BEIRUT, 1 August 2006 — The promise of a new Lebanon appears to have proved a mirage for at least some Lebanese who returned to their homeland after the civil war, but getting back out again does not look easy.
“I wish I had stayed there. I came back for my family, for the children to grow up in their homeland,” said Abdel Rahman Jammal, 64, a taxi driver who escaped to Germany in 1985 and returned less than a decade later.
The journey out of Lebanon was an odyssey by bus, train, plane and bus again, through several countries, finally entering the former West Germany.
The family settled into a peaceful life in southern Germany, near the border with France and Switzerland, where Jammal worked for the post office and where two of his three children were born.
“It was easy there,” he said, longing in his voice, while driving through the deserted streets of downtown Beirut.
The modern district of glass towers and renovated buildings — the crowning achievement of the father of postwar reconstruction, slain former Premier Rafik Hariri — has been spared in the Israeli onslaught that, elsewhere in Lebanon, has turned the clocks back 20 years. “Now my family wants to go back, but it’s impossible. My wife said, ‘Let’s sell everything and leave’,” explained Jammal. “I would go now if I had a guarantee, but if the German authorities told me to leave, what would I do then?”
Nearly one million Lebanese went into exile during the 1975-1990 war. According to a 2004 study undertaken by the Lebanese government, half of them returned during the latter stages of, or after, the war.
Strong emotional longing, job opportunities and family ties were the main factors which made them part company with a diaspora which has grown to several million over the past century of Lebanon’s turbulent history.
Returnees to Beirut are once again faced with the choice of entrenchment or flight.
Elie Chehade, 53, an architect with dual Lebanese-Canadian citizenship, said he would not be carried away by emotion and rush into a decision.
“I am really confused right now, but I’m staying here for the time being. My only resources are here, although all the (construction) projects for now are abroad,” said Chehade, who returned in 1993 from Greece.
“I don’t have any regrets about coming back,” he said, enjoying a Sunday family lunch in the garden at a mountain retreat northeast of the capital, far from the main warfront between Israel and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in south Lebanon.
Lebanese authorities say some 750 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded since the conflict erupted on July 12.
Elie Touma, who last year bought, renovated and resettled in an apartment in Beirut after 30 years in exile in a string of countries, also put on a brave face and said he and wife Samia would be staying put.
“I felt this was a safe place, a new Lebanon, very interesting, with its wealth of restaurants, entertainment, good transport system. The quality of life was good,” said the 57-year-old businessman.
“We were hoping to see shows in the Baalbek and Beiteddin festivals this summers... then, suddenly, everything changed,” he said.
“I am still hoping for a quick recovery for the country, knowing that it has passed through this before, and that investors will return, provided we have a basic solution to the problems which started it all,” said Touma.
“In my guts, I feel there will be a recovery.”
“But if I had the option, maybe I would leave too,” he added on a cautious note.
But Touma lacks that precious item, a second passport, unlike many others who poured thousands of dollars to procure the “safety net” of a non-Lebanese nationality.
The couple have two daughters, both studying in North America where they plan to make their future.
Unlike her architect husband, a depressed Randa Chehade said she felt nothing but regret for their return to Lebanon. “I don’t trust this country any more. If I have the chance, I will leave,” she vowed.
“We believed a lot and thought the country would boom... I knew something could happen, but not a real war like this,” said Chehade, who last year closed her ladies’ lingerie boutique in downtown Beirut.
Randa was a student while the civil war raged, a Christian living in mainly Muslim west Beirut.
“I lived under the bombs in west Beirut, we used to go out and party. But this is different, maybe because I am a mother now and have responsibilities,” she said. “Perhaps it’s because of our politicians, but I don’t think we can live together after this.”