The Lebanese can’t stop talking about their belle epoque, and the worse their conditions become- and they are doing so on a daily basis- the more they use this term.
Did Lebanon indeed have a belle epoque before the economic crisis accompanied by Hezbollah’s arms?
The term was coined to refer to the mass development witnessed in Europe between the French Prussian war of 1870-71 and the First World War. At the time, an optimistic view of history and progress prevailed, and its manifestations came one after the other; Europe’s inhabitants seemed incomparably better off and freer, as financial and cultural achievements followed in unprecedentedly quick succession.
This was a marvelous period in European history, and, in a sense, in world history. Culture, music, art and literature flourished, while similar economic growth had not been seen since thirteenth-century China. As a result, Europeans’ life expectancy rose to amazing extents for the first time, and the world became, with this initial globalization, an extremely intertwined place in which canals and bridges were built through seas, mountains were conquered, and deserts were cut up.
Population movements saw 2.5 million Italians live in Argentina, mass immigration also emerged in the United States and Britain, and investment abroad spiked, with 55 percent of all British capital invested outside the empire, primarily in North America but also in Latin America and Europe. The era was also one of technological innovations demanded by the industrial revolutions: the telephone, telegraph, electric motor, and modern steel and chemical industries were born.
The past seemed to be dying without nostalgia or tears being shed.
If this is what is meant by the belle epoque, a time that was crucial to shaping our modern world, it would be comical to mention any other belle epoque, be it Lebanese or non-Lebanese.
We need to lower our expectations then. In this very contained and relative sense, yes, we can discuss a belle epoque in Lebanon and many other Arab countries that flourished during this time according to five modest criteria.
First, we have options and their role, that is, for human endeavors to be open and available, not impeded by an iron grip, ideological taboos, or a “central cause” that we must drag history toward by the neck. The “beauty,” here, is in the refusal to shut down history, which is the highest stage of “ugliness”.
The second criterion is freedom of speech and assembly, be it partisan, syndical, or otherwise, whereby individuals and communities can assert their presence and exist independently of the state or any enforced “sacred” ideology.
As for the third criterion, it is the capacity to take gradual steps forward, that is, for there to be a path that is not obliterated by its inherent interruptions. In 1958, for example, a mini-civil war broke out in Lebanon. However, this didn’t prevent the country from witnessing ten consecutive years of stability.
As for the fourth, it is the strength of our links and openness to the world, precisely and specifically, the region that produced that original “belle epoque” and contributed most to our modernity.
Finally, economic prosperity. Theories and interpretations may diverge wildly, but the fact that all preceding eras were “more beautiful” than today’s “ugliness” in Lebanon is beyond dispute.
On the two sides of this debate, we fall on two arguments that are difficult to digest: In refuting the idea of “belle epoque” in Lebanon, the first argument resorts to what resembles a determinism that rules out all alternative possibilities. This view argues: the state of affairs we currently find ourselves in is rooted in this same past. Without denying that seeds of the explosion have always been at the heart of Lebanon’s configuration, the fact remains that these seeds reaping what they had reaped was neither necessary nor inevitable.
Advocating this argument of inevitability absolves armed resistance movements, local militias, the years of Syrian tutelage, and all the hindrances to state-building that came with them of their responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in. Applying this deterministic argument to some other Arab countries (Iraq, Syria...) absolves the military coups and the regimes they established of their responsibility for what happened.
Contending that there had indeed been a “belle epoque,” the counterargument lowers the level of discussion and boils it down to a touristic level: Mireille Mathieu sang in Baalbek, Charles Aznavour sang in Byblos, our handsome President of the Republic drove a Bentley, the first lady was as elegant as Farah Diba or Imelda Marcos, the foreign minister spoke fluent French and English and applied protocol... This argument trivializes the discussion, is riddled with class and perhaps sectarian biases, and has the propensity to veer toward racism. These questions are beside the point; the issue is far more serious.
Yes, we had a “belle epoque” to our abilities, but we, unfortunately, didn’t have the ability to safeguard it.
