C: BEIRUT: THE PRIVATISATION OF A DEVELOPMENT
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It must be remembered that Downtown Beirut is […] a melting pot where persons of different faiths converge in one place [representing] the natural location for Lebanon’s financial and economic core. (Makarem, 2013)
There has been a transition over the past sixty years, as discussed already, from interstate conflicts, happening between nations, to intra-state conflicts, between opposing sides within one nation. (Holsti, 2010) More often than not, these conflicts have become urbanised, with religious disputes featuring on the agenda of many. In such situations the post-conflict scenario rarely results in resolved tensions, leaving, as in Beirut’s case, the city divided with the Christian Maronite East and the Sunni Muslim West, each having their own distinct political cultures, and the so called ‘Green Line’2 buffer zone forming between them (Khalaf & Khoury, 1993). Internal conflicts and civil wars over the past decades often focused on the politics of identity or nationalism from their outset, revolving around how communities related to each other, rather than any particular state interests. (Ramsbotham, Miall, & Woodhouse, 2011). This has seen an increase in the targeting of the ‘others’ heritage, a deliberate attack on a community’s history in order to inflict, in many cases, cultural genocide. However, whilst Beirut is a prime example of this, the main concern since the withdrawal of the Syrian Army in 1982, has been the privatised redevelopment and rebuilding of downtown Beirut. “Today, with the fighting over, there is a new plan to destroy the city centre once again, but this time with the bulldozer and the pick-axe, in order that Beirut can reclaim its former title as the Hong Kong of the Middle East.” Trendle quoted in (Sawalha, 1998) Founded in 1994, by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the private company, Solidere, ‘took over’ the reconstruction of downtown Beirut in a city where conflict had seen 800,000 residents migrate from the city. With one quarter of all housing stock either damaged or destroyed during the conflict and the further destruction of the ancient Souks ‘in a series of mysterious demolitions in 1983 and 1986’ (Makdisi, 1997), there was little opportunity 2 So called as the only thing which flourished in this no-man’s land was nature.
