Out with the new, in with the old

“I’m not a heathen, but hunger is heathen/ I’m not a heathen, but disease is heathen/ I’m not a heathen, but poverty is heathen/ And humiliation is heathen”

Although more than 10 years old, these lyrics by Lebanese musician and composer Ziad Rahbani about the acridness of life in civil war-era Lebanon have never lost their relevance.

On October 22, Saad Hariri re-assumed the headship of the Lebanese government — his fourth time doing so. After a year of disappointments, his return has been met with increased despondency since he is an illustration of the state of political paralysis Lebanon is enmeshed in. Although he’s promised that his cabinet will consist of “non-politically aligned experts”, it is not to be forgotten that such objectives were a prime reason for his predecessor’s downfall. During the last effort to create a cabinet, both Hezbollah and Amal refused to give up control of the finance ministry resulting in PM Adib’s resignation.

Here it is also important to point out that in light of the upcoming US elections, Lebanon has become a central point of war between the Trump administration and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Washington has been increasingly pressurising the leadership in Beirut that key positions such as the Ministry of Finance not be given to Hezbollah party members — something which the latter has been blatantly resisting.

Since the civil war in 1990, politics in Lebanon has become hard wired in sectarianism entwined with a system of patronage. Consecutive governments have failed to fulfil the most basic needs of their citizens. The pharaonic mounds of garbage that can be seen near the airport are exemplars of this. The trash crisis has been further inflated by an illegal trade in imported waste. Human Rights Watch has already pointed out that the absence of a strong solid waste management strategy will incur huge environmental and public health costs if suitable actions are not taken immediately.

The wildfires which engulfed much of Lebanon last year should have been taken as an indication that something portent was going to befall the country in the coming year. October 17, 2020, marked a year since protests by angry and frightened Lebanese erupted across the country. What was noticeable about these protests was that they cut across both political and religious lines. Since the October processions, Lebanon’s financial crisis has only worsened, compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic. The currency has dropped by 80% in the past year resulting in high levels of unemployment, food insecurity and death rate — as a result of both high crime rate and suicide. The IMF has evinced a further contraction by 25% of Lebanon’s economy as compared to the previous 12% it had forecasted in April.

While the August 4 explosion in Beirut — a terrible symbol of neglect in itself — could have been impetus for change, the country has only furthered folding into its already rotten core. Despite calls for financial and political reforms, political groupings have only sought to secure their footholds, delaying investigations into the port blast and obstructing all international rescue efforts that postulate a refurbishment of governance and an end to all perversion tactics undertaken by state officials.

So far, all promises have come to nothing. A new comprehensive recovery plan which incorporates fiscal adjustment and also caters to the social protection system is the need of the hour. But for this to materialise, international community accreditation is needed to ensure no back peddling. It also goes without saying that unfaltering resolve to reform bolstered by an aptness to direct and administer are requisites.

If solid steps are not implemented soon, it might very well be déjà vu all over again.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2020.

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