From Beirut to Belfast is a The Fire These Times project by Lebanese-Palestinian writer and historian Elia Ayoub exploring the haunting parallels between Lebanon and the North of Ireland / Northern Ireland (NI) in the aftermath of the Lebanon Wars and the Troubles. Centering the unspoken, the erased and the haunted, From Beirut to Belfast reveals troubling histories of violence and power that nonetheless recognises the unrelenting hope embedded in the acts and words of those who refuse to accept the status quo.
Taken from the perspective that the personal is political, Ayoub waves his own personal history as one of the ‘children of the children of war’, ie a member of the ‘postwar’ generation, to complicate narratives that view contexts like NI and Lebanon as inherently separate. Part-academic, part-journalistic, and part-speculative, From Beirut to Belfast will ask questions such as: How much of the postwar and postconflict eras are really post? What are the lingering effects of these traumatic periods? What can NI and Lebanon learn from one another?
More details to come soon.
Goals:
Short-term (2026-2027):
- Reports from Belfast: Days 1 through 5 on my newsletter, Hauntologies.
- Season 1 of a mini-series of the same name hosted on The Fire These Times, and made available first to Patreon supporters.
Medium-term (2027-2028):
(Pending successful funding)
- Season 2 of the mini-series: bringing in the voices of historians, artists and activists from both NI and Lebanon to do deeper-dives into what they have in common as well as what separates them.
Long-term (2028-2029):
(Pending successful funding)
- A book that brings all of the above together.
- Other projects
How to Support:
From Beirut to Belfast is a long-term project that will culminate in a book, which in turn would hopefully generate discussions on NI-Lebanon that could also go beyond either contexts.
Indeed, From Beirut to Belfast will be part of the existing legacy of The Fire These Times and in particular the comparative work done with historians, artists and activists from Syria, Israel-Palestine, Hong Kong, Bosnia, Tigray, El Salvador, Iran, Chile, Venezuela, Sudan, Balochistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Taiwan, Kashmir and India.
Supporting this project can be done in different ways:
- Subscribe to The Fire These Times on Patreon
- Subscribe to Hauntologies on Substack
- Take Elia Ayoub’s class on modern Lebanese history and politics
- Do a direct donation on Ko-Fi