Lebanon runs on fresh air and the sediment of former glory

These days it is cheaper to live in provincial Europe than it is to live in filthy Beirut, where no one takes responsibility for their own actions

Westerners so often are shocked by what they perceive to be a shallowness amongst Arabs. We cannot believe how tough people can be, whether it is how harsh they are to Syrian refugees, or to women, animals, or just one another within families. Sometimes in Lebanon the ignorance of people takes my breath away. Like the man in my own street who keeps four huge car tyres on the pavement - to be used for reserving his own parking space on the street - which block the entire sidewalk forcing old people to walk in the street to pass.
And in the street, you might as well put a single round in your pistol and play Russian roulette, as the hooliganism on the road is so out of control and incomprehensible that you often think it is part of a banal movie rather than real life. Do the Lebanese really think it's cool to drive like in a motor sport rally down side streets of crowded neighbourhoods, forcing people to jump out of the way to save their own lives? Recently I came close to losing my life by one such incident. The Horror. The horror of the Lebanese when they get behind the wheel of a car.
To walk anywhere in Beirut is to take your life into your own hands as even in upmarket 'Ashrafieh' where most locals are busting blood vessels carrying out some 24-hour marathon impersonation of the French, the third world rules apply for the pavement. If you have the nerve to take possession of it, then citizens of this pseudo society can go to hell and walk in the street.
But the lack of accountability shocks me the most. I'm often asked about what is the huge difference between the West and Lebanon (yes, the Lebanese still cling to this delusion that such comparisons are entirely valid - rather than benchmarking this tiny country against Syria or Egypt). It's not the lawless, safety-net free virtual society which we think of when reading say, An Area of Darkness by V. S. Naipaul; there are no squatting children here or herds of hundreds of limbless, infected walking dead tugging on your sleeves. No, the horror of Lebanon is a concentrated ailment of the entire region: no one accepts to take responsibility for their own actions.
This is what a foreigner barely understands about the cost of living here. These days it is cheaper to live in provincial Europe than it is to live in filthy Beirut as the economy here slowly meanders its way down to new depths of debt and despair; Lebanon is literally a country running on fresh air and the sediment of former glory. There is just nothing left in the tank. Most foreigners think they can handle that. But when you have a car accident with a Lebanese who has just rammed his vehicle into the back of yours - because he was writing an important message to his habibti on whatsapp and was not concentrating on the road - then you will see the real horror of third world glory. He will argue with you all day long. If you're lucky. If you're unlucky he will telephone his political thugs, young men on mopeds with big biceps and double stack pistols sticking out of the back of their ill-fitting Chinese jeans, to convince you that the accident was not only entirely your fault, but now you have to pay for his damaged car. But don't worry. He has a cousin who owns a 'carrosserie' who will do a fine job restoring his 1988 Mercedes tank to its former glory - in fact making it new again - and all will be fine.
Ah, the police have arrived. Thank God. What? You don't seem to be listening, officer. My car has all the papers in order and I have a valid driving licence and insurance. Your friend here hasn't taken his car to the 'control technique' for 15 years and he has no insurance. And he ran into the back of mine through not driving correctly. And what about all these guns?
The smile. That grin from the policeman in Lebanon should be photographed and handed to all potential foreign investors and tourists coming here. It's the smile which says "I can't do anything. I'm so sorry, but these people are...(shrugs)".
And so total lack of accountability in what we in the West consider to be the rudimentary travails of everyday life are replaced by a new order. The network. Who you are linked to here in Lebanon affects whether the police can charge you for anything - even a humble parking ticket - and can protect you against committing even the most ghastly crime.
It's hilarious to be snared by the police roadside checks here for motorcyclists who ride with no helmet. A basic ploy to put money in the state coffers when things get tough. Out of 11 arrested (including myself), we are asked to follow the police officer on his motorcycle to the police compound. Farcically, on the way to the police compound, the officer manages to break only about half a dozen traffic offences, one of which involved going down a street in the wrong direction which we all had to dutifully follow. There, a theatre is played out when the big man comes out of his office. Of the 11 arrested, seven have handed him telephones to talk to someone who convinces him to let the offender and his machine go without charge. The remaining four have to pay the fine as they have no one in the army, police, civil service or in politics who can make their fines magically go away by simply saying "eeeh habibi....you know Abdullah is working for ....".
This is the dark side of Lebanon. It's not the filth, the corruption, the worry of being taken to a hospital and zealous money-grabbing surgeons opening you up to remove a vital organ when all you needed was a chest extra. Or the landlady who sends her son-in-law to negotiate a settlement on breaking the rental agreement, who arrives with a Russian pistol on his hip (which happened to me). Or even The State Within the State of Hezbollah which is there alright.
No, the hell of Lebanon is the hidden taxes of being the victim who is vulnerable to a banal legal system, a new apparatus has taken over, which is the network which allows individuals total immunity from responsibility either via a brotherhood or through old fashioned gangster-type kinships. For the Lebanese who will sign up to neither, this group is often accused of being deluded about the realities of where they are, but that doesn't stop them demonstrating in downtown Beirut and shouting into megaphones, aspiring to cherish values found in France or the UK.
And for the westerners who bemoan the lack of values which were once ubiquitous in the 1960s sepia prints of a bygone era in Beirut, Cairo or even Casablanca, we have lost the moral ground and should just shut up. The bombing which the Trump administration is responsible for both in Yemen and in Iraq (Mosul) is shameful. Entire families wiped out because of an obsession which has no end game and no logic except to fill newspapers which no one reads. The West lost its moral footing when last week hundreds of trapped civilians in Mosul were slaughtered all in the laughable name of restoring democracy and human rights. Give me the Lebanese policeman anytime. It's all we can do now is give the Arabs that helpless smile.
- Martin Jay recently won the UN's prestigious Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize (UNCA) in New York in 2016, for his journalism work in the Middle East. He is based in Beirut and can be followed at @MartinRJay