Arabic → English transcript

Beirut’s southern suburb, the area that has today become a hideout for

illegal weapons and is being shelled by the Israeli army,

was once a Christian area, adorned with greenery and lemon orchards.

Before it became known as the southern suburb,

this area was called the Southern Matn Coast,

a green strip on the outskirts of Beirut,

and they used to call it the Christians’ Coast

because the majority of its inhabitants were Christians. The whole area

was Christian, from the Tromba all the way to here, and if you went to Ghobeiry,

it was all flowers and all greenery. Starting in the late sixties,

and specifically after the growing influence of the armed

Palestinian factions around the camps,

the area entered a different phase.

When these Palestinians came and entered our area, they ruined everything.

I was the last one who left Shiyyah.

Weapons moved more and more outside the framework of the state,

and this quiet area on the outskirts

of Beirut gradually began to lose its civil and agricultural character,

entering instead an open security and military climate.

I was holding a rifle and sitting at the entrance of the building,

waiting for my kids, I have three girls. And with the outbreak

of the Lebanese war in 1975, the biggest shift happened.

Violence, kidnapping, killing,

and the expansion of armed groups drove many Christian families to leave the area.

They started attacking them in their homes,

they started shooting at their homes, they got scared, so they left.

From Mar Mikhael to Sin el Fil to Galerie Semaan,

sniping was targeting us, we kept going right, left, right,

left until we escaped it. And with the collapse

of state authority and the imposition of a new reality on the ground,

there were widespread sales of land and houses.

A large part of them happened under the pressure of fear, war, and displacement.

They would tell the Christians,“ We want So- and- so’s house,”

they would extort them, either we take it, or you will see, either you get

paid or we are going to take it for free. In 1985, Hezbollah

officially announced its launch from the Bir al- Abed husseiniya. Let us become

the rock that breaks everyone who attacks it.

And from here, Dahieh entered a new phase, a phase of establishing it

as a center of ideological and security influence and military power for the party.

They penetrated deep into all the neighborhoods,

and the Christian presence never came back down.

From that time, the scene became entrenched: security zones, uncontrolled weapons,

mafias, and real decision- making in the hands of the parties, not in the hands

of the institutions. My village now, Shiyah,

is basically a den of weapons, parties, and stray gunfire, drugs,

and cars without plates.

My village became like this because of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.

But today, with talk about the end of the era of militias,

there is a glimmer of hope that this area will regain its original image,

a quiet space on the outskirts of Beirut,

not a land of weapons and terrorism and a playground for regional conflicts.

I wish for it that we go back but in the way that God wants.