LEBANON: Death in the Schoolyard

Lebanon is a tiny, prosperous Middle East state finely balanced on the head of a religious pin. Roughly half Christian and half Moslem, it does not know which sect predominates and is anxious not to find out. It refuses to take a census and traditionally divides the top government posts so that the President is a Christian and the Premier a Moslem.

Despite, or because of, this cautious arrangement, the two religious groups are vigilant rivals. At dawn on Sundays, the bells of Beirut’s churches clang so loudly that good Moslems groan and cover their heads. At dawn on other mornings, the muezzins chant their calls to prayer over loudspeaker-equipped minarets, to the annoyance of sleepy Christians. Last week Muled el Nebi, the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, rolled around. Moslems festooned Beirut in palm branches and garlands of electric lights. The climax was to be a torchlight parade.

At sunset everything was ready. Some 200 Moslem Boy Scouts gathered in a schoolyard, ready to be issued their torches: tin cans stuffed with oil-soaked sawdust and mounted on poles. In their midst appeared a burly, bearded nationalist name Taha al Waly, a follower of the fanatic ex-Mufti of Jerusalem. He proposed that the paraders detour under the windows of President Camille Chamoun, a Christian.

An argument ensued, and some of Waly’s followers grabbed the lighted torches. One of them stumbled. A tree flared up with a whoosh. In panic, others threw their torches away. In a moment the yard became an oil-soaked pyre. The impregnated sawdust blazed like napalm, clinging to raw flesh, burning and spreading. The crowd, roaring with fear and pain, ran from side to side in the narrow schoolyard. But there was no escape: three of the walls were 10 feet high; the only exit was a narrow gate. It was over in 20 minutes: 33 died, hundreds more were badly burned.

Two days later, Lebanon’s horrified Christian President and Moslem Premier met, agreed unanimously to ask the Parliament to ban all further outdoor religious ceremonies. And from now on, they agreed, between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., no churchbells would be allowed to toll, or loudspeakers to crackle from minarets.