How the Beirut explosion was a government failure

[Music] on august 4th this warehouse in beirut lebanon caught fire when the fire spread through the building this happened all of a sudden i could hear glass shattering and then there was dust everywhere the fire detonated about 2 700 metric tons of ammonium nitrate a highly explosive material that was stored here in the port of beirut the explosion leveled the port and left a zone of destruction six miles wide killing nearly 200 people and wounding thousands so this explosion just turned into what resembles frankly like a war zone it was catastrophic i still can't get the pictures out of my head to this day every single day somebody else is being varied for lebanon this was just one more catastrophe to an already perfect storm long before the explosion lebanon's economy was in a deep crisis unemployment and poverty were on the rise and people flooded the streets in outrage over and over again for many the explosion was the last draw so how did lebanon fall so far and what can be done to fix it the first thing to understand is the makeup of lebanon's population for centuries it's been home to both christians and muslims but communities are further divided into religious subgroups or sects the largest being maronite christians and sunni and shia muslims in the mid 20th century these three sects shared power but there is a tension between them in 1975 maronite and muslim militias sparked a civil war lebanon a country now torn in two by the vicious battle for supremacy between christians and muslims two dozen cease-fires have been agreed and broken soon other sects formed militias and joined the conflict in 1976 syria invaded and in 1982 israel followed fueling more violence fighting was particularly brutal in beirut which was divided among the militias the muslims control west route the christians are entrenched in the east the toll of human life is horrifying over the course of 15 years more than 120 000 people died finally in 1989 representatives of lebanon sex came together with other international leaders to end the war they signed the type agreement which divided the government among the sects in parliament each group received a set number of seats and specific positions the president would be ameronite the prime minister a sunni and the speaker of the parliament ashiya shortly after signing the agreement most of the militias disbanded but many of their leaders found a place in government in this system political parties were formed along religious lines and each sect claimed different government ministries while it was meant to kind of smooth or transition the country into a post-conflict scenario it actually allowed the conflict to persist by other means but this system wasn't designed to be permanent the idea was that within three years of the thrive agreement the actual governance of the country would move towards a non-sectarian system that bit was never implemented instead the politicians separated their portions of government and turned them into fiefdoms using them to enrich themselves and their sex they use them for patronage to provide jobs to siphon off funding from state coffers and it allows the political leadership to perpetuate their control over their constituencies while using public money for personal gain the politicians neglected to spend money on the services they were supposed to provide like garbage collection a report found that lebanon was paying about 420 million dollars a year for waste management despite that in 2015 garbage piled up around the country while politicians argued over a new contract it was the same story across the government it spent one billion dollars a year on electricity a sector controlled by the maronites but there were blackouts multiple times a day every household paid a fee for public water but much of it was undrinkable by 2015 discontent against government corruption was on the rise but nothing changed demanding for example to put someone in jail because they were corrupt immediately became as if it was an attack against the entire community it became very difficult to undertake any kind of changes or reforms and that meant the same people stayed in power so government corruption continued to go unchecked over time the government racked up dangerous amounts of debt by 2015 it owed nearly 70 billion dollars more than the country's entire gdp but instead of trying to fix the problem the government turned its attention to lebanon's most important industry so since the end of lebanon civil war 1990 lebanon's economy in general has mostly been service based we don't produce a lot here we are a heavy heavy importing country we import food we import raw material we import a lot of things lebanon's businesses pay for imports with us dollars which they get through the banks and lebanon's banks famously offer high interest rates which attract deposits from clients all over the world making it the most important sector in lebanon most of the banks are owned by or have ties to sectarian politicians and together they created a scheme to bring more money into the government it started with the central bank which funds the government offering very high interest rates as an incentive to commercial banks so these banks deposited money there and made a huge profit from the interest in turn the banks hiked their own interest rates even higher to attract deposits around the world and then poured that money into the central bank but this was unsustainable neither the banks nor the government could really cover all this interest it's quite accepted that it's a bit of a ponzi scheme encouraging people to put their money in the banks and keep them there because of high interest rates knowing that the banks don't might not be able to maintain that is a rip-off the only thing keeping this scheme together was the bank's ability to attract more and more money and that started to crack in 2011 when lebanon's neighbor syria collapsed in the civil war worried about putting their money so close to the conflict investors started pulling out of lebanon's banks but the scheme didn't fully unravel until 2017 when lebanon's prime minister disappeared i hereby announce my resignation as prime minister from the lebanese government knowing that the will of the lebanese is stronger and their determination is steadfast the sunni prime minister saad hariri resigned via a televised statement from saudi arabia then reports claim the saudis forced him to resign and were keeping him there nothing has justified the apparent detention of hariri by saudi arabia sadal hariri and his family are hostages in the kingdom after 10 days the prime minister returned to lebanon and took back his office but the damage had been done this time international investors lost faith in lebanon and deposits plummeted even lebanese residents rushed to pull their money out of the banks without new deposits the governments and bank's debt skyrocketed in 2019 the banks ran out of money and froze accounts limiting what people could withdraw leaving lebanon's people with a catastrophic problem and people can't take out their dollars and they can't import or what they do is they hike up the prices so now all these goods that are imported are now extremely expensive they're talking about um life-saving medicines basic healthcare equipment grain shortages fuel as well to cover its debt the government announced a new tax sparking a revolution lebanon is in the grip of unprecedented protests the anger was sparked by the government's announcement of a daily tax of 20 u.s cents on messaging applications such as what's up to many it was evidence that the whole system was corrupt and people from all sects flooded the streets in some of the biggest protests lebanon had seen in decades and so the uprising was really about eliminating this ruling class of political party which divide little and working-class people based on sec but at the top they just shared a slice of the pie together so a lot of people realize that this has got to go there is the new way of doing politics it was enough to force prime minister hariri to finally step down but the political parties stayed in power meanwhile other countries and international organizations offered economic aid to lebanon if the government could reform itself but the politicians couldn't agree and the economy kept falling apart in one year lebanon's currency lost more than 80 percent of its value and unemployment has reportedly surged this was the state of the country when an explosion rocked beirut well at first it appeared to be an accident the blast turned out to be the result of this dysfunctional system according to reports the ammonium nitrate sat in the port for seven years while government officials bickered over who was responsible for it it's criminal negligence at best they knew what this was they knew what it meant and yet this material it was left to language and beirut sports prime minister hassan diyab and several ministry leaders resigned but the power sharing agreement remains intact it's why many in lebanon feel the country can't recover until this system is abolished [Music] to make matters worse there's been a spike in coronavirus cases since the blast and now with its only major port destroyed in the explosion lebanon is struggling to import what its people need to survive and while all of the political leadership is paying lip service to the catastrophe that has befallen beirut no one really seems to be taking much action it's left the lebanese people to simultaneously demand for change and pick up the pieces there are people on the ground helping residents pick up their lives clean up rebuilding and this is all a personal [Music] initiative you

Channel: Vox

Views: 1,552,236

Rating: 4.9198732 out of 5

Keywords: Lebanon, beirut, middle east, Vox.com, vox, explain, explainer, explostion, blast, explosion, ammonium, nitrate, sect, sectarian, collapse, central banks, banque du liban, syria, israel, currency, lebanese pound, us dollars, economy, decline, recession, lebanese civil war, michel auon, hezbollah, saad hariri, lebanese, france, depression, corruption, grift, graft, wast, garbage, crisis, electricity, utilities, services, waste, unemployment, catastrophe

Id: wFpfYTYupKA

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Shachar2like]

for any Israeli who wants a quick overview of Lebanon unique politics and sects tensions, corruption and everything else this fits the bill.

Oh BTW the Lebanese government has been acting and going on for decades without a proper budget. This will surprise Israelis since in Israel unacted by law: if the government can't draft a budget the government is disbanded.

[u/SeeShark]

I don't know that this is the best use of this subreddit.