In 1991 the Lebanese Parliament promulgated
the second amnesty law in the short history of the Republic
– the first one was decreed in 1958. Though there were a few
exceptions to its provisions, the 1991 law basically granted
clemency to all criminal acts committed during the Lebanese
civil wars of 1975-1990.
In 1992 the Council of Ministers
unveiled an act of parliament creating an entity now commonly
called «Solidere» – a private company which the government invested
with the mandate of «reconstructing» the Beirut Central District, the city center.
The goal of the amnesty law was evident: all
criminal acts received absolution. The reconstruction of
Lebanon’s bloody and divided society should not be disturbed
by discussions of guilt or innocence. Public discourse about
the civil war, massacres and collaboration were suppressed.
It did not take long to become clear that the
company responsible for the reconstruction of the city center
drew its rebuilding philosophy and its logic from the amnesty
law, rather than abiding by the stated terms of its creation.
Now, a decade later, Lebanon and the Lebanese
society have been completely cut off from their recent past
by a programme of state-sponsored amnesia which has resulted
in the de facto falsification of the country’s history.
With the concept of responsibility withdrawn,
the task of «reconstructing» the city center has turned into the erection
of an area alien to the country in which it is set. Only
an amnesiac society could accommodate a city that re-emerges
from its past but is alienated from its memory.
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