Inside her small apartment in Beirut, Leila Mrad-Raffoul tries to recall the last time her electricity ran for a full day.
“Before the civil war began the electricity was fine... Now they will eventually cut out the electricity, completely,” her face beams brightly despite her circumstances.
The looming sense of an impending black-out in a Lebanese home is as common as a cup of coffee. And when it eventually happens - ‘inkataat el kahrabah’ is exclaimed meaning ‘the power cut out’ which is followed closely by ‘ishtirak’ asking to ‘join’ to the private generator.
Cables string along the city and throughout narrow streets in huge, unruly bunches. They’re connected to private generators which work overtime to fill the gaping holes of government mismanagement.
Leila pays two electricity bills, two phone bills and two water bills for a household receiving barely any service.
"The government are all thieves. Instead of spending money here fixing roads, electricity and everything else they just pocket everything," she says.
For many, life in Lebanon has become cruel. COVID-19 infiltrates streets, with employment rates reaching 25 per cent. People have begun flocking to banks to withdraw cash -- a cushion against the absence of a government safety net. But banks then started to limit withdrawals as the supply of foreign currency, specifically the US dollar, are low. The national currency, the Lebanese pound or lira (LBP), has collapsed by about 80 per cent. A black market has emerged and the LBP, officially pegged at 1,500 Lira to the US dollar now stays around 9,000 lira to a dollar.
Leila says she doesn't know when her electricity will cut out. Source: Supplied
Daily life for many has become broken.
These are inklings of an impending humanitarian crisis, stained by the familiar tones of the Civil War just four decades prior. By the government’s own estimates, .
The economic crisis in Lebanon predates COVID-19. The debt-to-gross domestic product of Lebanon is the third highest in the world. Banks were already at breaking point following a scheme whereby high-interest rates were offered for large deposits - something that proved completely unsustainable, with analysts . Along with that, allegations of government corruption abound. Lebanon scaled badly on the Transparency International's 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking 137th out of 180 countries.
A video has been circulating online, showing a man lying on a sidewalk in Baalbek with a sign pleading “I am an educator, I am educated, I am begging to live.” Many consider the ‘middle class’ has just disappeared under economic stress.
“Unless you’re very rich, everyone is the same, there is no poor or middle class anymore,” Leila says.
According to the World Bank, an estimated 45 per cent of the population is now below the poverty line.
The issue of food insecurity in Lebanon is multi-faceted. The country is heavily reliant on food imports: , and that’s because only 13 per cent of Lebanon’s land is farmable, according to the World Bank Group. But since the cost of importing is too high to fund, essentials like baby formula and nappies have become scarce in stores. People can no longer afford to buy inflated meat and cannot enjoy traditional meals. states that food inflation reached almost 190 per cent from the year before.
Protests and unrest
Maria Nasr, a 19-year-old law student, is the co-founder of GirlUp Lebanon - an UN-backed initiative to promote the welfare and education of young women. She says, “butter used to be 2 pounds [but] it is now 16 pounds”. As the Lira loses its value at a horrifying rate, purchasing power has plummeted and prices in stores have doubled overnight. Not only is there limited access to necessities, prices are also too exorbitant for people to afford.
Starvation is becoming a reality.
It’s the beginning of a famine to which Lebanon is no stranger. World War I caused around half its population - 200,000 people - to starve to death in what’s known as the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon.
Peaceful protesting in October 2019 foreshadowed this current crisis and made global waves. Maria says “c’est la gout d’eau qui a fait deb order le vase”, that’s French for ‘it’s the drop of water which made the vase overflow’. The drop she refers to was a government-imposed tax on the messaging service WhatsApp - they had proposed to charge six dollars per month for voice calls on top of already-high mobile fees.
Maria Nasr from Girlup Lebanon. Source: Supplied
“It’s as if they took away our freedom of communication in their own interest,” Maria says.
In true Lebanese fashion, the initial protests were a carnival of belly-dancers, DJs, and people in flag-clad outfits. People from each religious sect held hands in a march towards government headquarters. One young woman’s sign reads “the happiest depressed people you’ll meet”. The protests are a dichotomy of the love of their country and the disdain of its leadership.
A proposed tax on mobile messaging applications last week sparked a spontaneous, cross-sectarian mobilisation of protests. Source: ABACA
This led to the resignation of then Prime Minister Saad Hariri - but this hasn’t meant an end to anger and frustration in the country.
“I see people searching in the market bins for scraps to eat.”
In July. Beirut man Ali Al Haq’s suicide note tragically read, “I’m not a sinner but hunger is a sin,” referencing a song dating back to the Civil War. He attached the note to a copy of his clean judicial record and a Lebanese flag.
People are desperate and a barter economy has emerged. A Facebook group called “Lebanese bartering” shows endless people exchanging loved belongings for necessities. On it, a man advertises his hearing aid for “anything needed”. The most frequent item in need: Nido milk powder for infants and children.
Anti-government protesters burn tires as they block the highway during a protest north of Beirut in June. Source: EPA
“Every day you see people on the streets that are happy if you give them a single 500 Lira coin [even though] you need about six of them to get a loaf of bread,” Maria says.
And pride often comes in the way. Leila explains: “It’s disgusting we can’t handle this anymore it’s going to get worse... I see people searching in the market bins for scraps to eat.”
shows Lebanon’s high level of income inequality compared to other countries: the top 0.1 per cent of Lebanese citizens earn almost the same share of national income as the bottom 50 per cent. As each grim story emerges on social media the elites can no longer sweep the reality away. “People that live on the top don't have to experience what people at the bottom experience, and vice versa which is why the two worlds are disconnected,” Maria says.
Protests began again after a government-mandated lockdown was imposed in early 2020. This time it was violent. and the raggedy roads were cemented in rage.
An anti-government protester uses a tennis racket to return a tear gas canister at riot in Lebanon. Source: EPA
The risk of contracting COVID-19 has been outweighed by the risk of starvation. people colliding face-to-face with protesters who exclaim “we have nothing to eat” to which a police officer replied, “I’m hungrier than you”.
Amidst this disaster, the Lebanese people have looked for hope in the youth. But migration is an engrained stitch in Lebanon’s social fabric. Many want to stay and break the cycle but the fight can seem futile. Maria says, “seeing the country crumble can only make me stay, because if we leave the people that have been profiting from for the last thirty years, they will continue to profit for the next thirty”.
