Next year, it’ll be 20 years since a defining moment in my life and in the lives millions of people in Lebanon, which feels unthinkable, so I’d rather do that thinking today, when it’s “only” been 19 – where has the time gone?
On Valentine’s Day in 2005, a massive car bomb tore through Rafik Hariri’s motorcade and changed the course of Lebanese history. That’s saying a lot in a storied place like that, but this is my witness, and for me and for my generation, the arc of time abruptly swerved off of its tracks that day.
I rethought my whole life’s purpose in the shadow of that bomb. My interests were conditioned in ways as tangible as this concrete barrier and the miles of tire spike strips that had us zigging and zagging across new securitized geographies in its fallout.
This is a photo I took in 2012. Someone had graffitied over the “Beirut” branding that Hariri’s team had come up with for the part of Downtown Beirut he’d usurped as part of “Solidere” – think Vulcan, but even worse.
Beirut, bloody Beirut. It would be his goldmine and grave.
Anyway, Happy Valentine’s to all who celebrate.