Follow the Women!

I'm in the Middle East for an all-women bike ride but:

I can't bloody well cycle AT ALL!!! Went to the hospital for an x-ray on my ankle, sprained in Damascus a few days ago - it's not broken but the doctor was very clear: "if you want to have an ankle like that [i.e. massively swollen] for the rest of your life, go ahead and cycle". I've saved €165 on bike hire but how bloody annoying is that...I have padded pants for no reason at all! (Sorry Mum, thank you anyway! Do you think you can take them back to Cliff Pratt?)

But I got over the depression of the hospital visit and joined in the spirit of the trip. There wasn't any biking today anyhow - just a visit by bus to the Palestinian refugee camp Sabra Shatila (in Beirut); the opening ceremony at UNESCO and a massive dinner and general celebration.

But what is "Follow the Women"? What is it for? What is it about? That will take the whole trip to work out I think: there doesn't seem to be an easy answer which gives interesting differences of opinion, but a little more clarity would help me work out what exactly is going on and what I am representing. I hope a picture will emerge slowly...

Getting the bikes for hundreds of women ("I think 220 at the moment, there'll be more and more with every day" says the woman-in-chief, Detta Regan) was a mission, with spare time spent sprawled over the concrete in the sun, talking - mostly at first grouped by country. The Italians are instantly recognisable in their blue uniforms; other teams are more gradually identified, but it turns out other countries have uniforms. The Danish T-shirts have caused quite a stir, with "dialogue" written in Arabic, English and Hebrew - more original than airtex biking tops, but the Lebanese organisers (the Progress Youth Organisation, a social wing of the political party Progressive Socialist Party) are already giving "advice": "I don't mind at all, personally, but I can't say that about everyone". They blatantly do mind.

(There's a Shane from the L-Word lookalike which is fairly distracting, especially as she's as taciturn as Shane so has the same air of mystique.)

After lunch and an impromptu concert from various Arab girls, we go by bus to the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps (the place of a massacre in 1982 by the Lebanese Christian Phalangist group, sanctioned by Israeli forces who were controlling the area at the time). Welcomed by music, we are ushered into a memorial garden with a huge flower display dedicated to Follow the Women. We listen to passionate speeches from unidentified Palestinian leaders under the hot sun - "we will not rest until we have our own land!" (Applause). "We will sacrifice our lives to have our own land!" (Applause and cheering). And so on. Detta responds: "We stand with you!". I'm not sure that I do.

We do not venture into the interior of the camp. There are a lot of us, I can see it would be difficult, but it does seem a shame. [I've since found out that security is a nightmare, with tens of thousands of guns stored up inside.] Instead, we go to the hotel and prepare for the welcoming ceremony at UNESCO.

First was speeches in the auditorium. Various welcomes: Detta responding with "the idea is to cycle through the Middle East for peace"; but no mention of what is important to me, and that is we are all women. The next official used an unfortunate phrase right after this: "we need to end the cycle; the cycle of violence".

Next was the bus to a lovely restaurant by the sea, and dancing afterwards. My ankle didn't feel up to it, so I wandered back along the sea to the hotel...

I've followed the women for a day and am writing in bed in Hotel Legend (I'm trying to type quietly because of two sleeping women and one reading one). I have a headache, but only because my head is so full of what's been happening, or maybe standing in the sun listening to fairly standard Palestinian rhetoric and watching Palestinian children in army garb doing traditional dancing to nationalist songs...I have forgotten pretty much everyone's name already, but the conversations have stuck, from the Palestinian nurse who is paid by an NGO to go into schools and talk about sex to the Iranian journalist who lied to the Iranian authorities in order to come, so no photos of her can be published...

The three women in the room are all great [later addition: they all turn out to be three of the firmest friends from the trip]: Irish Mary, and two Danish doctors, Jutta and Mette. I have the first real analysis of FtW with Jutta, in that we agree that Detta's speech at the refugee camp was disturbing in content, tone and especially the "we": "we" have not been addressed directly by Detta since we arrived, and we certainly don't have a unified set of opinions on this region. Unease is setting in already.

Tomorrow is the first cycling day, and I will watch with jealousy...

From a cafe in Beirut

It's strange being here, after a year and a half. I worried that I'd feel dislocated like this in Damascus, but Damascus hasn't changed so it just felt normal...I now know that I didn't understand from newspapers and friends what was happening here in Beirut at all. I just drove past downtown to get to this cafe in Hamra, where I'm writing...downtown used to be, well, downtown, as in it was one of the centres of shops, restaurants, cafes: now it's just tents and tents of Hezbollah who moved into the area in December 2006 and still haven't left - even the roads into it are blocked. Solidare - one of the main parts of downtown - is still accessible, but people don't go there anymore so the restaurants and shops are all closed, "like a film set", said one lone tourist. It's so peculiar seeing the traffic all turning off before it gets to what used to be a main and busy part of Beirut. I still can't really get over it - a Hezbollah camp right in the middle of Beirut, and no-one can shift it. "It's just to make their point" said Beiruti Elie, "that they're here to stay".

But here in Hamra everything is more recognisable. People are out in the sun, wearing clothes that are much less conservative than in Damascus: the atmosphere is freer despite everything. I had a huge argument with Damascene friends Ola and Khaled about Beirut: "I don't understand" they both say "why all foreigners love Beirut. Why does everyone go on about Beirut?". To all foreigners I know, it's quite obvious (especially when compared to Damascus) but it was tough arguing the point and ultimately we had to leave it unresolved. It was all good-natured - in fact, pretty funny, I wish I'd taped it - but there wasn't even common ground. Later Khaled said "of course I feel freer there, but...": for me there can be no buts. I feel freer here and that's surely reason enough to prefer it. Khaled's point was that there is freedom but still no democracy; there are more newspapers but each is as narrow-minded as the Ba'ath newspaper in Syria - just because there are more narrow-minded political parties here doesn't make the country any less narrow-minded. That may be true, but on the street level the city is more carefree and therefore more enjoyable. Apart from the shock of downtown, it's good to be here.

And the weather's pretty nice, which I can take advantage of and wear a vest top, unlike in Damascus.

What I haven't got a feel for is whether there is still as much going on as I used to drool over when I lived in Damascus. I don't really have time to check it out, except via Jan and Elie (and if anyone knows, they do, oh initiators of the hug campaign). An awesome-looking exhibition has unfortunately just finished, which showed propaganda posters from all sides from the fifteen years of the civil war here, charting the development of graphic style and skill. I went to CD-theque in Ashrafiye and, although small, it had cool books, magazines, CDs and DVDs - not much in the way of new imported books but lots of arty Lebanese publications and recent DVDs. I guess I'll wander around here, and go out later to see what Gemayze, the bars and clubs area, is like now. Though if I describe this side of Beirut then I should really talk about Damascus' status of being Arab Capital of Culture this year - something Jan is taking advantage of for a project, thereby arguing against his point that nothing happens there. But that would be difficult, as I did not see one single sign for anything cultural...

There seem to be political focus groups in here, talking earnestly about the future of Arab countries in lots of languages with overlaps and exchanges between different groups on different tables, like an office of a think-tank. Perhaps I should talk to them before a wander round Hamra - it's better than supporting American capitalist hegemony in the form of Starbucks, which is where I used to meet communists.

Until tomorrow, when I'll be wearing padded pants along with 400 other women.

Salamat.