Parliament Building Stands as Monument to the Agony That Is Lebanon

If a single building could represent the agony of Lebanon, it would be that of its Parliament.

The grand old institution, where Christians and Muslims together proclaimed Lebanon’s independence from France 45 years ago, has like so much else in this ravaged country fallen victim to more than a decade of civil war.

A church-like, limestone structure that combines Gothic, Islamic and French architecture, the Parliament building is located in Beirut’s downtown sector on Nejmeh Square, an area of gutted, bullet-scarred buildings on the side of the divided capital dominated by Muslims and controlled by Syria.

Christian legislators, who live on the eastern side of the city, have long refused to meet in the building, fearing intimidation from their rivals if they cross over the so-called Green Line that divides the city.

Short of a Quorum

Thus, in September, members failed to assemble at the building for the election of a new president after the Christian majority rejected the venue, calling it a dangerous trap.

The war has prevented Parliament members from gathering in Nejmeh Square since 1976. A year earlier, rival Christian, Muslim and Palestinian factions began waging battles with sophisticated arms in the city center, splitting Lebanon along religious lines and starting the devastation of a city once called the Paris of the Middle East.

Since then, presidential elections have had to be held outside Beirut three times, and the National Assembly has infrequently assembled in a building called the Mansour mansion, located in a virtual no-man’s land along the Green Line.

Syria and its Lebanese Muslim allies, however, rejected the mansion as a site for choosing a new president to succeed Amin Gemayal, a Christian, whose term expired in September. With the Christians’ refusal to meet in Nejmeh Square, the country has been left without a leader, and the battle over venue has come to symbolize the country’s political stalemate.

The building has always been special to Lebanese. Speaker Hussein Husseini struck a sensitive chord recently when he called on the deputies to meet in the old Parliament building, “where the war started and where it must end.”

“When deputies can go down to the Parliament building and elect a new president, it means the country has been reunified and its heart will start throbbing again,” observed Takieddine Solh, 79, a former premier and deputy, who still wears the traditional wine-colored fez outside his home.

A trip to Nejmeh Square down Beirut’s deserted Rue des Banques, overgrown with weeds and greenery, reveals signs of the country’s past. The cracked minaret of Al Munzer mosque and the tower of the Capucins’ church frame the skyline to the north, monuments of the religious tolerance once practiced in Lebanon.

Shuttered airline offices, boutiques and banks with rusty, dangling signs line the streets. Creased, spooky alleys that in peaceful times thronged with hurried shoppers, eager entrepreneurs, peddlers and fruit-juice vendors are now choked with unsightly mounds of earth, lingering battlefront mementos.

The whirl of carefree crowds, the hooting horns of Beirut’s notorious taxi drivers and the melodious voices of tattoed fortunetellers in the square have been replaced by an eerie silence. In the neighborhoods surrounding the square, only laundry lines and the occasional clatter of pots reveal the presence of survivors of the war.

The Parliament chamber, built in 1936, is an amphitheater with wooden paneling, rose and egg-shell plaster walls. It has a dome-like ceiling and is lit by a shaft of light filtering through a huge, multicolored stained-glass window. Inside, unused microphones have fallen into disrepair and are out of order.

The fact that the stone structure still stands amid the ruins is a “symbol of Lebanon’s deep-rooted democratic spirit,” Solh said.

But Solh’s opinion is not shared by many other exasperated Lebanese, whose hopes for a new president have been frustrated and whose fears that the country may be forever divided are growing.

“Let them have this (parliamentary) session in the sea if they like, but let’s have it, on a ship, anywhere,” huffed Abdel Karim Rizk, 62, the night watchman at the vacant Banque Libano-Francaise near Parliament. A Lebanese nationalist, Naim Moghabghab, made history many years ago in the place where Rizk was standing, by shooting down a collaborator who tore down the Lebanese flag flying over the building.

Lebanon was established as a state in 1920, carved out of the Ottoman Empire under French mandate. Solh recalled Oct. 7, 1943, the historic day when his contemporaries amended the constitution, challenging France by eliminating its mandate powers.

Four days later, Lebanon’s first president, Bechara Khouri, his ministers and several deputies were dragged out of their homes and imprisoned. Deputies excluded from the dragnet defied a shoot-to-kill night curfew to pass on the news and rendezvous at Nejmeh Square.

A cordon of French-deployed Senegalese troops closed off the building but seven deputies sneaked in through the windows, mounted on the shoulders of rebellious citizens who stormed the square. The French arrests were protested to the world community and a new Christian-headed provisional government was named.

Today, the building, with arcaded marble corridors, pink colonnades and chiseled walls, may also be beyond the reach of Lebanese legislators, if for different reasons. Most of Lebanon’s Christians regard Syria as their modern-day occupier and are bent on resisting Syrian-imposed candidates, conditions or intimidation. Muslims are more receptive to a Syrian role, which they hope will win them a bigger share in a system that has traditionally favored Christians.

Thus the building stands empty, awaiting a political solution that would integrate it into the heart of Lebanese life once again.