5 - Insurgent planning in a state of exception: the reopening of the Beirut Pine Forest, Lebanon

Summary

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the campaign by the local NGO NAHNOO (“we” or “us” in Arabic) to reopen the only urban park in Beirut, the Pine Forest or Horsh, following its closure in 1975 at the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. Since then Lebanon has been in a perpetual state of exception, a state in which the rule of law is suspended to deal with a crisis. This has affected urban planning processes and the availability of, and access to public spaces, including the extended closure of Horsh. As a result, Beirut's residents have limited access to public spaces, despite their importance in everyday life. NAHNOO, although it did not originally focus on urban planning, engaged in insurgent planning activities. It operated within the poorly functioning Lebanese technocratic and modernist urban planning system. This chapter examines NAHNOO's role and practices as a civil society actor that challenged the status quo. NAHNOO played a key role in raising awareness on the need for public space and on reclaiming access rights. NAHNOO's activities can be understood as acts of insurgent planning – a form of planning in which citizen groups define their own role in the planning process when the formal participation process is unsatisfactory or nonexistent. The conclusion reflects on the importance and challenges of insurgent planning within the context of a state of exception.

Lebanon has witnessed perpetual crises since its constitution in 1943. The most impactful was the civil war from 1975 to 1990 between parties with allegiances to various Christian and Muslim sects (for further information on the civil war, see El-Khazen 2000, Hanf 1993 and Salibi 1988). This war weakened the state and impacted urban planning and the urban fabric, by annihilating public spaces, splintering the capital and its suburbs along a demarcation buffer zone and segregating different communities. Other major crises included the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, in 2005, the Israeli war in 2006 and the garbage crisis in 2015. More recent crises included nationwide demonstrations in 2019, the Beirut port explosion in 2020 and an armed incident near the Horsh in 2021. The continuing compounded crises have resulted in an ongoing state of exception, which is defined as the suspension of law aiming to normalize an emergency, for short-or longterm periods of time (Agamben 2005).