CIVIC DUTY PUSHES BACK AGAINST VANDALISM AS PROTESTERS BEGIN CLEAN-UP OF BEIRUT STREETS
▶ Despite some criticising the damage to businesses and shops, the frustration with the political elite rages on
The air in Beirut was heavy with an acrid, burning smell yesterday morning and the tarmac on the streets scorched by fires lit during two days of anti-government protests.
On Martyrs’ Square in the city centre, the facades of unfinished high-end privately owned buildings had been smashed and someone had scrawled “revolution” on a column.
The buildings occupy what was many years ago a palm tree-lined plaza. More recently, they have symbolised the denial of public space to the average Lebanese citizen.
Elsewhere, charred pomegranates fell from a burnt rubbish tip.
The roads leading to the offices of Prime Minister Saad Hariri were closed off by guards and barbed wire while Beirut’s main thoroughfares were blocked by burning tyres, their black smoke rising above the rooftops.
Despite rubber bullets, tear gas and dozens of arrests the previous night, the protests entered their third day.
Yet amid the soot and debris, demonstrators decried the damage to shops and businesses and said they wanted to continue peacefully.
Dozens of people donned face masks and rubber gloves to help clear the debris on Martyrs’ Square as a waste-disposal lorry pulled up.
The mood was jubilant and in the background was symphony of pop music, cries of “revolution” and the honking of mopeds – more suited than cars to dodging the broken glass and upturned bins scattered across the city streets.
“I feel very proud to be Lebanese right now, being here with all these people fighting for the same cause,” said Jad, 25, from behind his mask. “We’re all coming here for a safe protest, for our rights, but there are some people who come here just to wreak havoc, and we’re trying to clear up after them. We’re just trying to clean our streets, so we can protest.”
But the frustration with the political elite that spurred the protests is ever present.
Several demonstrators held signs demanding “the return of stolen money”, referring to state corruption and the black hole into which Lebanese citizens’ taxes seem to fall while basic services such as electricity and water supplies remain substandard.
Protesters said they would continue to take to the streets, while others not participating prepared themselves.
A taxi driver donned a face mask, kept handy on his dashboard, against the soot from burning debris as he drove towards a flashpoint on the road to the airport.
The 60-year-old – who declined to give his name but boasted of having two brothers dying in battle for the militant group Hezbollah – grumbled about the previous evening’s damage.
“OK, protest, but burning tyres and destroying property is not on,” he said.
Across the country, a willingness to publicly criticise powerful figures is becoming increasingly clear. This is one of the elements differentiating these protests from previous ones.
In Lebanon, where sectarian divides dictate everything from parliamentary seats to job offers and where people live, badmouthing one’s own leader had for a long time been unheard of. Not any more, it seems.
Sitting on a plastic chair outside a workman’s cafe in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Mahdi Ghosn, 30, an airport employee, said he would continue to demonstrate.
Picking up his phone, he pointed to a friend’s Facebook post criticising Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah for lacking solidarity with the protest movement.
When asked if he was worried about criticising the powerful Shiite leader, he said: “What have I got to be scared of? He’s a human being, just like us. He’s not God.”