[Dry Ice]

Tuesday

IN THE evening, I drive south into Dahiya. Beirut’s main division these days is less between Christian east and Muslim west than between the poor and mainly Shia south and the wealthier northern districts.

There are no obvious frontiers. The buildings just get closer together, dirtier and more dilapidated, and the electric wiring starts to become visible. Piles of rubble from the 2006 Israeli attacks are left seemingly untouched. Large posters announce “We will build it better than before.” Placards bearing the faces of stern Hizbullah martyrs adorn the lamp-posts.

I stop for a kebab outside the Assaha Traditional Village. Anas, my taxi driver, wants to show me around a bit. He points at the large and modern Rasoul al Aazam hospital across the road and then to the Iranian flags hanging from buildings.

Building it better than before“Thank you, Iran,” he announces. “Hassan Nasrallah is my protector. My brother died fighting Israel when we defeated them for the first time in 2006. I am proud of Hizbullah,” he says. Then he turns and points to the kebab shop. “This is Hassan’s favourite restaurant. We organise secret deliveries.” I’m not sure whether he’s joking.

The Assaha Traditional Village is a complex built to look like a medieval Arab castle. It contains a museum, bookshops, a pricey restaurant and a number of expensive shops selling jewellery and trinkets, including Hizbullah clocks, flags and refrigerator magnets.

The centre is associated with the charitable foundation of the Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah and financed by his supporters. Mr Fadlallah is one of the spiritual guides of Lebanese Shia. He played a key role in giving the community the necessary drive and convictions to overcome its traditional place at the bottom of Lebanon’s sectarian hierarchy, and was a key force behind Hizbullah.

For dinner I meet Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese political analyst who represents his country at Chatham House, a prestigious British think-tank. I am shocked to discover that in the middle of poor south Beirut, a stylish restaurant complete with a courtyard and fountains, is filled.

Mr Shehadi points out the extreme variety of clothing. “As you can see, the families eating here do not all dress in the same manner. Some men have full beards and their wives are wearing a chador; this means they will be following a more conservative spiritual guide. Others may simply be veiled and their husbands clean shaven. There may even be a secular member of the family or a nationalist.” My impression of Lebanese Shia as uniformly poor and religious are overturned; Beirut, it appears, is a city of facades.

“It’s such a pity we can’t have a glass of arak with such a good meal,” Mr Shehadi jokes before the conversation turns to politics. I ask if the coalition that comprised the previous government was defeated when the Hizbullah-led opposition forced its way into government after May’s fighting. “No, that’s the wrong way to see it. Imagine you and your opponent are 18th century English gentlemen, and he challenges you to a duel. Now imagine he challenges you at a moment you are certain to lose, in a place that will defeat you and with a weapon you cannot match. If you manage to change the time, place and weapon with which the duel is fought and live with your honour intact, then you have won the duel.”

Mr Shehadi believes that because the previous coalition managed, through clever manoeuvring and intelligent politics, to transfer Hizbullah’s challenge from street fights to negotiations in Doha, it transformed the situation from an unwinnable military confrontation into a potentially advantageous political one. He gestures to the happily dining families at the tables that surround us. “What I need to stress,” he says, “is the banality of Lebanon right now.”