Day 146: Verdict of Hope

Day 146: August 19, 2020
Global Cases: 22, 569, 598; Deaths: 790, 193
Egypt Cases: 96, 914; Deaths: 5, 197
Lebanon blast casualties: 200 dead; 6, 000 wounded

Serage Amatory 
Multimedia Journalism Alumnus

Where to start when all that’s on my mind was to pack it all, once and for all, and leave?   

The Lebanese telenovela of agony started long before the few seconds in which the murderous oligarchy’s negligence exploded on August 4. In September 2019, I anxiously watched wildfires gobbling vast lands in the light of the state’s lethargy. In October, I fearfully watched violent partisan fanatics brutalizing peaceful protesters and quashing a fledgling attempt at a revolution on October 17. 

In January, a deeply corrupted crony banking system had stolen everybody’s life savings. In February, a collapsing health sector already confiscated within the shackles of an atrophying economy was further paralyzed with a global pandemic. In March, an already aching, bed-ridden population was quarantined on a 10,452 square km deathbed. In Lebanon, we did not rush to buy toilet paper; people at stores hysterically fought over candles.   

April’s bankruptcy, May’s inflation, June’s massive Lira depreciation and July’s famine heightened a culture of collective pain, fear and depression. I remember feeling elated when one juice vendor smiled at us; far from sounding poetic, smiling had become rare in Lebanon.   

Then came August and corruption, greed an clientelism hit differently when they threatened the life of my ill parent. Keeping Her from undergoing a time-sensitive surgery on which her life depended, was only that she lacked the Wasta of internationally deemed terrorists, before the debris sheathed her hospital on August 4.  

The first morning after the Beirut-quake was dusty, the air reeked with chemicals; befuddling is what it at least was. Lady Gaga’s “angel down, angel down, but the people just stood around” sounded clearer than Beirut’s distorted silence. The next morning, and as I was clearing rubble at the same hospital, She was denied care; “to leave” was also becoming clearer.  

But it was also Gaga who cried “you’re giving me a million reasons to quit the show… I just need one good one to stay”. I put my bags on hold, and the people before an ultimatum. If the detonation of over 30 years of ferocious state abuse wasn’t enough to mobilize the people against their stranglers, then staying in this Lebanon becomes a suicide mission.  

I self-swore the people into a jury, and their last chance to render a verdict worthy of my endurance of this Lebanon was Saturday. 

That Saturday, suffocating of tear gas, pressing with a shivering hand on a bleeding wound and running from live bullets, I eyed the people, the protesters: in the courts of the streets, their sentence was out.  

Through the blurry glass of my helmet, I saw children, women, refugees, migrant domestic workers and elderly standing idly before a terrorizing police force after they’ve spent the last 30 years inert before a blood-thirsty but remorseless political façade. 

I couldn’t believe that 2020 would have room for a gray, not even a silver lining. The people proved me wrong. And so, I unzipped my bags surrendering to the people’s verdict of hope.

For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.