Dec 27, 2013

When walking in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s main stronghold, one encounters scores of pictures of the party’s martyrs, their funerals and banners bearing slogans about the jihad in Syria. Checkpoints and security men are deployed everywhere, making the area feel like a large military garrison near the front. Everyone talks about the fighting and is braced for new developments amid the escalating sectarian crisis in Lebanon.

The lifestyle of the southern suburbs is quite different from that in other areas of Beirut. Poverty and economic problems are visible and widespread. Religious identity is manifested in architectural features and social customs that clearly set this area apart from the rest of Beirut. There are also clear linguistic and cultural elements that point to the rural origins of the majority of people living there, many of them having been displaced from their southern villages in the last decades of the 20th century by the Israeli occupation and economic deprivation.

Although religious identity is a dominant feature, few residents appear to be religious extremists. In fact, one senses the opposite — tolerance and respect for individualism and religious beliefs. Women are free to wear the veil and make other choices in dress. Christian families still live in the southern suburbs in an environment of full personal and religious freedoms.

Al-Monitor met with a number of Christian families to inquire about their situation. Some still remember how they were once the majority in the area, before years of internal warfare forced most of them to leave, turning those who remained into a minority among a Shiite majority. The Christians there are satisfied overall and said they feel no religious or social pressures or tensions. Hezbollah’s treatment of the Christians in Lebanon and Syria, especially when compared to that by the Salafists, has helped in bringing Lebanon’s Shiites and Christians closer in general.

Of course, religious tolerance in the southern suburbs does not mean that the area is a lack in cultural specificity. Unlike in the rest of Beirut, there are no liquor stores, bars or nightclubs in the area. There is an unwritten code to refrain from economic activity contrary to Islamic law. Thus, during holidays, many young people leave the area to go to the bars, discos and nightclubs of Jounieh, Hamra or other neighborhoods of Beirut.