In our final episode, we close the series with the Lebanese journalists who tell of their struggles to balance between their job of documenting, in words or in photographs, their own country’s destruction, and of their vulnerabilities, living with the aftershock of war, carrying the weight of their trauma through the years, over generations.    بالحلقة الأخيرة، منختم السلسة مع صحفيين لبنانيين بخبروا عن نضالن ليحققوا توازن بين شغلن بتوثيق الأحداث إما بكلمات أو صور، ودمار بلدن، وأوجه ضعفن، وعيش...

This penultimate episode of our 9-part special focuses on the reflection of the francophone journalists and their role during the war, the savagery of what the civil war entailed, its futility, lives lost in vain, and the living horror of those who fought and are left to confront the harsh reality of “normal” life afterward.    الحلقة ما قبل الأخيرة من السلسلة المؤلفة من تسع أجزاء بتركّز على تأملات الصحفيين المتحدثين بالفرنسية ودورن خلال الحرب، والوحشية يلّي ولّدتها الحرب الأهلية، وعبثيتا...

In this episode, journalists burst the “rock and roll” image of war to expose its harsh and brutal reality where people act like vicious monsters. Packed with gripping tales and profound reflections on what this “war” meant in the grand scheme of things, the anglophones close in on their experience of the war. بهيدي الحلقة، بيكسر الصحفيين صورة الحرب يلّي كلا "عنتريات"، ليكشفوا واقعها القاسي والعنيف، واقع بصيروا الناس فيه وحوش كاسرة. من خلال قصص مشوّقة وتأملات عميقة بمعنى "الحرب" ضمن السياق...

French audio. For subtitles in Arabic and in English please listen to the episode on YouTube.In this episode, we hear first hand what it was like to be held hostage in another country, another war; from being first lured by the exotic, exciting prospect of covering war in Lebanon, in Beirut (the Paris of the ME), French journalists find their position changed overnight, from suave and sophisticated foreign correspondents to vulnerable preys and naive pawns, at the mercy of their captors.هيدي...

In this chapter, we learn how a city severed and a country truncated becomes a maze that journalists must learn to navigate, to cross lines from one sector to the next, from East to West and West to East, to do their job and get their story out, all the while risking their life. ------------------------------------------------------ All images are property of their owners and are used with permission. If you enjoy our content please Like and Subscribe. For the list of...

In this episode, we hear about how addictive war becomes for the journalists covering it as they describe the smell of fear and the thrill of existing on the fine line between life and death. For some, the only way to survive was to lose their mind and their senses while simultaneously being completely sane, 100% alert. All images are property of their owners and are used with permission. If you enjoy our content please Like and Subscribe. For the list of credits:...

In the first episode of our special 9 part-series on journalism during the Lebanese Civil War, we hear how Lebanese reporters and photographers suddenly found themselves covering a war, while gradually learning on the go and realizing how important their roles were in documenting what was happening. All images are property of their owners and are used with permission. If you enjoy our content please Like and Subscribe. If you enjoy our content please rate us! Follow us on...

We continue with foreign correspondents, this episode focusing on Anglophones, telling of their experience of coming to grips with the particularities of life during the Lebanese Civil War, and in the process, building bonds with a place that never seems to kneel.All images are property of their owners and are used with permission. For the list of credits: https://www.maabarpodcast.com If you enjoy our content please rate us! Instagram: @maabarpodcast.com Maabar is created produced by...

This episode shares the insights of foreign correspondents, mainly the francophones, and how they found themselves lured to Beirut on assignments to cover the war, while experiencing the upside of privileged life compared to their Lebanese colleagues. Subscribe to our Channel: https://bit.ly/3w81FMy Follow us on Instagram: @maabarpodcast Hotels turned into beehives of foreign journalists; glamorous base camps, separate havens, with exclusivity and access to VIPs. Come to Beirut, they said....

New episodes out January 18, 2024.

What happens when war ends? How do you pick up your life, plan for the next day, the next week, the next month? What role do you play when your last fifteen years were all-encompassingly defined by the context of war? Who are you now? How do you make sense of all that is lost, all those lives, all those faces framed in families' living rooms regardless of where they might be from? And how do you make sense of all that is left; the grief, the fear, and the person living next door: once friend,...

Disclaimer: This episode contains heavy language and strong depictions of violence that may be triggering to some. Please be advised. When all is said and done, war is ugly. War kills, maims, and destroys life. Its pain lives on buried inside, in the hearts, minds, and souls of those it afflicts; escaping death, not getting killed, becomes unbearable, cursed by the despair of surviving, of living with surviving and carrying grief so deeply that it turns you inside out; the impossibility of...

How do you live a life shaped by sporadic destruction and fatal randomness? What happens when you adapt, start living instead of only surviving? When the absurdity of war becomes your new normal, sometimes even without you realizing it, something shifts. When instead of stars, you trace exploding bombs in the night sky, or grow fond of the sound of shelling, something has changed. The stories of people adapting, not only to live, but for a different form of survival, without much ability to...

How do you survive a war? How do you cope with violence surrounding you from all sides? What if you find yourself in front of the barrel of the gun, the target itself? Or what if you find yourself aiming your gun, being the one pulling the trigger? What happens if that line between life and death becomes narrower and narrower? How many times can you walk that line, escape death without losing something else? They say wars are fought to be won, but for most, wars are about surviving. These...

“People either live or die...but disappear?” When your loved ones leave the house one day or are taken right in front of your eyes not knowing whether they'll return or not, how does one cope? The panic of trying to find traces of where they might be, whom to call to get them back, trying not to imagine what they must be going through, all the while hoping against hope that they'll walk through the door. Some live to tell us what happened when they were kidnapped; they return, not...

When we hear about war, we think of battles and gunfire. But war never remains on the frontlines. It spills over into all aspects of every day life. So how do you deal with the precariousness of the situation? When militias start rounding people up in the streets; possibly being snatched up on the way to see friends; or being beaten up, just because a group of guys, high on the violence of the night, happen to pass by your Sunday family lunch? The theatre of war is not only enacted on the...

War is an abstract concept until the moment your neighbours start amassing weapons and sandbagging their buildings and checkpoints line the streets. Tensions are high, divides are deep and anxieties spread far across. Clashes are no longer isolated incidents. Strategies come up on how to best defend your territory against the enemy - who was the enemy again? The fear of the other sucks you further in. How do you react to a war slowly tightening its noose, strangling our lives? What were our...

When regions are cut off from one another, and checkpoints and snipers slice the country into hundreds of little pieces, how do you get from one place to another? How do you get to work, see your family, go about your life? What if, after dinner, you get a craving for ice cream from that one shop that is three checkpoints and two sniper crossings away? How do you keep going and at what cost? How do you manoeuvre through threats of falling into the wrong hands, being in the wrong place at the...

With telephone lines down, roads blocked and snipers monitoring all movement, how did our parents stay in touch -- with friends, family and each other? How did they update and reassure each other about the situation and their whereabouts? For many, the walkie talkie was the only means of communication, a thread people clung on to for sanity through the long hours of the night. Voices without faces, without names, people found each other, sometimes without knowing who was on the other end....

All day people are gathered in front of the radio, the jingle starts, the news comes on. The relief to finally have news of what is happening today. There are also people gathered behind the radio, living for the news, trying not do die while making the news. The relief to manage to air one more flash, after the all the absurdity of making it happen. The radio, the TV, the news, a lifeline to the next moment, a frontline seat on the battlefield. Each station a different frequency, a...

“Can the fighting start already so school can close?” For children, school is meant to serve as a safe space, like a second home, where they go to learn, play and nurture friendships. A space that builds towards their future. But war changes everything. What was once a safe space, can no longer protect them. With education disrupted and their playgrounds destroyed, what does it mean to be a student in times of war? To have chaos and disorder crossover inside the boundaries of your...

"A child hears about death and destruction, of course that instills fear”. How does a child understand war? How do they comprehend the gravity of the situation? From the deafening sounds of bombs and bullets to the sight of someone pulling a gun on your father at a checkpoint. At an age where children are supposed to learn and play, our parents were children raised in a reality of violence and destruction. Imagine the toll this must have had on their lives, on how they raised us? What...

Maabar is a 12-part podcast series on the Lebanese Civil War, cutting across two genres – Oral History and Documentary – it dives into the layers of what was experienced, what is remembered and what therefore still exists. Following no particular chronology, the podcast traces themes and shared experiences, as by removing time and space, we have room to open a different conversation about the war. One not preoccupied with what our names might be, where we are from, or who we are with, but...

Tapping into the memory of a country, Maabar is a podcast series retracing the Lebanese Civil War through the memories and stories of the people who lived it. 1st Episode airs on May 5, 2022.