Protest in Beirut
9:24 AM
first an economic collapse then a deadly pandemic and now these blasts three lakh people have been left homeless in a matter of a few seconds.
lebanon has neither the money nor the bandwidth to build shelter homes for these survivors.
the shock of the blasts has turned into anger, now angry citizens are blaming political leaders calling them incompetent and corrupt the outpouring is so strong the people of lebanon want a revolution and they're even ready for foreign intervention.
they want a foreign power a former colonizer to take charge of their country it's almost unheard of in the modern world.
the angry citizens of Lebanon who've lost all faith in their government, they trust a foreign government more than their own elected officials .
Outside the French embecy protest against the government of lebanon and not of france and all of this was happening when French president Emmanuel macron was in Beirut.
this was yesterday and yes it is strange why were the people of lebanon protesting against their own government in front of the french embassy .
this was an act of defiance the people of lebanon want france to intervene in lebanon's crisis they want france to back a revolution that would lead to the downfall of lebanon's political elite .
why france ?
the French once ruled Lebanon it was a French colony . yesterday the french president emmanuel macron visited beirut it was mobbed by a crowd he was mobbed rather by a crowd they called their own president.
the lebanese president a terrorist they demanded the fall of the regime proper investigation forever for his entire message. macro promised that he won't let the aid fall into the hands of the corrupt.
now let's come to the question of why the lebanese people want help from france almost 100 years ago lebanon was a french mandate after the first world war lebanon was occupied by the allied forces it was placed under the French military administration in 1923 .
the league of nations gave the mandate for lebanon and syria to france meaning these regions lebanon and syria were administered by france, lebanon became fully independent only in the year 1946 .
now there are thousands who want a return to the past a petition has been floated to put lebanon under a french mandate once again for 10 years the petition got more than 50 000 signatures in just 24 hours things couldn't get worse for the government of lebanon .
the french president did what no senior lebanese politician has done macron visited the worst affected areas to see the suffering firsthand.
he struck a chord the anger swell the protests became violent for Lebanon's elected leaders, it's a major crisis of credibility and the days ahead do not look easy the big verdict .
is yet to come the verdict in the hariri trial in 2005 a car bomb attack had killed former prime minister rafiqul hariri the killing ruptured this country a sunni leader had been killed the accused were shia men members of the powerful hezbollah backed by iran.
for 15 years a united nations-backed tribunal has heard this case that hezbollah has rejected this trial the case was heard in the netherlands.
the verdict expected on the 18th of august could inflame political and sectarian tensions it's like murphy's law everything that could go wrong is going wrong for lebanon .
it seems the killing of hariri had appended the politics not just of lebanon but of the entire west Asian region for years mainly because the Hezbollah had been blamed for the attack a Shiite militia.
now also a political party the hezbollah holds veto power over all cabinet decisions in this country, they run the government they remain the arch enemies of lebanon's neighbor israel .
it's quite a cocktail of conflicts the streets have erupted once again the citizens of lebanon have launched yet another protest yesterday many of them took to the streets they have bigger battles to fight, now than the virus from wuhan lebanon is witnessing what you could call an existential crisis .