Safety

As a recent college graduate, I spent a lot of time explaining to people what my plans for the future were both during this past school year and this past summer. The explanation generally went along the lines of "I'll be spending the summer in Salem, and in the fall I'll be moving to Beirut for about a year," and among the various reactions and pieces of advice, the most common thing I heard was concern for my safety. I think this is partially due to the vague idea that many Americans have of the Middle East, a place that to our imagination suggests terrorists, conflict, and anti-American sentiment. This is, of course, a generalization, but the common expression of concern for my safety is one that I don't believe that I'd have encountered if I were traveling to Germany, or Denmark.

In this post, then, I'll try to address the issue of safety here in Beirut. Some of the issues I'll touch on are more political, and I want to say that I am by no means an expert in Lebanon's political situation, and that I'll only be giving my idea of the situation.

But first, I'll start with the neighborhood I live in. Here's the view from my window:

And from some other windows in the apartment:

As I mentioned before, the neighborhood is called Basta, and it's located between the better-known neighborhoods of Hamra and Ashrafiyeh. It's best-known feature is the Dinnawi gas station, right up the street from my building, and that's the landmark that we use to guide taxi drivers. An aside: here in Beirut, people don't really use addresses or even street names, just directions based on stores and other landmarks. I'm bad with street names anyway, so that works well for me, but I need to get a better grasp of the city before I can navigate comfortably on my own.

It's a very lively neighborhood, with cars passing at every hour of the day and night, and people shopping, walking, sitting out on the sidewalks, gathering in stores to chat. It's a primarily Muslim neighborhood, with a mosque visible from the living-room window, and an every-day feel. Besides my roommates, I've seen no foreigners here, and everyone I've encountered is very friendly. Even though I'm the odd one out here, I've never felt unwelcome, and it's much easier to learn Arabic because people don't really speak English. Walking alone has not been a problem, and neither has walking alone at night -- there's always plenty of people on the streets. I dress like I would in America, and Sana (my landlady and roommate) goes unveiled, as do many women in the neighborhood. I've found that whether they wear the hijab or not has no effect on their attitude towards me or towards anyone else, and it's not uncommon to see groups of women veiled and unveiled.

Now, as to the wider situation. The violence that's happened here in Lebanon recently has been concentrated in the northern city of Tripoli. Though Lebanon is a small country, Tripoli is unique for its Alawite population -- the sect of Bashar al-Assad. The relationship between Lebanon and Syria is too complicated to explain here, but suffice it to say that what happens in Syria does not leave Lebanon unaffected, and the violence in Tripoli is partially due to that relationship. 

As far as the rest of the country goes, the protests over the film Innocence of Muslims that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah called for did not actually take place in the center of Beirut. The enormous protest occurred in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of the city which is basically ruled by Hezbollah. It was, according to Nasrallah's instruction, explicitly peaceful. Lebanon's Civil War, which took place between 1975 and 1990, is fresh in the minds of this country, and nobody wants another violent conflict to break out in Beirut's streets. For this reason, there's reasonable hope that the Syrian conflict will not spread over the border into Lebanon.

Well, it's getting late here, and I should go to bed, but the message of this post is that as far as it goes, I am safe here. Let me know if I got anything wrong about the political situation, or if you have any other questions!