Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East (13 page)

Minutes later, I was brought up to the bima, the raised platform where the rabbi stood. I chanted along with the Iranian rabbi, gleefully fumbling through the words to songs I hadn’t heard since my bar mitzvah.

LEBANON, 2005

U
pon returning to the United States, I publicly shared my stories of partygoing youth in Iran who despise the regime and love American culture. I spoke on television and the radio and I participated in public forums where “professors” from the University of Tehran were present; I was so eager to discuss my experience that I overlooked the likelihood that these “professors” would report my comments back to the Iranian government.

At the time, I was unable to talk about anything but Iran, and I became obsessed with a desire to see every inch of the country. I had even made arrangements with a friend’s father to live with the Qashquai nomads in southern Iran and to drive up the Iran/Afghanistan border. I also flirted with the idea of crossing from the southwestern province of Khuzestan into the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

I was sitting at a Starbucks on Cornmarket Street in Oxford when I received a phone call from the Iranian Embassy in London. My visa application had been denied; I would not be allowed to return to Iran, and I was devastated. Forcing myself to look beyond Iran, I decided to base myself in Lebanon, where I could get to Syria and Jordan by taxi and where I could easily fly almost anywhere in the Middle East. So, in June 2005, I left for Beirut and began a long journey that would take me into the heart of Middle Eastern youth culture.

T
he first thing
I noticed about Beirut was how absolutely modern the city looked and how unbelievably gorgeous the people were. Beirut certainly reminded me of Paris, the city to which it is frequently compared. At night the city has its sophisticated trendsetters, its snobby self-important types, and its collection of families who just want a quiet night out. There are also, of course, the occasional drunken teenagers stumbling around the city streets, street peddlers, many of whom are Syrian children, old men selling roses, and even a now notorious guy who makes money by creeping up behind people and yelling, “Beirut!” only then to try selling them maps of the city. They may be different characters, but they are all there to be seen. Walking down one street, I could find distinct traditional Arabic music, yet I could turn a corner and hear 50 Cent or Beyonce. No matter what part of town I was in, there were always the easily recognizable sounds of revving engines. While on occasion these were the sounds of beat-up old cars, they usually emanated from a Ferrari or Lamborghini and were deliberately advertised by whatever spoiled kid was behind the wheel of the car his dad gave him. The more vibrant parts of town with bars, restaurants, and clubs were well-lit, but most of the city had an eerie darkness, which, while one might have expected it to be ominous, was made safe by the masses of young Lebanese on an exodus from their favorite bars to the hot late-night clubs.

The vibrancy of the Beirut nightlife is juxtaposed against the elaborate mosques that reminded me that Lebanon has its conservative sides and the war-torn buildings and bullet-holed statues that placed this all in historical context. The presence of tanks, armed guards, barricades, checkpoints, and jeeps packed with scruffy Lebanese Armed Forces were yet another chilling piece of evidence that beneath the fun lay brewing tensions of a fragile security environment. The occasional Mercedes or BMW with the yellow-and-green Hezbollah flag offered a stark reminder that this was not your typical party city. But despite all these reminders, Beirut just didn’t seem to be the war-torn place that it was. The tension seemed deep below the surface and it was easy to assume that the plague of violence in this country was a thing of the past, or so it seemed.

O
n my first night
in Lebanon, I headed to Monot, one of Beirut’s most vibrant nightlife districts. Located just next to downtown Beirut, Monot has something for everyone: Western bars, Arab nightclubs, outdoor restaurants, and more. In the summer, every night is like spring break in an American city, as trendy youth from a wide variety of backgrounds wander the streets in search of the next party and Saudi men attempt to flaunt their money downtown in the hope of meeting a girl much younger and more attractive than themselves. These Saudi men would try their ostentatious courting rituals just next to downtown in Monot, except most nightclub owners know that if they let Saudi men in, they will never see another Lebanese girl come into their club. On that first night out in Beirut, I met two guys named Ziad and Walid. They were sitting at Monot’s Ice Bar discussing the current political situation in Lebanon, which at the time I really couldn’t even begin to grasp. Ziad had a long face and big eyes. His hair was a buzz cut and he was built like a football player. A towering six four, he was a physical presence, but when he opened his mouth he sounded more like a gentle giant. Walid had short hair, dark skin, and a very clean-cut look. His face was scruffy, but, it seemed, deliberately and fashionably so rather than through laziness and poorly maintenance. They looked like a couple of frat guys, drinking the night away on the stoop of the fraternity house. When I approached them, they were perched at an outdoor seating area, scouting for girls.

After some friendly conversation, Ziad and Walid invited me to a beach party on the following night. The next evening, Ziad picked me up and we drove thirty minutes south to Jiye. The party took place at an open bar near the beach, but the crowds of young Lebanese dancing flooded onto the street and onto the beach itself. The outfits were outrageously stylish, with some women in hejabs and others in bikinis, one even adorned with my country’s flag. The young Lebanese were dancing to a mix of American hip-hop and Arabic dance music. The greatest burst of energy seemed to arise when a DJ combined the Western and Eastern music with techno beats that made one’s heart pump; when certain songs would come on, everyone would start pumping their fists in unison. It was like an enormous
Soul Train
line.

That night, I met Muslims, Christians, and Druze; I met Palestinians, Syrians, and young people from all over the Middle East. The groups were mixing freely and nobody was talking politics. I would spend much of my time in Lebanon at social events just like this one. I visited nightclubs where the bouncer might have been a Shi’ite member of Hezbollah, the bartender a Sunni member of the Future Party, and the patrons Maronite Christian, Druze, and even Jewish. The dance floor might have been filled with members of rival political groups or religious sects, and there might have even been a few terrorists there; all sides of the Lebanese civil war would be represented, but with the lights low and the music loud, you’d never be able to tell who was who.

At first, I was shocked; this was certainly nothing like Tehran. In Iran, for example, one would never see a Basij troop at a party with underground youth; in fact one would never see Basij at a party of any kind. Lebanon was quite the opposite: Everybody—secular, religious, Christian, Muslim—partied, and everybody partied together. Maronite Christians who by day would profess their disdain for Shi’a Muslims and Shi’a Hezbollah operatives who spent their afternoons raging against Christians would come together at night and put aside their differences. I would later learn that most one-night stands crossed sectarian lines. In a culture in which premarital sex is considered taboo and the exposure of such behavior carries serious consequences, young Lebanese have discovered that members of rival religious groups make perfect anonymous partners. There are even stories of girls going to the doctor and paying eighty dollars for reconstructive surgery to make sure the physical results of that night are reversed. Outside of bars and clubs, religious rivals rarely mix: Sleeping with the enemy is the best way for Lebanese youth to guarantee that their nighttime indiscretions never see the light of day.

In my time there, I would find Lebanon to be the most divided country I’d ever visited, a nation ridden by political, ethnic, and religious differences. But those differences never made it past the velvet rope: When Lebanese young people are out at night, they don’t talk politics or war and they don’t acknowledge Christian, Muslim, or Druze; the youth simply party as Lebanese.

F
rom the rooftop
of one of my favorite bars in Beirut, there was a clear view of the site where former prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in March 2005. The bombed-out cars, shattered windows, police tape, and exploded buildings were all still there; I could even see a gigantic crater in the ground where the actual car bomb had detonated.

Although I was in Lebanon in a time of relative peace, there were at least three or four car bombings when I lived in Beirut, including one in the heart of Monot. I heard each one, and one of the bombings sent vibrations through my apartment. There were a number of other occasions where I mistook the lighting of fireworks for the explosion of a car bomb. Lebanese youth are particularly fond of fireworks; it is somehow fitting that in Lebanon, the sounds of celebration are often indistinguishable from the sounds of war.

To be sure, Lebanese youth were not unaffected by the bombings. Every time there was an explosion—which, due to the prevalence of firecrackers and fireworks, was quite often—young people would get on their cell phones and make sure their friends were unharmed. But they wouldn’t be stopped from living their lives. Car bombs didn’t stop young people from setting off fireworks and they certainly didn’t stop them from going out. The day after a bombing was usually quiet, but within a day or two, the clubbers would be back out in full force. After a car bombing killed the head of the Lebanese Communist Party, many youth decided to go to the downtown street where the bombing had occurred and cheer for Lebanon; it was an act of defiance and resolve. If anything, each bombing only solidified the commitment of young Lebanese to rise above the violence of their parents’ generations.

E
ven the villages,
while not boasting the urban infrastructure of Beirut, had a progressive feel to them. The façade of comfort and extravagance can easily cast a shadow over the economic hardship, the seemingly embedded sectarian divides, and the dearth of opportunities in Lebanon. But it is just a façade: Young Lebanese often hide their true economic class behind imitation designer clothing, knockoff handbags, and cars that required the family to take out a loan.

In the summer of 2005, optimism in Lebanon was at an all-time high and by the summer of 2006, Lebanon was a country that seemed to have it all. The Syrians had left the country, tourist revenue was flowing in, and political rivalries seemed less important than embracing a prosperous future. These were changes the Lebanese youth could take credit for. Despite the potential, the country remained fragile and within one year’s time Lebanon once again found itself serving as a battleground, this time between Hezbollah and Israel in July 2006. For the Lebanese youth, these sounds of bombs, these sites of rubble, and these violent clashes were all too familiar, as war once again stripped them of everything. Born into a Lebanon that was occupied by both Israel and Syria, Lebanese youth have never—until very recently—experienced sovereignty and have suffered through a perpetual identity crisis. Are they Arab or Phoenician? Are they Shi’a or Sunni, or are they Muslim Lebanese? Are they Maronite, Greek Orthodox, Druze, or are they just Lebanese? And, what authority—Lebanese or Syrian—are they subject to? Some Lebanese youth have even gone as far as getting blood tests or swabs from their inner cheek to determine their true identity. For decades, the Syrian presence in Lebanon and the influence of the Hafez al-Assad government in Damascus made Lebanon a virtual extension of the Syrian police state. The terrorist attacks orchestrated by Hezbollah throughout the 1980s and 1990s gave the impression that Lebanon was a terrorist state, yet another source of isolation for the Lebanese youth. There was little concept of justice, freedom, or autonomy. The infighting within religious groups became as common as fighting between religions, causing many Lebanese youth to grow up without a sense of identity. The fighting between and among groups influenced social perceptions and embedded certain stigmas and stereotypes within the Lebanese mind-set. Lebanese based their loyalties not around ideology, belief, or education, but instead derived their identities from the groups, organizations, and coalitions that protected them.

It is impossible to talk about Lebanon without appreciating the significance and impact of its fifteen-year civil war. While Lebanon’s history is long and complicated, the conflicts and tensions of today have their roots in the past. Although the war didn’t begin until 1975, tensions in Lebanon had been brewing since 1943, when Lebanon gained its independence from France. The 1943 National Pact gave Christians a dominant role in the national government, with a majority of parliament and the office of president reserved for Christians. Other leadership positions were to be held by Muslims (including prime minister, reserved for a Sunni), but as the demographics of Lebanon shifted, the country’s two major sects of Islam—Shi’a and Sunni—increasingly challenged what they saw as the disproportionate power of the Christian minority.

The conflict that precipitated the civil war was not simply between Christians and Muslims, however; differences among the various sects of Islam and Christianity in Lebanon also played a major role in the hostilities. Sharing only antipathy toward the Christians, Lebanese Shi’a, Sunni, and Druze did not quite form a united front. The historic divergences among the three groups, particularly within Lebanon, offer a bit of explanation.