المجلس
Then we convinced the Director-General of UNESCO, who had met with me twice in Paris, to come to Lebanon and see for himself. I took him to the Rachid Karami International Fair and Khan al-Askar, and we went to Tyre, where he heard a drone circling overhead. That matters. We must make these endangered places as visible and well known as possible; visibility may grant them a kind of immunity, especially in the absence of journalists, who are unable to do their work in the South, and those who do go are sometimes killed. Even so, we are working to shine a light on these sites, reveal their importance, and have them valued and recognized as part of world heritage.
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I worked at the United Nations for a large part of my life, and I can say that I have never seen the international system as fragmented as it is today.
If the Lebanese experience shows that inscribing a site on an international list is insufficient to protect it once missiles start falling, has it become time to move from“ international heritage protection law” to an international system of cultural security with mechanisms for early warning, documentation, and accountability? Could Lebanon, with its endangered human heritage in the South and elsewhere, lead an international initiative of this kind?
No, because the timing is not right. The reason is simple and has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with the state of international cooperation. I worked at the United Nations for much of my life, and I have never seen the international system as fragmented as it is today. Leaders of the major powers trust one another little, and institutions such as the UN Security Council cooperate little. On the positive side, the United Nations is an archipelago of agencies and institutions, and some of them can still function even though the system as a whole has come apart.
The UN Secretary-General continues to speak out, but he is like a voice in the wilderness.
True, and he also faces major internal challenges. The agencies still exist, as I said, but how can they function and endure without funding and budgets? The global order today is not in a phase of renewal but of atrophy and decline. Even so, if we can preserve the bare minimum of what exists now, that would be significant. research, and heritage preservation shrink— not because people no longer need them, but because the conditions for producing them have become difficult, sometimes nearly impossible?
Lebanon has endured extremely difficult circumstances: external attacks, Israel, wars within and between sects, economic collapse, and more. What culture can survive in such conditions? Lebanon’ s understanding of culture is often mistaken. People think of culture as entertainment that requires spending, when the opposite is true— in Lebanon and throughout the world— because it is a field of production, not merely of expenditure. If we look at all the cultural industries— film, books, music, design, fashion, and so on— we find that before the crisis that began in 2019, they accounted for 6 percent of the national economy, compared with 4.8 percent for agriculture. In other words, the cultural industries generate more than agriculture. People generally don’ t realize this, nor do they realize that 110,000 families depend on these industries. That is why, fortunately, culture managed to weather the extremely difficult period we have been through, from the Beirut port explosion to COVID-19 and beyond. This is because it is independent of the state; had it been part of the state, it would have collapsed along with the state’ s finances. With this in mind, when my colleague, the Minister of Economy, organized the first investment conference in Beirut, Beirut One, I urged him to give culture a prominent place, and the culture session was indeed excellent. Culture is a livelihood in Lebanon and part of economic recovery. That is also why we worked to unify the book fair, which took us a long time, in service of publishing, an important industry that supports thousands of people.
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Culture is a livelihood in Lebanon, part of economic recovery, and part of preserving national unity and freedom of expression.
So, Lebanon remains a space of freedom?
Yes, and that is what is remarkable and striking. I was away for 25 years from a Lebanon that, over the past fifty years, has borne extremely harsh political and economic conditions, yet freedom of thought and expression has endured. It is no easy thing for any country to enter such a tunnel and emerge on the other side. The Lebanese may not fully appreciate this rare value: to be in a bad situation and, at the same time, to be able to say that your situation is bad— while many people live in bad situations and are forced to say that all is well.
In societies where crises drag on, as in Lebanon, doesn’ t cultural activity itself become a form of defiance? When people are preoccupied for so long with survival and the bare necessities of life, doesn’ t the space for books, theater, art,
When I arrived to meet you, I saw you ahead of me, climbing the stairs with heavy steps, as if carrying a great weight on your back. How do you live with that weight every day?
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