Red Bull helps to give Lebanon wings

Beirut's party scene is attracting global attention, with a little help from Red Bull.

I’ve never drunk Red Bull, but I do know that the energy drink, a global brand worth about US$8 billion, associates its name with high-octane activities such as stunt flying, racing and athletics. It also likes a bit of clubbing and has just made a short film about the Beirut scene.

Clichés aside (from the satirist PJ O’Rourke to CNN’s Richard Quest, we are known as a nation that parties hard “because we don’t know what tomorrow brings”) it is a slick four-minute clip, which, apart from a rather clunky comment by a music producer who declares “the women are beautiful”, has arguably done more than any tourism ministry video to genuinely market the country to an identifiable consumer.

I can’t remember who said you’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt, but Lebanon has been playing the same hand since 1943, when, after being freed from Ottoman bondage and rehabilitated under French colonial rule, it finally won independence. It had no manufacturing industry to talk of, but it had been handling money forever and could provide hospitality and other services. It’s been living off both of these with varying degrees of success ever since.

The banks are still there and are in rude health – even, if we are being honest, they still make their money by lazily lending to the state, as is the service industry, which is limping along having lost a chunk of its best and brightest who have all gone off to earn better money in the GCC.

But what we do have is a new crop of entrepreneurs, global citizens in a global age who are outward-looking and who have for the most part eschewed Lebanon’s toxic political and sectarian culture, for a more inclusive life. And one way of expressing that is to make music and build music venues for the global – that word again – masses.

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Underground Beirut

■ Watch the video on Beirut's electronic club scene

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And apparently we are so good at it, we caught the eye of Red Bull, which found the vibe so infectious it put its name to promoting a city and a country that despite its perennial reputation for glamour and intrigue is also, let’s not forget, a byword for chaos, instability, corruption and death. Red Bull saw beyond that.

The film showcases space-age venues and articulate club owners and DJs, all with a story about providing an outlet for a nation’s pent-up energy. They spoke about doing their own thing; about seizing the day (a very Red Bull thing I suppose). Was it 100 per cent accurate? Yes and no.

Lebanon scrubs up well on camera, but anyone who knows the country is aware of the mountain of dust that is swept under the carpet. But it is no different to London and New York, Paris or Barcelona. The point is that, once again, the private sector has done more than the state to shape perception of modern Lebanon, this time by creating a world-class club scene that can shape our global reputation and position us as a mouth-watering venue for off-piste travellers, people whose life is mapped by apps, who use Airbnb and Uber, who travel light, come for the weekend, party hard and move on.

I used to think that Lebanon was only about the Arab tourist; about shopping and shisha, that our nascent club culture was too niche and too shambolic to be a major cog in a tourism strategy. But now, almost in defiance of a dysfunctional political system and a number of social banes, one part, the most creative part, of the private sector has hit back. Lebanon, with its energy and abundant generosity of spirit has always been open for business but now, with a little help from Red Bull, on what must have been for them a shoestring budget, we can compete with the best in the world.

Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton.

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