Keep up with The Attic provocative content by getting our digest email in your inbox, once in a while. The story of Polish soul singer Renata Lewandowska, a lost-and-found jewel of the Polish music from the 70s. Stories from Beirut - Irtijal Festival part 1 March 7, Written by: Philipp Schmickl. Share article:. Since three years, every early April I go on this venture in order to take part in the Irtijal Festival.
Invitations were pronounced and in the time was right for the first time to organize a trip to the Middle East. I know the name of the city, Beirut, since I can remember. I grew up with it, heard it on TV, on the news and on the radio. Despite of what I had heard, the word Beirut always kept a positive connotation for me.
The television-sequences I link with the word are stone throwing children. Or is my memory cheating on me? In our little village, we children did the same thing at the same time, but we threw the stones onto each other.
The lectures that I was attending at the University of Vienna about the history of the Arab world increased my interested in Lebanon and the civil war from to , which I tried to understand.
There was a time when I knew much more about this war than I do today. The special interest in this, I think, is also due to the word 'Beirut'. You can show off, in a way, when you say it, when you pronounce it and, even more, when you say that you are going there. Sometimes I avoided to use it and said that I was going to the Irtijal Festival. Beirut evokes a certain danger and exoticism, much more intangible than those of other cities.
