LETTER FROM BEIRUT
Lefties find the right rebel hangout
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> From posters to clientele, Abu Elie's is a hole-in-the-wall
bar that oozes character and causes, Tribune reporter
Deborah Horan uncovers. Tribune staff reporter Deborah
Horan is on assignment in the M
May 6, 2003
BEIRUT -- Che Guevara may be long gone, but at Abu Elie's, a hole-in-the-wall bar in west Beirut, his revolutionary spirit lives on.
Remnants of Beirut's radical leftists meet to talk politics over mugs of beer, patrons still proudly carry cards proving membership in the Communist International, and V.I. Lenin's stern visage vies for wall space with Leon Trotsky and Josef Stalin.
For almost a decade, the tiny pub has attracted men belonging to socialist parties and shadowy Palestinian groups who once belonged to Lebanon's many militias. They crowd around five tables and a short bar underneath a draping red banner and a sketch of an American Indian.
Elsewhere in Beirut, there are two newer pubs dedicated to Guevara, whose romantic rebel image resonates among Lebanese who view themselves as vanguards of revolution and resistance. But it is Abu Elie's that attracts authentic, if aging, guerrillas.
"You have mostly ex-fighters from the civil war," said Makram Rabah, one of the younger patrons. "It's like a blast from the past."
Abu Elie's was opened in 1995, five years after Lebanon's civil war ended, by Naya Shahoud, a die-hard communist and Guevara devotee. That makes it one of the older establishments among Beirut's abundant bars and nightclubs. In the past three years, 105 new places have popped up in the Lebanese capital, according to one nightclub owner, who says he keeps close tabs on the competition.
Shahoud, who goes by the name Abu Elie, plastered the walls of his establishment with pictures of the famous Cuban revolutionary: Che smoking a cigar, Che wearing a beret with a star, Che laughing with a sideways glance, Che angry.
The pub soon became a hub for members of Lebanon's Communist Party, a Druze socialist party and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a left-leaning group on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, among others.
It also has attracted famous names from among the country's leading socialists, a collage of pictures behind the bar reveals. One photo shows Ziad Rahbani, the son of the famous Lebanese singer, Fairouz, and a hard-core communist, smiling with Shahoud and other patrons.
The centerpiece picture displays a highlight in Shahoud's life, said his son Elie Shahoud. A few years ago Guevara's son, Ernesto Che Guevara, visited Abu Elie's and hugged the elder Shahoud.
"He was very proud," Elie Shahoud said of his father. "He lived during Guevara's days. He has books about him."
He also has a dry sense of humor. On the wall he has scribbled in Arabic his version of the 10 Commandments. No. 1: No parking in the parking lot. No. 2: No talking politics.
Little else is discussed under the bar's dim lights by men smoking cigarettes and sipping beer or whiskey. At 2 a.m., the bar is packed. Those still around at dawn get breakfast made in a tiny kitchen in the rear.
"We discuss politics, more politics, more politics," said Hussain Abdel Hussain, another patron. "Why did Syria say this or that? What is America's hidden agenda?"
Guevara's appeal, said Abdel Hussain, arises from the lack of "a good Arab leader" in Lebanon, a country whose politicians are firmly in the grip of Syria, a country these would-be revolutionaries despise.
"People here see this young guy, a symbol of resistance, who was killed at a young age," Abdel Hussain said. "He's a figure unspoiled by politics."
The clientele is specific. No one from Saiqa, a Palestinian organization with Syrian backing that allied itself with the Lebanese right during the civil war, would dare step foot in Abu Elie's, patrons said. Also barred are men from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a splinter of the PFLP that claims the mantle of socialism but maintains close relations with Syria.
The fall of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe hasn't dimmed these men's zeal for a socialist revolution or kept them from admitting membership in the party. Here, communism is the ideology of choice, solidarity with the oppressed is a virtue and Lenin is king.
Elie Shahoud carries a red membership card of the Lebanese Communist Party that features a cypress tree, the symbol of Lebanon, and a hammer and sickle. His father's red business card depicts four tiny pictures of Guevara, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.
No one at Abu Elie's describes these icons of socialism as relics from a bygone era.
To the clientele here, the flame of revolution still burns.
Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
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