some guy in lebanon

I spent this afternoon at Microsoft Lebanon’s beautiful offices in Downtown Beirut, discussing Open Source Technology, software piracy, and several Microsoft initiatives. Their publicist also sort of offered me a job…! Prior to my meeting I had lunch with Nick in Martyr’s Square – We didn’t have much to say to each other, but it struck me as a rather odd but extraordinary lunch… we ate in the shadow of the Martyr’s Statue looking out over downtown Beirut and the Sea.

It was an interesting bookend to our discussion last spring in Boston as we considered how far away we were from doing things in the world – Here we were, a Journalist and a Web Developer, trying to change the face of Journalism in Lebanon and the world, two 24 year old white kids, born two days apart, just sitting and eating in a place that 20 years ago was the heart of a civilization’s collapse? Literally, people used to kill each other where we were sitting on a daily basis – the statue has bullet holes and shrapnel all through it.

Last night I spent the evening in a smokey jazz lounge on Gemayze St. called “Bar Louie,” listening to some real honest-to-God jazz while drinking scotch that was probably a little outside of my price range, but I didn’t care too much because it was such an amazing show. The jazz scene in the Middle East tends to be patchy and it’s really difficult to find talented live musicians who can put on a show like that is both technically perfect and musically engrossing. This really was both – it was a great show and I couldn’t get over the authenticity of the thing itself – I feel that Beirut, in its finest moments, is like a combination of the way I envision Paris must has been in the 50’s and Brooklyn was in the late 90’s. Now it’s not always at its finest, but trust me when I say that Beirut has more of its fare share of these truly authentic moments, without the yuppies ruining it for everyone, than perhaps anywhere else in the world (see my note above regarding lunch today if you have any doubts…)

Beirut has something else to – People talk a lot about the Clash of Civilizations and obviously Lebanon has its fare share of that, but in a country so prone to civil and religious conflict, right next to Martyr’s square is an enormous Christmas tree, which is right outside of Beirut’s biggest Muslim Mosque, right next to that Mosque is an enormous Church, and right next to the Church is the heart of Downtown Beirut, which also happens to reflect the capitalistic ideal in about as succinct away as I can imagine. A block from there are both Parliament and the Hariri memorial – For the uninformed, it was Hariri’s assassination in April 2005 which led ultimately to Syrian’s withdrawal from the Lebanon.

So within just one block you have a perfect image of the Anti-Clash of Civilizations – and it is not by any small measure of irony that this is just a short distance from the “Green Line,” the epicenter of the Civil War in the 80’s that led to the death of over 100,000 people. From a human perspective, the image of this one block, home to an enormous Mosque, an enormous Church, a Christmas Tree, Martyr’s Statue (riddled with bullet holes), Hariri’s memorial, and the busiest block of Downtown Beirut, and only a short distance from Gemayze St. which is sort of like the Georgetown (Washington D.C.) of Beirut, is an enormous thing, and in my mind the relative co-existence represents not only an “Anti-Clash” of Civilization, but the reality of the growing up of the post-Cold War world.

I stopped to pray at a Church on my way back from Microsoft – I haven’t been in a Church for a long time, let alone for any real spiritual reason. I think probably the last time I went to Church just to pray was maybe a year ago in Portland. Anyone who knows me probably knows my relative aversion to organized religion, an aversion which ultimately was a major part of choosing not to go into the priesthood. This particular Church I think is either Catholic or Greek Orthadox (I am neither) but that wasn’t a concern – The building, both inside and out, is beautiful. So I’m sitting there praying – Generally I try to pray in as nebulous a way as possible – “I hope I’m on the right path, stay with me on this,” etc. What struck me was that about three-quarters of the way through praying the Mosque next door started with their call to prayer -  which if you’ve ever heard it is fairly haunting and definitely beautiful – It added a nice touch. In standard Lebanese fair, the Church gave the Mosque about three-quarters of the Call before they started ringing their bells at a million decibels, promptly drowning the Muslims out. Oh well.

Anyways, it was nice – Just to pray I guess but also to take a breather. I’ve been living in a really cheap place, writing and consulting for free, and things are finally starting to progress – I dunno. It was a nice day and a nice evening last night and then a nice afternoon, so it seemed a good occasion for praying.

So – On a lighter note, I wanted to make a point about Lebanon not being backwards and all that, so here’s a picture of some Burger King I ate a few days ago – Looks delicious right? Click the picture to see it full size, so that you can be assured that, yes, there is Burger King in the Middle East. Lots of Burger Kings for that matter.

Missing everyone back home – Will keep you all posted as things move along. Oni, if you’re reading this, we’re going to change the world man! Let me know how things are going in New York.

The Dao that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not true.
The Dao manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
-Dao De Jing