An ice cream cone in Beirut Opinion

Although Israeli forces have mainly attacked Hezbollah strongholds in the southern outskirts of Beirut, bombs have begun to reach the city center. History begins to note the ghostly presence that the streets that were previously filled with people, cars and motorcycles, the hubbub of shops, the noise of life now begins to take on. The attacks of planes, the explosion of bombs, the sirens of ambulances and the screams of horror, despair and helplessness of people who are in shock to see how their lives are being destroyed and their relatives and friends are dying, the neighbors are slowly falling silent. Are happening and a time will come when silence will cover everything. Debris will remain, metal branches supporting the roofs of houses, some dust will remain hanging in the atmosphere. And silence.

A few months after the end of the long war that began in 1975 and which destroyed Lebanon, killing 120,000 to 150,000 people, those responsible for the Editions du Cyprus in Bordeaux sent six photographers to collect their images. Decided to send to the center of Beirut. what happened there. At different times in November and December 1991, Gabriele Basilico, Raymond Depardon, Fouad Elkouri, René Bury, Joseph Koudelka and Robert Frank descended on the city centre, each with his own style and his own particular approach.

Bayouth Center Ville This is a book that, from the very first moment, produces that intimate tear that is not very different from the tears one experiences every day and for months at a time, looking at the images coming from Ukraine or Gaza, now Lebanon. The difference is that all the stories in the book center around an important capital of a Middle Eastern country, and they try to create a story at the end of a disaster; Maybe that’s why they are even more painful. The editors recall that the center of Beirut was adopting its distinctive characteristics especially since the second half of the 19th century, during the Ottoman Empire, and during the first half of the 20th century, during the French Mandate. The heart of the city was teeming with life and in the photographs of those six great masters its streets are empty – only a handful of them are visible – and their houses and buildings completely destroyed. And you breathe in that tremendous silence.

According to Edward W. Said, one of the most prominent analysts of Palestinian questionThis is the title of one of his books—, in inappropriate (debate), his memoirs, that during the years he lived as a child with his family in a mountain village in Lebanon, his father would take him to Beirut from time to time to do some shopping and withdraw money from the bank Were. He recalls, “We usually stopped at the Automatic Café so I could quickly grab an ice cream cone before continuing on my way.”

destruction memory, Robert Frank writes about one of his images from 1991 and explains that he found ruins, the emptiness of what once was pride

Postcards that remind of old times. Everything was destroyed, scattered, there was silence. As if the memory of that was of no use, Israel bombs Beirut again, and the only thing left to do in the face of such barbarity is to pick up the ice cream cone that a child ate years ago and scream as Went towards the heights and bombs. Which contains the fragility and tremendous power of life.