On Nov. 30, Centreville, or downtown Beirut, was shut down at noon. American University in Beirut was empty; most of the students did not bother to go to classes. Some of my friends were told by their parents not to go because of the protest. I, being in a perpetual state of illegality, had to go down to the Surete General to pick up my new residence card. Some people told me to wait, that it would be risky because in the best case scenario I would miss the protest by half an hour. Nevertheless I insisted on going, and at first I did not notice the many changes in Beirut. As we got further and further away from AUB I noticed the blockades, the barbed wire and the numerous tanks and soldiers.

Organizers claimed that a million people would come out and protest against UN resolution 1559 which calls for Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity and demands that all foreign armies leave, i.e. Syria, and that all non-state actors disarm, i.e. Hezbollah. The people protesting were presumed to be either pro-Syrian presence or pro-Hezbollah or both. The week before there had been a series of protests against Syrian presence.

At the Surete General nothing seemed out of the ordinary. We quickly got our passports and new residence cards and the search for a taxi proved to be a challenge. My friend and I walked for a good 30 minutes; we were passed by numerous cars with Lebanese flags coming out of the side. We could hear and see the protestors assembling, yelling slogans. After this we started walking behind the soldier-made fence and barbed wire. When we finally got a taxi back to AUB we drove by a small gathering of protestors. When we got back to AUB we watched the protest on TV. Inevitably the organizers were to be disappointed that only a couple thousand showed up even though a million were promised.

Along the same lines last week at AUB were the Student Representative Committee (SRC) elections. I had no idea about how important the results are to political parties in the country. AUB during this time becomes a mini-Lebanon with students running on Lebanese national party platforms trying to get elected by their peers. Graduate students can only vote for graduate students, medical students can only vote for medical students, faculty of arts and sciences can only vote for faculty of arts and sciences, etc.

During this week security was at an all time high; if you did not have a valid ID the university security, reinforced by Lebanese soldiers, would not let you into the campus. There is a fear of outside influence by Lebanese political parties on the election. Similarly, the polls were heavily guarded; voters had to ID themselves ensuring that they were eligible to vote for candidates. Sadly, since I’m a visiting student I was illegible to vote.

One of the parties that would’ve gotten my vote was No Frontiers. This year the opposition parties won, echoing what many believe to be the true sentiments of the people. In the words of one Lebanese student, “They don’t want a mockery government, if they could really vote they’d vote for our sovereignty.”