When I tell people that I was recently in Beirut, they generally say it was brave of me to go. To be honest, I'm really a chicken. If I had known there was going to be a constitutional crisis in Lebanon while I was there, I never would have bought my plane tickets from Istanbul, where I am studying abroad, to Beirut.
Two days later, the Lebanese presidential election - or rather, the lack of one - was one of the lead stories on the Turkish evening news. The differing coalitions in parliament were unable to agree on a consensus candidate, and the sitting president's term was running out. The country's political leaders were bitterly polarized and said they would form competing governments if the situation were not resolved.
As I learned all of this, I thought to myself, how can I travel to a country that could erupt into violence at any moment? How can I visit the Middle East as a woman by myself? I almost decided to cancel. But then I thought, how could I pass up the opportunity to witness world events as they happen?
I didn't know what to expect when I arrived in Beirut on a Tuesday afternoon. I didn't have much time for first impressions, either. I just jumped into a smelly minibus, told the driver the address of my hotel and hoped he wouldn't take advantage of my ignorance to make a few extra dollars. (He didn't.)
My first glimpses of the city streets were chaotic, a clamorous mixture of bombed-out buildings and glittering new glass-and-steel facades. I saw a tent city under a bridge near downtown, which I thought was a refugee camp until the owner of my hostel told me it was a Hezbollah protest.
As far as I could discern, this was the status quo for Beirut. Nothing seemed different or special about the political situation, at least not to me, a newcomer who doesn't speak Arabic. I was a little disappointed, but not for long. The election had been rescheduled for the next day, and that very evening, the tanks rolled in.
On Wednesday morning, the city was crawling with soldiers and police - in fact, they were the only people on the sidewalks because it was pouring rain. By that afternoon, the soldiers had established barbed-wire barriers and road checkpoints around all the potential places where protests or riots might occur. There were soldiers with machine guns stationed every 20 meters on the main roads. People got the message. There were no demonstrations, but there was no election, either.
The military presence made me feel safe, but it also created an eerie atmosphere after dark. On Friday night, I went out with a group of travelers staying at the same hostel. We were hoping to sample some of Beirut's legendary nightlife, but the streets were empty. The only other people we saw on the roads were soldiers. We eventually ended up at a club run by Brazilian expatriates.
In the end, I didn't get to see demonstrations, confrontations or any kind of popular uprising. It is better that way, of course, not least because the political situation did very little to damper the rhythm of Beirut. On Monday morning, the traffic was busier than I had seen it on any day before. When I looked at my surroundings, I saw an irrepressible city. I did not witness a political crisis. I witnessed a place that refused to have one.
