Photogenic Elections, Men and Status in Lebanon

Abstract

There are a few trees left in Beirut, but their branches are no longer to be seen. Large pictures of men are hanging on them. There are many grey concrete buildings in Lebanon (we call them boxes). They are now quite colourful thanks to the multitude of men's portraits covering their facades. There is a wonderful old building on Sodeco square: a magnificent skeleton reminding us incessantly of the civil war and its destructive power. It is no longer proudly defying the developers who want to erase it to plague Beirut with another concrete box. It stands there like a desolate past looking helplessly at the ridicule it has to endure: its ornate old columns have been turned into hangers for the pictures of more men, more wishful candidates in the Lebanese parliamentary elections of August 2000.