Listen up, the truth’s about to drop, and I don’t sugarcoat.
Fifty years ago, Lebanon didn’t just ignite a civil war—it lit the fuse on decades of proxy-power plays, foreign meddling, and sectarian bloodletting dressed in nationalist drag. Beirut, once dubbed the Paris of the Middle East, morphed overnight into a bullet-riddled chessboard for regional despots and international puppeteers. And in the middle of this geopolitical theatre lit aflame, stood one man with a camera, a conscience, and eventually, an exit strategy—Claude Salhani.
Now, let’s be real. War doesn’t need a PR team—it’s perfectly capable of selling itself with explosions and body counts. But Salhani didn’t just click shutters; he captured the raw, uncensored anatomy of a nation’s heart attack. For nine relentless years, from the gun smoke of East Beirut to the crushed rubble of what used to be coffee shops, Salhani documented what violent incompetence looks like when wearing tailored suits and religious robes.
He was a local boy. This wasn’t just another assignment—it was his home collapsing, street by street, ideology by ideology. His photos tell stories most politicians like to bleach out of their speeches. You want to know the real cost of war? Don’t ask the generals—ask the photographers. The generals write victory speeches. The photographers write eulogies in light and shadow.
Let’s break it down: Lebanon didn’t implode by accident. It was engineered chaos—sectarianism thrown into a food processor with Cold War leftovers and served with a garnish of outside meddling. Warlords turned ministers turned billionaires. Syria, Israel, Iran, the U.S.—hell, even Libya under Gaddafi tossed a grenade into the ring now and then. Call it Lebanon’s doomed Olympics: every foreign power wanted a medal in mayhem.
And still, Claude Salhani kept filming. Through car bombs that turned full cafés into nothing but smoke and screams. Through refugee camps bulldozed under patent leather diplomacy. Through phony ceasefires that lasted only long enough for the next militia to reload. His lens didn’t blink, even when the world did.
But eventually—inevitably—he blinked. After nine years, Salhani did what any sane man watching his homeland devour itself would do: he turned away. Sometimes the toll isn’t measured in scars, but in what you can no longer bear to witness. And can we blame him? Even cameras need mercy.
Now here’s the kicker: Fifty years later, Lebanon still hasn’t shaken the ghosts. The buildings have been rebuilt, the warlords have rebranded, and the politicians give interviews in English—but the system? Still bleeding from the inside out. You don’t end a war by putting down guns. You end it by picking up accountability. Spoiler alert: Lebanon’s ruling class never got that memo.
But Salhani’s photos endure. They sneer at amnesia. They haunt every marble corridor where power hides behind formality. And they remind us—a snapshot can be louder than any speech, clearer than any spin. Salhani shot war with the unflinching certainty of a man who knew exactly what was dying: not just lives, but hope.
So here’s my message to today’s political elite, both Lebanese and global: You can bury the truth under committees and committees to review the committees. But you can’t delete memory burned into film. The lens doesn’t lie. People do.
And to Claude Salhani—thank you for bearing witness when courage was the only currency that mattered. The game’s still on. But thanks to you, some of us saw the rules for what they really were: rigged, bloody, and far too profitable for the players to ever call “checkmate.”
If only more lenses were aimed at truth, and fewer at spin.
Stay loud. Stay dangerous. History’s watching.
—Mr. 47
