I arrived in Beirut this morning to cover the funeral of Emad Mughniyeh, the fugitive Hezbollah strategist and inernational terror suspect who was killed Tuesday in a car bombing in Damascus.
Valentine's Day is already a bittersweet occasion for many Lebanese -- on this day three years ago, a truck bomb killed the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, setting off a chain of events that led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops, fierce internecine fighting and a power vacuum that persists today.
Miret and I got here just in time to attend both memorials. The different moods at the two ceremonies spoke volumes about the deep-rooted political and sectarian divisions that have plagued Lebanon for decades and are once again reaching a crescendo. Here are some observations from the events:
Hariri rally, downtown Beirut
By 11 a.m., the roads to Martyrs' Square were choked with traffic as tens of thousands of pro-government demonstrators made their way to the rallying point on foot, by car or via scooter. Minibuses were festooned with Lebanese flags and portraits of the late Hariri.
Miret and I joined the marchers in the rain-drenched pilgrimage to the main square. Lebanese troops manned checkpoints and concertina wire was rolled out to form security cordons. Ambulances were on standby, reminding participants of the potential for violence any time big, politically charged crowds gather in Beirut. We saw a couple of men in street clothes whose leather jackets blew open in the wind to reveal handguns tucked under their belts.
The mood was more festive than somber, though, with throngs of Lebanese periodically breaking into call-and-response chants in support of Hariri's son and political heir, Saad. By now, Beirut residents have the "activist chic" look down pat. For the ladies, skinny jeans, tall boots, heavy eyeliner and a Lebanese flag tied fetchingly around the neck like a cape. For the guys, carefully tousled hair, baggy jeans, huge flapping banners and the latest Nokia cell phone set to video in order to record all the action. Stereotypes? Sure, but they were out in droves.
It took so long to walk to the square that the whole event could have been mistaken for any old street party except for the reminders provided by speech-makers whose voices boomed through several loudspeakers along the way. The fiery words provided harsh reality checks.
"Pierre, George, Gibran, Francois..." a voice thundered through the speakers, listing the names of several political figures who were assassinated in recent years.
An elderly couple was the picture of resilience as they held hands under a large black umbrella and made their way down the rain-slicked streets. Around them, young boys beat a drum and danced in the middle of the road. We marveled at a woman in stiletto-heeled boots teetering through the mud. Another politician sounded off through the speaker.
"Raise your voices to Tehran!"
By the time we made it close to the square, the rain was falling in sheets and it became impossible to conduct interviews or even take notes -- my notebook was soaked and the ink ran in blue streaks across the pages. We snapped a few photos, I managed to slip in the mud and bang up my knee, and then it was time for the long walk back.
"Proceed! Proceed! Proceed! Until we reach the horizon!" said another voice from the speaker's dais.
Vendors hawked T-shirts, posters, coffee mugs and scarves imprinted with Hariri's beatific face. A man who appeared to be in his 60s stripped off his sopping shirt and walked bare-chested in all his hirsute glory. Lebanese troops called out to him in Arabic, shouting the equivalent of, "Lookin' good, old-timer!" Teenagers snapped photos, while a few saucy girls offered mock-appreciative whistles. The man beamed and waved to his admirers.
"We want a president! We want a president!" the loudspeaker boomed.
The rain pounded the crowd until the children's face paint wore off, hairdos were ruined, handwritten signs became illegible and, in a bizarre sight, the cardboard posters of Hariri's face became so wet that they simply fell off their wooden sticks, carpeting the road with dozens of photos of the man everyone came to honor.
By the time we reached our waiting taxi, it was Saad Hariri's turn at the microphone. To be fair, there were thousands upon thousands of people at the rally, but I have a suspicion his crowd estimate might have been a bit exaggerated.
"One and a half million and it's raining!" Saad's voice rang out. "What if it had been sunny?"
Mughniyeh funeral, south suburbs
Through sheer luck, the driver we'd hired straight from the airport that morning turned out to be a Shiite from the dahiya, the Hezbollah-controlled southern part of the capital. He knew the streets inside and out -- and, as a local, he knew better than to escort journalists into this de facto military zone without the proper credentials.
The driver, Hajj Sami, took us straight to the Hezbollah media center, where we were cleared for admittance and sent to the memorial site a short drive away. Picking our way through militants with walkie-talkies and what seemed like every man, woman and child who had ever lived in the dahiya was an ordeal in itself.
Following the spry Hajj Sami through the torrential rain, Miret and I snaked through back alleys, knee-deep puddles of murky water and the jagged wreckage left over from Israel's devastating air strikes in the summer war of 2006.
As usual, Hezbollah showed an impressive level of sophistication when it came to crowd control. The group's uniformed members, some sporting ear pieces like the Secret Service, dug us out of the melee and barked at young men to step back and "Let the ladies pass! Now!" They apologized for keeping us in the rain and, after searching our bags and checking our IDs, issued us laminated credentials printed specially for the occasion and stamped with numbers so they could keep track of just which journalists had been allowed to enter the makeshift funeral hall where Mughniyeh's service was under way.
Once inside, the sight was worth the ordeal. Thousands of Hezbollah supporters filled the hall, with men on one side and women on the other. Many of them brandished large posters of Mughniyeh, whom they still referred to by his nom de guerre, Hajj Radwan. Journalists were allowed free reign and we were able to stroll right up to the stage where Mughniyeh's coffin, draped in a yellow Hezbollah flag, sat guarded by uniformed guerrillas in green berets.
Hezbollah leader Seyyid Hassan Nasrallah's videotaped address was broadcast on huge TV screens. He whipped the crowd into a frenzy, blaming Israel for Mughniyeh's assassination and vowing an "open war" on Israeli interests across the globe in response to the bombing in Syria. (It should be noted that Israel has denied -- well, sort of denied -- involvement in the incident.)
"At your service, Nasrallah!" the crowd cheered, with fists pumping in the air.
After all the speeches, members of the Hezbollah honor guard served as pall bearers, carrying his coffin out of the hall and into a procession through the dahiya. People clamored to touch the coffin or to throw rose petals at it in honor of Mughniyeh's martyrdom. Grown men, including clerics in black turbans, wept like babies. Women sobbed into handkerchiefs and clutched photos of Mughniyeh to their chests.
As the crowds cleared out of the hall, we approached two women talking quietly in a corner. We asked them what Mughniyeh had meant to Hezbollah.
"Everything," said Umm Samer, 40, the mother of five boys and two girls.
"His death has only strengthened our determination," said her friend, Umm Ahmed, who is 45 and already a grandmother. "In every house, there is an Emad. He's gone and more will come. I have two in my own home."
"I breastfed Hezbollah to my seven children," Umm Samer said with a small laugh. "They have drunk the milk of the resistance and any one of them is ready to sacrifice for Hezbollah."
