"Beirut is broken."
Beirut residents spoke to Brut about their country's long history of trauma and their fears for the future after the devastating explosion... amid a pandemic and an economic crisis.
Beirut residents spoke to Brut about their country's long history of trauma and their fears for the future after the devastating explosion... amid a pandemic and an economic crisis.
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00:00Today, Beirut is broken. It's devastated because this came at a point where Lebanon was already
00:06struggling. It was already in a survival mode. We had an unprecedented economic and financial
00:13crisis. We were fighting the pandemic.
00:15The shock was so immense. It was almost a surprise that the building didn't just come
00:33crashing down. It was terrifying to not know where anyone was, where my mom was.
00:37Fortunately, I was home when the explosion happened. We've been working remotely from
00:42home. And I say this ironically, the coronavirus saved us because our office
00:47looked like a war zone the next day. The windows, the glass was shattered.
01:02So imagine on top of all of that, an explosion that is so devastating. Half of the city is
01:09destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless today. Who's gonna help rebuild? Who's
01:16gonna help all those people? To be frank, I think the virus and the pandemic and all of that is the
01:21least of anyone's concerns here in Lebanon at this point. Hospitals are overflowing with injured
01:28people. They were already overwhelmed with coronavirus patients and it's just too much
01:36for Lebanon. Lebanon is currently hit by the worst economic crisis in its modern history.
01:42The most disastrous consequence of the crisis is that we are now on the brink of a hunger crisis.
01:50And some even say that this could develop into a situation of famine
01:55as the middle class is progressively sliding into poverty.
02:09When I went to the site of the blast, you know, I'm a journalist and I've lived in Lebanon and
02:14covered various explosions, suicide bombings, political assassinations.
02:18And to be honest, I've never seen anything like that. The magnitude is just stunning.
02:24Even for a city that's witnessed a civil war, that's witnessed so many bombings in the past.
02:31So for people my age, we have the very much inherited trauma and memories of the war and
02:39everything we grew up hearing and knowing and how we were taught to navigate our identities,
02:44our cities. We've also lived through violence ourselves, be it attacks or wars or conflicts
02:54or mass uprisings. On the other hand, though,
03:00nothing like this has happened in the city or the country.
03:03People don't trust the politicians anymore. We had an uprising in October. People were
03:24protesting against the political establishment and they're wondering today, are we capable of
03:29rebuilding? Do we have the means when we are bankrupt? Do we trust the politicians to conduct
03:35a transparent investigation into the explosion? I think what we see of the future is the need
03:42to take down this system in all its forms, this economic system, this political system,
03:50the political elite that are war criminals, that have built this country into something that is
03:57really unlivable in terms of the violence that we face, both implicitly and explicitly
04:04on so many levels. The only thing keeping us hopeful really is each other, the people.
04:12Today, people are down in Beirut. There are housing, cleaning, feeding, clothing. They
04:18are taking care of each other. They've picked each other up from the rubble
04:21and they're ready to rebuild Beirut again as has been done before.