Front Burner - The roots of Lebanon’s anti-government protests

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

This week, Lebanon’s prime minister announced his resignation, along with his entire cabinet. The announcement follows massive anti-government demonstrations that erupted in the wake of the explosion that rocked central Beirut last week. But even with the government stepping down, the protests have persisted. Today, reporter Rebecca Collard, who’s been reporting from Beirut for years, joins us to explain how the protests started long before the explosion, and why they’re raging on.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Michelle Shepard. Last weekend, journalist Rebecca Collard was handed a flyer on the streets of Beirut. It read, on the streets of Beirut. It read,

This is the last day we will clean the streets and the rubble in Beirut. Tomorrow, we clean Beirut of corrupt politicians. The rubble is from the massive explosion that rocked Lebanon's capital nearly two weeks ago. More than 200 people were killed, 6,000 injured, 300,000 left homeless.

Amidst the devastation, anti-government protests erupted. On Monday, Lebanon's Prime Minister announced his resignation and that of his entire cabinet. But the demonstrations continue. Today, Rebecca Collard explains how the protests started long before the explosion and why they're raging on. This is FrontBurner. Hi, Rebecca. Thanks for coming on today. It's my pleasure.

Can we start with where were you when this explosion happened? Yeah, I was actually in my apartment when the explosion happened. And I had heard this kind of rumbling that I originally thought was a plane. And I went kind of towards the window and then I heard a small kind of boom. And I actually ran through my bedroom into an internal hallway and closed the door, which is something that, you know, as a journalist, you learn in hostile environment training. If there's any sort of an airstrike or or explosion, you want to be inside this internal hallway. So I was inside this internal hallway, and my whole apartment was shaking. And at the time, I was like, what is this? Is it an airstrike? Is this an earthquake?

And when I came out, Michelle, I just saw my apartment in ruin. Most of the doors and windows were smashed in. You know, the balcony door was in the most of the doors and windows were smashed in you know the balcony door was in the middle of the living room there was glass everywhere furniture was picked up and tossed to the other side of the room and I would just say you know in the in that moment I took pictures and I was putting them on on social media and being like look at my apartment this is horrible it's destroyed and at that point I really felt like I had been very badly affected by the blast but I would say over the last nine days now having been out in the streets and into people's neighborhoods and to so many people's homes I'm so lucky about

the minimal damage that my apartment has and and that I was not hurt at all people have lost absolutely everything you see like three-story apartment blocks just in rubble on the ground. And to be honest, I feel quite fortunate about where I was and how I reacted in that moment. And tell me what you've been seeing in the days since when you've been out on the streets reporting. What are you seeing and hearing from people and what are they doing? Yeah, the first few days it was actually amazing to see so many volunteers, thousands of people from all over Lebanon descended on Beirut and just basically helping with the cleanup efforts, sweeping up glass, removing debris, going door to door and offering to help their

fellow citizens clean up their places, offering basic food supplies, basic medical supplies, just this real show of unity. We are here, coming from Tripoli, to extend the message to Beirut people that our hearts are beating with you. And, you know, I think you just mentioned it, I think really when I saw this turning point was this flyer that somebody handed me,

and it just said, it was a call for protests. And it said, you know, today we're cleaning up the streets, but this is the last day. And tomorrow we're cleaning the country of corrupt politicians. And the streets of Beirut are not clean. There is so much work to be done. But as we've been talking about, protesters are back in the streets. But we know these protests weren't just born in the aftermath of the explosion. They were happening long before and perhaps not getting the same level of international attention. But can maybe you give us a sense of what were the problems that people were dealing with in Lebanon that caused them to go out and protest before the explosion? Yeah, the protest started here in October. And actually, they were spurred by something that

seemed kind of small at the moment, that the government announced a bunch of new taxes, including a tax on this WhatsApp app. And people just took to the streets kind of spontaneously. The prime minister has agreed on reforms to help ease the country's financial crisis. has agreed on reforms to help ease the country's financial crisis. The government is scrapping a proposal to tax WhatsApp calls, which sparked nationwide protests. So we've seen for years well-organized protests in Beirut against the garbage crisis and by different, you know, alternative political factions. But this was a really organic movement. People took to the streets and it just, you know, within days there was thousands, tens of thousands of people in the streets.

And really, you know, it was about the conditions for people, about those really basic things like, you know, being able to afford food and schools for their children and all these sort of things. But it really was about the government system that we have in Lebanon, which is a sectarian government political system that has been in place really, I mean, since the founding of the state, but after the civil war. Lebanese and Syrian tanks surround the French embassy in Beirut as this latest diplomatic complication to the Aoun saga awaits a solution. There could be an explosion of popular indignation

and anger if the general were to be seen being flown by the French to freedom abroad. After the civil war, different spheres of influence were kind of divided up between the political parties. And essentially, you know, activists say that some were like billions, basically, and nobody really has a figure because we also have pretty strict bank secrecy laws here. But billions of dollars were embezzled, lost to corruption and lost to mismanagement in this country. And, you know, Lebanon is now facing, before this blast, even before the coronavirus came and obviously made things worse, Lebanon was facing the worst economic crisis it's faced since the civil war. The currency here has lost 80% of its value against the US dollar.

And already we were seeing this situation where people were facing food insecurity, you know, where their salaries were becoming worth nothing. So, you know, this protest movement, you know, we did see kind of a calming down of it during the coronavirus, the worst days of coronavirus here, but this has really reignited these calls for not just a new government in Lebanon, but a new government system. As soon as we arrived, they started tear gassing us. There was sound bombs, there was live bullets,

not what I expected at all from a country who has already lost so much. I want to go back to the issues of what came out after the Civil War and how the government is structured there and how that really is the basis for so much of what's happening now. But before we go there, let's go back to the situation now in terms of the economic crisis. And you said that food has become unaffordable for many.

Can you give us a sense of how dire that situation is? Yeah, I can tell you every time I go to the supermarket, I see things that are double what they were when I visited before. And, you know, I'll just say also, and I think it's important to remember myself, especially as a foreigner, but also just as someone that is more wealthy than a lot of people in Lebanon. Because I make foreign currency, I'm not impacted in the same way. But if you look at people, people who make in Lebanese pounds, which is the majority of Lebanese,

the price that they're paying for basic staples has doubled and even quadrupled. And that means that they just simply can't afford it. Their salaries are worth so much less. And I'm even talking about people. I have a friend who is a university professor, had a good salary. Now his salary is worth almost nothing because of this massive inflation that we've seen. Some grocery stores don't even have prices up because they just can't keep up with changing them. Elias Halil is with Beit al-Baraka, which, among other things, runs a free supermarket for those in need. You can see moms, dads who are educated,

who used to have jobs, who never begged for anything. They are begging for a pot of milk or for a bag of rice, which is honestly devastating. The reason that this is so bad for Lebanon is because most of what Lebanon consumes in the terms of food is imported. So as soon as the Lebanese pound lost so much of its value, all of a sudden food became so expensive because almost nothing Lebanese eat is produced in the country. And you alluded to this earlier, but one of the refrains from the protesters, which was even conceded by the resigning Prime

Minister Hassan Diab, is that corruption is the problem. It was the problem before the explosion, and it's being identified as a problem that led to the explosion. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah, I think the corruption is a massive problem. But also, when we talk about negligence and mismanagement, just kind of a lack of coherent policy, a lack of good management. And so in this case, what we're hearing now, essentially, is that most of Lebanon policy, a lack of good management. And so in this case, what we're hearing now, essentially, is that most of Lebanon's, many of Lebanon's political leaders knew that there was thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate sitting in a civilian port next to a populated residential neighborhood, and nobody did anything about it. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel

Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So I know, Rebecca, this is a very complicated question to answer, but can you try to help

explain how corruption came to be such a problem in Lebanon's government and how Lebanon is unique? Yeah, I think part of the problem in Lebanon, and obviously we have corruption globally and across this region for sure, but one of the reasons that I think it was so endemic here is the fact that this government system that was, maybe didn't quite come out of the Ta'af Accords. We always had a sectarian government system in Lebanon for decades even before the civil war, but definitely this was entrenched further with the Tafekor to end of the civil war and essentially it kind of divvied up powers between sect-based political parties and sectarian-based political leaders and that essentially created an environment where

rather than accountability to people what you have is kind of mutual impunity. So everybody's looking the other way at what the other people are doing, because they're doing it as well. You know, when these protests started, there was a lot of questions about why, you know, why would Lebanese, like the elections that we have here, people do tend to vote for these people that have been in power for so long. So why is that? And I would say the other thing about this sectarian system is that it is fueled also by fear and patronage. So on one hand, there's this kind of constant looming threat that you can see kind of used by sectarian leaders that they give people the feeling like if their sectarian leader is not protecting them, then the other sect is going to come get them. They're going to

fight them. They're going to attack them. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is patronage. So for me, you know, in Canada, if my mother is sick, I take her to the hospital and she gets free medical care and she's taken care of by the state. That doesn't really exist here. It's, you know, so what happens instead is that people rely on their sectarian political party to do things like fund their medical care. They might get food donations, financial donations. And so there's this system, because the state is weak and there's really no social safety net,

that people that are in need have to go to their sectarian group, and then they're more relying on these leaders. So I think this also creates this environment where people kind of look the other way at what their leaders are doing. And it was widely known that these people, that these leaders were stealing money. Everybody talked about it. But I think until October, Michelle, nobody really felt like they could do This reputation for ineptitude and corruption now seems, since the blast, even to be impacting the way the international community is choosing to deliver aid, right? Yeah, and I think that, you know, we've heard from the Lebanese government that they think that rebuilding Beirut is going to cost $15 billion.

Of course, the Lebanese government doesn't have that money. They're $151 billion in debt, and they have very, very low cash reserves. Foreign governments have all, many countries, Canada, France, a lot of the international community has said they want to help Lebanon. They want to help immediately with aid to get aid to people, food, medical supplies, the basics, and then also with reconstruction efforts. But the problem is that nobody is willing to put money or aid in the hands of the Lebanese government anymore. And, you know, talking to people that were volunteering to clean the streets and talking to protesters in the last week, they echo that. They don't want to see to see they say don't give our government any more money give

that money give that aid directly to the people because they'll tell you that you know in the last few decades as the international community gave loans and donations to lebanese government much of that was siphoned off to corruption embezzlement and mismanagement so they're saying now don't do that. Don't give money to our government. But of course, that is going to make the aid effort and the reconstruction effort even more complicated. So, Rebecca, what are they calling for now? Because, as you noted, the resignation of the prime minister and the entire cabinet is not enough.

The protests continue. What are they asking for? I would say, first of all, and I think this is an important point, most people I talk to have said the first thing they want is a proper investigation into what happened on Tuesday, because obviously they're blaming the government and they don't trust the government to investigate. And there's a good reason for that. You know, there has been so many accusations of corruption and embezzlement and mismanagement in recent decades. And almost never has a Lebanese politician been properly tried and sent to prison for some sort of crime. So people

want that. A lot of people want an international investigation into what happened. They don't trust a local investigation. So there's that. But on a bigger picture level, Michelle, they're basically asking for what they've been asking for since October is they want the parliament gone. They want new elections and they want that those new elections under a new electoral law that they think would heed different results and I think that if today we did see just new elections under the same electoral law I'm not sure that despite these massive protests that we've been seeing that we would see very different results so there's the call on the streets is we want new elections and we want it under a new electoral system. We are coming to protest and to declare that we want the parliament to resign.

That seems like a massive reform. And Lebanon is also one of those countries that has so many pressures from outside the country. It's often used as, you know, for proxy wars and battles. from outside the country. It's often used for proxy wars and battles. What you've suggested, what they're asking for, can you see a scenario in which that actually happens? I would be hesitant to say yes. I mean, I think that this explosion has been a game changer for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it is just so much devastation in this country right now, and people are so angry. And I think that that is really different. And I guess the question that I'm asking myself, that I've been asking myself in the last nine days is whether the fact that they're experiencing, Lebanese government is experiencing a new level of isolation from the international community, and whether or not that could change anything. And I'm really not sure how to answer that question. But I would say, you know, for decades, foreign states have given money to Lebanese government. And as I said before, a lot of that money was siphoned off through embezzlement and corruption, but nobody wants to see Lebanon descend into chaos. So they kind of supported the system here because they thought it was the only way to keep the peace.

And I'm wondering now, I'm asking myself if the fact that, you know, so many countries are saying they're unwilling to give money to Lebanon now, whether that could help spur some sort of real change in the country. So, Rebecca, given the crisis this country was in before the explosion, the frustrations with the government, the dire economic situation, it would be challenging under the best of circumstances to bounce back after such a devastating explosion. Where does the country go from here? Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. I mean, obviously, there's all the physical rebuilding, you know, the billions of dollars that it's going to take, the challenges of being able to get in construction materials, all of this. But we're also talking about a government that very clearly does not have the faith of its people anymore.

With such massive calls for reform, I think that that's going to obviously complicate efforts. But, you know, I would also just say on a positive note that I have seen in the streets also in the last few days, so much unity and so many Lebanese just stepping up in this amazing way to help each other, going into strangers' homes, checking that they're okay, checking that they have what they want. And in some ways, I think that that is something that is really beautiful that has come out of this national disaster.

But at the same time, you know, I think there are factions in Lebanon, people in Lebanon that want to sow division, as we talked about, that benefit from this chaos. You know, when we talk about the people that are in charge of the country now, many of them rose to power in a time of chaos and civil war. It's their natural habitat. And I just, you know, worry that that will supersede the unity that we've seen kind of in the streets in the last few days. And I do think that it is going to be a very, very tough road ahead physically, but economically, but also politically. Rebecca, thanks so much for joining

us and we'll continue to watch your reporting. You're welcome. That's all for today. Front Burner is brought to you by CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show was produced this week by Mark Apollonio, Imogen Burchard, Shannon Higgins, Ali Janes, and Derek Vanderwyk, with help from Mary Newman. Mandy Sham does our sound design with help from Matt Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chavison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of FrontBurner this week was Elaine Chao. I'm Michelle Shepard, your guest host for this week. Thanks for listening. Josh Bloch will be back on Monday.

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