In the twelve months since protests lit the country, Lebanon has fallen head first into a spiral of accelerating events, led by an incompetent, corrupt, elite that has yet to take responsibility for any of its countless crimes.
A year ago, a buildup of state failure, economic hardship and loss of faith in the political establishment ignited the demonstrations across the country. Anger mixed with hope to produce the ‘October revolution’. Real change seemed possible.
Today, the anger remains. Hope, less so.
Given the choice to implement reforms – even if minimal – or curtail corruption – even if temporarily – to prevent the complete destruction of the country’s economy and people’s lives, Lebanon’s establishment has found an alternative: repression.
Not with a whimper, but a bang
For decades the ruling kleptocracy ran a Ponzi scheme by relentlessly borrowing to pay for an ever growing national debt so they could keep embezzling from the state. Inevitably, the bubble eventually burst. The Lebanese pound had been fixed at 1,500 to the dollar since 1997. In August 2019 the exchange rate started fluctuating, and a few months later there were 6 different dollar rates. The official one remains at 1,500. But in the reality of the black market, it reached nearly 9,000.
Being a dollar economy and relying heavily on imports, many in Lebanon have dollar accounts, but banks have blocked access to them while large depositors smuggle billions abroad. Today, one UN agency estimates 55 percent of people struggle for bare necessities – almost double last year’s rate. And this was all happening before the pandemic hit.
Then, in August, a massive explosion at the port of Beirut destroyed a sizeable part of the capital. Over 200 people were killed, thousands wounded. Countless are homeless, including many migrant workers and refugees with little or no access to support as they battle Lebanese racism.
A crime of that size could not conceivably be ignored. But as yet, no one has been held responsible. The investigation – mired by distrust in an authority that has shown time and again its incompetence and corruption – is lagging.
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Walid el Houri | Radio Free (2020-10-16T13:55:03+00:00) Is Lebanon becoming a police state?. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/10/16/is-lebanon-becoming-a-police-state/
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