« Blog yourself out of a job? | Main | From our sponsor: WVON and Marqui » Samantha Smoot on the Beirut BlastSamantha Smoot, former Executive Director of Texas Freedom Network now working on a project in Lebanon, sent this email yesterday – reprinted with permission. Sam didn't see, but felt, the Beirut explosion that killed Prime Minister Hariri. First, I'm okay. The NDI office is tucked away in apartment building in a central but obscure neighborhood, far from anything that would ever look like a target. (And unmarked, to boot.) We're at least a couple of miles from the Phoenicia Hotel where the bomb went off. But close enough to feel the bomb as much as hear it. Firecrackers go off here all the time, and it's not uncommon to hear gunshots, because everybody still has a gun from the war and people like to shoot them. So today, one of my coworkers thought there must be a nearby demolition site imploding a building, and another speculated that this was an Israeli plane breaking the sound barrier. Then we started getting calls. It took a while to realize the magnitude of what has happened—the size of the bomb and the fact that it had hit its intended target. The political implications are still rolling in like waves. Amidst rumors of looting and street closures, we shut the office early. My coworker Lila and I walked home together because we had heard that our neighborhood was closed off. (Mr. Hariri's home and office are nearby, and his body is at a hospital a block from my house.) The city's shopkeepers closed up in the early afternoon. I realized on the walk home just how many shops have metal doors that slide over their storefront. The others have metal grill work that covers their windows. Everything looked looter-proof to me. Later, I realized I was missing the point. Lila and I stopped at a fruit stand and saw our first pictures of what was happening. Our office has no television. Hell may be one crisis after another with no television to watch them on. These pictures were shocking. So much of Beirut is pitted from sniper fire that this gaping hole in the ground looks like it will swallow the city. The other violence seems to have been more human in scale. A couple of blocks before home, Lila and I crossed Hamra Street barely a block before a protest of angry, grieving men made its way past us, then retraced our route backwards. Hamra Street, a bustling shopping district, was dead quiet. Of course, I couldn't stand sitting at home alone watching television (never have I wanted to understand Arabic so badly!) So I decided to walk down to the bomb site and see for myself what this was. (Sorry, Mom.) Empty streets. Then I started noticing neat little piles of broken glass on the street. It wasn't until maybe the fourth one that I realized that Beirut was already cleaning up—and that this bomb had blown out residential windows 10 blocks away. Closer, the glass was not yet swept into neat piles. It was everywhere. Store fronts, restaurant windows, office windows, car windows, small business, big banks—all gave in to the gust. Finally I realized why the metal coverings for the storefronts—because here, glass is going to get broken. Lots of people at the site, very somber. I'm attaching a couple of photographs—the St. George Hotel, old and not even open, with the beautiful pink peaks of Mt. Lebanon in the background. The Phoenicia Intercontinental Hotel, probably Beirut's finest, is a block away from the site. But every one of its windows, and those of two adjacent hotels, was blown out by the blast. I wish I could send images of the people and the disbelief and shock on their faces. 
I'm back home, safe and in for the night. And trying to understand what this means for this country. Rafik Hariri was the muscle and the energy and the money behind Beirut's postwar redevelopment, and thus symbolized the country's hope for peace and prosperity. He was extremely wealthy and very, very well protected. There is a sense that 'if they could get him, they can get anyone they want.' 'They' being Syria, of course. About two weeks ago, the political rhetoric managed to surge even beyond its usual level of hyperbole and heat. A couple of government officials commented, 'they'll see what we can do' and 'we going to play tough now'. This, and I think the bomb today, are in response to the fact that Lebanon has, for the first time since its civil was, a critical mass of opposition political leaders calling for Syria's ouster. Hariri was the most important member of that group. Because of that, because of his sweeping economic presence in the city, and because of his popularity as a symbol of hope, they could not have chosen a better target if their aim was to destabilize the country. jon posted this at 1:05 PM |
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