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That Saturday Night: Reactions To Bomb Scares In Beirut
It began as any Saturday night in Beirut would. Drinks at one of Hamra’s most beloved bars with a childhood friend. Vibes were upbeat, De Prague was filled with casual diners and a rare group of Lebanese people who didn’t feel like partying that night.
By 11:30 PM, my friend and I were debating our options: to continue with the night or go home to bed? We sat and thought and weighed our options, when our phones began lighting up with messages from a mutual friend of ours who lives in Europe.
“Apparently there is a suicide bomber in Hamra, have you heard?” We hadn’t heard. 
Image via aljazeera.com
At this point we all know what went down. A 22-year-old man had entered Hamra’s Costa Coffee armed with a suicide vest. It is rumored that he casually ordered coffee and a cookie before taking a seat – at which point he was tackled and detained by Lebanese security forces. Lebanese intelligence and security forces had been tracking the man and had apparently known that he was armed and dangerous. Lives were saved, but a strange wave of contradicting forms of commotion had only just begun.
My friend ordered a taxi and I stayed at our table waiting for my sister to pick me up. No one at De Prague seemed phased. Friends and family began calling me from all around the world, asking where I was and demanding that I go home immediately. I wondered if the people seated at the tables next to me weren’t phased because they hadn’t heard the news? But a part of me knew that they probably had. Costa Coffee is just 200 meters from where we were sitting. Have we really become that numb?
I left De Prague and began walking home because I had been told that the police had closed off all of the streets leading to Hamra and the main street itself. I found myself walking at an awkwardly fast pace. Rumors of another armed man roaming the streets began to flood in on WhatsApp, but based on the demeanors of those I passed on the street, you wouldn’t think it to be true.
I asked a valet driver at one of the neighboring restaurants if it was true that they had closed Hamra street and the streets leading to it. “Yes they’ve closed some of the streets, but not for long. It’s not a big deal, no problem, don’t worry about it!” He laughed.
I’m all for Lebanese people’s profound resilience. We are a proud people who cannot be intimidated and refuse to be tamed. It’s a beautiful thing. I am so proud that the Lebanese security forces are swift and skilled enough to have foiled such a potentially catastrophic event. But as a people, are we really so resilient that we will forever remain un-phased? Judging by the series of events that took place that Saturday night, and the discrepancies in the reactions of the people that were so intimately close to the scene of the crime, I’d say we’ve become more numb than your neighbor’s freshly Botoxed forehead.