For the past several years, each time I leave Beirut in the spring, I worry that the security situation will prevent me from coming back. One year, I was so convinced that it would that I gave my friends little keepsakes with forget-me-nots on them when I left.
Lebanon is level four (“do not travel”) on the State Department travel advisory list, same as Yemen. But it is not Yemen. True, there is shelling at the southern border, but that is only an intensification of what has been going on, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee style, for years. Yes, there was an assassination of a Hamas official in a Shi’a neighborhood in the south of Beirut, but the technology of assassination has sharpened and only those in a particular apartment were killed. There is the occasional kidnapping but unless I’ve missed something, these are extortion attempts within families. There are clashes between rival militias within the Palestinian camps but I don’t live anywhere near one and have no need to visit one.
In September, when I was visiting the State Department in DC with a Presbyterian group, the Syria Lebanon Partnership Network, I told officials there that their travel advisories for Lebanon did not reflect reality. The hysterics writing these things need to get out of the American compound more.
And where is Israel on the travel advisory list? It’s at level three (“reconsider travel”). The State Department further refines its wisdom by designating Gaza a “do not travel” area but advises that families traveling there should bring baby wipes.
Time to put on one’s own thinking cap.
In terms of Lebanon, there is no question that this place is falling apart. Last week Global Positioning Specialists, a tracking service, published a study saying that Lebanon was the #1 worst place in the world to be a driver based on road deaths and car thefts. The roads are in terrible shape, so drivers weave in and out of lanes to avoid potholes; the economic collapse has resulted in an explosion of motor cycles whose drivers evince powerful death wishes on the highways and murderous instincts on the city streets, even driving along sidewalks; cars lack functioning headlights, taillights, and safety belts; traffic lights have all but disappeared so intersections are a terrifying game of chicken; street and tunnel lights have gone dark so those cars without headlights are driving blind; drainage systems are so clogged with trash that roads and streets become flooded and impassible.
I was relieved to read this study. I was afraid that my terror of the roads here was exaggerated. But this week even men here have told me that the roads terrify them and that they only take less traveled routes or forgo car ownership in favor of car services and the back seat. Women have told me that they have insisted that their families get larger, more crash-resistant cars. Everyone seems to have a theory about the safest times of day and week to travel and all agree that the afternoons of Ramadan are no-go times as the Muslims are fasting and are driving insanely with low blood sugar.
In the end, it all boils down to reasonable risk assessment. I feel safe enough coming here but I avoid particular risks. I take car services but only on weekends during daylight and only in the Beirut environs. I don’t take street taxis because they are not supervised by dispatchers and once I took a cab from the airport only to end up in an unfamiliar neighborhood while the driver passed me on to another, probably unlicensed, driver. I used to visit friends in south Lebanon but hostilities there have made that unwise and I won’t take long trips anyway unless I am in a large vehicle like a bus although I would prefer a Sherman tank. I am more cautious on the street at night as 150,000 displaced persons leaving the south can’t have improved security on the streets here. I know I can’t pass for Lebanese but I also know that I am around the corner from a police pill box guarding an embassy. I reckon the Syrian militia down the street would come to my aid if I screamed if only to relieve the tedium of sitting at their post.
But just in case, I have packed an emergency bag. It contains clothes, money, my passport, and a book. I must remember to get some playing cards. If the balloon goes up, I’ll dash down the street to collect an elderly friend and take her to her nephew’s in the mountains. I’m sure we could find a fourth for bridge.
goingfortheguttural 