Come on Lebanon, the heartache is drenching! The trash on the streets of Beirut, which was once described as one of the most glamorous capitals in the Arab world, is surely not befitting, to say the least. The city has been inundated with tonnes and tonnes of garbage since the second half of July and this has got to stop. The current chaos is a bit like the 15-year-old Lebanese civil war that ended in 1990, only much less bloody, but many fear could change.
Government officials and politicians lining up at the deadlocked Lebanese parliament must come together, rise above their political differences and put an end to this practice of dumping garbage on the streets. It is piling up everyday and some of it is very toxic. Waste management is a basic task of any government and local council. It does not warrant the fuss that is being created. Yet, in Beirut, nobody can agree on what to do.
Government ministers, officials and chiefs of political parties must sit down and consider the festering situation very carefully. They got to do this in the interest of curbing what could become a public health disaster that may spread to different parts of the country. Actually, the Lebanese Health Minister, Wael Abu Faour, is on record stating last month that Lebanon was on the brink of a “major health disaster”. Despite this, nobody is doing anything about the situation. Lawmakers, representing what can only be called different tribes, must get off their moral high horse and from their political ivory towers look around and breathe in the stench that is everywhere in the capital to realise the extent of the problem. They have to connect to solve what has become a “people’s issue”, supported by many across the sectarian divide of Sunnis, Shiites, Druze and Christians. No longer content with listening to their politicians, people are taking to the streets because of long-failed policies leading to endless power cuts, erratic water supplies and worn-out infrastructure with amenities going down to zilch. Trash has become a rallying point for a long list of grievances.
The popular protests are being described as “late Arab Spring labour pains”. One must realise that these demonstrations are being galvanised by the “You Stink” movement, which was formed after the beginning of the garbage crisis on July 17. Just like many ordinary people, the movement’s founders got sick of the continuing “reeling-under” social and economic situation and the political malaise characterised by a toothless government that is unable to carry out any effective policies because of sectarian political groups that dominate it and have come to hound it.
Largely due to the inaction of the powers that be, the “You Stink” movement is no longer seeking just moving the trash from Beirut’s streets. They want to remove the Tammam Salam government, dissolve the existing parliament, whose deputies patted themselves on the back and extended their term till 2017 and finally choose a president for Lebanon. Although he must be a Christian, according to the constitution, he may provide a modicum of stability as opposed to those seen as parliamentarian warlords. But as of now, that is just a pipe-dream.
This protest movement has been seen as a sort of a jack-in-the-box story of anguish and frustration that has united all Lebanese for the time-being. It is said, for instance, that nobody supports the 1944 Lebanese National Pact that put in place the country’s confessional political system, which divided rule along sects and which later proved to be unfair.
But this may be tenuous at least in the short and long terms. Nobody really knows how strong and long-lasting this can be for many commentators argue that once the “societal crisis” is over everyone on the street — Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and so on — will go back to supporting his or her political and/or religious leader in parliament and structures of society, which are maintained through alliance, cronyism and patronage.
Besides, there is the relationship that has developed between the political class, companies and entrepreneurs. Like any other state and society, the relationship between the political elite and corporations continues to be strong. Because of the civil war the country went through, the political elites were able to establish what is called parallel institutions outside government and extended the required public services to them. Thus the task of garbage collection, which is traditionally the work of municipal councils, was given to a private company. Because of this, the Beirut landfill, which was finally closed down, was controlled by a private company through a contract signed in 1994, but which the government terminated because garbage was overflowing into the surrounding communities. The company was connected to Sa’ad Al Hariri, leader of the Al Mustaqbal (Future) movement and there are more stories like that.
We are yet to see where all this will lead to. The fear of another potentially devastating civil war like the one that lasted between 1975 and 1990, is always lurking in the background. Are the politicians aware of this and will they be able to bring the country back from the brink of chaos, as neighbouring Syria and other Arab Spring states continue to suffer bloody mayhem and disorder? Our hands remain on our hearts!
Marwan Asmar is a commentator based in Amman. He has long worked in journalism and has a PhD in Political Science from Leeds University in the UK.
