumatized groups seek shelter in religion, its spiritual and sacred elements are secularized and ritualized, often degraded and rendered impious to accommodate their mundane and sacrilegious interests. Likewise, profanities, as is abundantly apparent, are often invested with the aura, grace and charisma of sacred idols.

These seemingly dissonant elements are not as mutually exclusive as they appear. Just as one can understand and account for the resurgence of religious and parochial identities in postwar Beirut, one can likewise appreciate the seductive appeals of secular spaces where groups can let down their guard. Indulgence becomes a testing ground for assessing how far they can stray without inviting the censure and reprimand of their society. This is why, as suggested earlier, those seemingly polarized dichotomies – the sacred and profane, cosmopolitan

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