{"id":35156,"date":"2024-11-08T10:11:30","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T08:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=35156"},"modified":"2025-08-19T15:42:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:42:32","slug":"the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\/","title":{"rendered":"The Haunting Reality of Beirut, My City<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beirut, My City<\/em> is a 1982 documentary by Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab (1948-2019), filmed during the 1982 Israeli siege on Beirut. It\u2019s considered part of the Beirut Trilogy, which also includes Beirut, Never Again <\/em>(1976) and Letter from Beirut <\/em>(1978). The film\u2019s script is written in French by Lebanese actor, playwright, and director Roger Assaf. As I watched Beirut, My City<\/em> in Oakland a few months ago, I listened to the script and thought, \u201cThis is a poem!\u201d<\/p>\n

I was haunted by Assaf\u2019s words for weeks and decided I wanted to see them on the page and translate them. They were beautiful and heartbreaking, and I wanted them to exist for English readers. I contacted the Jocelyne Saab Association<\/a>, and they were generous enough to send me a pdf of the French script. It\u2019s funny that, as I was translating it, it never occurred to me to refer to the English subtitles. As far as I was concerned, I was translating a poem or a lyric essay. I hope this translation resonates with readers as much as the French did with me. Tragically, it feels as if Assaf wrote this today.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, as I translated from California (where I had moved less than three years ago) and watched the news about Lebanon and Palestine, I began writing letters to Roger. You can read the letters here<\/a>. \u2014Zeina Hashem Beck<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Roger Assaf<\/b><\/h4>\n

Translated from French by Zeina Hashem Beck<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There \u00a0 that\u2019s my house\u00a0 \u00a0 what remains of it
\n<\/span><\/i>and I can no longer bring myself to tell you about the others \u00a0 it\u2019s cynical \u00a0 but
\n<\/span><\/i>there you go\u00a0 \u00a0 here is my bedroom \u00a0 here we were preparing a film
\n<\/span><\/i>it was two floors\u00a0 \u00a0 ultimately it\u2019s not grave because
\n<\/span><\/i>it\u2019s nothing but walls after all \u00a0 \u00a0 and we all came out of it alive
\n<\/span><\/i>to think of the number of the dead in the past two days
\n<\/span><\/i>on the one hand because of Israeli bombardments
\n<\/span><\/i>because of internal fighting \u00a0 I don\u2019t know we wonder \u00a0 I ask myself questions
\n<\/span><\/i>the essential thing is to survive to live \u00a0 it\u2019s true that this house is tradition
\n<\/span><\/i>that\u00a0 \u00a0 it does something to my heart \u00a0 that it is\u00a0 \u00a0 150 years of history
\n<\/span><\/i>it is my identity \u00a0 <\/span><\/i>it\u2019s the same for everyone
\n<\/i><\/b>it\u2019s the identity of all the Lebanese who lose their houses their belongings
\n<\/span><\/i>\u00a0furthermore <\/span><\/i>when we don\u2019t know our points of reference<\/i><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/i>we no longer know who we are\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Jocelyne Saab, 1982, in <\/b>Beirut, My City<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[city sounds \/ walking in the dark \/ explosions]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

When did all of this begin? A gloomy Saturday or a dismal April, a few years ago. The war took its time, or rather it took our time. A slice of life, disappeared. So that, for many of us, between childhood and maturity, there is a missing word: the word youth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the dates are muddled. In the span of a moment, images collide and clash to acquire the form that memory will take when appearances dissipate.<\/span><\/p>\n

[shooting \/ warplanes \/ saxophone \/ shooting]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

There was a madman in the city: Abu Richeh. Beautiful, poisonous flower in a gangrene-struck city. When he was filmed, we didn\u2019t know he was a spy, a disguised Israeli military. We didn\u2019t know what Beirut was hiding, and neither did he nor those who placed him here.<\/span><\/p>\n

One always believes what one sees, and what one sees is always deceiving. The madman wasn\u2019t a madman, and the city wasn\u2019t what she appeared to be. Beirut, brothel city, whore city, wicked stepmother city. That\u2019s how we perceived her before, that\u2019s how we spoke of her. The finance, the spying, the aggressive and destructive modernity, the most brazen political bribery, the market of trafficking and treason, all of this seemed to be Beirut. What didn\u2019t it take for the image to reverse, for the illusion to crumble, and for the stone to begin speaking its truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

[singing in Arabic: \u201cBeirut, city of history, without history. Your history, Beirut, is dying men.]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

When we were struck, when our families or our close ones were struck, we suddenly realized how intimate the besieged city was with death. Karim, the sweet and tender Karim, Karim the beneficent, killed by the war. Nothing resembles him less than the violence of his death. Today we understand to what extent his name belonged to him \u2014Karim means generous, and all of us who knew him had, at least, even in the worst of moments, a friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

[music \/ saxophone]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

All that is empty is full, that\u2019s what war is. The bombs create holes, voids, tombs, and life pours in, filling all the vacuums where death wanted to be definitive. Every place becomes a history. Every name becomes a memory.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mD4c4xPbKEQ\n
\n

Suddenly, one day, there was West Beirut. Beirut el-Gharbiyyeh, isolated in its box of fire, of iron and hate. And then there was what we called the other side, East Beirut, so close and yet so far, beyond the locks, behind which expressionless spectators could no longer see in the besieged city anything but a magma of horror and atrocity, where life must have been impossible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the beginnings of the civil war in 1975, Beirut, divided in two, breathed, despite everything, through the passages that the violence of the conflicts hadn\u2019t completely severed yet. Until the day Sharon encircled East Beirut and imposed his verdict. Accused of coexisting with the Palestinians, the population of West Beirut was condemned. In which direction do we close the gates of the city? Who was the prisoner of whom? Who held the other at gunpoint? The one who, in West Beirut, deprived of electricity, of running water, of flour and fresh food, used leaking pipelines and connected his TV to a car battery to watch World Cup matches with his neighbors?\u00a0 Or the one who, in his armored tower, on the other side of the city, invisible to us, whose only language was a deluge of bombs of all calibers and a gigantic, deathly, and powerless machinery, rotted in his rage to defeat a city that defied him \u2013 the executioner reveals the beauty of his victims, and the city\u2019s truth gushed forth from all the wounds inflicted on her<\/span> living body.<\/span><\/p>\n

[water sounds \/ music and saxophone \/ planes \/ car honks \/ shooting \/\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The old gardener, in Arabic: this garden, I\u2019m the one who planted it
\n<\/span><\/i>Here, it was full of garbage, I alone removed it, no one helped me,
\n<\/span><\/i>plants are stronger than their bombs
\n<\/span><\/i>do you see them? \u00a0 there they are\u00a0 \u00a0 what can we do \u00a0 <\/span><\/i>the eye sees
\n<\/i><\/b>the hand can\u2019t grasp <\/i><\/b>\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m not scared anymore
\n<\/span><\/i>the planes are above\u00a0 \u00a0 and I\u2019m here\u00a0 \u00a0 let them bomb
\n<\/span><\/i>we\u2019re in the right, and that\u2019s all<\/span><\/i> that matters]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Too often we\u2019ve described the horror and devastation, too often we\u2019ve narrated the death that fell on us, that came from elsewhere. Ultimately, in wars, the images that we retain, that we like to spread, are those that reflect the enemy\u2019s presence, <\/span>his <\/span><\/i>war, <\/span>his <\/span><\/i>crimes, <\/span>his <\/span><\/i>images projected upon the city. All these images of death <\/span>accumulated <\/b>until we stopped seeing the men who clung to life with such passion that they birthed the city and gave her a soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

[the song \u201cBeirut\u201d plays]\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We said, \u201cI\u2019m from West Beirut\u201d with a tinge of pride and the conviction of having exposed the proportions of the Israeli army, of having forced it to display all its strength and thus reveal its powerlessness. And when we were asked, \u201cHow are you?\u201d we responded, sardonically, \u201cBaa\u2019dna \u2018aychine, still alive!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0[seaside waves \/ song \/ planes \/ shooting]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We said, \u201cI\u2019m from West Beirut.\u201d And for once we had a language and an attitude that surpassed the petty norms of small communities. We could be Shiite or Christian, Jewish or Sunni, Lebanese or Palestinian \u2014 truly, faithfully. While being, at the same time and in the same space, someone from West Beirut. Where a possible society was being shaped. One with a certain Arab dream \u2014 unfulfilled desires of a condemned people. Beirut, agonizing, had the traits of utopia. Being Lebanese and Arab, it was possible. Jewish and Palestinian, it existed. Muslim and progressive, it was done. Woman and leader, we had that. Anarchist and organized, this was common. But utopia has a high price, and we didn\u2019t know yet the bill would be diabolically increased.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[From the Qur\u2019an: \u201cSay, O Prophet, \u201cI seek refuge in the Lord of humankind, the Master of humankind, the God of humankind, from the evil of the lurking whisperer \u2014<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

who whispers into the hearts of humankind \u2014 from among jinn and humankind.\u201d]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

How long the road is between what\u2019s felt and what\u2019s said, between what\u2019s said and what\u2019s perceived. Words labor, run out of breath. The unspeakable is more powerful. When grief becomes spectacle, we\u2019ve already betrayed it. We are already tourists in the country of suffering. <\/span>The measure of compassion isn\u2019t that of pain. And faced with the rubble of a bombarded building, an undefinable distance separates those who are moved<\/span> by what they see and those who weep for what they no longer see.<\/span><\/p>\n

[planes \/ music \/ horses galloping \/ racecourse crowd]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

But destiny stored for us the reverse of an image we thought we\u2019d already encountered. All the corners and recesses within the reach of bullets or bombs bore the marks of the multiple wars we\u2019d been through. The space of images has only two dimensions. One must strike much deeper to uproot them. As the Arab expression goes, one must act as if they never existed. They must be undone. The images must be terrorized so that men choose to forget them. And yet, there are images I\u2019ve seen so often, resembling images I\u2019ve seen again and again, that it seems to me it\u2019s them who look at me, it\u2019s them who recognize me.<\/span><\/p>\n

The streets and walls of Beirut\u2019s ravaged neighborhoods, walls that no longer shelter anyone, spread across streets that lead nowhere. <\/span>Indistinct message <\/span>for the vagrant here. Neither path nor residence, all is denied them. The proof is the emptiness of their non-existence. And when the bulldozers perfect their work, we\u2019ll be able to say, \u201cHere? There was nothing!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[jazz music]\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The ruins of Fakhani, Sabra, and Chatila offered visitors what appeared to be the ultimate devastation of an ending war. And we couldn\u2019t yet see in them the setting of a massacre on hold. A little more time and the picture would be complete. I dare not say finished, for I might be wrong. Quickly, one must defeat consciences and present them with fresh images to keep them completely oblivious. The mutilated cadavers, the gouged-out eyes, the scalped skulls, the bodies disemboweled with axes, will horrify the world and force more palatable doses of voyeurism. But how would this carnage be different from previous ones? And why is the tax on horror selective? Thus the opinion is formed, in which an aerial bombardment is perhaps criminal but not repulsive. Murder with bombs isn\u2019t a barbarian and inhumane massacre. <\/span>The nuance is technical and the spectacle is perceived differently.<\/span><\/p>\n

I understand very well why the thousands of prisoners captured by Israel can\u2019t be seen. The tortures they\u2019re subjected to are known, reported, confirmed. It doesn\u2019t matter that they\u2019re recounted, as long as they\u2019re not viewed. The blindfolds placed on prisoners\u2019 eyes, an all too familiar inhumanity, are but a reflection of our own inability to see. Bound by the visible, public opinion always chooses to repress its gaze. And on the other side, on the side of the victims, the trial doesn\u2019t lie in the shocking instant, but in the duration, in the daily price of a challenge that\u2019s too human, and thus too disproportionate. The price of utopia.<\/span><\/p>\n

[singing upon the departure of Palestinians]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Now that West Beirut had survived, now that its story had ended, its memory needed to be domesticated. Armed Palestinians had atomized powers and allowed even the most unreasonable to hope, but West Beirut wouldn\u2019t be able to hold on to this nostalgia with impunity. Nothing is more dangerous than a people that has perceived its desires.<\/span> In the interweaving of the sordid and the sublime which was our story with the Palestinians, what emerged again was nostalgia, the nostalgia of desires that were, at times, experienced. The Fedayin\u2019s farewell, with its epic air, the immense liturgy in honor of their departure, was but an expression of our recognition. It was a re-cognition. The thousands of dead, the months of siege and deprivation, the terrifying panoply of bombardments, phosphorus, implosion, fragmentation \u2014 we had suffered, accepted, and paid everything, in our flesh and our stones, to protect an image of ourselves we thought we deserved, and to not see an Israeli tank in the streets of our gutted city. In the end, we had renounced everything but that. But it was wishing for too much. The dead weren\u2019t dead enough, the living too intact and their gazes too full. These men and women in the port of Beirut thought that their story was done, that their role ended here, and that this was a sad ending, but at least now came the time for rest. They were mistaken. How many among them returned to their modest residences in Sabra and Chatila? A lot for sure. It was them who were traveling further.<\/span><\/p>\n

[<\/i>gun salutes <\/i>\/ singing \/ <\/i>ululation<\/i>]<\/i><\/p>\n

[jazz music]<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Today, I\u2019m in Paris, my eyes open on an immense emptiness. So, from time to time, to have a face, to have a gaze, I close my eyes and I remember.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roger Assaf’s poetic script for Jocelyne Saab’s 1982 film about the siege of Beirut puts one in mind of today’s stark reality in Lebanon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":729,"featured_media":35168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,17,51],"tags":[323,2404,4013,1032,1784],"article-category":[4657],"article-type":[],"coauthors":[3998,3997],"class_list":["post-35156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beirut","category-film","category-tmr-weekly","tag-beirut","tag-israeli-invasion","tag-jocelyne-saab","tag-lebanon","tag-war","article-category-weekly"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Haunting Reality of Beirut, My City - The Markaz Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Roger Assaf's poetic script for Jocelyne Saab's 1982 film about the siege of Beirut puts one in mind of today's stark reality in Lebanon.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Haunting Reality of Beirut, My City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Roger Assaf's poetic script for Jocelyne Saab's 1982 film about the siege of Beirut puts one in mind of today's stark reality in Lebanon.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Markaz Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-11-08T08:11:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-19T13:42:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Destroyed-Part-of-West-Beirut-due-to-Israeli-Bombing-1982-courtesy-don-mccullin.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"895\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Roger Assaf, Zeina Hashem Beck\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Roger Assaf, Zeina Hashem Beck\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Roger Assaf\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/dab7596fac671814effecc0bb759756a\"},\"headline\":\"The Haunting Reality of Beirut, My City\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-11-08T08:11:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-19T13:42:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2321,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/11\\\/Destroyed-Part-of-West-Beirut-due-to-Israeli-Bombing-1982-courtesy-don-mccullin.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Beirut\",\"Israeli invasion\",\"Jocelyne Saab\",\"Lebanon\",\"war\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Beirut\",\"Film\",\"Weekly\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/the-haunting-reality-of-beirut-my-city\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Haunting Reality of Beirut, My City - 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