Please edit this and help me out. Be brutal. Kill this. Destroy it. Send it to oblivion. Just do something.

Beirut is the capital of Lebanon. It is, by comparison to most other capital cities and nations, a very small city, in a very small country. Lebanon, after all, is only about 2/3rd the size of Connecticut! Lebanon may be small, but it has a rich history, which has had immeasurable impact on today's world.

Beirut has been rebuilt 8 times in the past 5,000 years. Having been destroyed by war, earthquakes, tidal waves, and other natural events the city has continued to prosper.

The first law school ever was located in Beirut, giving Beirut the nick name as "Beritus (Berytus) Nutris Legum," meaning "Beirut Mother of Law." This law school was considered the premier law school outside of Rome. This law school was an essential part of the current legal basis of "modern" law. In the mid-6th century A.D., however, disaster struck. Beirut was ravaged by a series of earthquakes, tidal waves, and fires. Beirut is a city that is forever changing. The law school was relocated to Sidon, in southern Lebanon. Sadly, the law school never regained its vitality and withered away into the pages of history.

Beirut has continued it’s survival thru the French, Byzantine, Roman, Mamluk, Ottoman and Phoenician eras, rebuilding whenever necessary, thereby contributing to the many layers.

Beirut is essentially a country of constant rebuilding and renovation. This city never stays still. Forever changing and reinventing itself, Beirut has a lasting legacy in the world today.

This evolution is both amazing and scary. It is amazing because this constant self-renewal gives credence to the saying that Beirut never dies.

Given my totally objective *wink* perspective, I believe that this is a truly remarkable feat.

For example, in the past 50 years Beirut has been the scene of a great deal of changes.

Regarded as the “Pearl of the Middle East,” the “Paris of the Middle East” everything changed on April 13, 1975, the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. This war lasted until 1991. At the end of the civil war, the country was completely destroyed. The country looked like it was never ever going to be the same as it used to be.

This was assumed to be a fact, and should have been...should...however, due to the efforts of Solidere, founded on May 5, 1994 by the former late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Beirut was rebuilt to its former beauty. The name “Solidere” stands for Société libanaise pour le développement et la reconstruction de Beyrouth, French for “The Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut.” This group is responsible for majority of the reconstruction of Beirut.

Lebanon has not had the pleasure of a peaceful recovery. In 1993, Israel’s “Operation Accountability” took place in the south of Lebanon. In 1996, Israel’s “Operation Grapes of Wrath” took place in the south of Lebanon and Beirut. I am not going to go into the reasons for these “operations,” I just merely want to point out that they have taken place and thus are of some serious significance to the history of Lebanon. After 2005’s series of bombings leaving prominent political figures Rafik Hariri, Samir Qasar, George Hawi and Gibran Tueni dead and almost killing TV anchorwoman May Chidiac, Lebanon was left in a state of utter confusion. This series of horrible events lead to the eventual withdraw of Syria from Lebanon (Israel had already withdrawn in 2000).

Lebanon began to prepare in the summer of 2006 for what was expected to be the best summer for tourism on record...but this was not to be. On July 12, 2006, what is now known as the “July War” began. This war lasted 34 days and a high amount of civilian “casualties.”

My paper, however, is not on the depressing areas concerning war, but rather the beauty and amazing actions of the rebuilding and renovations. This is the one thing that I love to read about and write about. Anybody can go and destroy an object, however, it takes a real man to rebuild that object. What I find amazing is that this country has been rebuilt not once, not twice, but 8 times. EIGHT TIMES. All in the same place. Imagine living in a city where anywhere you dig you will run into the history of that culture.

The rebuilding after the civil war is probably the most amazing feat of rebuilding in modern history. In 10 years, due to the efforts of Solidere, AUB, the Government of Lebanon, and various other philanthropists, Beirut has been restored to possibly one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It has been restored to its former beauty in some aspects, and has been recreated and modernized into this even more beautiful city. Beirut is a city of constant rejuvenation and renewal. That is why I love it. Once you go there, you will see what I am trying to explain.

Looking at the history of this nation and its desire not to die, its refusal to die, I cannot do anything but stand in utter awe and amazement.

More to come soon...

Having being Trey's Advice

David's 2 lira:

Also of note as a distinguishing feature of the Lebanese experience is the multicultural and multireligious nature of the country's demographics, especially in Beirut, as the various groups commiserate for economic and political gains. The method for managing this interaction is the unique system of Confessionalism, that is, the allocation of political offices based proportionally on the racial/religious

makeup of the country, thus ensuring that minority groups have more representation than they would in a purely democratic setting, where a dictatorship of the majority would lead to the marginalization and abuse of minorities in the heterogeneous social fabric of such a diverse society. By ensuring that all groups have at least some representation, there is an impetus towards consensus and coalition building, thus ensuring a running discourse between historically antagonistic groups.