Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Ibrahim Najem lives in what’s left of the little port of Ein Mreisse, just back from the Beirut seafront were he used to dive. He’s a magpie of a man who collects. And collects.
He lost the use of his legs emerging from an 80-metre dive in a vain attempt to rescue a fisherman friend in 1982. Now he sits outside his door, a bright rug over his useless legs, talking with enthusiasm about his Phoenician pots, clocks, rifles, swords, frogmen’s uniforms, mortars, keys, radios, cameras, coffee grinders, plates and colonial helmets. And firemen’s helmets. Mr Najem was a fireman, you see.
He started by collecting seashells. Now there are telephones, ancient typewriters, even a machine gun on a tripod, a collection of revolvers found beneath the sea and a plate with a sinister black Swastika and the words “Germany Bavaria 1939”, collected from an elderly German resident in Mr Najem’s block.
“I need a bigger place,” Mr Najem said. Beirut’s property developers, who have done more to destroy the Lebanese capital than the civil war militias, have ringed his home with high-rises. What is a man to do with 30,000 bits and pieces in a world that worships the young rather than its older residents?
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments