“Who’s the punk with the aviator glasses?”

“Who’s the punk with the aviator glasses?” a colleague of mine asked, as we passed by this portrait. Ah, yes. Indeed. My colleague is a foreigner, and ignorant to Lebanon’s finer knowledge of politics. So where do you begin?

While looking for more stenciled grafitti on the walls of Beirut, we ran across this poster. A ‘punk with aviator glasses’ indeed. What serious politician would want to portray himself like a ‘wise guy’? It is a memory of the ‘good old’ days. And he was one of the 'good ol'e boys'.

With this spate of politicians and journalists being blown up, everyone’s picture is up on the wall. And everyone’s a hero. They opened a can of worms with this thing, because now some of the more infamous crowds are back on the wall as well. Some people think that now is the right time to put up some of the ‘old’ heroes; people that were assassinated one way or another well before Hariri got killed. And though they may be heroes to some, they are just plain and simple 'civil-war-militia-leaders-slash-criminals' to others.

We can’t ask this particular man in question why a serious politician want to portray himself this way; he was blown to smithereens in 2002. Car bomb; a popular Middle Eastern device, used for exposing of unwanted opponents. (For outsiders; his name is Elie Hobeika, and he is generally seen as the man behind the Sabra and Chatila massacres (beware; Wikipedia is not an actual encyclopedia) in Beirut in 1982. There will be people that will argue with that. Point is, nobody knows, just like nobody really knows who blew him up either, although they must have been lining up for that job. His ex-body guard, Roger Hatem, wrote a pretty horrific biography of the guy. After he left his service. Unauthorized, I might add (the writing, that is). It was fun reading; nice Beirut gossip.)

I doubt Hobeika would have voted for this cheap shot of himself on the walls of Beirut. He was much to clever for that. But there he is; a punk with aviator glasses. Memories of Lebanon's ‘good old’ days, on the walls of Beirut.

I did find some stenciled art though, (see up) but MacDara’s and Nicolien’s boy seem to have been erased, by the way. I couldn't find them.)