Amy’s Journal

I had the day off from teaching because today is Independence Day. If the people I talked to are representative of the population at large, this is somehow not felt to be a very important holiday, even in 2005, the year the Syrian soldiers left.

Lebanon gained independence in 1943, after being administered by France following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. I missed the military parade that went on downtown, mostly because it started at 8 AM and I had stayed up late the night before, but I watched a bit of it on TV. The VIP stands were about half full and there were very few other spectators. I wandered down there shortly after the parade ended and took some pictures of flags and tanks. A few groups of people came to bring flowers to Harri’s grave, but otherwise, Martyr’s Square was nearly empty.