If Michel Ecochard were alive today to see his beloved Beirut, he would arguably want to drop dead on the spot. Beginning in the 1930s, the French architect and urban planner worked for some 30 years in Lebanon and the region. He had especially high hopes for Beirut, as it was blessed with what he called, “One of the most beautiful sites in the world.”

In 1943, he was asked to produce an urban blueprint that could accommodate Beirut’s future growth. Taking into account the city’s existing character and natural setting, he proposed strict zoning, a modern infrastructure to cope with the growing popularity of the car, and a string of gardens and parks as the city’s green lungs. 

Today, the AUB campus and Sanayeh Garden offer a rare glimpse of what Beirut could have been, while the city’s ever increasing traffic jams echo the fact that Ecochard’s plan was never approved in Parliament. Not surprisingly, the most vocal opposition stemmed from Beirut’s property owners and landed elite.

The situation did not improve following World War II. The newly independent “merchant republic” under the presidencies of Camille Chamoun and Bechara Khoury were neoliberal avant la lettre, in the sense that the state was to stay out of social and economic affairs in order not to hamper the private sector’s potential to generate profit. Urban planning was among the least of its concerns.

Having worked in such cities as Casablanca, Damascus and Aleppo, Ecochard returned in 1961 when President Fouad Chehab asked him to again produce a master plan for Greater Beirut. Despite his earlier disappointment, Ecochard accepted. “Beirut can still be saved, but action must be taken immediately,” he said.

Again, Ecochard called for zoning, the creation and protection of green spaces and an improved infrastructure. He also proposed building government cities to decongest the capital, and social housing schemes for east and south Beirut to raise the living standards among the many new arrivals in search of a better future. Finally, he advocated strict building regulations to discourage speculation. Again, his plan came to nothing. Parliament, in 1964, adopted a watered down version of his proposal, in which some industrial zoning remained and construction along beaches was (temporarily) frozen. 

Ecochard disassociated himself from the plan and soon after left the country. Contrary to what many Lebanese think, the urban chaos that characterizes Beirut today has not been the result of 15 years of Civil War. Ecochard was hardly the only planner that tried to tame Beirut. Before him, there was 1930s French urbanist Rene Danger. After him there were Greek, Swiss and homegrown plans. The problem was that, time and time again, plans were compromised or shelved entirely. In other words, the lack of urban planning dates straight back to Lebanon’s independence in 1948, and is directly linked with the impotence of the Lebanese state. “[Ultimately,] Beirut’s urban landscape symbolizes the difficulty of the state to affirm its authority,” concludes modern urban historian Eric Verdeill in his book ‘Beyrouth et Ses Urbanistes’. 

The consequences of this inability are plenty. The lack of proper public transport and the ever increasing fleet of wheels, for example, is strangling the city. There are hardly any parks and there is little or no sense of social, aesthetic or historic value, as everything is measured by the mighty $-sign. As a result, Beirut’s cultural heritage is rapidly making way for ever higher high-rise that makes you wonder: what ever happened to the art of architecture? 

A recent low point on a long list of urban disasters was the adoption of the 2004 building law. While in the 1960s a building was allowed to be only as high as 1.5 times the width of a street it faced, since 2004 it can be 2.5 times the street’s width. This change prompted a forest of towers to be erected everywhere, even along the Corniche. While most are a slap in the face of beauty, they also have disastrous consequences for the city’s air and traffic circulation. 

“It was the private domain… that invaded the public domain and hacked away at its flailing carcass,” wrote the late Samir Kassir in summing up the sad history of urban planning in his book ‘Beirut’. “The metropolitan area was little more than a mass of infringements and trespasses against the ability to breathe that is no less essential to a city than a person.” 

Sweet dreams, Monsieur Ecochard.

It is the proper application of law that separates anarchy from order, suppression from representation, people from slaves and fosters a society with a respect for the structures of governance. The opposite is just as true, where it is the selective application of law — for example when charges are conjured up to suppress freedom of expression in the name of preserving ‘public morality’ — that leads to the destruction of faith in the institution of law itself. As citizens’ distrust of their government mounts, the social contract between the two becomes less tenable and society breaks down. This is where Lebanon is today.

Following a recent string of arrests related to freedom of expression, last month actress Rawya el-Chab and comedian Edmund Hedded were in court to appeal a one-month sentence of imprisonment and a fine for committing “acts of offense against public morality”. Their crime: hosting a mock-auction of men at a pub in 2009 in order to raise money for the Brave Heart Foundation, which helps children with heart diseases. 

The General Prosecutor’s office dug deep through the Penal Code to find a way to invoke paragraphs two and three of Article 532 which cover, respectively, “words or screams that have been manifested by a person and heard by a party that has nothing to do with the act,” and “visuals presented in a public context or for a public or in exhibition or broadcasted or sold or distributed to one or more persons.” 

While Parliament’s library (yes, it does exist) is stacked with unapplied laws relating to the most basic functions of the state and serving the public — such as passing a budget, providing public services (electricity, water, telecoms) and ensuring human rights (among them the law against child abuse) — our justice system found the time to apply its energies and resources to exercise obscure laws to subdue free speech. 

But to think that the judiciary all of a sudden has the intent to weed out villainous threats to virtue and goodness would be a laughable assertion. Aside from the absurdity of a subjective concept such as ‘morality’ existing in a piece of law, an hour of local television will provide one with more than a dose of ‘immoral’ words and screams and the visuals to go with it, especially if one watched Parliament last month. Fortunately for them, our MPs can hide behind their legal immunity; we cannot.  And, as if there were not more pressing issues in the country, those who claim to defend freedom of expression — journalists from El Nashra and Annahar —provoked the judiciary by writing articles critical of the mock-auction. Indeed, the judge who sentenced the comic duo did so largely on the basis of these media articles. At the Appeals Court last month it was clear that the judge had no clue what the case was about and, worse still, after expelling the public from the courtroom, cross-examined the accused and the prosecutor, without allowing the defending lawyer to be heard; that will only happen on May 30. 

This is no laughing matter. If the General Prosecutor can convict someone for violating some backwards piece of legislation on the basis of an article, and without an investigation, then a harrowing precedent has already been set.  

Furthermore, what faith should the public have that the judiciary has any sense of ‘justice’ about it? Or that the laws passed by our government have as their intent any sort of proper governance?

What are meant to be the sacred words of our social covenant, also known as the constitution, have been defiled by the very people who are supposed to uphold them. We, the people, are not “sovereign, free, and independent,” the people are not “the source of authority and sovereignty,” the political system is not “established on the principle of separation, balance, and cooperation amongst the various branches of government.” Instead, imbeciles and their whims are given authority over our freedom of speech. 

If they wish to begin winning back the faith of the people they have so often betrayed rather than served, it is incumbent on our judiciary to see to it that these sentences are repealed, the charges dropped, and spare us their selective morality.