Knefeh And Noodles
Lebanon’s second city is about to be pushed out of its comfort zone…
Don’t be fooled by the fancy buildings and a bunch of new glittery cafés. Tripoli looks like a city, but it is in fact one big town. People know each other, tradition is entrenched in most social interactions, and gossip is a favorite pastime.
Tripoli is nominally Lebanon’s second capital, but measured by economic activity, it trails way behind Beirut. It has no significant economic motor to hold it together. But this is about to change.
Chinese Traders have somehow concluded that the best place to establish a regional trade center to promote their products is the Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli. Their decision is about to transform the entire Tripolitan economy.
The Project will generate 3000 jobs in its first phase. Estimates indicate that 400,000 people will come to Tripoli annually to trade. Most visitors will be from Arab and African countries, and most will need to be housed, fed and entertained. Considering the embarrassing scarcity of hotels in Tripoli, we are talking about big opportunities in the tourism and real estate sectors. Whether or not Tripolitanian investors will seize them is a different matter; Northerners are notorious for playing safe with their money (many live off bank interests).
The thousands of Chinese, added to the Arab and African traders, will also bring a concept that was previously unheard of in homogenous Tripoli: Multi-culturalism.
Because of little exposure, a lot of people will not know what to do with the Chinese next door, this is why the Municipality is kindly urged to change racist attitudes by using awareness public campaigns.
Being a native of Tripoli myself, I will sit back and enjoy watching the transformation take place..
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Hello, my name is Mustapha and I blog in The Beirut Spring about Lebanese society and politics. I started in February 2005 after the killing of P.M. Rafik Hariri.
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I will sit back and enjoy the Chinese trying to say “Abdul Rahman Al Hallab”
I hope you are right Mustapha.
As 2nd city, Tripoli should be a much better place.
But until further notice, I’ll remain skeptical of everything attached to the name of that piece of dog shit Rashid Karami.
And Tripoli (and Leb) will never amount to anything as long as it (we) keep commemorating Karami, Syria, Frangieh….
Are people for this crap (the recent memoarial)? If not, why are they silent?
It is about time Tripoli starts moving. Let us just hope this project will not go the way of the R. Moawad airport: nice announcement with a lot of fluff and then nothing.
From an urbanism point of view, Tripoli is a much nicer place than Beirut. The buildings have roughly the same heights and the souks are authentic, as opposed to Solidere’s Saudi DisneyLand.
Add to that the citdel, the Mamalouk towers, the old quarter in Al-Mina, a few hammams… The potential is huge.
The Rashid Karame fair was designed by Oscar Niemeyer the architect of Brazilia (as in Brazil, not Hazmiyyeh). It is truly a unique piece of architecture, and it deseves to be preserved, and I think it is officially protected. Let us just hope the new project revives it.
Sounds like a good plan. I hope it benefits all in Tripoli, and I pray that Tripolitanian is a relative of mine. :)
i hope it will change the situation there for better, and the northern capital will rise again, good luck for the north, and i hope something for the south as well, and i also pray that Mr. hariri will let them succeed outside beirut at least one time, and not take the project to beirut.
JW,
when you talked about Karami, you meant Omar Karami, not Rashid.
Doha
No Doha.
I precisely meant big shit Rashid, not little shit Omar.
The Interational Fair is named for Rashid and the memorial of 3 days ago was for big shit Rashid, though attended by little shit Omar. There, Rashid and Tony Frangieh were declared “martyrs”.
Rashid Karami is the worst political figure in modern Lebanon, bar none.
He was catastrophically wrong at every crucial turn; 1958, 1969 (Cairo accord) and 1975-76 as the PM who oversaw the descent to hell.
In any decent country he would have have been tried for treason at least 15 times and shot, not commemorated. But of course in our country Tony Frangieh is a martyr and Lahoud is still busy defending the constitution.
Mustapha… I liked your article a lot. thank you. I wrote a comment on my blog in response. It is rather a long text, so I didn’t want to flood your comments section. Let me know if you want me to paste it back here.
I will sit back and watch the chinese get butchered by the “Zira3a”, “bab el rammel” and friends….
A rumour that has never been confirmed or denied by the official authorities talks of plans to promote the harbour in Tripoli and deemphasize or even shut down the operations in Beirut.Such a plan is ver courageous and if true could help transform Tripoli and the North of Lebanon
as said, courageous, but unlikely…
AA,
To hell with the official authorities. The city should go ahead and do it itself (if Karami and Frangieh and others won’t stand in the way).
I am Lebanese but don’t know much about tripoli. I was shocked to read this article though and am wondering if this is true or just propaganda by the west.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/11/AR2006061100599.html
http://tinyurl.com/nj7lb
My dear Anon 2:50,
Ifit is true that you were shocked by what you read in the WP then why to the hell don’t you hop into your car, take a cab or even bicycle to Tripoli in order to find out for yourself what things are like in your second largest city that happens to be only 6o miles North of Beirut!!!! Or is it easier to fall back on old reliable and blame Western propaganda. No wonder this country is a mess.
whatever the guy above said, I’m Half Lebanese, currently residing outside of Lebanon, A native of Tripoli, i’m coming back to LB in a few days, and i’m planing on doing my little private investigations…
gonna have to grow a beard so I can blend in… *shudders*