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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly |
So the student manifestations are raging - and all the rage - in France. Note, I am not French, I don't have a Schengen visa, so all of this is foreign to me. Anyone who is anyone on the net seems to have an opinion though - anywhere from agreeing with the students to the usual "useful idiots" activated by someone else et je passe. Interestingly, what started off as a student movement has splintered to something else, with looting agents and many breaking into high end stores (one has to give them that they have taste - Hermes and Celine apparently - from what I understood not Dior though which either did not seduce the masses or that LVMH (parent company) had its own security for the shop). Still, all of this transports me back to Spinneys, which had a very elegant department store in Jnah, the place where the well-to-do Lebanese used to shop.
And with the beginning of the civil war, specifically January 1976 (war broke out officially in April 1975 though it was a long time coming), both the Verdun and the Jnah branches were looted. There is an urban legend, which I have read obliquely and heard from oral sources as well, that when the looters encountered cans of cat food, they still stole them and took them and ate them refusing to believe anyone in their right might would actually have food specifically destined to cats.
All of this is an old tale, but Lebanon is Lebanon, and make no mistake, if you peel off the instagram facade of people having fun and the same crowd going from newly-opened restaurant to newly-opened restaurant, Lebanon still has a very large chunk of have-nots. Watch out for those cat food cans.