A disaster ignored by media

BEIRUT

1 HIGHLANDER OPINION 16 HIGHLANDER FEATURES

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

Derivative of “Damages after 2020 Beirut explosions 1” by Mahdi Shojaeian CC BY 4.0

if a blast on that scale happened in a San Francisco storage facility, much of San Francisco would be turned to rubble and windows would be blown out as far as San Mateo.

Due to the high amount of reposting and retweeting of the graphic videos of the explosion, many young Americans felt inclined to help with relief efforts in any way they could. However, in the following days, most relief efforts were largely a bust. Petitions which went viral were quickly deemed useless by Lebanese citizens who explained that petitions did nothing for foreign affairs. Many fundraisers that accumulated tens of thousands of dollars turned out to be scams or efforts set up by the Lebanese government which would eventually steal the fund. The only reliable fund was by the Lebanese Red Cross, but it took days to get any significant donations to their cause.

“After the Notre Dame fire, much more money was donated,” Khachab said. “I’m surprised it got the attention it did because people usually don’t care about Arab countries. But also I know it would have gotten much, much more attention if it was a Western country like France or Italy.”

Most Lebanese people agreed that thoughts and prayers were not enough.

One such person is Ghada Saliba-Malouf, a Lebanese-American woman. She says that she was tracking Lebanese media very closely, even before the blast, to ensure that her daughter, Yasmina, would have a safe stay there. Yasmina was about 15 km north of the blast site and she consistently updated her mother about the relief efforts and the lack thereof.

“People in the Middle East felt like we’re always covered like there’s another calamity or war or event. It’s always an attitude of, ‘oh, what do you expect?’” Saliba-Malouf said. “I do feel like had it happened in Britain or France or anywhere else, the coverage wouldn’t be the same. The magnitude of what happened here: the government negligence and the destruction, it really was not adequately covered.”

Lebanese people internationally remained furious with the country’s leadership, all of whom resigned after massive protests rocked the country when officials failed to produce almost any information or relief packages. Al Jazeera’s investigators reported that even without the explosion, it would have taken many years just to lower inflation rates and to get a reliable elected government into office. As a result, sovereign relief efforts have carried the path to recovery.

Saliba-Malouf agreed that the damage was “unmeasurable,” but she was impressed with the fully civilian-led relief efforts. One organization that stood out to her was Beit al Baraka, which provides medical support, home renovation, food, and agricultural support to the people of Lebanon. Although donations are now very slow, they still manage to reach 3,000 people a day. According to their website, they have refurbished 350 homes and treated 356 patients while also assisting hundreds with rent support and food and water bills.

“Months after the explosion, entire streets are blocked off by community organizations and civillians of all backgrounds who are just doing what they can to help each other,” Saliba-Malouf said. “At the end of the day, I think our ability to keep going comes down to our spirit of hospitality and resilience.”