Where Does Lebanon Go From Here?

For more than a decade, I wrote zealously and defiantly about the beauty of Lebanon. In fact, the primary objective behind my blog Beirutista.co, launched in 2012, was to paint a picture of truth about what life is like in this tiny Mediterranean bastion. I had recently relocated to Beirut, Lebanon, and found myself composing long letters to friends overseas who knew nothing but the biased image of Lebanon that the media rehashes time and again. Questions like “You have trees there?” and “Do people get around on camels?” pained me not only for their reductive and uninformed nature, but for how poorly this country has been portrayed throughout the years.

Lebanon has been around for thousands of years. In fact, the word “Lebanon” is mentioned over 70 times in the Bible and is thought to derive from the Phoenician root lbn meaning “white,” in reference to Lebanon’s snow-capped peaks. This country seemingly has it all, bordered on the west by the moderate Mediterranean Sea, and replete with lush vegetation and hilly mountainsides blanketed in pine trees. The Cedars of God, as they are called, have been around since biblical times. We have lakes, rivers, streams, valleys, and caves defined by stalactites and stalagmites. The skiing season is a big deal here, attracting avid skiers from the near region.

My blog mostly delved into the rich cuisine Lebanon boasts. Of course, the Lebanese “tawlet,” or table, is second to none, famous for its vast spread of healthy and varied tapas-style dishes. Lebanese folks have a zealous appreciation for the land, the soil, the earth that provides so abundantly. Apples, pomegranates, figs, persimmon, dates, and custard apples (“kashta”) are just a slice of the cornucopia of indigenous fruits you can savor here. Olive trees and grape vines lend themselves to some of the world’s finest olive oils and wines. But who outside these frontiers knows that?

I labored intensively to do justice by Lebanon, meeting artisans and food creators and sharing their stories to the world. I was proud to attract an international readership that on many occasions actually translated to new tourism to Lebanon! In my own little way, I was helping cast a positive limelight that Lebanon so genuinely merited, and I was breaking down biases.

View of Beirut on October 10, 2019, one fateful week before the "thawra" or revolution and a weekslong-closure of banks which ultimately led to financial collapse

Almost overnight, that all shattered. Rewind to the autumn of 2019, when the rapacious corruption of the state led Lebanon to financial collapse. Depositors were locked out of their deposits, banks plunged into an irreversible tide of distrust, and people ultimately lost their life savings. Then, to coincide with the devaluation of the Lebanese lira, COVID-19 swept through the country, confining everyone to their homes and uprooting livelihoods altogether. Then the largest non-nuclear explosion in history destroyed swathes of Beirut, killing hundreds, injuring thousands, and displacing hundreds of thousands. For me, that is when Beirut lost its soul. I was abroad for the entirety of 2020, but when I returned in 2021 and summoned the courage to tour Beirut by car, I sobbed bitterly. Those lively, shop-lined streets I used to explore with fervor were gone. The downtown area, where I had been gainfully employed for over five years, was now entirely barricaded with giant concrete partitions. Nothing looked even remotely familiar, and I steered clear of the Beirut I once adored.

Just as things locally started to pick up in 2022 and 2023, the war in Gaza erupted. South Lebanon borders Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and we became sucked into the violence against our will and better knowledge. The power vacuum in Lebanon didn’t help, as no clear leadership has graced this country for years now. Fast forward one year from the start of Gaza’s annihilation, and now Israel has shifted its attention to Lebanon. Is this a war we ever asked for? Absolutely not. Lebanese people crave peace and stability, two notions that continue to elude us no matter how hard we try to avoid confrontation. Around us, whole neighborhoods are being eradicated in mere seconds, at the push of a button. Over two thousand people have been killed in the past month, and who is to say the majority aren’t helpless civilians just trying to eke out a humble existence? 

As I write this, a fire rages in the Rabweh area in Mount Lebanon minutes from where we reside. The air is filled with suffocating smoke and ash, and our lungs struggle for relief as our weary hearts search for solace. What is this dark new world that we have been thrust into? Will our children ever know happiness? Will we ever taste freedom and mobility again? For how long must denizens of this ill-fated country suffer at the hands of a sick ruling class?

Sometimes I stray onto my website Beirutista.co to relive the joie de vivre which once prevailed in Lebanon. I’d made it my self-appointed mission to capture that spirit and exhibit it to willing readers. Now I avoid Beirutista, because of what heartbreak shall I write? Open the NY Times and CNN, and Lebanon is linked to descriptors like “war-torn” and “mired in conflict” where “Iran-backed terrorists” thrive. The world sees us as the world wishes to see us. And try as we might to supplant or evolve that misperception, our efforts are futile. Because one step forward here is invariably followed by ten steps backward.

“Are you ok?” The question I am constantly barraged with, but in my opinion, that is the wrong question to ask. Do not ask whether Lebanese people are ok. Instead ask how the world is ok with what is happening here. How is the world order so nefarious and heartless that it allows genocide to happen 24/7 right before our eyes? How do devils roam freely and unchecked all around us? For now, death and despair enshroud Lebanon and stain its white beauty. And no amount of waxing poetic about Lebanese resilience can undo it.

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