[Dry Ice]

Wednesday

TODAY I am having lunch with the Lebanese Forces (LF). During the civil war, Lebanon divided into sectarian mini-states. Then it split up along militia lines. Today most of the political parties are the children of these armed factions, and the LF are no exception.

They were once a feared Christian militia. Then they were banned during the Syrian occupation that followed the conflict, and their leader, Samir Geagea, was imprisoned for 11 years in a windowless cell under the ministry of defence. Now they stand for the right-wing and frightened among Lebanon’s Christians.

Nady Ghosn, the party’s spokesman, has come to pick me up in his car. He has a thick moustache, an addiction to Marlboro Reds, gold-rimmed Aviator glasses and a neatly ironed pink shirt. He appears straight out of the early 1970s, when Lebanon’s Christians were still on top.

Geagea and the crossOn the road to his neighbourhood, I notice something about the sprawl. In Beirut people live on top of each other. The mountains above the city are covered in smart villas that slope down into tenement towers and a slumland of concrete blocks, cramped flats and problems. You can tell a poor area because children play in the streets, and the buildings are still peppered by bullet holes.

We draw into Ayn ar-Rummanah. Mr Ghosn points out the local sites. He speaks slowly, precisely. “Here is where the civil war began with the shooting up of a Palestinian bus.” Tacky plastic Madonnas are stuck onto buildings, and blood-red crosses painted on every wall. The cross is staked at the bottom, to show that it is driven into Lebanese soil. This is the symbol of Mr Geagea’s movement.

We park outside the local LF headquarters. On top of the buildings are two immense crosses. There is an urgency to Christianity here; I feel as if Christ died a few weeks ago and the word is spreading.

“This is the border.” A tattooed man guarding the door points to the end of the street. A giant wall painting of Nabih Berry, the Shia speaker of Parliament and an ally of Hizbullah, stares back at me. We can hear the call to prayer. “There are the Shia.”

Inside the headquarters I am led to a small tiled room. Turkish coffee is poured and a group of young men sit nervously around me. Mr Ghosn begins to speak. “People are becoming more religious. This is our 43rd year of troubles, destabilisation and war. Faith is what they are turning to.” Is the increased religiosity of the Lebanese Christians a marker of their decline from being a dominant group to an insecure one?

The walls are covered in stickers depicting Bashir Gemayel, posters of Mr Geagea and in the corner what looks like a little nativity crib made up of stones with stickers of yesterday’s warlords on them. “Are you a nostalgic movement?” I asked, a bit presumptuously.

“No. We’re proud. We are focusing on the elections. On mobilisation.”

It seems the chief spokesman is busy, so Jean Tawanil, a regular LF supporter, takes me for lunch in the local restaurant. The classic Lebanese spread is laid on: hummus, kebabs, fatoush salad, kibbe balls and spicy beef sausages. Jean smokes a water pipe.

Lebanese food is almost never bad, but the conversation makes for a strange meal. At one moment my companion is laughing about how he doesn’t like the dirty, stupid, smelly Shia Muslims who live over the road. Ten minutes later he is earnestly telling me how he has many good friends among them and it’s only the leadership he doesn’t like.

He begins what seems like a rant against Israel, which ends up with him announcing his respect for the Israeli army and how he expects Israeli troops to be operating in Beirut very shortly. His frequent toilet breaks allow me to gather my thoughts. It seems the long-standing identity conflict of the Lebanese Christians continue in the minds of even the most committed LF supporters. Then he turns the conversation turns to that traveller’s classic: “Don’t you think my country has the best girls?”

Jean gives me a lift back to the town centre. “You see,” he is trying to sum up his political position, “I like France, America and Israel. They like Iran, Syria.” He points over the road to the neighbouring Shia district of Ash Shiyah. “I don’t want that…it’s not any good.” Iranian flags are fluttering.

Many posters stuck to lamp-posts celebrate the recent release from an Israeli prison after nearly three decades years of Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze who joined a Palestinian guerrilla group and was caught and convicted of killing five Israelis, including a baby girl. But Jean isn’t pointing at them. Instead, he points out the dilapidated state of the buildings, the cheap electric wires and the dirtiness of the streets.