It’s arduous to think about now, however for a few years, Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, was often known as the “Paris of the Center East.” Residing alongside the shores of the Mediterranean, the crossroad of cultures, its individuals had lengthy felt the affect of many worlds. Town was cosmopolitan and complex, having fun with a mix of cultures, cuisines and languages of the postcolonial Levant. Above all, it was peaceable.
Then all of it got here crashing down.
Right now, and already for many years, Lebanon has turn out to be the battleground for different individuals’s wars. It’s the quintessential case examine for the significance of a powerful central authorities and the price of not having one. There’s no higher instance of why a state will fail if armed militias are allowed to develop stronger than the nationwide military, a violation of Max Weber’s dictum that in a functioning nation, the state alone ought to maintain the monopoly on the official use of violence, as he starkly phrased it.
