The End of Lebanon as we Know it

I don’t know how to express the extent of the disaster facing Lebanon, it’s not a fixable problem by any stretch of the imagination, at least I don’t think so. People here and those who are pro this or anti that, continue to argue endlessly about who is to blame, which side is right and angelic and which side is wrong and evil, as if such arguments are going to produce something of value or solve any of the myriad and pressing problems facing us. 

 

The world has enough to contend with in the form of a global pandemic and the inequity of vaccine distribution, not to mention some countries using access to vaccines as a political tool to win new friends or punish old enemies. Vaccine diplomacy and the savage rules of capitalism that deny lifesaving vaccines to the poor of the world will come to bite the short sighted leaderships in the posterior of that I am in no doubt. We say, poor India, poor Brazil, and thank God we don’t live in those countries, but science tells us their problems today will become our problems tomorrow. A failure by one or more national states to implement an effective national vaccination program or enforce mask wearing and social distancing and a ban on large gatherings, will eventually contribute to the evolution of a new, hardier more ravenous virus that will escape the containment of national borders to infect the world.

 

But, here, in Lebanon we have other woes to occupy ourselves with, the slow and eventual complete collapse of all aspects of modern life: food, water, fuel, electricity, medicines, and with that law and order such as they are. I shudder to think at what the coming weeks and months will bring. I am terrified beyond all reason. I see no hope of exiting this national existential crisis any time soon if at all. The death toll from Covid may have come down in recent days, but a much higher death toll from violence and preventable diseases and malnutrition and sheer despair, will rise to dwarf the Covid death toll to date. The world may have a pandemic to worry about, but we have problems that no one knows how to begin to tackle let along solve. What’s worse is that those in power are adept at hiding facts and concealing pertinent data from anyone trying to simply quantify losses. Few in government or banking want to even acknowledge that huge losses exist, fewer still want to share information with the public or show any sign that they are trying to fix the problem.

 

Ask yourself, who hides and conceals information? Someone who is desperate for the facts and the catastrophic losses not to be quantified and not to come out in full because if that were to happen their fingerprints would be found all over it! 

 

I am sick and tired of hearing people in Lebanon defend or attack one politician or another, attack the banks, defend the banks, attack the resistance, defend the resistance, attack Iran, defend Iran, attack Saudi Arabia, defend Saudi Arabia… are you all children! Do you think the mess our country is in can be resolved like a school yard squabble with the ringing of the school bell at the end of the day and you go home and mom would have your dinner ready for you and all will be right in the world. WELL GUESS AGAIN! Help isn’t coming! Rescue isn’t coming! We, yes you and me, we are all on our own!

 

I foresee a Lebanon emerge in 2022 that is a pale shadow of what it used to be, an impoverished and depleted country populated by angry frightened people, desperately procuring and rationing basic necessities via the black market and begging for alms at the doors of the very political leaders they decried and insulted during the all too brief revolution. Political parties that were once despised militias during the civil war will experience a renaissance as their membership will balloon and grow exponentially. Every Lebanese will fall in line with their sectarian party/s, every man woman and child will be forced to submit to the harsh undemocratic regimes of the Zaeem, the chieftain and tribal headman, the religious leader, dominating their lives, their thoughts, their ideas, they will be tamed and life in Lebanon will become an unbearable daily hell that no one will dare criticize. In short, the Lebanon we knew, a land of promise all be it a work in progress, will be dead and buried and ten, maybe 20 years will pass before any kind of rational governance and democracy and basic freedoms are restored. My generation would have passed by then, those just coming out of colleges and universities today would be entering middle age as an angry, bitter, humorless people. 

This is my honest assessment of what awaits us in 2022, not an end to two years of suffering, but the beginning of new suffering, new dangers, new uncertainties. And yet, despite all this, there are those who are still betting on one side or the other to “win” in this race for destruction. Each side more stubborn and more blind than the other, each one guilty of incompetence and a total lack of political astuteness, each gambling with the lives and funds of millions of Lebanese, each believing that the longer they delay, the longer they stand fast refusing to form a government, the other side will bend and finally break. How stupid can you get! Our lives, our futures are in the hands of morons!!!