Protect Lebanese Heritage

If you wish to become an APLH member, you need to be Lebanese, but these are the documents you also need to present:

1-filled membership in english or arabic (you can download it here)

2-a (cleared) sejell adli (judicial file)

3-a copy/scan of your ID or your ekhraj eid

4-a 120000LBP subscription fee. this fee will then be renewed yearly (100000 instead of 120000 LBP)

5-a CV to include in our archive

 

the APLH member will receive his/her laminated  membership card (renewable yearly) and a strictly limited edition APLH double pin as a welcome gift. The pins will be available as of end of this month and we will post their picture as soon as we receive our first shipment 🙂

 

Looking forward to have you on board.

 

APLH ][ APPL

 

The lebanese Ministry of Culture and the maritime ‘experts’ hired by Venus real estate and the Ministry of Culture argued the 4 meter wide slipways found on plot 1398 (the phoenician port) could never have fit a boat. Maybe they were thinking of the Titanic.

A basic online research produced the following Phoenician boat replica, with its 1/10 ratio of width versus length (meaning a 3 meter width would result in a 30 meter boat):

based on the following site, the average Phoenician ship is 20 meters in length.

this is supported by the following illustration (if you can use the men inside to give you an idea of the ship’s proportions):

Further, and based on the following picture of an actual Phoenician boat docked in Byblos, and using the Range Rover in the picture as a visual aid for proportion (such an SUV is 4.5 meter long), we can deduce that Phoenician boat never exceeded a 4 meter width and could very well have been hauled into a 4 meter slipway:

However, our debate is not at all whether the destroyed site on plot 1398 is or is not a port.

How can ‘experts’, ‘archeologists’ and ‘historians’ stand behind the building over such a unique and intriguing structure dating back millenia, is a mystery to me.

Lebanese Minister of Culture Gaby Layoun claimed to embody the new spirit of renewal and reform that would right the wrongs of Solidere. Solidere as we all know, committed the worst atrocities in post war Beirut; under the guise of rebuilding the Beirut center, it proceeded to do worse than the civil war actually did: Solidere disfigured Beirut and removed almost all traces of identity from the heart of Lebanon, turning it into a generic city with its standard high rises, most of them empty because most of them belonging to foreigners.

 

But I digress.

Layoun claimed he was against all the Solidere ‘philosophy’ (if we can call it that) and he was set, as a minister of culture, to return Beirut and Lebanon to its former cultural glory.

And we were quite happy with that.

Yesterday, under tacit permission from Layoun, a whole Phoenician port discovered on plot 1398, was bulldozed down to its last stone, by Venus Real Estate, to make way for 3 (beautiful and luxurious) towers no honest Lebanese can afford even if through some miracle, he got to save the needed money over several cumulative  lifetimes. The bulldozing happened after the APLH knew something fishy was going on at the port and organized a flash mob to get experts, archeologists and responsible lebanese citizens to stand behind a symbol of their identity, history and culture. Of course the experts never came. The archeologists were too scared for their jobs and reputation, to even dare to come. And the citizens were either busy burning tires somewhere, or slaving at their deskjobs, or busy hating the ‘other’ political party, or also, busy downloading the latest smartphone app… They were all busy. I understand them. There are priorities in life. There are bills to pay. Heritage doesnt pay the bills.

 

Well let me tell you what: Heritage DOES pay the bills. Only, you have to preserve it so that it translates into touristic revenue and a cultural treasure. If you preserve it, it will pay your bills. It will create jobs. It will keep you in your country. But I understand the lebanese wants to pay his/her bills NOW. To buy the SUV, like, RIGHT NOW… So yes, I understand you. There are priorities in life.

 

Back to Layoun. Who, let’s remind our readers, vowed to right the wrongs of Solidere. Well, Now that he did worse than Solidere, we at APLH, would like to congratulate him on this remarkable achievement. It’s an epic feat, to outdo Solidere… He will retort that this was a 2500 year old qarry! Not a port! We would tell him that, qarry, or port, this was public property. And you dont destroy public property. Then we would remind him that his protégé Dr Assad Seif, an archeologist himself, stated that this archeological find was of utmost importance and needed to be preserved.

 

Dear Lebanese people. What are you working for? your jobs, careers, and the time spent in traffic to earn a life, found a family or just to succeed in life, what is it for? What’s its context? the meetings, the projects, the competition,… To be a successful, happy lebanese? or just to be successful and happy? to paraphrase the Bible, what is it worth, to win all the world’s riches and to lose yourself?

You might tell me ‘I’m a citizen of the world!’. In that case, I’m sorry I wasted your time but it was nice knowing you. However, we are on 2 different wavelengths because you’re a citizen of the world while I admire the germans for their precision, the english for their authenticity, the japanese for their discipline, the scandinavians for their technology or the italians for their artistry. I celebrate true diversity and identity while you celebrate a generic, amorphous and unidentifiable NON-identity. I’ve picked my side, and hope to see you with us.

 

Tomorrow, Thursday at noon, in front of the ministry of culture, the APLH will demand the resignation (and trial) of the minister of culture, and the expropriation of Venus Real Estate. This is only possible through massive public turnout.

 

Josef Haddad

Secretary and co-founder ][ APLH

See you on Friday 22 of June, behind the monroe hotel, facing the VENUS site where the Phoenician port was discovered (and is scheduled to be bulldozed to accomodate 3 very nice and shiny towers no honest Lebanese can afford). Beirut, Lebanon.

At last…

when reasonable discussions fail the last resort is recourse to justice. The struggle has just begun: Today the hippodrome of wadi abou jmil, tomorrow the phoenician port and other

threatened landmarks. Read more about the decision freeze here.

 

We count on responsible Lebanese citizens to emulate what the APLH has just did and to have faith in their unity. We also Count on you to notify us wherever you see a heritage landmark that’s threatened (green parks, forests, buildings, archeological sites, sea shore, etc).

the APLH’s most recent activity in April 2012 was a court overturning of a decision by none other than the Ministry of Culture, a move no NGO tried before. Some call it temerity, we call it civic duty and taking matters in our own hands.

The Hippodrome case, highlighted by an APLH manifestation in march 24, 2012,

is about a decision form the ministry of culture to grant permission to build a private

residential complex on the premices of parcel 1370, where an important part of the hippodrome is located.

 

Being a public site and an archeological find of utmost importance (in a basic comparison, the hippodrome of Beirut still contains the ‘spina’, while the Circus Maximus in Rome, doesnt have a spina anymore, yet it’s still preserved by the Italian government. Here in Lebanon, having more elements essential to a Roman period hippodrome, apparently doesnt encourage the Lebanese government to preserve such an archeological gem.

 

 

the APLH’s legal move aims to keep archeological sites like the hippodrome, open to the public, protected from private projects, restored and integrated in a fitting urban setting

that suits their importance (adequate greenery, public parks).

 

the following article on fellow portal Libnanews gives a severe whipping to the few proponents of the theory of the irrelevence of the Phoenician Port discovered in the heart of Beirut.

This Thursday on Kalam el Nass, the Ministre of Culture Mr Gaby Layoun is expected to defend his theory affirmng the lack of importantce of the Phoenician Port (plot 1398)

and the Beirut Roman Hippodrome discovered in Wadi Abou Jmil (plot 1370). Archeologists, local and foreign are urged to call the program and voice their professional opinion.

the APLH is organizing an event to raise awareness over the imminent danger threatening the above sites. follow this link for more details and we count on your support!

any ideas? share them on “light lebanon” on facebook.