Friday, Oct 09, 2009

The attractive Lebanese capital Beirut has always been to its Arab admirers the "Paris of the Middle East," considering its swinging nightclubs and ever-innovating restaurants with the unbelievable cuisine enriched by continuously creative Lebanese chefs.

But lately the amazingly congested capital has seemed to recent visitors to be more like the "Dubai of the Mediterranean," where new skyscrapers are mushrooming everywhere, next door to decrepit small buildings standing like scary skeletons from the Fifties and Sixties waiting for eager buyers who can inject new life in Beirut's much-desired neighbourhoods overlooking the beautiful blue sea at the foot of Mount Lebanon.

Next door to Lebanon is spacious Syria which appeared eyecatching and charming with its wide highways, clean streets and traditional market places, especially in Damascus and Aleppo. My American-born wife and 25-year-old daughter, Leila, who made her first visit to the two countries, were beguiled by what they saw. What was most attractive to us was the hospitality of all - shopkeepers, taxi driver and anyone you talked to.

A tour book, published by Lonely Planet and authored by Terry Carter, Lara Dunston and Amelia Thomas couldn't describe our destination more adequately, where we hardly spent a regrettably short two weeks:

"With the world's most precious of ancient ruins, medieval souqs that hum incessantly with the banter of hagglers, cities that pulsate with life day and night, and Islamic mosques and Byzantine churches so sublime and sacred that worshippers of all religious persuasions make pilgrimages to them - not to mention mountain forests thick with cedar, pine and eucalypt, sparkling Mediterranean bays, blazing desert moonscapes and luxuriant river plains - Syria and Lebanon are tailor-made to be tourism magnets."

An eyecatching news story we saw during our stay in Beirut last month underlined how conscious some political leaders are of the need to make their homeland more agreeable and pleasant. Syrian President Bashar Al Assad had reportedly invited street cleaners in Damascus to an iftar to thank them for keeping their capital clean. (For the first time in our several visits to the Arab world in the last 40 years, none of us this time experienced any stomach aches).

But what was most disappointing to us was the treatment we received at the Lebanon-Syrian borders. The trip to Damascus from Beirut normally takes two hours but the congestion at the border points, in the northern as well as the eastern checkpoints, took an additional two hours each time. No one wanted to stand in line and all crammed over the windows attempting to show their passports to the officers. I wished some senior government official was with me to witness these bizarre and time-consuming scenes that did not speak well of their countries and must discourage tourists.

No doubt the political turmoil in the Middle East does not help to remedy the situation. The "vilification" of Syria in the West, as the guide book put it, the 15-year civil war in Lebanon which ended in 1990 but which failed to put an end to the debilitating sectarianism that sows dissension in the country, and the mushrooming Israeli presence which threatens the region and often serves as a whipping boy for the West, leaves no time for these leaders to tidy their houses.

For example, Lebanon had a decisive national election last June but to date no government has been formed, primarily because of these sectarian divisions which in some cases have support from outside the country. Consequently, there were no signs of law and order in the Lebanese capital, and much to the credit of the Lebanese all seemed to run smoothly.

A fellow passenger, an Iranian-American I met in Frankfurt while waiting for our flights to the US, had this pithy remark while discussing these sickening problems in Iran and the Arab world: Political leaders, even if they are university graduates, prefer fishing in muddy waters.

Yet one should not lose hope. I could not believe my eyes when I read that the US-supported Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, a Shiite, the largest group in Iraq that hardly had a fair deal in the country in yesteryears, now promises to run in the next Iraq elections, slated for January 31, with a non-sectarian, multi-religious coalition.

Let the best man or woman win!

By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf News

© Gulf News 2009. All rights reserved.

 

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