Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

the961.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 258 posts

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#71

Post by justinzollars »

rayiner wrote: post #3

Lots of places in the Middle East were more European like this before the colonial influences weakened and the Muslim majority populations got back more power over their own countries. Egypt and Iran are similar. The nostalgia is somewhat uncomfortable because in some respects things were better because they were better, but in others it’s the perception of things being better because they’re more relatable to Europe…

What a limited view. Consider Tyre, very close to Beirut. Before Muslim it was Phoenician, Hittite, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite, Persian, Macedonian, Israeli, English, Ottoman, Roman, and now Lebanon. Its had both Eastern and Western Influence (since Alexander). Remember Alexander predates the existence of Islam and Christianity - certainly colonialism. At the time of Beirut's founding its religion was following a god named Baal and Astarte.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#72

Post by _shadi »

VictorPath wrote: post #22
rayiner wrote: post #3

Lots of places in the Middle East were more European like this before the colonial influences weakened and the Muslim majority populations got back more power over their own countries. Egypt and Iran are similar. The nostalgia is somewhat uncomfortable because in some respects things were better because they were better, but in others it’s the perception of things being better because they’re more relatable to Europe…

> Egypt and Iran are similar Mossadegh wanted a secular independent Iran, England empowered the mullahs and worked for decades to destroy the secular left in Iran (along with the US). Eventually even the mullahs and bazaari turned against western colonialism. The west also worked against Nasser's secular pan-Arab socialism, including the French/English invasion of the Suez.

related: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/14/secret-british...

The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders that the UK saw as threats to its interests

The campaign also sought to mobilise Muslims against Moscow, promoting greater religious conservatism and radical ideas. To appear authentic, documents encouraged hatred of Israel.

Recently declassified British government documents reveal hundreds of extensive and costly operations.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#73

Post by skippyboxedhero »

literallyWTF wrote: post #68
pjc50 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracies need strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches. Yes, absolutely, but they also depend on a strong civil society beyond government. You need a media that's interested in and capable of investigative reporting, a layer of trade unions and professional associations, and a social layer that integrates people. The units larger than extended family and smaller than the country. And t…

You need people who believe their government is legitimate and that the mechanism of voting is valid. You don’t see that anymore in America anymore for example, republicans across the nation believe that if there candidate loses, it must be voter fraud by either by one scheme or another. Shit, Trump himself still claims that he won the previous election.

2016 forgotten already.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#74

Post by skippyboxedhero »

nemesisj wrote: post #4

I follow the referenced instagram account and I actually find it depressing. I've probably visited Beirut 20+ times over the last 7 years. Last visit was summer of 2019, so haven't been since COVID. My company has an office there. It's one of my favorite cities in the world. It's also one of the most heartbreaking situations in economic and humanitarian terms. The country has experienced one of the worst currency cri…

100 years? It was basically a first-world country 50 years ago. The decline in living standards in Lebanon is one of the largest ever (Argentina probably the biggest, Venezuela is the other big one, Lebanon is somewhere around Venezuela).

Countries can come back (the country that was Austro-Hungary, Slovakia has a city with one of the highest GDP per capita in Europe after massive repeated collapses), but there is (at least in the West) a very concerted effort not to call this situation like it is. It is obvious what happened, and now people say it is unsolvable when it has clearly been engineered to happen this way (blaming colonialism, too much diversity, anything but what it is).

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#75

Post by loonster »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #57
martincmartin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country is in complete deadlock politically - all of the warlords from the civil war just became politicians and then systematically looted the country. I always wonder why many democracies devolve into politicians just looting the government, whereas others become successful and relatively less corrupt.

> I always wonder why many democracies devolve into politicians just looting I am very concerned that US/UK appear to be decolving for the last 10 years. The standards of acceptable behaviour from politicians have definately gone down.

May just be more obvious. Some of the scammers look to have been doing it for decades.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#76

Post by Theodores »

babarock wrote: post #65
guykdm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Lebanese" is a modern invention. Lebanon is a contrived post colonial state with no historical foundations. Those most usually fail horribly.

As a Lebanese, I find what you're saying both slightly offensive and slightly true. Lebanon, as a culture distinct from other middle easterners has existed for a very long time. Lebanon as an independent state has been invented in 1920, however there were multiple previous attempts historically to get independance. We had high levels of autonomy under the Ottoman rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lebanon_Muta…

I think that there are many national identities that are similar. Poland is an example.

Regarding the article, before and after pictures of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria to name a few places are the same.

Prosperous sovereign nations outside Western Europe and North America are bad for business.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#77

Post by loonster »

literallyWTF wrote: post #68
pjc50 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracies need strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches. Yes, absolutely, but they also depend on a strong civil society beyond government. You need a media that's interested in and capable of investigative reporting, a layer of trade unions and professional associations, and a social layer that integrates people. The units larger than extended family and smaller than the country. And t…

You need people who believe their government is legitimate and that the mechanism of voting is valid. You don’t see that anymore in America anymore for example, republicans across the nation believe that if there candidate loses, it must be voter fraud by either by one scheme or another. Shit, Trump himself still claims that he won the previous election.

There was obvious voter fraud in the 2020 election.

The only question that should be disputed is if it was enough to sway the election.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#78

Post by kamaal »

eldaisfish wrote: post #61
guykdm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Lebanese" is a modern invention. Lebanon is a contrived post colonial state with no historical foundations. Those most usually fail horribly.

One could make the same argument for a country like India. There is no "India" in the sense of an ethno-linguisic grouping. India is more akin to the European Union but even more diverse. The Indian state has survived for seventy five years now. Just as the French and British dismembered the Ottoman empire to create modern Lebanon, so too did the British dismember the Indian empire to create India and Pakistan.

This argument can be made for any country on earth.

Pick up a globe, close your eyes and randomly put your finger anywhere and you will see the point under question was under different (political)boundaries every 300 years or so.

Boundaries of any country are just limits to which a certain political administration extends its powers to. They keep changing for various reasons, every few decades.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#79

Post by saiya-jin »

the_only_law wrote: post #51
buscoquadnary wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep it's very easy to be tolerant whenever fears you. Remember the Mongols killed around 10% of the worlds population. The reason they could have tolerance is that you knew if you stepped one toe out of line the Mongols would destroy you, your family, rape the women, slaughter the town and everyone you knew, and then come back a few days later just to make sure they got everyone. This is like saying China is super to…

I didn’t say it was great, but if I had to be stuck under vicious authoritarian rule, I’d rather one that will tolerate my culture and religion as long as my loyalty is there, which is not what China seems to be doing. Shit the Mongols themselves ruled over the Uyghurs (though admittedly I’m not quite sure whether medieval Uyghurs and modern Uyghurs are the same people) and many were in high ranking court positions,…

Well, they did kill left and right during their conquests, sometimes even literally exterminated whole cities that surrendered to them without fight. Piling human heads, ears, penises and whatnot on very tall heaps. Chinese are currently fluffy cuddly kittens compared to mongol brutality. When they will kill half of uyghur in most gruesome way and rape the rest then we can start comparing.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#80

Post by daveslash »

loonster wrote: post #75
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always wonder why many democracies devolve into politicians just looting I am very concerned that US/UK appear to be decolving for the last 10 years. The standards of acceptable behaviour from politicians have definately gone down.

May just be more obvious. Some of the scammers look to have been doing it for decades.

True. But the politicians who are scammers (not all are) seem to be much more brazen about it. And I can't help but feel that the public failing to hold them accountable is exacerbating and accelerating the situation.
Post reply on HN