West Beirut

The second movie discussed in this blog is West Beirut. This movie was directed by Ziad Doueiri and was released in 1998 (1999 in the US). This movie covers the beginnings of the Lebanese Civil War and shows the hardships of both sides often overlooked during the conflict. Tarek and Omar are two friends in a French high school who love using Super 8 films to record around them. The driving plot of the movie is these two boys trying to find a place to develop the film they shoot but evolves into a much more complex and intricate plot.

The beginning of the film introduces Tarek and Omar as two normal high school boys, but one day at their French school in East Beirut, Tarek watches a militia massacre refugees coming off of a bus. This act leads to the formal start of the civil war, and the separation of East and West Beirut, with the East being majority Maronite Christian, and the West being mainly Muslim (Wakim, 2021). Snipers line the separation wall and are quick to shoot any who cross the border. Because they can no longer get to East Beirut since they are Muslim, Tarek and Omar are incredibly excited and begin going on adventures together. The mood is very jovial, and they meet another teenager, May, who joins them on these adventures. May is an orphaned Christian and is used in the movie to represent the fact that there was no hatred between the two sides. Multiple times within the movie, it is mentioned that outside forces are controlling the civil war, namely Israel and Syria.

The movie also goes into detail about the state of foreign affairs in Lebanon at the time. Tarek’s dad hears him mention that he is not Arab, but Phoenician, and berates him for it, but then concedes that the other Arab countries have turned their backs on Lebanon so they might as well be their ethnicity. His mother wants to flee Beirut to the mountains, or other countries, and his dad rejects the idea since no one would accept Lebanese refugees anywhere. Tarek’s family decided to stay in Beirut, and they were able to survive through the war.

Today, many of the same problems still plague Lebanon. Even before the very recent attacks from Israel against Hezbollah, Lebanon was in political and economic turmoil. This problem stems not only from the government and its corruption, but also from the religious influence of Maronites, Sunni, and Shia in the government (Tinas, 2017). The president and commander of the armed forces must be Maronite. The prime minister must be Sunni Muslim. The speaker of the parliament must be Shia Muslim. This separation in the government further enhances a major dividing line in Lebanon. Most of the Maronite Christians in Lebanon see themselves as Phoenicians, not Arabs, which adds another layer to the dividing line between the main two sides. Finally, another problem still plaguing Lebanon is the conflict with Israel. The militia Hezbollah is at war with Israel, causing most of southern Lebanon to become a warzone, all the way up to Beirut. Looking at the circumstances surrounding the start of the civil war, the current climate looks eerily similar to back then.

This movie was written and directed from the view of West Beirut and the Muslim majority side of the war, but it does an amazing job of representing the struggle both sides faced throughout it. My father fought in Beirut for five years during the Lebanese Civil War for the Maronites in East Beirut. As I have gotten older, he has shared many stories of his time there, some sad, some happy, and some bitter. He told me that even though he lost multiple of his best friends, and his mom, during the war, he never held a grudge against the people on the other side. In the movie, Oum Walid, the head of the brothel, says that there is no East and West, only Beirut. This attitude was picked up by both sides after the war, and although some did hold grudges, most went back to living together in peace. Today, Lebanon may be a mess politically and economically, but the people still love each other more than ever. I was raised to say that I am a Phoenician, not an Arab, but also that above both of those things, I am Lebanese. The future is very uncertain for Lebanon, but no matter what happens, the people will stand strong.

TINAS, M. (2017). Revisiting Lebanese Civil War. Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, Special, 88-. 

Wakim, J. (2021). The Lebanese Civil War 1975-90: A confessional war, or terror of state directed by the mercantile political elite to subdue the middle and lower classes? Contemporary Arab Affairs, 14(3), 105–124. https://doi.org/10.1525/caa.2021.14.3.105