HARET HREIK, Lebanon When he heard my American accent, the Hezbollah cabbie yelled "You are an American spy." He swings off the main road and onto a deserted lot. The interrogation begins. "What are you doing here? Why are you in Dahiyeh?"
Very late on a stormy January night I attended Ashura celebrations in Hezbollah's shelled-out neighborhood in south Beirut. It was the annual Shia commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was the speaker. I hadn't wanted to miss it.
"Why do you wear hijab if you are not a Muslim?" the cabbie rages at me. I try to explain that it is the dress code for the event- not a disguise or to pretend I am other than I am. I wore it to respect protocol. And I would never get past the religious bouncers without it.
Since I have my creds in order I answer him just as loud. "Take me to Hezbollah security. Right away!" No guy wants an hysterical woman on his hands, so he skirts back to the main road, where I jump out. I vow not to wear Islamic dress again.
In the Middle East, US journalists are considered "American spies." Whether you are 18 or 80, the 'War on Terror' has cemented suspicions. The alleged "American spy" has become an icon. Trying to deny it will only 'prove' you guilty.
Now its August and I'm back in Beirut. I have the bad luck to arrive on the heels of some Israeli journalists who infiltrated Hezbollah's fiefdom south of the Litani River using fake passports and identities- and bragged about it in the media. So the Lebanese government is in an uproar. The Ministry of Information, the military and Hezbollah are all clamping down on reporters.
On Hezbollah members too. At Hezbollah's Press Office, oversized headshots of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamanei glower in the waiting room like patron saints of gloom. A polite Hezbollah student also applying for a press pass asks what country I come from. I brace for backlash, and she says "Oh how terrible. You must be so afraid. There is very much killing and shooting in America. Even the small children are murdering everyone. How do you live there?"
"Well I just barely got out alive. I had to come to Lebanon to relax..."
"Welcome, welcome" she smiles.
In the office of Hezbollah's weekly newspaper, Al Intiqad, which the US State Department designated a terrorist organization, I see editor-in-chief Ibrahim Mousawi. I have interviewed him several times before. "Not wearing hijab? Why no veil?" He shakes his head and sighs. "Well now I know- maybe you are an American spy." I decide to send him an FBI T-shirt I bought at the airport gift shop with a note: "If you wear this Al Qaeda won't dare mess with you."
In Beirut, most women dress western, but militant chic has long been de rigeur. With its hard-core history of being fashionable under siege, Lebanon is the only country whose national bank offered federal loans for plastic surgery after the war to bolster civilians' shell-shocked morale- before funding reconstruction.
Recently, contestants in Lebanese beauty pageants wore combat fatigues along with the swimsuit competition. Even grocery stores stock guerilla accessories: cigarette lighters shaped like mortar rounds and hand grenades are stashed on shelves next to mens' faux rhinestone raybans. During the civil war, one group of image-conscious revolutionaries fought in hot pink military uniforms.
Despite my naked head, I try to get a comment from Ibrahim Mousawi. There are news reports that the State Department paid 22 million dollars for land adjoining Hezbollah headquarters in a district called Baabda. America wants to build a new embassy on the site. I ask Mousawi about Hezbollah's suicide attack on the US Embassy in the 1980's. He denies it as always. "Hezbollah was only in the south then, resisting Israeli occupation," he says.
The US government has never been able to prove they did it, though a group calling itself 'Hezbollah' claimed responsibility at the time, and no other group before that was launching suicide car bombings but Hezbollah.
A Lebanese friend and I decide to visit the original US Embassy site which faced the Mediterranean. There is no plaque or momento marking the scene. The closest thing to an American tribute of sorts, is a nearby McDonalds. I wait for the vindictive justification for the bombing I've heard many times from other Lebanese that runs something like this: "It was the Mother of all American spy dens anyway."
Without a trace of sarcasm or malice, my friend suggests we go in and eat a meal in remembrance, and squeezes my arm to comfort me. "Just think- the burgers will taste so much more American."
Very late on a stormy January night I attended Ashura celebrations in Hezbollah's shelled-out neighborhood in south Beirut. It was the annual Shia commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was the speaker. I hadn't wanted to miss it.
"Why do you wear hijab if you are not a Muslim?" the cabbie rages at me. I try to explain that it is the dress code for the event- not a disguise or to pretend I am other than I am. I wore it to respect protocol. And I would never get past the religious bouncers without it.
Since I have my creds in order I answer him just as loud. "Take me to Hezbollah security. Right away!" No guy wants an hysterical woman on his hands, so he skirts back to the main road, where I jump out. I vow not to wear Islamic dress again.
In the Middle East, US journalists are considered "American spies." Whether you are 18 or 80, the 'War on Terror' has cemented suspicions. The alleged "American spy" has become an icon. Trying to deny it will only 'prove' you guilty.
Now its August and I'm back in Beirut. I have the bad luck to arrive on the heels of some Israeli journalists who infiltrated Hezbollah's fiefdom south of the Litani River using fake passports and identities- and bragged about it in the media. So the Lebanese government is in an uproar. The Ministry of Information, the military and Hezbollah are all clamping down on reporters.
On Hezbollah members too. At Hezbollah's Press Office, oversized headshots of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamanei glower in the waiting room like patron saints of gloom. A polite Hezbollah student also applying for a press pass asks what country I come from. I brace for backlash, and she says "Oh how terrible. You must be so afraid. There is very much killing and shooting in America. Even the small children are murdering everyone. How do you live there?"
"Well I just barely got out alive. I had to come to Lebanon to relax..."
"Welcome, welcome" she smiles.
In the office of Hezbollah's weekly newspaper, Al Intiqad, which the US State Department designated a terrorist organization, I see editor-in-chief Ibrahim Mousawi. I have interviewed him several times before. "Not wearing hijab? Why no veil?" He shakes his head and sighs. "Well now I know- maybe you are an American spy." I decide to send him an FBI T-shirt I bought at the airport gift shop with a note: "If you wear this Al Qaeda won't dare mess with you."
In Beirut, most women dress western, but militant chic has long been de rigeur. With its hard-core history of being fashionable under siege, Lebanon is the only country whose national bank offered federal loans for plastic surgery after the war to bolster civilians' shell-shocked morale- before funding reconstruction.
Recently, contestants in Lebanese beauty pageants wore combat fatigues along with the swimsuit competition. Even grocery stores stock guerilla accessories: cigarette lighters shaped like mortar rounds and hand grenades are stashed on shelves next to mens' faux rhinestone raybans. During the civil war, one group of image-conscious revolutionaries fought in hot pink military uniforms.
Despite my naked head, I try to get a comment from Ibrahim Mousawi. There are news reports that the State Department paid 22 million dollars for land adjoining Hezbollah headquarters in a district called Baabda. America wants to build a new embassy on the site. I ask Mousawi about Hezbollah's suicide attack on the US Embassy in the 1980's. He denies it as always. "Hezbollah was only in the south then, resisting Israeli occupation," he says.
The US government has never been able to prove they did it, though a group calling itself 'Hezbollah' claimed responsibility at the time, and no other group before that was launching suicide car bombings but Hezbollah.
A Lebanese friend and I decide to visit the original US Embassy site which faced the Mediterranean. There is no plaque or momento marking the scene. The closest thing to an American tribute of sorts, is a nearby McDonalds. I wait for the vindictive justification for the bombing I've heard many times from other Lebanese that runs something like this: "It was the Mother of all American spy dens anyway."
Without a trace of sarcasm or malice, my friend suggests we go in and eat a meal in remembrance, and squeezes my arm to comfort me. "Just think- the burgers will taste so much more American."
