2 events, one day

Sorry, but this image was not taken on my phone as promised in the "about" section for this site, but I need it to illustrate a point.

Earlier in the day I photographed at the Hizballah rally (see previous post). I, and many of the other journalists I talk to, are always very impressed by the amount of organization that Hizballah has. Not only are the events well organized, but how they deal with journalists, their security checks, and then herding us around to take pictures at their events - by the way, at these events contrary to what many think, there is no discrimination by Hizballah against journalists who have written bad things about them, come from countries who call them "terrorists", and they do not censor anything.

Now, compare this to any event organized by the state, and the differences are incredible.

First of all, Lebanon is a bizarre country. We left Dahiyeh where tens of thousands were listening to a speech by Hassan Nasrallah to travel just 15 minutes to downtown where thousands were coming to listen to a concert by Haifa Wahbe. These two figures, one a leader of a disciplined resistance organization, and the other a singer who sings about well, lovey stuff, and has obvious plastic surgery (although now Nancy Ajram might be more popular than Haifa) are Lebanon's most popular. Crazy.

Anyway, at the Haifa concert, the Lebanese police officers were at first sitting around joking with each like always. Hizballah guards at the speech in Dahiyeh joke too, but it's like if you see a couple joking you're lucky, and right after the guy's straight face will return and he will be back in position arms folded. Not only were these police officers untrained in how to deal with crowds, there was only about 20 of them to fight off a storming crowd of thousands. Needless to say, the police officers lost and the stage was stormed and the concert ended.

One of the police officers who was fighting off the storming crowds grabbed me and tried to hand me a phone a bunch of times. I kept telling him in arabic, "it's not mine!" And he was shouting, "Take picture of Haifa!" I looked at him giving him that "are you serious" look and finally I said why not. So I ran up before getting pushed back by Haifa's security and snapped her pic. Finally Haifa was rushed out by police and her bodyguards.

It was chaotic. And this was right after an event in Dahiyeh where if someone stood up to cheer when it wasn't the time to do so, they would get a firm look from a Hizballah guard and sit right back down immediately.