France, Lebanon, ABC and Swatch

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

If you did not live in the 80s you wouldn't know what the Swatch craze was. The first time Charles came from Cyprus (because this is where all the well to do Lebanese went to flee the war) wearing a see-through model, everyone laughed at him. To be honest I was intrigued, it was like nothing else I had seen in my life. I don't need to tell you that, when the plastic watch made it to Lebanon the hype was only too real. 

Yesterday I spoke about how people looted cat food cans from Spinneys and still ate them (here), today I will go on with a war remembrance. The war in question was the one that happened between the Lebanese Forces and the fragment of the Lebanese army that was led at the time by General (later President) Michel Aoun. So this put it squarely in 1989, and since these scenes happened in winter so it must have been February (that war started on February 14th). 

If I am recalling too many details, it is because some things stay with us. Today, on instagram I saw a photo of students with Louis Vuitton and Dior backpacks in a class in Saint Denis (of course the image is AI generated). For your info, Saint Denis is not considered a rich area, on the contrary is a heavily industrialized commune with workers as its core populace. The hint? These were looted from the previous days.

The women in the house opposite our apartment building in Achrafieh had, according to Madame Silvart (who was living in the gorgeous house right next to them) "fi boyfriend kitir" as she used to say in her broken Arabic (there are a lot of boyfriends). These boyfriends? Well, just pick and choose. I remember once they were selling saj bread (open air oven bread) during that same war (basically a couple of days before the incident I shall mention) and after about two hours of waiting and just as my turn came, a green militia jeep came, took all the bread left and went.

So what does Swatch has to do with anything? Well, during that time all shops were closed. Banks too. Access to money was incredibly tight. Then N., the (at the time very young) daughter of one of those women shows up to the shelter of our building (which used to house many neighboring people from the street) with a brand spanking new Swatch. The gorgeous one that had the X sign on it. Obviously, something was amiss.

She - in all logic - would not be able to have had the watch bought for her now that the market was inexistent, especially that anyone who had any semblance of money was keeping it aside. Then, rumors started started circulating, the ABC mall in Dbayeh had been looted (interestingly, the news is not on the net). Put two and two together and you get where the watch came from.

I know the Saint-Denis joke upstairs is made up (I think!) but N. was indeed wearing that Swatch.