Quotes of the Day

Elias Zaarour seizes Adel Said by the shoulders and plants a tender kiss on his cheek. Yet Zaarour, 22, a Maronite Christian, and Said, 26, a Druze Muslim, come from opposing factions in the Lebanese civil war, which left 150,000 people dead before Arab mediation ended it in 1990. Said's brothers fought against Zaarour's father in the 1983 battle of the mountain, when rival sectarian militias butchered hundreds of villagers. But Said and Zaarour danced and sang folk songs together at one of the events commemorating this month's 30th anniversary of the start of the conflict. "We were raised to hate each other and I regret that," Zaarour says.

Said had never spoken to a member of Lebanese Forces, the Christian faction of which the Zaarour family are members, before meeting his new friend. "When we sit and talk, we realize that we share most of the same goals," he says. Chief among those goals is an overhaul of Lebanon's Syrian-dominated political life. Said and Zaarour have joined a tent city inhabited by some 200 young Lebanese and dubbed Camp Freedom. They have pitched their tents in Martyrs Square, straddling the Green Line where fierce battles raged during the civil war and next to the tomb of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

His assassination, on February 14, inspired the protest and the campers are demanding Lebanon's independence from Syrian domination and the truth about who killed Hariri, widely suspected to be Syrian operatives. Last week they won a victory when newly designated Prime Minister Najib Mikati formed a caretaker government and gave assurances that Lebanon's parliamentary elections would be held before the end of May in accordance with the constitution. The protesters had accused pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud of seeking to delay the vote in which opposition factions are expected to trounce the pro-Syrian alliance.

Opposition politicians credit the camp protesters for helping inspire and organize the demonstrations in February and March that at their peak saw close to a million marchers on the streets of Beirut, forcing the resignation of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government and pushing Syria to begin withdrawing its 15,000 troops from the country, now expected to be completed this week. The regime in Damascus long resisted departing due to the strategic and financial advantages reaped through control of its smaller neighbor. "The demonstrations were absolutely eloquent in expressing the power of the young people," says Marwan Hamade, a key opposition leader. "They want change."

Camp Freedom's residents are far from packing up and moving on, refusing to give up until they see irreversible change. An electronic clock that counts down the days until April 30, the constitutional deadline for scheduling the election, has now appeared at Camp Freedom. Opposition leader Gebran Tueni says the camp will serve as the nucleus of any further mass protests. Agrees Hani Hammoud, a former Hariri advisor: "[The camp residents] are the charcoal burning beneath the ashes, keeping the temperature high." The camp fulfills another role that some Lebanese consider equally important: reconciliation. The protesters do not all become friends but they do learn about each other.

"One says something bluntly and the other accepts his point of view," says Shrine Abdallah, one of the non-partisan activists supporting the camp. "The war quarantined the old generation away from the world," explains Elie Karam, a Beirut psychiatrist. There are no barriers against unpalatable viewpoints in the camp. Skeptics point out that many camp residents belong to old civil war factions, each with its own tent decorated inside by party flags and posters of Lebanese warlords, while some powerful pro-Syrian factions that have challenged the independence movement, like the Shi'ite Muslim party Hizballah, are absent. Ingrained prejudices sometimes boil over into angry words or shoving matches. Yet many believe the camp points the way to a peaceful future. "They have given me a lesson in life," says Asma Andraos, another civic activist at the camp. "We Lebanese can do it."

Two Camp Freedom veterans recently showed their commitment to national unity by holding their wedding reception in a tent. Chirine Ammar, 24, a Shiite, wore a Lebanese flag draped around her white bridal gown as she returned to the camp with her new husband, Nassim Bousamra, 30, a Christian. Dozens of unshaven activists toasted the bride and groom with fruit juice. "This camp is my little Lebanon," says Ammar. "We are like one family here. The Lebanese people can live in harmony and love each other." Growing numbers of Lebanese seem sure that the honeymoon will last.

• Young protestors from Lebanon's many factions have set up camp to demand change