Angry Planet - Beirut Wants to do More Than Survive

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

On August 4, an explosion levelled a port in the Lebanese city of Beirut. Aging ammonium nitrate was the direct cause, but that the explosive fertilizer had been left for almost a decade in a storage warehouse speaks to the broader problems in Lebanon. A corrupt government, a financial crisis, a protest movement, and suffering citizens.Here to walk us through what’s going on is Blu Fiefer. Fiefer is a Lebanese performance artist who lives in Beirut who believes in signing truth to power. As the protest movement began, she performed for the crowds and livestreamed her set to the world.Recorded 8/24/20Cleaning up the streetsThe economic collapseLebanon as the “Rising Phoenix” of the Middle East“It wasn’t this bad during the revolution”The day of the explosionExploiting Beirut’s “survivor mentality”The cost of staying in LebanonWhat was lost in the explosionThe Game of Thrones analogyAngry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hello, this is Matthew Galt of War College. Before we get into this episode, I just wanted to take a moment to reach out to our listeners. A lot of you know what's going on because you follow us on social media, but I'm aware that some of you just hear us through your subscription on Spotify or iTunes. And I wanted to take a moment to kind of, prep you for what's about to happen. Today's episode is a little different, and I wanted to let you know what's going on. War College has officially become Angry Planet. It's still Jason, me, and Kevin, running the show. The content remains the same. We're just broadening our scope, and we're using new music and art. We'll release six episodes a month and maintain a newsletter at angryplanet.com. If you're a fan of the show and you've already subscribed somewhere, you don't have to do anything. name will change. The feeds all stay the same. You'll still get the same episodes delivered to you through your app every week. If you want to access the two extra episodes that we're going to publish every month and the newsletter, we're asking that you contribute $9 to us through Substack. That's $9 a month. Just go to angryplanet.substack.com, click subscribe. You'll get a weekly newsletter from us and two bonus episodes every month.

And I want to take a minute to thank all of you, our loyal listeners. We've been doing this for about five years now. And you've all been incredibly supportive and kind during this time of transition. Some of you have listened to some of the rough cuts of some of the new music and have given us feedback. And I really thank you for that. You know, sometimes I know that we run episodes that not all of you particularly like or we have guests that you don't think we hit hard enough. But most of the correspondence has been very, very pleasant. and everyone has been generally interested in having a conversation,

and that's rare, and we're proud of the community that we're building. Now, I also wanted to tease a few of the episodes that we've got coming. So today, the one you're about to listen to is an interview with Lebanese musician, Blue Pfeiffer. She tells us what it's like to live and work in Beirut during a time of crisis. Next week, we're publishing our interview with Rose Thayer of Stars and Stripes. She's been reporting on Fort Hood this year, and she walks us through the peculiarities and particulars of the deadliest military base in America. For our first premium episode, which is coming on Friday, Mark A. Tallman, the assistant

professor of Homeland Security and Emergency Management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, talks to us about his new book, Ghost Guns, and how Do-It Yourself Home Defense is changing the way we think about the Constitution itself. Our second premium episode is a roundtable with me, U.S. Naval War College Ethics Chair Pauline Corinne and former Army Ranger Marty Scoveland Jr. We sat down and we talked about the Pentagon's recruitment crisis and why the DOD is reaching out to gamers on Twitch. Later this week, we're sitting down to talk with Rick Pearlstein. You're probably about two weeks.

You'll hear that interview. He's the author of Nixon land, Reaganland, before the storm, basically the guy that's been chronicling the rise of conservative politics in America. And we're going to get into Jimmy Carter and Afghanistan and Iran and the hostage crisis and learn about why politics. doesn't stop at the water's edge. We're talking with Jason Wilson. We're going to talk to him about the John Birch Society and the Boogaloo Boys. We're going to find out why there's no hope left for the Middle East from Stephen Cook. We're going to get into the weeds of QAnon with Jake Hanrahan and Sarah Hightower,

dive into what we get wrong about human trafficking. Look at organized crime in Hawaii, compare the fur over artificial intelligence to the nuclear arms race, and much, much more. Thank you so much for listening. And we sincerely hope that you enjoy angry planet as much as you enjoyed war college. And without further ado, here we go. People are pissed. Yes, people are pissed. But people are not going down with guns.

And 15 minutes into the protest, it was a crazy amount of tear gas. And then they started shooting bullets. And it started with real bullets. And then some of them were using rubber bullets and then real bullets. And then, you know, our friends were in the hospital. Like, is this really what we want to be doing? four days after the biggest explosion that this country's ever seen. One day, all of the facts in about 30 years' time will be published.

When genocide has been cut out in this country, almost in the city, and when it is near to completion, people talk about intervention. They will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Hello, welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Matthew Galt, here with our mysterious and often silent producer, Kevin Nodell. Jason Fields is away today. On August 4th, an explosion leveled a port in the Lebanese city of Beirut.

Aging ammonium nitrate was the direct cause, but that speaks to the broader problems in Lebanon. A corrupt government, a financial crisis, a protest movement, and suffering citizens. Here to walk us through what's going on is Blue Fyfer. Fyfer is a Lebanese performance artist who lives in Beirut, who believes in singing truth to power. As the protest movement began, she performed for the crowds and live streamed her set to the world. Blue, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Can you please at the, well, we like to get super basic stuff out of the way at the beginning. So can you tell our audience a little bit about who you are in the work that you do?

Well, at the core, I'm a singer, songwriter, and producer, and yeah, I make music and I like to tell stories, I direct videos and kind of put all of those things together. I'm half Mexican, half Lebanese, and have been based out of Lebanon for maybe around more than 10 years now. And you've lived in Beirut that whole time? Yeah, mostly in Beirut, yeah. Okay. And what can you tell us about Beirut's culture? We hear so often about its politics, but we don't really hear about what the culture is like and kind of the clash of cultures that happens there?

Well, this question is coming at a very specific time. I feel like everything that we, every opinion that we've had or every way that we felt about everything is changing. So it's a bit difficult and tricky for me to be talking about this in the sense of, I feel a type of responsibility to represent. present people's struggles or people's daily lives or what we're going through.

And at the same time, I do feel a sense of hopelessness in some way. But I do want to say that Lebanese people are great. And if you meet a Lebanese people, they will tell you how great they are. And, you know, we're very hospitable. We have great food. We have an amazing country. We have great landscape. I mean, from my experience and from the way that I see it,

I don't think that there's anything missing for our country to really thrive other than the very corrupt ruling class. You said that there's a sense of hopelessness right now. How long has that been, that predates the explosion? Yeah, this definitely predates the explosion, but I feel like on August 4th at 607 or 608, everything kind of changed because I feel like it was the final straw in whatever little people had left or whatever little hope people had left or if there were any projects or investments or, you know, a projection towards anything that can get you out of the status quo, which has been a lot of poverty and a lot of our government attacking us. So I feel like the day the explosion happened, I told my boyfriend, I was like, if things don't

change after this, it's personally, it's going to be very difficult for me to think that there's going to be eminent change. This is something that's going to take years and years, and it could be the beginning of a change. But the way our government has handled the situation and the crisis in general, but just, you know, when there's an explosion and a lot of people die and almost 300,000 people are left homeless, all our businesses in the city are gone. It was an explosion that happened almost right in the middle of our capital. So it's impacted people in such a different way than these things usually do. And it's really difficult to have hope in, I don't have hope in the ruling class.

That's not what I'm trying to say, but it feels like if something like this doesn't shape up, doesn't change or shake up the way that things are, you know, systemically or some empathy from our politicians, then it's, there's no way I could expect that anything else will get that, we'll get a different tone from them. You know, no one, no one, no one, no one's done anything to help the people the day after the explosion. We were all on the ground with brooms, cleaning the streets, trying to find people, trying to find people's belongings, trying to go into houses that are no longer safe to try and retrieve anything that's left. And not one, person from any authority was anywhere to be found and that's something I've personally experienced

and was completely heartbroken about that something like this can happen regardless of politics regardless of anyone's opinion this is something that is devastating and this is something that's you can't get people back it's that simple I expected really a bit of sympathy and a bit of helped it felt like we were it felt like we were ruling the city for a day but we don't really get any perks of that and it's a very confusing feeling because you feel like you're rebuilding for them to just destroy again and again and again you know and as far as Beirut in the international conversation or the way that a lot of people used to romanticize um Lebanese people is that we're the rising phoenix you know and we've rebuilt Beirut seven times over and I think we've kind of had

enough of that and we're all really tired of this narrative because it means that we're we're conforming to this happening to us over and over again. And, you know, you're romanticizing disaster because we're in the Middle East. And everyone I know has had enough of it. And specifically my generation or, you know, we're at a point in our lives where we've wasted a lot of years trying to make it here. And we are still wasting all our time and all our resources trying to kind of get out from the rubbles. we've already been going through a major crisis preceding the explosion from an economical crisis, the pandemic, the garbage crisis.

I mean, it's just been really like one thing after the other, even, you know, our parents or people from a different generation. And actually, everybody who has any money in the bank is just like not even a concept, you know, there's no getting away from it. And the more time goes by, the more we feel that, any kind of exit plan or any sense of hope or anything is just getting, you know, it's getting smaller and smaller and it's really hard to, it's really hard to move. We just, we feel suffocated, you know, if you have a passport, a different passport, because our Lebanese passport is,

you know, treated amazingly in other airports, if you are lucky enough to have another nationality, you probably can't withdraw your money from the bank to buy a plane ticket. We are, we have ridiculous amounts of challenges that we need to kind of overcome every single day for just a minimum sense of decency or life, you know, from the inflation. I mean, Corona for us is a huge issue as well. It's not even something that we spend most of our time talking about because there are so many things happening and choking. We are choking.

Kevin, you had something. Yeah, you mentioned, hoping that the elites would do something, but of course they haven't as they typically don't. In Lebanon, my observation when I was watching is it looks like Mia Khalifa and Russell Crow have done more

for the people of Beirut than any of the important people 100%. 100%. Major, major shout out to Mia Khalifa. I've also been following what she's been doing and it's coming from such an authentic place. And I love I love how she's posting and reposting everyone, like people that I know that are actually on the ground.

You know, I think it's very important to get that kind of perspective to her very broad and wide audience. You know, she's, yeah, I don't know any politician or anyone from the ruling class that has even begun to make amends or even say anything close to that will make anyone believe anything they're saying. I mean, like you said, it has been happening for a long time, But this is the first time that we, like, blatantly, blatantly feel like we are, they don't, honestly, they just don't give a shit, you know, they don't give a shit.

It's, it's, it's never been clear. It feels like they don't even care about those kinds of optics. They don't really care about humanitarian optics, even on that, even on an optics point of view, which is not what you should be talking about when something like this happens. But that's, that just goes to show how much they live in a different planet. It feels like, it feels like they don't live here. It feels like they're just somewhere else probably sleeping in our money, actually. I want to be clear here.

So you're saying like after the explosion, there's no kind of, there's like no first responders, nobody, it's all the people. There's no emergency services whatsoever. No. So I was actually just reading today and I hope that I'm right, but I was reading an article that said that in 2001 they were getting together a team or a committee that was supposed to be in charge of, you know, any disaster relief or, you know, any disaster relief or, you you know, like any response in case of a massive disaster,

but they couldn't agree on, obviously, as is the problem with everything else, they just couldn't agree, so they didn't put it in place. And it reminded me of the wildfires when started in October 2019, right before the revolution started. It was the same problem. It was that there's all these wildfires, and we have these helicopters that we pay money and we pay taxes for, but they're not functional because they don't,

actually the money doesn't actually go there. So it's just, it is all, you know, it's negligence and negligence. And at some point, it's just, we're reaping all of that right now. You know, we used to say it can't get worse and it can't get worse. And since the explosion, everyone I know is telling me, we don't want to say that anymore because we really don't know what's coming. And what's even worse is not just that they're not on the ground, but they've actually acted, they've been actively blocking some donation support. from other countries. And that's just, that's like, who do you think you are to take that decision from the people? You know, what's been really great to see internationally is that our politicians have been publicly embarrassed, internationally embarrassed, which I hope they care about, because nobody's

been donating even, you know, like France, like everybody who's donated is not donating to any governmental organizations or to the government. They're giving it straight to the Lebanese Red Cross or to individual, you know, smaller NGOs, people that have more credibility, people that you can trace what they're doing. So it's, that's nice to see that there's small things, but I know that if I want to be hopeful, I would say that all of those little things together does, will pave away on a very long term. but I don't I don't I don't see how this is making a difference for us right now you know when you say that they're blocking donations internationally what exactly you mean

they're stopping people stopping people from donating in general is that working how is that they've rejected they've publicly rejected a few relief relief packages relief lanes with you know medical supplies or a medical team from France or I've heard many stories and it's really infuriating. Can we get a little bit of background on the, I feel like obviously the roots of this are deep and go back a few years, but I think the financial crisis in Beirut or in Lebanon is unique and is really at the center of a lot of what's going on. Can you kind of walk us through that a little bit? At the center of, sorry. It's kind of at the center of everything that's going on, right?

this financial crisis that is tied to government corruption, right? Like what exactly happened? Why is it that that Lebanese citizens can't withdraw money from the bank and there's no money for basic goods and services? Like, what's going on? The economical and financial crisis is a kind of a symptom of the bigger problem, as you said earlier. And it started with years and years of.

You need to understand that Lebanon, we do trade in dollars here and we survive on mostly imported goods, which as a person I'm learning every day because prices are skyrocketing and I'm realizing there isn't a lot of local substitutes for things. So that is kind of how our economy functions. And a few years ago, I'm not sure exactly how many, but a few years ago, you could kind of tell that something was happening because the banks were going up to people. And they were saying, if you switch your money in the bank from dollars to Lebanese pounds, then they were giving crazy interest rates, you know. And people here, they don't have anybody looking after them. They don't have any sort of security. They don't have retirement.

They have nothing. So it's like really every little bit counts. So everybody has to take any opportunity. They can't secure themselves in their families. And what happened after years of that is the result of all of really. high interest or whatever tracks they are trying to cover for, you know, now they say we don't have dollars. So to put it to you this way, we woke up one day. And the dollar, which my entire life in Lebanon, I'm 27 years old, I think for all of my life, I had known the dollar, the

US dollar to the equivalent to a thousand, five hundred Lebanese liras. And it started going up to 2000, 3,000, 4,000, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10,000, it reached up to 10,000 on the black market. But the banks kept the official exchange rate at 1,500. And they blocked everyone who had dollars in their accounts or in the banks were blocked. So it started with you only being able to withdraw this much per week or only being able to withdraw this much per week until Corona started. And they said, we ran out of dollars. We cannot give you dollars.

we will start giving you your money in Lebanese pounds, very limited amounts per week, in the exchange rate of 3,900, which is such a rip-off, honestly. And people don't really have a choice if they don't have money or when they run out of money to spend to go and buy food or to pay for their bills. And the bills are getting more expensive, and the food in the supermarkets is getting more expensive because of the inflation of the exchange rate, you know? So you go places they don't even take Lebanese lira's anymore. like, what do you mean? I don't have dollars. Where am I going to get you dollars from there?

Either in the bank or I don't have any anymore, you know? Some people, most suppliers, they don't sell you anything unless it's at the highest rate in the black market. So it's really caused a lot of people to go hungry. It feels like the end of the middle class. I think it is. We have over 50% poverty. And that just kind of releases. you know, a ripple effect of all damage that that's causing across the country, across, we can't send money abroad, we can't receive money. Sometimes they say you can, you have to open a fresh money. It's just so complicated.

And people who have children studying abroad, because the country's not stable, they're not being able to send them money, you're not being able to buy a plane ticket to leave, you're not being able to work. Or if you are working, they've cut your salary in half and everything's gotten triple or more expensive. So it's really an impossible, it's really, really an impossible situation of inflation in every way.

So something I think we should probably go into a little bit here because I think it's important for people outside of Lebanon to understand. When we talk about the death of the middle class in Lebanon and the consequences of this, I think it's important for people to understand when they look at Lebanon. This is a country that has a vibrant middle class that has a pretty educated population. When I was there and when I met you,

and most people I met, I had pretty advanced discussions with people, knew what was going on. And I think it's also important that when this is all happening, this is happening to a population that is educated enough to know what's happening. Definitely, definitely. I'll tell you something from my point of view

as someone who's considered a young generation here in Lebanon and not somebody who, I mean, I live through the 2000, 2006 war and all the leftovers, whatever came before, but I personally didn't live through the Civil War. So growing up, we really didn't, at least me and my community, we were not very involved in politics because it was just a reminder of how much it took over our parents' lives. You know, putting on the news at night, we all complain about our parents, we don't care about politics, we don't like anyone, we don't want to be a part of that, da-da-da-da, which eventually

kind of made me feel eventually that I realized that I'm a bit ignorant about the politics of my own country, but it was kind of set up for it to be that way. So when the revolution started last year in October 17, a lot of people really worked and made sure that our community is educated as far as the law is concerned, as far as the constitution, how it's not being. every time something happens, you know, on social media specifically, I get my news from there because I don't believe half of the shit that I see on these news channels. Most of them are owned by politicians, you know. So it's very hard to actually get access to information,

especially about our history because of they can't agree on anything. That is basically their main problem. You go to school and you learn history, I think, until the 30, if I'm not mistaken, and then they don't teach you what happens after. So everybody kind of grows up in this systemic, depending on who your families with, who your parents fought with, who your grandparents fought with, and you're kind of brainwashed that way because you simply don't have access to information or you don't have access to conversations with people from, you know, different situations

or different upbringing. So I think this was really important. I think it was really important that started. I would have never ever thought to be this involved in understanding what is happening every day, even though if it's toxic, I don't really have a choice but to understand the politics and why things happen a certain way and where to place the blitz and who to trust and who not to trust, basically. But the more you kind of understand about Lebanese politics and why it is as complicated as is because we are a very small country considering where, you know, six million,

people now and we have 130 ministers. We have, you know, a crazy amount of political parties, a crazy amount of, it's a sectarian system. So it's really hard for people to agree on anything. And at some point, they kind of made the headline to be that, yes, we do have a sectarian system, but we coexist better than any other Arab country in the region. And they just kind of, you know, hide behind this. So what people are really fighting for is to remove religion from politics because it seems like it's always an excuse not to make a change. And it's always an excuse for people not to get along. And the more you also understand about Lebanese politics from my opinion and the way that I'm feeling about things now, and this is really personal.

I'm not a politician. I'm not a, you know, I'm just somebody who's been affected like everyone else in this country. And I'd like to use my platform. I think that we all have a responsibility. So my opinion is on top of all of these really complicated things, we also have something that's not always addressed, which is the part that we play in international politics and how much we are the garbage of a lot of things

and how much sometimes it's not in our actual local control. And that's very hard to sometimes wrap your head around that because it makes you feel like that's so out of my grasp. That's so out of my control. There's nothing I can do to actually make a difference in that. You know, I feel like we're just being used as part of a, you know, like a chess game. Like the street is just a very small percentage of that pawn. And it's being used the way it needs to be used politically.

So it's very hard to feel like you're doing the right thing. What we can do or what we've been trying to do is to protest, to go down to the street. We did it peacefully for the longest time, really the longest time that at least I've seen in other countries. We started by singing songs and by being on the show and showing our new unity because our history after the Civil War was how segregated we were. So that was a big, a big, a big symbolic show of unity. And from there, we just, nothing was changing and nothing was changing and more of the same faces disguised in something else. And until things got violent and kept getting violent. and after the explosion in four days,

people did not have the time to mourn, people did not have the time to process anything. We don't even have the luxury to sit at home and think, I'm sad because this happened. I'm sad because I lost my family, my home, or my friends or my work or da-da-da-da. No, we don't have that. We are cleaning the streets for four days.

We go down to the street to protest on August 8th, and you have families, you have children. It's during the day, a fully, fully, You know, people are pissed. Yes, people are pissed, but people are not going down with guns. And 15 minutes into the protest, it was a crazy amount of tear gas. And then they started shooting bullets. And it started with real bullets. And then some of them were using rubber bullets and then real bullets. And then, you know, our friends were in the hospital. Like, what is this really what we want to be doing four days after the biggest explosion that this country's ever seen? And the second or third biggest that the world's ever seen, that's not what we want to be doing.

I don't want to be going to the hospital and picking up my friends or trying to trace my friends again after I already spent two days or three days trying to get in touch with everybody. You know, it's like you're not allowed to be pissed. You're not allowed to be upset. You're not allowed to say a curse. Like, you know, you're just supposed to sit there and take it. And if you don't, you're going to get shot or you're going to get hurt. You know, how much are you willing to sacrifice from yourself and be a martyr to something that you don't want to be a part of? I get very upset when people talk about the people that passed away in the explosion and they call them martyrs.

And I know to some people that gives them, you know, an added honor. But it's really not. They are not martyrs. The people that we lost are victims. They are victims of the system. They are victim of negligence. They are victims of politics that they did not want to. This is not a word that they did not sign up to go and get killed.

We are just collateral damage, constantly, constantly getting, you know, eating. their shit basically. I don't know if I'm sorry. I don't know if I can swear but um I will swear away please yeah I'm trying to be this is me being very polite these days because it's really it's like what are we supposed to do just sit back and you know like lick our wounds and then get up the next day like the rising Phoenix and here we go again we're fucking sick of it we're sick of it and they're not listening and they're threatening media and it's like okay as a as a person as an individual I am, ever since the revolution started, I love my country and I love everyone that it has, this country is really special and I'm sure everyone says that about their country,

but I really feel that the way that people perceive Lebanon or Beirut and its people internationally is not quite as, is not quite what it is. And as Kevin said, you have a lot of, you have a lot of different types of people and you have a lot of educated people and well-traveled people and you have more Lebanese people abroad. You have more Lebanese people in Mexico than you have in Lebanon. And a lot of successful people internationally are Lebanese. And it's very sad to say that when you leave and you have to leave to get success and you have to sacrifice your family and being in the same country as your family.

I'm being ripped apart from everybody that I love from my family and from my friends and from the work that I like doing, from my environment, you have no choice. This is a romantic idea that you can pursue life as you think that it was going to be, or everyone's leaving. Every day I get a message, every few minutes I get messages from my friends that are trying to claw their way out of here in any way that they can and settling for much less than they deserve just for a way out,

because at the end, and I don't blame them. And if I have the opportunity soon, I really need to think about my family, and I really need to think about my future and think how much am I willing to sacrifice at this point in my life when I'm young, when I'm able, you know, we're thinking like our parents that were flooding from the war.

I mean, our parents, literally everyone that I sit with, almost everyone from the older generation, from our parents to our grandparents, tell us, when it was the war, it was not this bad. When the war was happening, it was not this bad. We had money to eat. We could withdraw our money from the banks. You could travel, you know?

Things were not this expensive. So yeah, I mean, I feel like we're in a war. I would call it a war. And I don't know who's starving us. And that's why this is where I start talking about international politics. That's definitely beyond my understanding or my making a claim that I know. But I do know that we are in such a complicated situation politically that at the end of the day, the people that are paying for this, we are paying for the price.

We're paying a huge price for whatever is happening. And it's not fair and it's not fair. And it's not fair that a child has to bury his mother. And it's just not fair. We didn't sign up for this. And I know for a fact that we deserve better. And they're making us feel like we deserve to just say, thank God I didn't die in the explosion.

Thank God I'm alive. That's what all our conversations with our friends are because you feel bad for being ungrateful that you're alive. I'm alive. But what do I have? how are we going to feed our families? What are you supposed to do with the city? That's just crazy to me how an explosion like that

and how much explosives can be stored in the port, which is 600 meters from our studio. Like that's in the middle of the city that will just start painting a picture of how careless and how corrupt our government is. And I'm glad that at least people are seeing that because it's always been a very controversial topic of conversation and you don't really have the proof because it's always buried and files are always buried. But I feel like this has made it quite clear that we have the most untrustworthy and one of the most corrupt governments in the world right now, unfortunately. Can you tell me about the day of the explosion, like what that day was like for you in the world?

immediate aftermath? The day of the explosion. You know, now we have, with everyone that you speak to, you have pre-explosion and post-exposure. It's really when things changed or where were you with, you know. I was very fortunate to not be in the middle of the city where I usually am and where I spend all of my time in the studio or teaching pole or where we moved out of there. we had to move out of the city a few weeks before because we can't afford to live in the city anymore. So I remember being at my dad's house and I was cleaning because I haven't seen him for seven months

and he was supposed to be coming to visit. My dad's one of the many Lebanese that had to leave. And the house shook and I remember seeing a story on Instagram of my co-producer, who lives on the port. Our view in the studio is the port and she was taking a story and there was a big fire and she was saying does anyone know what's happening

and then when I heard the sound and you know the very very it's quite terrifying just the sound even I was far but it is quite a terrifying sound I was with my mom and we just ran outside to see what was happening and we could see we had the view

of the city so we could see that there was a lot of smoke and I didn't really at the time, it takes a while when you're not on the ground and when the news hasn't started yet for you to really process what's happening or, you know, you can never keep up. So you just think, okay, let me call Jenna, see if she's okay because she was posting that story

and I called her and yeah, when she picked up the phone, I realized that everything was, was, yeah, she was screaming and she was hung up. to send an ambulance and that she was stuck in the bathroom and that she had run in because she was scared of the fire and she was saying, you know, there's dead people everywhere and I didn't know what to do and, and, you know, you don't realize the magnitude and then I start calling another friend, another friend, another friend and you realize from their stories, I'm like, where are you, what are you doing? Are you okay? What do you need? And each of them from just a few

seconds of conversations just describing what they're seeing around you. There was no roads. The entire city exploded. There was glass everywhere. There was body parts everywhere. There was blood everywhere. There was no way that you could get to a hospital unless you're walking. And even then, those hospitals and those areas were also affected and they were also, you know, they exploded as well. So it was very hard for the hospital to receive people. And it was, you know, in that moment, Corona obviously does not exist. And I heard a lot of stories from friends of mine.

And my boyfriend was in the city as well and the house shattered. And I'm very grateful for my friends and for everybody who is alive. And we also did lose some friends. And I don't feel that it's my place to maybe tell other people's stories. but you can find if you go online you can find a lot of people talking about this I was very happy to see that the times covered a few of my friends that had lost their homes and were really injured severely injured in the explosion but nobody nobody should have to live through that and there's a different there is a different appreciation of things and and it's just if you look at it

the big picture, it's kind of like now is like you, you aim for less, you know. It's constant, they're constantly making you smaller and smaller and the things that you aspire and the things that you want to see and your dreams or how you see your community or the plans that you have, they're just reduced to so happy you're alive, so glad you're alive. I'm so happy you're okay. And that's really sad. And we should be grateful, but it just, I know that we do. deserve so much better. And I know that as a community and as a city, we have the potential to say so much more than that.

I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't really describe or I can't do the, I can't paint the image fairly, you know, and, and it's just driving there. And even now, I mean, the city was cleaned up so fast. You cannot imagine just from civilians. from day one, day two, you could already drive through some of those roads. You already had tents set up, random people helping, NGOs helping. We got back on our feet, you know, in the sense of we didn't get back on our feet, but we stood up and we're cleaning. And I was actually quite sad to see that because I was watching a group of very capable, unified people and being able to recover.

that much in one day or being able to stand up and be there for each other and care for each other. I know people that lost everything in the explosion, everything, family members, house, all their money because everybody withdraws whatever money you have and you put it in the house because you can't keep it in the bank. So the same night there was a lot of robberies or the money burned. Like they have nothing left and the next day they were on the street helping other people because we were luckier than other people. So that just goes to show what type of people we have here and the kind of

mentality that, you know, this survivor mentality that we have that is great, but that is not how it should be used. And it shouldn't be, they'll get over it. And it's a Middle Eastern country. And they'll do okay. And this happens all the time. It shouldn't be. This shouldn't be normalized and it shouldn't be forgotten. And we're at a point now where everything is really difficult. We don't really have a normal life every day. And even if your home is okay, like my current home is okay, it's very difficult to do anything, is very difficult, let alone think of work. That's like something that's so far away in your priority.

And at the same time, everything feels wrong, and it's not fair. It's not fair that on top of losing a lot of things, you have created a situation for the Lebanese people that is so delicate and so complicated and only so much is in our hands. So in a way, we are hostage. I feel like a hostage of this government, and I feel like everyone around me is a hostage.

Is there, I mean, obviously I hear a lot of anger, but I'm wondering, like, is it, I'm trying to think I had a phrase this. It feels like you don't see a path forward at all, that everyone is in survival mode right now. Has it been that for the last, basically, since the explosion? it has been like that for a while it has been like that for a while even before the explosion things were getting really bad and you know there's no work there's no on top of everything corona's enhancing all of those things by a million and is making everything really difficult and he's making any kind of little normality that we still have left it's not there anymore because of COVID but it's just the explosion really makes you think or makes me think I do believe because of the people, because of the Lebanese people, I do believe that there are people that can make a change, people that can inspire change or create change or go into the system and create change or whatever it is. I just think that right now,

if I am going to pursue this as a citizen or to feel like this is where I'm going to dedicate need all my time. It's going to have to cost me everything to just stay here, to just physically stay in the country, to be there for my country or for my friends or for my family or for my people or whatever. It's, it's, it's the biggest, it's going to be the biggest price to pay. I will have to sacrifice even more than we've already had to sacrifice. And it just makes you think of, what do I prioritize, you know? What my family before me has worked? to start from the ground up, you know, for, for, where do I make this choice? Like, how do I make this choice of saying, do I really want to be in another country

struggling, starting from scratch, from the ground up, with no money? Feeling like shit because I'm not here. Watching the news all the time because I'm not here. Feeling bad for my friends who couldn't make it out. Or being here and thinking what's going to happen, what can happen if I leave? You know, is it worth it? All these sacrifices, my daily life every day, no electricity, garbage everywhere, no water, crazy bills, no public transport, even though we pay for it in our taxes, like we pay for trains, which don't exist

and we pay so much money for it. You know, it's like, how much of this am I willing to sacrifice from, I'm in my 20s? I've almost sacrificed all of my 20s, dedicating myself to what I believe, Lebanon. can be, you know, and that's a very honest answer. I don't know how I don't know how to make that choice. And if I want to be frank right now, I would pick my family and I would pick an opportunity to be able to provide for my family better or to be able to provide for my country more on the long term. If I become more successful, if I have more resources, if I have more contacts. I don't feel like I'm making a difference. I know that I'm helping the people around me in

the same way that they're helping me and others, but but is it worth it? I don't want to be a martyr for a cause that I don't for them. I don't want to be a martyr for them. I don't want the people. I love to be martyrs for them. That's the worst thing is to lose someone you love or to lose people for something that you're actually against, for something that you don't want to be a part of, for people that you don't, you want them all to just go, really.

And in the protest after the explosion, you would walk around everywhere and you'd have, I don't know how you call them in English. Are they snoozes? Newses, yeah. Newses? Yeah, a news. Saw some guillotines. Yeah, the mood has changed.

It's just changed. And I remember that when we sat down and I talked to you and we were talking about how peaceful the protests are. And at the end, I told you, if things stop being peaceful and if we stop talking this way, it's because they've earned it. And they've earned every inch of it. And it kills me to still see these politicians. you know, file lawsuits on people from the media or anchors or people that are using like a curse word or

saying, Thu, or whatever. Like, this is how you're offended. Imagine how we feel, you know? If a word offends you so much or if an imagery offends you so much, imagine losing everything. How would you feel? You know, it is starting to feel, and I told you this last time, and I personally feel that we are in a dictatorship. I'm starting to feel like if we keep going this way, there is no freedom left. There is no freedom of speech, of doing, of moving. And that's one of the last things that we had compared to other nations in the Middle East

was a bit more freedom in the way that we express ourselves or a bit more freedom in how we live as well. Yeah, can we, I feel like that's something that we're. we really, that I want to want people to hear and to understand is what exactly it is that they've taken from people. That this is something that was a little bit different. But like, can you tell our listeners just a little bit about your community, like your creative community and what that was kind of about and the sorts of advocacy that you've been doing before all this.

Well, everything's really changed in my community or in the artistic community. I do want to start off by saying that even though I do think of the big picture and think of how much has been taken from us, I do consider myself and those alive lucky to still be here. And it's hard to talk about the life that we had before because you wouldn't see it existing. in the same space where the same things that I'm talking to you about exist and we live in this contradiction or at least we were living in this contradiction because now we're being forced to fully just exist in this limbo zone fighting disaster breakage can't talk about anything else can't think about anything else but we yeah as you mentioned we were a vibrant community of incredibly um artistic people and incredibly talented and smart people. You know, we, I think maybe not a lot of people in my head, it's clear. So it's very hard to describe.

But I think we are, we are, you know, we have crazy clubs. We have some of the best clubs that have that exist in the world. We have some of, we have, you go to cafes. We have gyms. I teach pole dancing. I, you know, I do shows. where I take off my clothes and pole dance in front of 2,000 people. Like, that is the world that we did exist in.

That is, you know, you do have more conservative parts of Lebanon. And it is quite a place of contrast. For me, it is a place of contrast. But those things did exist and our community did exist in the same way that your community exists in the U.S. or wherever you're from. We are not some people that live in tents and go to school on camels or anything like that. But we just have such a hard time for everything to happen.

We need to fight so much more to get a small return. We have to fight so much more than other countries that are a bit more blessed we are or a bit more advanced, let alone our geographical position and our neighboring countries like Syria and like it's, I was just talking. talking yesterday about a stupid idea of how cool would it be if I could just tour, if I could just get in my car and drive and tour. And that's something that's never really been an option, you know, the simplest thing that I feel like if I was living in another country that would give me a lot of work, I could at least go and pursue and see my potential, fulfill my potential, you know, and in the simplest way here, it's really difficult. Thank you for coming on and talking about this. usually when we do the show we we talk to you know the experts if you want to call them that

you're usually usually pretty smart people but um yeah it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a conflict blog but i don't we talked about this when i was in lebanon about how i have most of my career has been covering conflict, usually armed conflict. It's important to understand, but it's important to see the world in a broader sense than that. Middle East is not just that, and that's not the only way that conflict manifests itself, and those are not the only people who fight for something. Yep. And just, yeah, I'm glad that people get here this perspective, because I think it's an important one.

and I know that this means little coming from where I am right now, but what you do is important. And, you know, I hope that you can keep fighting wherever it is and however you do it. It's not for nothing. Definitely. And thank you guys for making this an important topic and for wanting to discuss this. Actually, I was saying the other day, I think there's an example that people might be able to relate to. but like, you know, Game of Thrones. I don't know if you guys have watched Game of Thrones.

But in Game of Thrones, I think it's, I don't know how many seasons like six or seven, but you spend five, six, seven seasons watching the perspective of all these people trying to be in power. And to the point where you become desensitized from the actual people and the people who are on the receiving ends of their words and their decisions. And because you watch it for so long and you sympathize with these characters and you know you fall in love with some of them and you don't like something but you're just so into their perspective and their narrative that you forget that there are real people on the receiving end of this and there are real people that are dying in their wars or that are you know their life is just destroyed because of that and I really feel that this is how our politicians or actually warlords because they are warlords that is a fact I feel like that that's the only way that I can explain to myself how how they can be so caught up in their head or in their narrative or in their world. I think that they,

I just think that they've become so disconnected from reality. So what you guys are doing is giving a voice to the people and people who are struggling from this every day that don't necessarily agree with the ruling class or with our decisions or with our politics. Same as a lot of countries. And I would say that one of the most, a very important thing that we can do other than donating to, Red Cross, any NGOs, queer relief, whatever it is that you, whatever cause that you feel passionate about, if you are inspired to donate or to help anyone every little bit counts,

every dollar counts, you know, it's very sad that some NGOs are having a problem, you know, to withdraw the money that is being sent to them on top of all of this. So spreading the, spreading information and shedding light on this and not normalizing disaster in the Middle East, I think, is one of the biggest responsibility for our Western media friends. I think that's really important. And I have a lot of respect for Kevin because he started doing that with me from last year. So thank you guys so much. Thank you so much for coming on the show and walking us through all of this and just being so raw. Yeah, I'm maybe too raw. I don't know. I'm sorry. It's very difficult for me to be structured. So I just kind of.

No, it was great. It was exactly what we needed to hear. Yeah. One thing, usually we just do a normal outro, but I was thinking if you're comfortable with it, I know it's weird to do promotion right now, but if we wanted to play one of your songs at the end of it, you can pick which one you would want to do, but I thought that would be a nice thing that we could do at the end of the podcast. Yeah, very weird to think about my music or talk about my music now. I feel like it's just never, it's just not the time.

It's never the time. And I'll tell you why it is. You know, it's, and why I mentioned conflict in that sort of way, I think, I think it is the time for that because so much of what's happening is taking these sorts of things from us. Definitely. You know, it's, it's what makes these things worth fighting for. Like art is one of those worth fighting for. Self-expression is one of the things that's worth fighting for.

Fighting in and of itself is just fighting. If we want the world back again, we need to remember what we want back. And if we want it to be different, we want to have a vision for how it's different. Yeah, definitely. Art can feel frivolous, but art actually isn't in that way. We'll stay in touch.

We'll stay in touch. Maybe I will see you on the other side. So I'm telling you, it's just you. I'll keep up with you if you keep up with me. Thank you so much for listening to the first episode of Angry Planet. Angry Planet is me. Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin Nodell. If you like the show, you can find us on Twitter at War underscore College.

Yes, we kept the old handle. Visit our website, angryplanetpod.com to read our newsletter. We're on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash angry planet podcast. If you like the show, please consider signing up for the premium episodes. Just $9 a month. Supports us, helps us keep making the show, and will give you access to the premium newsletter in two bonus episodes a month. We will be back next week.

another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then.