3. Politics and Public Space (original) (raw)

2009, Rutgers University Press eBooks

Th e Green Line, you know, it still exists in people's minds. " When Mounir, a recent university graduate, spoke about the Green Line, which divided Beirut into a predominantly Muslim West and mainly Christian East during the long war (1975-1990), he drew att ention to the fact that the spatial repercussions of the war, now more than twenty years in the past, endure. Th e confl ict played out in public space and created a polarized city in which neighborhoods that were identifi ed with particular sectarian groups carried assumed affi liation with certain political parties and ideologies. In this chapter, I explore how, in the 2004-2006 period of renewed political confl ict and violence, ideas about and practices of mobility were shaped by-and also shaped-this fractious political geography. Here, I aim to present a picture of what residents' uses of the city can tell us about the workings of political sectarianism in the city. 1 Like other divided cities, Beirut's spatial polarization has been connected with issues concerning the very legitimacy of political structures and the struggle over access to governance and state institutions. 2 In one sense, this characterization aptly describes the events of the 2004-2006 period, when struggles between the two main political camps, the U.S.backed anti-Syrian March 14th alliance and the Iranian-backed pro-Syrian March 8th coalition, involved competition for power and infl uence both within and outside the government by, for instance, gaining seats in parliament and expanding social-welfare institutions. 3