August 4th - tenzakar ta ma ten3ad

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

I can't remember who came up with it. It was a campaign on television launched for the commemoration of the Lebanese war (April 13th) and it was a riff on the local expression "tenzakar w ma ten3ad" (let it be remembered and not repeated) which became "tenzakar ta ma ten3ad" (let it be remembered SO THAT it would not be repeated). Again, apologies I do not have the original campaign, or the original graphics, or any online source as to who did it or exactly when.

I honestly do not feel like a "survivor" from that day, maybe because I spent the whole long war surviving so much it became living as such. I understand the trauma caused by the explosion, specifically to those who did not live the war as such. You may want to revisit my recollections of that day here.

Am alive damn it. Alive, you hear?

Feer McQueen says Beirut smells of hope rather than toxic fumes.

So apparently Beirut smells like hope according to Feer McQeen.

No, really. Hope.

Ok let's recap. Yesterday was the second commemoration of the infamous August 4 explosion which destroyed major fragments of Beirut. Each one of us reacted differently - some still traumatized, some barely recovering, others faring much better (after a short bout of PTSD and having lived the whole 1975-1990 war in Lebanon I reacted better than most knowing I cheated death twice that day).

Still, if Beirut smells like anything - apart from the silly "vibes" everyone was posting on Instagram and Tiktok (mainly expats here 2 weeks " trois petits tours et puis s'en vont" as the song says) - it definitely, NOT of hope.

Electricity is barely existent and the generator rates are through the roof. People are reluctant to turn the AC on because it might end up costing - literally - a fortune. Banks are still holding our money hostage and this applies to people in the capital as well. Inflation is in the triple digits (250 times!). I need not go on. But hope does not factor in the equation.

Worse, the silos (which have shielded part of Beirut from total destruction) and which many people have called for their preservation as a monument have been disintegrating - ironically, a part of them fell almost to the minute on the day of the second commemoration (another part had fallen a few days earlier).

So photoshopping a green tree on the top of an old photograph of the silos as they appeared post-explosion and claiming that Beirut smells - not of noxious fumes (which environmental experts have been cautioning about) - but of "hope" is honestly, borderline insulting.

LAU Medical Center-Rizk Hospital August 4th video: Where less is more.

So as I said previously, anyone who is anyone wanted to commemorated August 4th... There were too many videos to count - most of them corny, repetitive, lowest-common-denominator creative and so on. I spoke about the super video of the Sagesse Achrafieh and stand by every syllable of my writing (here). My issue is that everyone wanted to get "emotional", "creative", "different" while falling into the same trap of the repetitive expressions, imagery and - heaven help us - "hope". Which is why the LAU Medical Center-RIzk Hospital video, like the Sagesse, stands out. It has that efficiency one links to hospitals. Worse the efficiency one links to hospitals Emergency Rooms when a disaster has struck. It says what it wants to stay swiftly, smartly, with an economy of words, with images of people who have no time to look at cameras and who most likely recorded the scenes on the go that fatidic night of the 4th when medical staff was just working, doing its best, hoping for the best but also expecting the worst. I really love how everything is orderly, emotional but not too much, and honestly it works! See the LAU Medical Center-Rizk Hospital here.

College de la Sagesse Achrafieh - and this is how we do it!

Except for one year when we were in a different locale, I have spent all my school years at Sagesse - Achrafieh. Which is why the video for the rehabilitation of the locale following the Beirut blast is doubly moving. Sadly I was unable to locate the agency that did it. What I loved the most, apart from the archival material, is how understated but very punchy it all is. In case you do not know the building itself which houses the classes and administration has an iconic architecture (so much that when they did the club for the graduates across the road, they tried to replicate that same architecture). On all accounts, too many names passed by that place, and as our Arabic teacher used to say "the walls whisper to you what to do". The copy of the video is flawless and the delivery is perfect (turns out it was my friend Patrick Chemali - no relation - who was behind the voice off delivery!), the images moving but with a very dignified visual tone. You can see the full video here.