Saint George is back, thankfully and finally

Photo credit Lance Aramouny

The Saint George is back.

No mean feat, trust us on this one. After years upon years of being treated unfairly and done dirty by everyone from Solidere to Zaytounah Bay, the Saint George seems to be back. Even in his death Rafic Hariri managed to inflict incredible harm on the Saint George due to proximity of the explosion.

But to quote Chris Rea's album title there's "new lights through old windows". To be clear, no, I was never part of the Saint George hayday, or even a client there (can't even swim for heaven's sake!) but the emotional element is still there. A proud, majestic landmark which got caught up in the hotel wars, then subsequently victim to greed and evil folly.

Still, the image above as linked to the one and only Lance Aramouny is a testimonial that you can't keep a good man (or landmark) down. What is right will come back. And come back it did. Again, I have no idea why I am being so emotional about this, but knowing that the Saint George came back from the brink is something to make everyone proud.

Vivement the Holiday Inn!

On "the gesture" by Nadim Karam

First, a disclosure: I know Nadim Karam personally, I probably was the first person to interview him when he did his magnificent exhibition at the Sursock Museum T-Races BSC4791 in 1994, and I was actually invited to the opening of his muse.um in Daroun (because he lives 5 minutes way from my house).

The reason I am disclosing this is because of "the gesture" (entitled in Arabic "al mared" or the giant) the statue that has been erected from steel and metal debris from companies who donated them to the Karam atelier to build the structure. Everyone is up in arms about it. Really, from all angles - it is ugly, it is political, it was unveiled on August 4th the one-year date of the tragic event, it was erected when there is still no one accountable for the loss of so many lives and so many people injured without even factoring the people who lost their homes and livelihoods.

Karam was very clear that no official or governmental sponsorship was involved in making "the gesture", it was his donation to a wounded city. And honestly, esthetics is a very variable and personal thing. When Karam brought his iron wrought sculptures for his first exhibition, no one was there for the esthetics of it - but I still have to find anyone capable of using space like he did. One sculpture was actually on the top of the building next to the museum (beat that if you can). 

Take the muse.um for example. Even Karam himself said it was a space with no definite function - if you find one, please do tell me what it is. And yes, for all its intricacies muse.um exudes emotions. With its stairs, pseudo-labyrinths, its openings onto landscaped surfaces, inconvenient passages and inner spaces for Zen gardens. That space moves you.

But if I go back to "the gesture", I think - esthetics or lack of it, grandiose or not, recycled materials or new ones - perhaps it is the timing that sort of bothers me. It reminds me of late PM Rafic Hariri when he allowed the families of people who were kidnapped or disappeared during the war to declare them dead in order for them to be able to tackle the inheritance related to these people, not understanding that the families of such people wanted "closure" above all - not tackling said inheritance.

Remember, the port is still a crime scene, no one was declared guilty over what happened, actually we still do not understand exactly what happened. And for this, the wound is still open.

Maybe in a few years, we would appreciate "the gesture" - but right now we are still bleeding.

Hariri - father and son: Same sentence, different wordings.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

November 2004, Rafic Hariri:

إني استودع الله هذا الوطن الحبيب لبنان

July 2021, Saad Hariri:

الله يعين البلد

The first sentence roughly means "I place this beloved country as a deposit in the hands of God", the second "may God help this country".

Essentially, the late father, and the son (both were head of governments as it seems hereditary in Lebanon), were saying the same thing in different words. But it also underscores what the father had and the son lacked: An incredible charisma. When his guard was down, Rafic Hariri was a very likeable man. Asked during an interview what he did when he got he did when he earned his first million, he said "I went to the mirror and patted my own shoulder, and then I said "now go and lose a few kilos!"". So again, whereas the two men meant the same thing, one - the father - was able to articulate it in a way that still resonates, worded it in a very languishingly eloquent way. The son was more blunt.

Perhaps - sometimes - it is all in the way one puts things, as the message will still be understood.

(Disclosure: I have interviewed Saad Hariri previously on one on one basis for a project pertaining to a client of mine)

Lebanon, the international tribunal and rogue elements

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Never a dull day in Lebanon. Severe uptick in Coronavirus cases? Check. Explosion listed as third powerful in humanity's history? Check. Unofficial banking controls? Check. Social unrest? Check. Crumbling structure and infrastructure? Check. Do I go on? Oh yes, international tribunal that cost and arm and a leg (800 Million Dollars to be specific) pinned on a member of the Hizbollah but not on the party itself with the incriminating evidence being the use of multicolored phones? Check. During the war, when a ceasefire would be declared yet sporadic skirmishes continued here and there, the blame would be put on "rogue elements" or in Arabic the more poetic "3anaser ghayr mondabita". In essence that is what the whole international tribunal was about: One specific individual who happens to be a member of a party a la 9 to 5 but has outside hobbies on his own, to which, like luxury company Hermes, he is allowed to use the company logistics and hardware so long he does not sell a competing product. Never a dull day as I said.