Don't mention the War

Beirut is going to be the featured city in the next issue of a well known airline’s in-flight magazine.

I know that because they sent me an email asking me if I’d say a few words about what it’s like doing business in Beirut. Why me? Well in another incarnation I chair an organization called the British Lebanese Business Group – catchy name eh – you can find it on facebook or google. We arranged a ’phone conversation and, when we spoke, I rambled on for a bit about how well educated the workforce is, the legendary Lebanese language skills, the importance of personal relationships and then came the question: “what do we say about the war?”

Perhaps your first reaction is the same as mine – which war? There’ve been a lot, the wacky and obscure War of Jenkins’ ear, a couple of World Wars and the romantically named, but as usual violent and bloody, Wars of the Roses. Now war is not a funny subject. There’s a line in the film “In the Loop” delivered with feeling by James Gandolfino’s wonderfully over the top three star General – “When you’ve been to war once, you never want to go back again. It’s like France” – which is perhaps as good a sound bite as you’re ever going to get on the subject. Mind you, having lived in Paris for some time, I profoundly disagree with the second part of the sentiment.

A moment’s reflection suggests two candidates in relation to Lebanon, the hostilities in 2006 with her Southern neighbour, Israel-and-the-occupied-territories, and the civil war, which began thirty-five years ago this week. Thirty-five years ago, and yet that’s the one. Why? I have a theory. It was the first war when modern communications were on hand to record every horrible moment. Yes, Pathe News was going strong during World War II, but their newsreels were shown after the fact and were heavily edited to be uplifting for the British public. The reality of the Korean War has been demolished by the fantasy of M.A.S.H. But during the Lebanese civil war, the internet began its charge to universality and CNN was founded, both media bringing direct news as it happened into your living room, with all the power of moving pictures in full colour. So, although there have been over thirty wars actively conducted in the last decade (google “wars of the 21st century” if you don’t believe me) and the Lebanese civil war doesn’t make the cut of top twenty 20th century conflicts (google again), it’s the first one we saw live on TV and so remember. There is nothing quite like your first time.

So what do we say about the war? The obvious answer is “don’t mention the war” but John Cleese destroyed that possibility with a “Fawlty Towers” episode – made nearly forty years ago as an hilariously excruciating study into the humour of embarrassment. But it wouldn’t work anyway, as, if my theory is correct, we have to accept the fact that the Lebanese civil war lives on as a kind of world group sub-conscious memory - I have heard a mum address her child thus “go and tidy your room, it looks like Beirut”. So, in the end let’s settle for something like “one thing unites the Lebanese, and that’s a desire to look forward to the future and not to dwell on events of over twenty years ago”.

I’m going to have to start reading in-flight magazines to see if that hopeful, but rather stuffy and indigestible, phrase made the cut. Somehow, I doubt it.