BEIRUT, 20 February 2005 — In the run-down streets of a Beirut suburb, the poor who received Rafik Al-Hariri’s charity mourn Lebanon’s richest man with a grief tinged with anxiety.
Former Prime Minister Hariri, a billionaire philanthropist who was killed in a car bomb attack in Beirut on Monday, helped a whole generation of Lebanese finish their education.
In Tarik Al-Jadidah, many prayed his eldest son would take over.
“It’s all up to Sheikh Bahaa now, to continue the martyr’s journey, we’re all with Bahaa,” said Mohammed Sinjil, sitting outside a juice stand strung with Hariri banners.
“Whoever wanted anything, he’d help them, for nothing in return. My sister needed a heart operation and he paid the whole bill — $10,000,” his friend Mohammad Jawhari said.
Such stories are common on Tarik Al-Jadidah’s streets, a bastion of support for Hariri.
Like Hariri, most who live there are Sunni Muslims but say his charity crossed Lebanon’s many sectarian boundaries.
“I myself am one of those he put through school and I didn’t support him. I sometimes didn’t vote for him,” car park attendant Ghassan Al-Awad said, his booth plastered with Hariri posters.
Hariri’s family have said in a statement they will continue his charitable and social works.
Opponents accused Hariri, whose fortune was estimated at about $3.8 billion, of buying votes with his largesse.
Awad disagreed. “Any other leader, here or anywhere else, would close the door on you if you went to them. He opened his door and wanted nothing in return.”
Hariri’s distinctive, heavy features smile down from walls all over Tarik Al-Jadidah, even more so than in the rest of a grieving capital where shock still reverberates.
In the 1980s, at the height of the country’s 15-year civil war, Hariri paid for thousands of Lebanese children’s schooling. He also financed sending college students to some of the best universities in the United States.
Once peace came, Hariri once said, Lebanon would need educated young people for its revival.
Abir Masri, a young teacher, could not hide her sadness.
“He put lots of people through university, paid doctors fees. There is no house in Beirut that didn’t benefit from Hariri in some way, even if it was just something simple.
“He wasn’t just a politician, he was one of us,” she said, before tears overcame her.
Hariri had numerous critics, quiet though they have been in the past few days of mass mourning and anger at his brutal end.
Many accused the construction tycoon of profiting from rebuilding central Beirut after the civil war ended in 1990 and running up a crushing national debt.
Few dispute the observant Muslim’s generosity, however, and in Tarik Al-Jadidah it was hard to find anyone who had not benefited.
Ismail Abdul Malik, an elderly cigarette kiosk owner, said Hariri’s foundations gave him food, money and other assistance.
“He who has children does not die. God willing, they will have their father’s generosity and will follow in his footsteps,” he said, watching Hariri’s family receive mourners at his Qoreitem mansion live on television.
“Lebanon had a wonderful dream, and it vanished.”