a text from Samer FRANGIEH translated by Jens HANSSEN (2019-11-22)
– FIND THE ORIGINAL TEXT in Arab and the french transaltion below / POUR LA VERSION originale du text en arabe et la traduction franÇaise voir ci-dessous –
Like most of us who live in Beirut I usually use the word Lebanon to refer to Beirut. My Lebanese imagination was limited to Beirut, actually just to some of its neighbourhoods. The imagination has dwindled the more the patch of everyday life has shrunk. As for the other regions of the country, their existence in the imagination was mortgaged on their culinary specialities, or fixed by their particular roles or places. The regions were just entertaining annexes to our capital.
Our Lebanon narrowed day after day until the general disobedience came to widen our horizons again and returned us to our size, that is, to being a region among many other Lebanese regions. Suddenly Jall al-Deeb and Jubayl turned from roadsides on the way up north to places to stage disobedience. Behind the Autostrade there was a people waiting to rise up against the system – as well as against the stereotype of the Eastern quarters we have been peddling for years.