IN THE HEART OF LEBANON OR WHY WE REMAIN TRAPPED IN SOAP BUBBLES

In the seven-day exploration of Lebanon, in our completely atypical visit to its intimate worlds and our confrontation with the social cracks produced by this country and its personal biography, the Education through Art Practices project officially came to an end. As this remote and unexplored country, the project opened numerous new questions, new levels of theoretical and especially intellectual contextualisation and comprehension of particular words in the project’s title as well as their interrelation.

Our Lebanese partners in the project – the Zaukak Theatre Company and Cultural Association showed us, layer by layer, the relations between art practice and education and their understanding in very different social contexts. They introduced us to a series of practices and situations that they enter on their life path. From Y.N.C.A., a youth, semi-activist organisation working in a conservative environment, to organizations operating in Palestinian camps in the South of Lebanon (in which according to official data 10,107 people live on 80,000 km2, while according to unofficial data their number is double), organizations operating in prisons, where it would make sense to examine the state of human rights; youngsters who made a performance in these impossible circumstances, in which they raised questions regarding the institution, its rigid rules and the deviations in practice; Massacre, an art film in which the people involved first speak out about the intolerable act; meetings with cultural manager Christine Tohme, who is soon to start the first postgraduate programme in contemporary arts, architect Toni Chakar and Omar Rajeh, a choreographer, dancer and the artistic director of the Maqamat international contemporary dance festival. This is only a handful of interesting and active individuals in Lebanon who, with their work, intervene in the social reality and thus change the landscape and the reality of their environments. Discovery and confrontation, observation and reflection, familiarization and wondering, uncertainty and optimism – all this emerged in our meetings with the individual actors in Lebanon. The diverse range of individuals with their different personal biographies and various professions express the common desire for a better tomorrow, for the creation of a new and brighter history, which requires changes. Changes brought about by the little people. Changes that mean a lot to all the marginalized groups, the youngsters who are still developing and have the possibility to become autonomous and critical individuals who will create a brighter future. And herein lies the power of education that steps out of the system, that is built within specific social environments, that forms its own language... In order to understand it, a meeting has to take place. What is needed is a place for a debate in which thought can enter autonomously and reveal its own limits…

Despite the fact that every stop on this short journey was important and that all the stories were autonomous and at the same time connected, one of the strongest experiences was our confrontation with prison. A system within a system, a space without an exit, a space that urges one to reread and recontextualise Foucault’s Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison. In it, adults and children (aged 14 to 20) live together divided only by stairs. They are connected in an extreme situation, extreme circumstances. We do not know their sentences; they do not present their personal stories. Only a few talk about the future. Some remain silent. They are waiting for our view and reflection on their theatre performance. “Do you think I could become a good actor when I get out,” asks a tall, shorthaired boy sitting on my left. “Can I act even though I don’t have the right education? I’d like to create something. I’d like to speak out on the circumstances and the experience in prison.” The two boys sitting on my right say that their sentence is up, but they are still in prison. They are Egyptians born in Lebanon, but this proved to be a problem only after they had served their sentence. In the group, there is also a completely quiet, pale boy, silently staring at us and observing his colleagues, and two talkative youngsters, looking at me flirtatiously. The more courageous of the two tells us that his case is still pending and that he is still waiting for the sentence to be passed. The theatre group connected them, they created something they were proud of and they admit this openly. They also expect a confirmation on our part. A confirmation that the performance is worth something (in the artistic and the political sense). The performance touches upon their everyday, the pressing situation, murders, drug trafficking, it touches upon the outside world which they came from and to which they now establish a new (?) relationship. What will happen to them when they come out of the multi-year entrapment? Will they change their paths? Will they even get a chance to change? This is not so much the question of concrete individuals, rather it is a question of prison policies, the question of sanctions and convictions. Drugs, murders, sexual orientation, rapes, other crimes ... all are mixed, all enter through the same door, face the procedures of labelling, constant humiliation, which we ourselves also feel. Even though we are actually “honorary visitors”. In prison, there is no special treatment …