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Wartime holidays: Recollections of a Christmas tree on the Green Line and Bûche de Noël in a bomb shelter


Wartime holidays: Recollections of a Christmas tree on the Green Line and Bûche de Noël in a bomb shelter

Members sixth brigade, a unit of the then-fragmented Lebanese Army that fought during the Civil War, carry a Christmas tree along the demarcation line separating predominantly Muslim West Beirut and mainly Christian East Beirut in 1985. (Credit: Nabil Ismail/AFP)

BEIRUT — In the thick of the Lebanese Civil War, armed Muslim militiamen decided during Christmas 1985 to lower their Kalashnikovs and erect a Christmas tree along the Green Line, which demarcated the separation between predominantly Muslim West Beirut and mainly Christian East Beirut, as they were then known.

“[The militiamen] wanted to prove to the world they are not just some brutal murderers, that they are also the victims, that they are humans trying, despite the chaos, to live their mundane lives,” pointed out renowned photojournalist Nabil Ismail, who was covering the Lebanese Civil War for Agence France-Presse, a French wire service, at the time.

During the war’s 15 years, it was a tale of dimmer Christmas lights for many, as people struggled for a normal holiday season amid persistent waves of violence: celebrating in bunkers and exchanging what gifts they could manage amid the conflict’s economic trials.

Tinsel and a Kalashnikov

Ismail arrived in Ras al-Nabaa at the demarcation line to snap the extraordinary juxtaposition of the sixth brigade, a unit of the then-fragmented army that fought on the West side of Beirut, hauling a pine tree, some bright-colored tinsel, a bell ornament with a greenery swag, and their weapons, en route to set up the last thing one might expect to find along the Green Line: a Christmas tree.

The pictures would become an iconic piece of memorabilia evidencing that — despite the bloodshed, despite the battles raging in and around Beirut, despite the crumbling bullet-scarred buildings — the Christmas spirit was present that day.

Ten years deep into a harrowing war, Beirut’s conflict fault lines, which isolated Lebanon’s Christians and Muslims from each other, were fully outlined and known, and the areas around the divides were fairly empty.

“One of the war’s miserable faces,” Ismail remarked.

Fighting did not necessarily take a hiatus during the holidays and the battles did not accommodate feasts or celebrations — if warlords wanted to fight, they fought — Ismail explained.

“It was the first time I saw armed forces bringing forward such an initiative at the fault line,” Ismail said. “It was the first time and the last time, it never happened again afterward.”

Members of the sixth brigade decorate the Christmas tree they erected on the demarcation line. (Credit: Nabil Ismail/AFP)

As the war years mounted, the political power struggle isolated Muslims and Christians along sectarian lines. Ismail said Beirut’s inhabitants celebrated Christmas to a lesser degree until the city eventually became almost devoid of Christmas cheer and large-scale festivities during the holiday.

“The celebrations took place mostly behind closed doors,” Ismail said.

Liz Sly, a staff reporter for the Lebanese English-language newspaper, The Daily Star described the war’s impact on the holiday the same year: “The ghost of Christmas past is haunting the shop keepers of Beirut this year as they ruefully look back to the good old days when Christmas was celebrated with style, and with plenty of money.”

“The story is the same everywhere: high prices, the memory of a year overshadowed yet again by more bloodshed and personal loss, and the ever-present fear of car bombs and shelling all combining to keep customers away,” Sly’s article continued. “The gloomy outlook is reflected on the streets, with few store owners bothering to decorate their stores display windows with the traditional trees and glitter.”

“A lot of families lost sons or relatives this year and will hardly be celebrating. It would be insensitive to put decorations up after such a year,” said the owner of a clothes store on Hamra Street, as reported by Sly.

A biblical affair

It was the Christmas before 1982, “before it all kicked off,” as photojournalist George Azar puts it. Lebanese-American Azar had arrived in Beirut in 1981 to visually document the war.

Israel would invade Lebanon in the summer of that year, inducing violence at a larger scale.

“I was in the hills of South Lebanon, spending Christmas Eve with [a] Fijian UNIFIL battalion, really far from home,” Azar said. “They gathered around and made this traditional, probably Fijian, beverage, which was really strong.”

The multinational United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, is a UN peacekeeping mission established in 1978 and at the time was serving as a buffer force between Israel on one side and Lebanon and the Palestinian Liberation Organization on the other.

“Imagine in South Lebanon, Polynesians, Pacific Islanders … this juxtaposition was powerful but at the same time the connection was strong because of Christmas,” Azar added. “The hills of South Lebanon are biblical and so to be with these Fijians filling this islander tradition was biblical.”

Azar added that he and his colleague hoped to return to their apartment in Beirut that evening so “the Italian forces let us hop into their helicopter and flew us back home.”

News about a car bombing in East Beirut greeted them as soon as they arrived home. “We wanted to cross the Green Line to the other side to snap this kind of aftermath photo that one takes,” Azar recalled.

“I mean you could sort of handle it at the time — walking with blood under your feet — it was something I was used to,” Azar said. "But it was Christmas, that was actually how my Christmas Eve went that year.”

Bûche de Noël in a bomb shelter

Forty-eight-year-old Faten Harb recalls celebrating many Christmases in her building’s bunker in the then majority-Christian Haret Hreik neighborhood, some of which included the traditional Christmas cake Bûche de Noël.

“Bûche de Noël was a must,” Harb said, going on to describe how bunkers during the war turned into temporary — despite no one knowing at the time how long temporary would be — makeshift homes for many in Beirut.

Harb grew up in a Muslim household but her family often relished the habit of celebrating Christmas with their neighbors.

“This is how it used to be — there was no separation prior to the war,” Harb said. “We would celebrate Christian holidays with our neighbors and they would do the same during our [Muslim] holidays.”

In an issue of The Daily Star, the cutline of a photo by photographer Ahmad Azakir documenting the Christmas season in Beirut in December, 1984, reads, “The only Christmas decorations to be found in West Beirut are on Sidani Street. Economic gloom and the fear of car bombs or shelling have dampened the Christmas spirit for most people.”

The economic crisis that the war bred made Christmas more bleak and left many unable to purchase gifts and new clothes.

In a 1984 article written by financial consultant Riad Khoury for The Daily Star, the writer described the depreciation of the Lebanese lira as follows: “If the Franc and the Sterling looked sick in 1984, then the Lebanese pound seems to have become a candidate for the intensive care unit.”

“The affluence to which the Lebanese had become accustomed since 1948 faded in 84,” he remarked.

Souraya Oueidat, who comes from a Muslim background but grew up celebrating Christmas every year, recalled that despite the destruction and danger of war, people held on to their Christmas traditions.

“Even amid the economic crisis, people kept buying and distributing gifts to children,” said Ouiedat, who was 15 years old when the war broke out. “I still remember the chocolate, Bûche de Noël, the gifts … in the thick of the war, we used to get a basket and fill it with a jar of fig jam, a bottle of red wine, chocolate, chestnuts, after which we would decorate it and gift it.”

“A cherished tradition,” noted Oueidat. “We used to set the Christmas tree wherever we are, whether at home or taking refuge somewhere else.”

“One should continue to enjoy life despite the limitations set by an overpowering force,” she added.

BEIRUT — In the thick of the Lebanese Civil War, armed Muslim militiamen decided during Christmas 1985 to lower their Kalashnikovs and erect a Christmas tree along the Green Line, which demarcated the separation between predominantly Muslim West Beirut and mainly Christian East Beirut, as they were then known. “[The militiamen] wanted to prove to the world they are not just some brutal...