An introduction to Lebanon, perhaps the next front in a wider war

LEBANESE BOAST that theirs is a country where you can ski in the mountains and swim in the ocean on the same day. Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, was once so urbane that it was known as the Paris of the Middle East. Lebanese have in common an irreverent sense of humour. They love their country for these and other reasons but they have often not loved each other. Lebanon’s various religious sects, 18 of which are officially recognised, have long fought one another. Outside powers, including Israel, Syria, Iran and America, have exacerbated their conflicts. Lebanon’s sect-based power-sharing system has led to corruption and political paralysis. Governments based on it have mismanaged the economy. GDP is less than half what it was in 2019. In 2023 the central bank devalued the Lebanese pound by 90% against the dollar. Inflation exceeded 200% that year. Many Lebanese have left in recent years, joining an already-vast diaspora. About 5.5m people, including hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Palestinian refugees, remain in a country that is being dragged once again into the seemingly endless war between Israel and its neighbours. That would escalate a regional crisis that Western powers are desperate to contain. We recommend four books and a film on a fascinating and pivotal country.

Robert Fisk was among the most intrepid Western journalists to have covered the Middle East. In “Pity the Nation” he reports on Lebanon in the decade and a half from 1976, during a civil war involving Christian Maronites, various Muslim groups and, eventually, Druze. Outsiders made things worse. In 1976 Syrian troops came, invited in to defend the Maronites by Lebanon’s president, Suleiman Frangieh. Two years later Israel’s army invaded southern Lebanon in response to a raid by the Palestine Liberation Organisation from Lebanon that killed civilians. Fisk was on the scene in 1982 when Christian militias slaughtered more than 1,000 Palestinians at refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila as Israeli forces looked the other way. He describes the blackened bodies of babies and how millions of flies flew from corpse to reporter. All told, the war killed 150,000 people. But Fisk also writes about the love that the Lebanese have for their country, which he shared. He asks one woman why she remains in west Beirut, under constant threat of shelling. Because “it is the most beautiful place,” she replied.

“Jokes for the Gunmen”, a collection of 12 short stories, is packed with surreal tales and dark humour. All are set in an unnamed country, but the inspiration is clear. Mazen Maarouf, the author, was born in Beirut. His parents left the city in the late 1970s during the civil war, and Mr Maarouf ended up in Iceland. Many of the stories are told from the perspective of a young boy. In one a boy tries to sell his brother’s organs to buy a glass eye for his father. In another a soldier prowls the city obsessively searching for his cow. Tinged with sadness, the stories also elicit reluctant laughter. In “The Angel of Death” a nine-year-old boy decides to stop smiling and refuses throughout his life to develop a sense of humour. His straight-faced discourse strikes an old man as so funny that he laughs himself to death.

Andrew Arsan returned to Lebanon in 2005 after 15 years abroad. It was a time, the scholar recalls, of both discord and optimism. In that year a car bomb killed Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister who had opposed Syria’s decades-long occupation of Lebanon. Mr Arsan tracks the 13 eventful years that followed. Hariri’s death triggered the Cedar Revolution, an uprising that united Christians, Sunni Muslims and the Druze, which led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces and an election. But the government was a disappointment. Mr Arsan blames in part the power-sharing system instituted after Lebanon won independence from France in 1943. (The president is always a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the legislature a Shia Muslim.) His book shows how Lebanon’s turmoil affected the daily lives of Lebanese of all sects and classes and brings that story alive with vivid details, such as the labneh that Hariri had for breakfast on the day of his murder. In one memorable chapter Mr Arsan uses a stroll through Beirut to show how conflict and economic stress have changed the city’s geography: each district is largely defined both by class and by religion and has little to do with its neighbours.

“Caramel”, the debut film by Nadine Labaki, a Lebanese director, follows the lives of five women who work in a salon in Beirut, “Si Belle”. It was filmed before war broke out in 2006 between Israel and Hizbullah, an Iran-backed militia based in southern Lebanon. Caramel is a painful hair-removal technique that uses heated sugar, water and lemon juice. Many Middle Eastern women, including your correspondent, are familiar with it. One woman often carries out the procedure on another, often behind closed doors. The film depicts the relationships between the women as they support one another through life’s difficulties and joys. As with epilation, there are moments of discomfort. But there is an overriding sweetness and warmth to the film, which the director called an ode to “her Beirut”.

“The Rock of Tanios”, by Amin Maalouf, a journalist, tells the tale of a legendary figure who disappeared after sitting on a chair-shaped rock towards the end of his life. In this novel Mr Maalouf reimagines Tanios as a 19th-century figure, born out of wedlock to Lamia, a beauty, and the powerful village sheikh. When his legal father, Lamia’s husband, kills the sheikh’s rival, Tanios is forced to flee abroad. The murder is based on a real event, and the novel takes place during a real contest among the Ottoman empire, Egypt and other outsiders that played out in Lebanon, not the last time the country has been an arena for rivalry among external powers. It is Tanios, returned from exile, who tries to mediate among competing powers as chaos swirls around him. Mr Maalouf is as interested in Tanios’s character and his relationships as he is in history. Although the murder and the clash inspired the novel, which he wrote in French, he describes the rest as “impure fiction”.

Follow our coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas, in which Lebanon is also involved. Other coverage of the Middle East is available here. Read our explainers on Hizbullah and the Druze. 1843, our sister magazine, explains why you should not eat tabbouleh outside Lebanon.