Speaker A
what there's no place else even remotely like it everything great and all the world's ills all in one glorious messed up magical maddening magnificent city beirut it's good to be felt back cool rain on my shoulders
Anthony Bourdain explores Beirut's chaotic mix of cultures, religions, and food, and the strain of Syrian refugees, sectarian tensions, and ISIS threats on the city.
Key Takeaways
- Beirut's diversity is both its greatest strength and a source of fragility amid regional conflict.
- Syrian refugees have overwhelmed Lebanon's capacity, leaving many in legal and economic limbo.
- Sectarian tensions and the civil war's legacy continue to shape neighborhoods and politics.
- Food and cultural life remain a unifying force in the face of hardship.
What the video covers
- Bourdain describes Beirut as a glorious, messy, magnificent city that he loves despite its troubled history.
- He rides Harley-Davidson motorcycles with a British-Lebanese friend, encountering both welcoming and hostile reactions in conservative villages.
- The city's 18 recognized religious sects coexist, including large Christian, Shiite, and Sunni populations plus Palestinian and Syrian communities.
- Lebanon has absorbed a huge influx of Syrian refugees, roughly a quarter of its population, straining infrastructure and resources.
- Palestinian refugee camps are shown as overcrowded, with residents facing restrictions, lack of work rights, and fear of deportation to Syria.
- Political posters across neighborhoods reflect a full spectrum of factions, from Assad loyalists to extremist groups.
- The contrast between Beirut's nightlife, beaches, and liberal culture and conservative Hezbollah-controlled districts is highlighted.
- Bourdain discusses the lingering scars of the 15-year civil war and the 2006 war with Hezbollah during his earlier visit.
- Food is central throughout, including shawarma, syrian dishes, mezze, and lamb preparations.
- Interviews with Syrian refugees reveal stories of displacement, violence, and a desire to rebuild lives.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Beirut
- 03:50Motorcycle Ride and Local Food
- 07:51Beirut's Diverse Neighborhoods and Religious Mix
- 13:20Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon
- 17:20Palestinian Camps and Life in Limbo
- 23:40Coastal Life and Local Security
- 30:00Hezbollah Districts and Beirut's Nightlife
- 38:20ISIS Threat and Final Reflections
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
now the mediterranean sea itself trembles the ground shakes beneath the wheels of our heavy metal thunder back in beirut after all these years the first time i was here did not end well but it made no difference to me
Speaker A
i love it here in spite of everything i love it here look at this nice ride it's a good way to see beirut this is very similar to that place we went to years ago baba this is this is your you know traditional
Speaker A
chicken sandwich shawarma deep fried roast the roasted chicken was this guy's idea my british lebanese friend born born to be wild ramsay short who i met back in those bad old days of 2006. apparently he's in with the
Speaker A
lebanese chapter of the harley-davidson group or hogg for short so when you roll into some religiously conservative village on these monster bikes and leather jackets what's the reaction two types once we were greeted with rice from the balconies
Speaker A
like they thought we were like a wedding or something really nice and the other extreme was stones like at the wheels like just get out of here really yeah i wouldn't throw stones at people on harleys oh look at this let's dig in and that'll
Speaker A
work this is a famous neighborhood of the city this area there was central during the civil war yes the sheer volume of fire that was poured into some of these buildings is absolutely unbelievable fire and so many
Speaker A
battles happened in the same place over over and over and over and over again and again clearly i noticed this every time someone visiting the city they just point at them oh look at that but you know we don't see them anymore
Speaker A
we just pass by them beirut seemingly the world in miniature 18 religious sects recognized more than 2 million christians over a million and a half shiites a million and a half sunni nearly 500 000 palestinians and now by some
Speaker A
estimates as many as two million syrians all living and somehow getting along kind of in a country the size of connecticut but along its borders the country has what you might call serious neighbor issues isis in syria
Speaker A
threatening to expand its so-called caliphate into lebanon isis in many ways is something we've never really seen before a really large well-organized well-equipped terrorist army lebanon has been absorbing refugees for nearly two years now the country simply can't take any more a
Speaker A
quarter of lebanon's population is now syrian that is the equivalent of the u.s taking in 83 million syrians this could be spiraling and as you said the real fear is the violence across the border in syria's civil war now spilling over
Speaker A
into an already fragile neighborhood beirut struggled to put a lid on the simmering sectarian tensions that took place brothers here block by block you see the scars from the 15-year civil war that only ended in the 90s but also nightclubs
Speaker A
discos beaches bikinis where much of the arab world comes to let their hair down it is an incongruous with people's mix so neighborhood has long been the home to principally palestinian refugees but more recently it's become a refuge
Speaker A
for syrians fleeing the barrel bombs of president assad on one hand and the predations of isis on the other the camps saw heavy fighting shelling and outright massacres during the religious conflict known as the lebanese civil war everywhere you
Speaker A
see posters representing a full menu of political factions and affiliations from assad loyalists to the plo to every flavor of extremist it's either a jihad a victory or martyrism do you know of any other place in the region where all of these
Speaker A
groups are co-existing within a confined space it is stunning to be walking down the street with high heels short skirts and vast amounts of red wine flowing and then drive straight into an extraordinarily conservative predominantly sheer district you know the hizballah district which is
Speaker A
effectively run by what the u.s calls a terrorist organization it's kind of it is kind of mind-blowing i am not a geopolitical expert and as much time as i've spent in this part of the world i've spent nowhere
Speaker A
near the amount of time this guy has nick payton walsh cnn senior international correspondent most of the groups here are now more terrified of those sort of crazy islamist radicals across the border in syria uh than they ever have been of each
Speaker A
other what would you call this neighborhood what is it i mean it's now one of the kind of very mixed refugee areas that beirut has close to two million people from syria alone yeah that's a hell of a lot to be absorbed by a tiny
Speaker A
little nation of what 4.5 million it's just loads of people far too many people with nowhere to go you see it in our cell phones don't sometimes work the way they should how people have to ship water into their own
Speaker A
homes as part of bad infrastructure but it's also just the sheer demand on resources we'll follow you okay we're the first time in the history i've been a senior leads american that's nice don't let the neighbors know about
Speaker A
that yes in syria mr naijan was an english teacher needless to say he had at one time a better life back there i came from syria after the civil war started yeah we know lebanon has many many problems sectarian
Speaker A
problems and we don't want to add more problems for those people but what can we do we live here in this camp imagine the situation here it is unbearable he is married by the way and he has
Speaker A
three kids in spite of his wounds he works you know for destruction this family what this in order to protect us from the rats yes these children need medical operations but this family can't pay for their separation because
Speaker A
they are very expensive they are waiting for godot they wait for nothing they wait for the help of god straining under the weight of all these unasked four guests the lebanese government has begun making it very difficult for them
Speaker A
he doesn't work only because he doesn't have an official residence so he can't leave the camp otherwise he will be arrested you know being stopped at any of the city's ubiquitous military checkpoints could mean a one-way ticket back to syria
Speaker A
trapped unable to work they exist invisibly on the margins of society this is a military area you don't want to get involved in any problem syrian food this is syrian it is called the sieving countries it consists of many kinds of vegetables
Speaker A
seven kinds of foods palestinians in syria most of them are well educated doctors engineers lawyers teachers but here now it's the opposite right here in lebanon even if you were a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher you can work
Speaker A
only in the car we don't know how to go where to go to go back to syria get no can do to cross the sea yeah suppose that the lebanese authority collect us and throw us away to syria what is going to happen
Speaker A
we have no area in the world we have no place in this universe we belong to nowhere nowhere welcome later once known as the paris of the middle east beirut still clings to its glamorous 1960s image a chic tourist destination
Speaker A
where you can famously ski and go to the beach all in the same day walking the corniche it's easy to forget for a moment anyway what's going on not far from here oh all the people who live here near the
Speaker A
coast they prefer to spend the sunday outside their houses and this is one of their traditional places this is the way i live all my life mo is a local security specialist on assignment to keep well me and my crew safe from harm he lives
Speaker A
with his daughter bushra and his family in rasmerut a mixed neighborhood of christians muslims and druze little oil in the middle as i recall yes yes oh so good very good fish ah i missed this country i really did
Speaker A
you have been here before this is my third time whoa my first time it was 2006.
Speaker A
oh we came here we had two perfect days and then the war broke out during my first trip here in 2006 hezbollah gorillas killed three israeli soldiers and captured two others in a cross-border raid in the 34-day war
Speaker A
that followed much of beirut was heavily pounded by bombs and naval artillery i fell in love with this city under the worst possible situation you have this really extraordinary mix of religions and people how is that why what's so special about it
Speaker A
why of course somebody on friday go to pray somebody on sunday go to pray but if they go to the same restaurant have the same food have the same drink they have the same tradition there is no place better than lebanon you have
Speaker A
everything people are friendly beautiful fantastic it is a democracy here of course you have a choice to sit down and talk i like this i don't like this so what's it look like now yanny we look like we are two months
Speaker A
before 2006. oh wow that's not good attention is a little bit high but the people they are very happy we are very happy i go with my family outside i mean i was watching the news last night at the hotel it is genuinely
Speaker A
terrifying this is lebanon it's raining today tomorrow is sunny it's happening all the time we gets used to it you get used to it are you concerned or optimistic no i'm optimistic yeah your friends feel the same way um
Speaker A
not really at all we all your friends are less optimistic yeah we have only one good neighbor it don't affect us it helps us all the time it's a sea we bring the fish and we have fish and they never get upset from us
Speaker A
inshallah [Music] breaking down right is so yes i think it is ironic glasses vintage clothing and neck beards it appears the brooklyn strain has spread even to beirut radio beirut live and direct it is with cnn and everything
Speaker A
cnn has become the most trusted name in use same way a broken clock is trusted to be right twice a day cnn changed their slogan from this is cnn to at least it's not fox news yes sir how is it possible this mix of religions
Speaker A
of cultures you know geographically how it is beirut's so tiny you got mountains you got to see we're surrounded and then there's so many factions that you have to deal with everybody i'm going turkey ham in this fish that's
Speaker A
hallelujah guess now pass me the letter stack up until i stand with the [ __ ] now where is the bread where is the hippos where's eighty percent defeated hummus while a small percentage get to eat zit where is the oil where is the wealth
Speaker A
syrian folks the easy and chill they need to not know just needed some help give them the syrian filipino rapper monday is hip hop and radio beirut hey radio beiru is like a really awesome place where there's live bands playing all week long
Speaker A
we created a platform for mcs to try their skills in front of people without the prejudice without the judgments and although we do judge we do make fun of them queen fields and dream feels like copperfield then i'm
Speaker A
making magic like my name was copperfield lebanese freestyle legend hussein aka double a the preacher man you were what you were arrested is this correct yeah yeah that's that's normal that's not the first time it happened for what
Speaker A
basically i was profiled like if there's an explosion oh the big dude with the beard was bold i said it's him he did it we're 100 sure these are beard related issues yeah yeah let's talk about hip-hop that's the glue that binds
Speaker A
us what is it about hip-hop i see it like this i mean a lot of people do moves in arabic is called the well in which it's a traditional rhyming scheme in which they speak about their problems about their beefs
Speaker A
it's in our core to be po we are poets we come from like a background where you have governments that are dictators we can't really voice anything these politicians can't believe it because they're getting let on to the
Speaker A
slaughter while this monster trying to keep the lid on pressure makes us weal but it blows the lid off and we're wrong we're up we're off we're trying to find our own identity we don't want to be like
Speaker A
our ancestors we're always fighting each other like he's christian i'm i'm syrian cindy that's nothing you know we don't even we don't even mention that when we're on stage so i'm on my own now the hell with the
Speaker A
world the universe [Music] so afternoon in beirut in the hafez family like many others across the city prepares dinner extraordinary spread of food yeah all this food you see and my son he's crying because he wants to go to burger
Speaker A
king he wants some chicken burger from bigger kings well thank you so much for for having me in your home this is spicy potato we call it batata hara deep fried potato with red pepper green chili coriander garlic
Speaker A
and lemon juice and this is which is raw meat lamb fresh man spring onion mix it all together and this is as a main course it's called mossaka mince meat baked aubergine green and red pepper and chickpeas and tomato and tomato
Speaker A
paste please help yourself thank you i was in beirut in 2006. this neighborhood was hit very hard yeah were you here at that time yeah it was luster why this neighborhood because the people in this area 99 percent they support hezbollah
Speaker A
[Music] as israel buries its debt from a surprise hizballah missile strike and the radical shiite group celebrates a victory the rhetoric on both sides is at a fever pitch right now [Music] it is the deadliest hezbollah attack against israeli forces
Speaker A
since the two sides went to war in 2006. hezbollah means the party of god they are a shia military political organization lavishly supported by iran the party is more powerful more effective on the ground than the lebanese army
Speaker A
the united states officially designates them a terrorist organization in 1983 they did this the u.s embassy bombing [Music] and this the marine barracks at beirut's airport 299 united states and french servicemen were killed all these people they are
Speaker A
hezbollah [Music] please put it down now they are dangerous they are well funded and whatever else they may be they are not stupid in 2006 i have two sisters they lost them home hezbollah take care of them here in dahi everybody support hezbollah
Speaker A
even the people who they are not religious for one reason because they feel protected by them my host support for hezbollah typical of the dahiya neighborhood in south beirut his staunch before hezbollah lebanese people they were always scared of israel now when you say israel
Speaker A
you say we don't care in the early days hezbollah used tactics that just about anyone would call terrorism when is it permissible morally to use a car bomb or using civilian targets for me for you i'm against killing against killing
Speaker A
anybody even israel this person who i'm gonna kill and carbon or whatever doesn't he has family what's the most important thing happening in the world today that needs to be resolved for things to be better isis isis is
Speaker A
number one number one they killed hundreds and thousands of shia they are devils they are against everything like everything on the on on the earth they are against recently hezbollah has become heavily involved in the war in syria
Speaker A
in defense of the assad regime complicating matters and uncomfortably enough they are probably the best organized best-equipped most serious obstacle to isis and al-qaeda in the area most of the villages in the east of lebanon they are christian and they are sunni
Speaker A
right if hezbollah wasn't there it was no more christian in that area this is the only reason i i the gun is this is the only reason for just to protect my children and my wife 20 years 30 years
Speaker A
yeah will things be better up so up not 20 years and 30 years up now next year thing goes better i hate war [Music] so the last two times i've been here there's just this never-ending building booth [Music]
Speaker A
nobody seems to be moving in but the buildings are going up yeah who's buying these apartments who are they for two kinds of people lebanese who are living abroad or arabs especially from the gulf region right for whom beirut is a relatively
Speaker A
liberal wonderland of permissiveness compared to riyadh for instance compared to riyadh yes but unfortunately we cannot generalize this and say that beirut is a place where sexual expression is encouraged her books are banned in many countries in the region she's regularly threatened
Speaker A
with rape stoning and murder she is jumana haddad culture editor of lebanon's biggest newspaper onnahar yesterday i had my first web tv show about sexual freedom and you cannot imagine how many health doors have opened just because i dare to
Speaker A
say that girls are allowed free sexuality just like boys and we prepare we pretend to be a democracy this is kafta kafta yeah with yogurt sauce and cranberries it's dinner fried uh stuffed grape leaves yes [Music] the famous stuff the fact that lebanon
Speaker A
that beirut in particular works at all all these religious groups and different interests i mean this is a fully functioning more or less by world staff fully functioning yeah this is a we don't have a president it's been almost it's going to be a year
Speaker A
now that we are without that's sort of awesome don't you think that the main reason behind you seeing this at this thrilling exciting place to live in is that you're a visitor and not someone who actually lives here
Speaker A
am i wrong to love this place you're not wrong to love it i love living on the tip of a volcano but there has to be some point where i could breathe and relax i don't want to seem like i'm only
Speaker A
criticizing because i really also as much as i hate this place i love it as well and i know that it's also very precious to have such a kind of freedom and a place in the arab world like beirut
Speaker A
i don't need to tell you about the islamic state even though they're not inside beirut yet we can feel the threat we can feel it every day should people come here yes definitely they should come they will enjoy it as much as you have
Speaker A
uh i wouldn't advise them to stay more than a month though [Music] so talking empty [Music] [Music] oh [Music] i often go to the danielle in venice and i asked the man to call me your highness i love that
Speaker A
that's my trip so i go there and i i'm dressed like an emperor i'm not today but sometimes and that's like an emperor there have been two attempts on your life yes yes in arabic we say it means the third one
Speaker A
succeeds so i don't know when the third one will be a young militant an activist a labor organizer you have been arrested in your life yes many times when i was 14 years old for example i became a communist in a
Speaker A
region that was under control of the extreme right-wing militia i ended up in a torture room that i recreated here just behind you later after joining and then leaving the lebanese army michelle elf terriaris formed the mur an armed revolutionary group and yet
Speaker A
here you are your life now is music and culture i think that i was made to be a musician but when war happened in lebanon i took a gun i understood that i cannot face someone who's attacking my house with
Speaker A
the guitar in 2003 by now a music producer entrepreneur politician artist author and filmmaker he founded the beirut music hall in a bullet pop theater empty since the civil war this is his kingdom some people come because it's trendy
Speaker A
they come with their sexy ladies some come because they like to discover new things you have per night up to 15 acts each act coming from a different culture who needs culture i think that culture can save the world
Speaker A
isis those criminals who are not very far from lebanon someone who read interesting books someone who listened to beautiful music cannot become an animal again if you were the emperor of the world hypothetically hopefully hopefully what will beiru be like in 10
Speaker A
years best case scenario it goes back to before the creation of israel when all communities were living very well the jews will be back we are in the jewish neighborhood here i think that we have to all to be united
Speaker A
to fight this monster isis once the monster is defeated you can start arguing again about other things [Music] so [Music] hello hello how do you know i'm tony i'm rowan thank you for doing this this feels very formal
Speaker A
but it's not so please can relax get my beer by all means yes please lots of people come here they're mostly musicians and artistic people lots of jamming happens here it's like more of a family hanging out this cafe is a typical beirut
Speaker A
establishment with a clientele from lebanon from syria and any number of other countries the owners are both lebanese and syrian and acutely aware of the tricky political realities with which they must live they were concerned about us filming here and
Speaker A
wanted us to understand clearly that the cafe has no political affiliation and that the opinions of this young lady rawan are not that of the cafe or necessarily even the clientele you're born in bread she was yes i was
Speaker A
born in brought up in syria damascus one night 3 a.m the army entered our house and i found them in my bedroom looking for the free syrian army my dad knew he couldn't protect us because he was old
Speaker A
three hours later we decided to leave so we came to beirut [Music] oh thank you we always eat here grape leaves is my favorite food i saw you went for that first yeah it's delicious yeah it is we come here a lot and we
Speaker A
talk a lot about syria we talk about our visa issues most of the time actually now i have four months left and i really have no idea what am i going to do what do you think will they renew your
Speaker A
visa i'm so far i don't think so do they arrest you do they take you to the border and kick you over the other side what what how does that send you back to syria what happens if you go back to syria
Speaker A
most probably die on the way or do some people get arrested or be taken to the army how different is damascus from peru it's really really different in damascus i was always afraid of the government some people died because they cursed the
Speaker A
president i left syria and i found hope here and i screamed in the streets cursing all politicians and everything it's all right nobody's going to come and arrest you i really love this place with all my heart is all of the chaos and the violence
Speaker A
it's worth it for change is that worth dying for i mean you things were there was order when you grew up there was order no freedom but but water would you go back to that i don't think that there is anything
Speaker A
worthy in the world of a human blood there is nothing more important than human being you'd never be able to yell out loud you'd never be able to do the things you're doing now you'd go back i was alive
Speaker A
you were alive lots of people were alive as well [Music] [Music] this blast has set off a tide of civil unrest in lebanon [Music] where better for capitalist imperialist pig dogs like ramsay and myself to spend the last
Speaker A
evening in beirut than abueli it was opened by a guy called naya he was a atheist member of the lebanese communist party a communist theme bar located in a housing block what is this you know what i'm not sure
Speaker A
it's been put in front of us well we should probably drink it figure out vodka vodka you know i actually had somebody who lives here tell me oh yeah the place is great just don't stay here for longer
Speaker A
though yeah and i was like oh yeah yeah you're trying to kill us man [Music] after more than a few indigenous beverages so now we're talking chess enter ernesto yeah i got something for you oh yeah it's a cabin cigar
Speaker A
in the words of vladimir ilyich lennon let's get the party started oh is that rick james ernesto the son of the owner of this bar i know this is my mom she made some shanklish here oh shanquish is the cheese it's kinda
Speaker A
rotten cheese here we go cheers i called my dad yeah i told him there's a guy called tony cnn he said i don't watch cnn and then i told him but he's a cool guy he wants to make the best food for you
Speaker A
this is some of the best in beirut lamb and spices oh man that's good hypothetical isis are coming now are we picking up a gun or not i'm very gone yeah we will fight these people no i'm not drinking no no we have to have it
Speaker A
nick yeah [Music] i seem to remember mom at one point whipping out some kind of automatic weapon all right here you go baby i will take this up in arms and i will fight let me tell you and then the mirror ball
Speaker A
descended from the ceiling bootsy collins came on over the sound system and the rest is a fog let's first have it cheers this is the worst neighbor problems in the world it's amazing that it persists i've been around i've seen places
Speaker A
these days it works fine [Applause] i think so too here's to [Applause] [Music] beirut everybody should come here everyone should see how complicated how deeply troubled and yet at the same time beautiful and awesome the world can be everyone should
Speaker A
experience even as the clouds gather what's at stake what could be lost what's still here and never let that hope go beirut there is no place like [Music] now [Music] [Music] you
Topics:Anthony BourdainParts UnknownBeirutLebanonSyrian refugeesHezbollahLebanese civil warPalestinian campsBeirut foodtravel documentary
