A video clip that circulated this year on social media in Lebanon shows a man in a car, playing two roles: a driving instructor and a student. It’s a deadpan sketch aimed at Lebanon’s traffic chaos — or, read another way, a satirical portrait of a people shaped by collapse.
“How do you drive on the highway?” the instructor asks. “Slowly,” the student answers. “Bravo,” the instructor says and checks a box.
“If someone is driving behind you?” “I slam on the brakes.” The instructor nods approvingly.
“If someone pulls up next to you?” “I swerve into them.” “Very good.”
“Someone tries to merge into your lane?” “I block them.” “Love it,” the instructor answers.
“Shall we begin?” the student finally asks. “We are done,” the instructor replies and hands him the key. “Congratulations.”
The sketch rings true to anyone who has ever driven in Beirut, where the streets are like a nest of bees you’ve just disturbed. Everyone swerves and stings, rushing in all directions. As a native Beiruti now living in Cambridge, Mass., I try to resist when I visit Lebanon, but I become part of the swarm because the road demands it. Traffic rules are rewritten minute by minute. A taxi driver stops to haggle with a passenger mid-lane while the cars behind wait; a roundabout turns into a duel of bumpers; pedestrians step off the sidewalk to cross a street only to be sped at.
Driving in Beirut is one mundane example of how we Lebanese have stopped believing we owe each other or our unraveling country anything. The road’s swarm logic governs our politics, where elected officials all seem to be rushing ahead randomly. We have no faith in the system, only in our own maneuvering. Heartbreak has become muscle memory.
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The post The Chaos of Driving in Lebanon Tells a Story of a Country Unraveled appeared first on New York Times.
