Lebanon wartime festivals: Tone-deaf hedonism or coping strategy?

Over 100 festivals are set to take place in Lebanon this summer. To an outsider, this may come as a shock, since Lebanon alongside Gaza is dominating headlines as Israel threatens war to root out Hezbollah.

Only three days before U.S. Special Envoy Amos Hochstein visited Beirut to de-escalate aggression between Hezbollah and the IDF, approximately 16,000 people attended an Amr Diab concert just four kilometres away.

Exchanges between Hezbollah and the Israeli army have displaced over 94,000 people from South Lebanon. The government and several embassies in the country have set in motion plans for large-scale evacuations in the event of a wider war.

Lebanon’s festival scene has not gotten the memo and is withstanding cancellations.

Raphael Sfeir, President of the Byblos International Festival, says the event “alone is creating 600 local jobs.”

Byblos, less than 50 km north of Beirut, is set to attract up to 12,000 guests with headlining acts from Nancy Ajram, Toni Makhoul, and popular multi-instrumentalist Ash.

It may appear tone-deaf to many that those not affected by military escalations in the region seemingly continue their lives as usual. But many Lebanese say their signature contradictions be better understood as a survival strategy for a nation navigating perpetual crises.

Resilience in turbulent times

In recent years, Lebanon has faced “one of the world’s worst economic crises since the mid-nineteenth century,” according to the World Bank. This crisis, intensified by COVID-19 and the devastating Beirut Port explosion in 2020, caused $8 billion in damages.

The Lebanese are no strangers to such unpredictability and fragility in their country’s recent history. Social events, festivals, and gatherings have become crucial outlets for coping in a country afflicted by constant instability with little international recognition or assurance.

According to Georges Khoury, 76, who witnessed the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), the “demolition, killing, and destruction” did not succeed in killing the country.

In order to endure the war, he says, the Lebanese created escapes, with 'partying' being one of many “crucial ways of survival for a population taken hostage.”

While the war spread across the country, so did its people. “It changed and moved locations, and therefore, so did the party,” Khoury explains. Forgoing the acts that “breathe life” is like committing suicide. “We would party in the shelters just to feel alive.”

Today, he attests, the survival mechanism is no different even close to the front line.

In Ebel El Saqi, in Marjeyoun, just 9.5 kilometres north of the now-abandoned Israeli town of Metula, sits The Lost Garden.

The family-run pub, led by Elias Abbas, which closed on October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah and Israel began this current episode of military exchanges, recently reopened.

Abbas and his family, who relocated to Fanar in Mount Lebanon, returned to reopen following local demand despite some people’s accusations that he is “crazy.”

As a family born into war, their focus on resilience is their only hope for survival and for supporting their local community.

“The people need to listen to music, have a drink, and relax with each other. It is the only part of life that makes us happier and healthier than those desiring war,” he explains.

Baalbeck International Festival

Larger social occasions, such as the Baalbeck International Festival, are also set to go ahead this summer, albeit a smaller affair than usual, according to Nayla De Freige, Chairperson of the Baalbeck Festival Committee.

The festival, which takes place in the remains of the temples of Jupiter and Bacchus, has witnessed performances from Fairouz, the Rahbani Brothers, the New York Philharmonic, and the Bolshoi Ballet, and is an internationally recognised affair. But today, it is marred by the fact that Baalbeck sits within a Hezbollah stronghold and has been the target of regular Israeli attacks.

For local business owners like Rima Husseini, of the Palmyra Hotel, which directly overlooks Baalbeck temple, the festival is an extremely “frustrating” affair.

Speaking from the hotel, which has hosted international figures such as Charles De Gaulle, Nina Simone, and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany over its long history, she says that everyone in Baalbeck is “lying low” as “nobody can predict what will happen next.” Holding a festival would be “incredibly irresponsible.”

Husseini, specialising in cultural development in conflict zones, contends that the festival is frequently advertised as a beacon of art and culture, allegedly stimulating the local economy through tourist influx. However, she asserts it predominantly serves "the elite."

She describes Baalbeck as a “different planet” from the rest of Lebanon “where nothing moves.”

The city is currently “flagged by every embassy across the region, and it would be near impossible for the festival to go ahead.”

Events like this, even during times of peace, Husseini explains, “polarise Lebanese society… and it is incredibly painful to watch elite visitors arriving as locals are excluded.”

Chloe Lewin is a UK-based freelance journalist