Being an urban subject is not an easy task, nor is it a definite one. The difficulty of resolving the reality that one is a subject is complicated enough as is. Who am I? What do I want to become? Where is my life taking me? The question of our solitude and the place of other people in it is mind boggling. But it is not limited to the theoretical frame. The implications of all these ideas and questions pour out into the political and into the social. We live as members of a community defined by relations that shape our understanding of solitude and that determine our interactions with one another. As each cultures reliance on the communal exaggerates and stretches the scope of one's understanding of the individual.
Jean-Luc Nancy places community at the center of his study of political dimensions. He identifies the importance of reconciling individuality with the communal and further recognizes that the places we inhabit make these relations possible. With the increased onslaught of a privatized world, we are emerging into times where individuality is taking precedent over the communal. This is further complicated in cultures that laud their traditions as being communally oriented, such as Arab cultures.
Community building, according to Nancy is a contradictory process. The places we inhabit foster the means for engaging in these contradictions and further reconciling the tensions that arise from them, while encouraging newer ways of interacting. I would add that as is the case in most post-colonial nations they can aggravate existing tensions. Which is why the importance of exploring and facilitating places of safe and positive communal interaction is so vital.
Harirism is a term commonly used to refer to the increased privatization of Beirut's urban space. The drive behind privatizing Beirut was to improve the economy by increasing investment in the country while increasing tourism. The danger is that now Beirut has very few places for public interaction and communal building. Furthermore, our communal boundaries and traditions are being modified to accommodate to the individualistic sentiments that come with privatization. Each sect is increasingly polarized from the others around issues of class, political action, international affairs, and money. Who is given access to what resources, why, how, and who is providing these resources, all become integral questions of concern aggravating our communal differences?
After a recent discussion about Solidere and Hizballah with a few friends of mine, I have some insight on the importance and devastation that comes with a lack of public places for relation building. One friend said "Beirut Souk is a high class imitation of a once popular market that was one of the main traits of Beirut", adding "the way it is done, and the shops that opened are meant to drive ordinary people out. The Souk of Beirut was like the one of Tripoli, every alley of it contains traders of one specialization like the jewelry makers, small merchants, and now there are no places for gathering anymore".
Gathering is the most important part of forging a community. Thus with the increased isolation of Beirut's spaces there is a dramatic form of stagnation being imposed by the very urban center. A stifling of the history, and a prevention of future mobility. Ras Beirut is becoming far to uniform, the presence of contradiction is vital to encouraging growth. There is further shame in the fact that communities outside of Ras Beirut are not integrating with the ones in Ras Beirut. One reason for this is because of the lack of places for public interaction.
I am not emphasizing the importance of nationalizing everything, nor I am necessarily promoting Socialism. But cities like London and Paris have public parks, public Museums, even Public Art Galleries. Where is this in Lebanon?
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