Star Scene

By Tarek Tutunji and Layal Hasrouni

Breaking News!

The long standing tree  in the middle of the main Gemayzeh parking lot has been cut down!

This was most probably done in order to make  way for some new building. Now let us be clear, we’re not one of those smelly architects who bewail the end of civilization with every old building being replaced by a shiny new one. We are also not one to lament the loss of building standards  and to say that they used to make them better in the old days, when they still ate goats whole, and when food was real. That said, it was really saddening to see that tree go. It probably saw quite a few sights in the past decades; deaths, murders, love stories, the love of its shadow, pigeons crapping on cars…

Here is another building to house miserable people and disgruntled workers that wished they had a place to go in the evenings or during their lunch break where they can take their shoes off and walk on the grass and for just a minute forget about how ugly city life can be.

Beirut, especially, is suffering from a lack of green space.  It is as if the sapling that fights the odds and grows above the surface is a demarcation of space to build on. You can just notice off the construction sites around Beirut. Is all of this construction worth turning our city into a concrete place where children can barely find a place to play? Where people in love cannot walk in the park and talk for hours underneath the trees?  The actions that we choose today will have consequences for generations to follow.  We will live in a world where every last tree that existed was cut down and replaced by an ugly, outdated building.

We shall shed a silent tear for you tree. May you have a happy existence as someone’s furniture.

Remember this? Michael Jackson understood it all