BEIRUT
Khalid Kishawii The morning of Aug. 4 felt like the start of an average day for the 2.2 million residents of the Beirut Metro Area in Lebanon. As the clock struck 8 a.m. every person abruptly stopped what they were doing and rushed over to the nearest window or balcony to watch the titanic plume of black smoke that rose from the port of Beirut. Then, without warning, an earth-shattering blast came rumbling in every direction of the city. A cloud of dust and rubble destroyed every house, office, and business in its path. The nation which had struggled for months with corrupt leaders, an economic depression, and high rates of poverty due to COVID-19 had now experienced the third-largest explosion in human history. As survivors searched for their missing friends and family members, they found it nearly impossible to obtain any information. It was only days later that the world found out a massive amount of ammonium nitrate had been set off, killing over 200 people and leaving over 300,000 homeless. Videos of the explosion spread like wildfire across social media and emotional devastation followed suit for Lebanese people around the world. Western media compared it to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, but many members of the Lebanese diaspora found it deeper than that. Many people who grew up in Beirut first thought of all their childhood memories that could never be replicated by future generations. Maya Khachab, a Lebanese-American student, described the mix of emotions she felt when she first tried to find information on her family from her home in Washington DC. “My favorite memories of Lebanon are my cousins and I visiting my grandma’s house for lunch every Saturday until I moved away when I was 12,” Khachab said. “My initial reaction to the explosion was confusion. I was scared to see the smoke getting bigger while watching the video because it hurt to see the city I grew up in like this. I’m happy my family wasn’t hurt but also it hurts me to know they were traumatized and went through that.” While many social media users only compared the explosion to disasters in the United States, many people were reminded of their childhoods in the war-torn country. One such person was Jumana Muwafi, a Lebanese-born San Francisco tech executive of Palestinian descent. “The Lebanese Civil War started when I was nine and after that, there was the Israeli invasion,” Muwafi said. “I grew up with so much uncertainty. For example, we would go out dancing and listening to music and on a moment’s notice there would be a few skirmishes, and those skirmishes turned into full-blown conflict. After the explosion, everyone, especially the younger generation, went into survival mode. Like us, they didn’t have time to process what was happening around them.” Another Twitter user, @gabberghoul, estimated that
16 HIGHLANDER FEATURES 1 HIGHLANDER OPINION
