From Riots to Revolutions

The week began with some riots over here in the Arab world's smallest country (Lebanon) and now it is ending with a very large revolution in the Arab world's most populous country (Egypt).

This anti-Mubarak graffiti has been in our neighborhood for months. Hurray for the Lebanese version of freedom of speech!

Tuesday was officially called the "Day of Anger" by the Future Movement's leadership -- they are the ones led by former prime minister Saad Hairiri. What were they angry about? The day before, Parliament agreed on a new prime minister, the one nominated by Hezbollah. Some riots ensued on Tuesday, particularly up north in Tripoli, and of course protestors set tires on fire to block roads.

This picture was in the news a lot this week, taken Tuesday on the main road south of Beirut. For the record, we didn't see anything like this in our neighborhood.

The "Day of Anger" from our perspective seemed more like the day of eerily quiet nervousness. We did not see any riots in the streets -- we didn't see anybody in the streets. Nor did we see any burning tires. Wade thought that he could smell burnt tires, but that might have just been his imagination.

Instead, we woke up and went to work as usual, perhaps surprised that only two-thirds of the students showed up for school. As the day went on, more and more students were pulled from class, some out of a genuine fear that protests might spiral out of control, others just because they were bored with what seemed like a wasted day of school. By Wade's last class of the day, he only had 3 out of 20 students present.

While all of this seemed bizarre to foreigners like us, the anxiety amongst locals was much more pronounced. Our friends and colleagues who lived through the civil war in the 1980s seemed to be particularly edgy -- they understand how quickly "the situation" can escalate. Meanwhile, us foreigners have this whole naive curiosity about the whole thing.

Speaking of which, Wade started to feel cheated that he hadn't actually seen any of the protests on Tuesday. So he and a friend made an effort to seek it out on Wednesday. The Future Movement called on its supporters to gather at Rafik Hairiri's tomb that day at 6 pm -- and to continue to do so until Saad Hairiri was reappointed as Prime Minister. So Wade and his friend made the hike downtown to the tomb, expecting to witness a brewing revolution.

Was this the crowd that was supposed to keep Hairiri in power?

What they instead witnessed was a bit sad -- only a few hundred people, carrying flags inside a tent to escape the rain, perhaps trying too hard to seem angry. And some protestors were so young. Middle-school young. Up past your bedtime young. Which made their anger seem all the more disturbing. Why are you holding a flag and chanting "Saad-Saad-Saad!"? What do you know about politics? Shouldn't you be playing video games right now?

Maybe politically insignificant, but these folks never miss an opportunity to wave their militia's flags.

Don't they have homework to do?

The whole scene seemed remarkably tired, like the anger on Tuesday had run out of steam. Wade and his friend assumed that the real protest wouldn't begin for a few more hours. So they walked to a nearby bar in Gemayze for a few beers, expecting that when they returned they would see thousands of angry Hairiri supporters ready to burn tires and take on Hezbollah. At 9:30 pm, when they returned to the Hairiri mosque, they didn't see a single flag or protester. Traffic had returned to the streets. People had moved on, accepting Tuesday's change of government as legal and legitimate. That's been the theme of the week ever since. Hamdillah (that's Arabic for "thank God").

Wade and his friend's view sitting at the bar, equally as exciting as the pro-Hairiri protests fizzling out a few blocks away.

So on this side of the Mediterranean a pro-Western government was toppled using legitimate constitutional means. Meanwhile, on the Egyptian side of the Mediterranean, another pro-Western government seems ready to be toppled, but this time through popular revolt. These are interesting times to be in the Middle East.

The view looking southwest, towards Egypt.