With us or against us.

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The first guy who stops me - stern and mustachioed and as grave as a surgeon general’s warning - asks me point blank: “Why are you here?” I take a second to reflect. I’m standing in the middle of the ragged tent city that Hizbollah first began to occupy in Beirut four months ago. A crowd of men, curious and cross-armed and sporting pious little beards, has started to gather, getting a bit closer than I’d perhaps like them to get. One has already asked for my name and occupation (“student”) and rifled through my passport. Not a single soul knows I’m here. Should they ever take the time to round up names, the State Department would gladly add each and every one of these guys to a terrorist watch-list. This is shaping up to be, I suspect, my strangest birthday yet.

I’ve decided to take a field-trip downtown, to poke my big American nose around the Hizbollah sit-in and find out whether your average terrorist is half as crazed as he looks on TV. It’s a gray, hazy day, unseasonably warm for early-April, with sweat beading on my brow and my t-shirt clinging to my chest. Downtown Beirut is deserted, a consequence of Hizbollah’s decision to occupy the area until Prime Minister Siniora and his government step down. The streets that former prime minister Rafiq Hariri worked so hard to rejuvenate after the civil war - with their bright sandstone façades and overflowing flower boxes - look like a DMZ. Coils of barbed wire snarl along the sidewalks; army checkpoints are manned by gruff, gun-toting soldiers who almost seem embarrassed by my cheerful small-talk.

It’s hard to get an exact figure of how many Hizbollah supporters were camped out here in the first, feverish days of the sit-in; as with any good protest, the guys around here are keen to give off an exaggerated sense of strength, one that’s been best summed up as “thousands” and “many, many.” But the first impression that most visitors get when they come to the sit-in is one of profound emptiness: the tent flaps listlessly stirring with a light breeze, the cheap foam mattresses and blankets piled high in the corners. After four months pragmatism has set in: there are lives to be led in these men’s villages, many of which are miles away in the south. The occupation now runs in shifts, and after a few days of keeping their stoic vigil around the Plaçe des Martyrs, most will return to their villages and be replaced by another contingent.

It’s a sharp contrast to the photos plastered around the square, taken on the day when Hizbollah called on members of the opposition to throw their support behind the anti-government movement. A throbbing crowd in the tens of thousands fills the streets and plazas downtown, the panoramas suggesting that the Hizbollah bus drivers put in plenty of overtime hauling in supporters from the south. Lebanese flags are draped from the sides of buildings or wrapped bandana-style around the heads of young girls; now and then, in some hidden corner of the picture, the tell-tale yellow banner of Hizbollah flaps with a sort of secret pride. (Savvy organizers told the protesters to leave their Hizbollah flags at home: this demonstration, after all, was about the future of all the Lebanese people, not just the disgruntled Shia.)

On this mild April morning, though, there’s a tired energy around the camp. Most of the tents are empty. Some are small and crudely strung up, like they might be torn down in time for a fast getaway; others are fancy, billowing jobs with elaborate aluminum skeletons, looking like they were left over by the caterers after last night’s Stern-Wasserman wedding wrapped up a bit late. The men I meet are sitting on lawn chairs around a plastic picnic table, smoking nargileh and reading through the Arabic dailies. They ask the same pointed questions I’ve heard over and over around the Arab world: “What do you think of George Bush?” “What do you think of Islam?” There are contented nods as I stake out my position, and I add a few reassuring words about American pluralism and the countless Muslims living happy lives in the States.

“What do you think of Hizbollah?”

This one’s a bit more dicey: a complicated question that demands a complicated answer. It’s an answer, incidentally, that’s mindful of the ever-growing crowd that’s drawing near, and the fact that one of the men - as broad across as an armoire, with thick, pugilist’s hands - has been shooting me looks drawn from the Hizbollah Handbook of American Neck-Wringing.
I try to warm them up a bit. I think it’s admirable that Hizbollah defended the country against Israel last summer, I note, but shameful that they provoked the war by snatching Israeli soldiers. I think Hassan Nasrallah - Hizbollah’s leader - is an intelligent man, but one whose call for the annihilation of the Jewish state is a teensy bit hard to defend. I think the Hizbollah I’ve met have been kind, open-hearted people. I think that Hizbollah helps many people in Lebanon, though it’s done plenty of harm as well. I think the American government’s refusal to deal with Hizbollah and Hamas ensures that the Middle East peace process will never be anything more than a process. Lastly, I admire and have strong feelings for the Lebanese people - especially the women - and hope they can find a lasting peace and happiness in their country. Especially the women.

Ali, an eloquent man who stares thoughtfully at the ground as he composes his thoughts, asks me about the sit-in. “What do you think of all this?” he says, waving his hand at the half-empty tents around us. I tell him that while I understand the reason for it, I’m not sure whether bringing downtown to a halt is what this struggling city needs. “Many of the people I’ve met supported Hizbollah last summer,” I observe, “but don’t anymore.”

He shakes his head and clucks his tongue. “It isn’t about the stores and a few restaurants,” he says. “It isn’t for a few weeks or months. We will be here until Mr. Siniora quits the government. We are doing this for our children and their children. The government is for thirty percent of the Lebanese people. We are the majority, and they want to destroy us.”

It’s approaching the time for the mid-day prayer, and the group breaks up to wash themselves in the massive, portable water containers around the camp. Ali invites me to come back in the afternoon, and he offers a few books on Islam that I might be interested in. “Ahlan wahasalan,” he says. “You are welcome here.”

Later in the week, when I pay the camp another visit, the cast has changed. I mill around for twenty minutes, until I meet a goofy group of kids in a tent nearby. They’re mostly in their late-teens, going to school during the day and then coming to the sit-in at night. “I have been here for three - no, four - days,” says Ahmed, a bald, grinning kid who gets flushed when his English falters. I ask him what his mother thinks about all this. “She doesn’t care,” he says with a touch of 18-year-old defiance. “She knows why I’m here.” I tell him that if he tried this in my neighborhood, his mother would grab him by the ear and smack him with a wooden spoon.

“My mother is for Hizbollah,” he says. “My whole family is. Hizbollah,” he says strongly, drawing a line along his forearm, where the blood runs through his veins.

He invites me into the tent, where the others are sitting cross-legged on the floor. Omrane - a sweet, carbuncular kid - is shuffling a deck of UNO cards. We play a few rounds in which I win by a sizable margin, the political implications of which can be drawn by any of the more mischief-minded readers out there. Afterward Omrane wants to show me something and rolls up his sleeve. There are a half-dozen short scars on his forearm, pale caterpillar bumps stretching from his wrist to his elbow. “From the war with Israel,” he says. “A tire exploded near my home.”

Ahmed explains how a scrap of metal gave him the arrow-shaped scar across his right temple. When I point to a few fresh scars on the top of his bald head, he smiles sheepishly and says, “Shaving.” There are clots of blood between the patches of stubble, the color deep and raw. After a few minutes they gather the mattresses and blankets and stack them in the middle of the tent. One by one they take turns sprinting full-speed across the room, doing tumblesaults in the air until a gruff, unkempt guy with a bushy beard comes in and tells them to quit horsing around.

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