I am wondering if you could talk a little bit about the growing wealth inequality that’s
at the root of many of these demonstrations and protests in Lebanon.
After all, Hariri is one of Lebanon’s richest people.
He’s worth about $2 billion.
It has been a tough week for world leaders who are billionaires.
Over in Chile, Sebastian Piñera, another billionaire, is having massive protests in
the streets as well, against wealth inequality.
How has this widening gap affected Lebanon?
About 1% of the people in Lebanon control—or hoard, I should say—the majority of the
wealth, and in the past decade, that has incrementally grown.
Since the beginning of this year, there has been also demonstrations because of recently
passed austerity measures.
There has been cuts to the only public university in Lebanon, the Lebanese University.
There has been cuts to various ministries such as the environment ministry that is crucial
to maintain as we continue to face an environmental crisis.
There has been additional taxes that primarily impact the working class and the poor.
Aad also because Lebanon has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratio at almost 150%, making Lebanon
the third most indebted country in the world.
So this public debt that is at almost $89 billion and continuously growing, the servicing
of this debt primarily benefits the wealthy at the expense of the very poor.
So there is a lot of anger on the street.
These demonstrations have somewhat been referred to by the international press as a WhatsApp
revolution.
That’s far from the truth.
WhatsApp was a very, very small trigger to what is happening here.
There were also plans to not only add the tax of about $.20 per day, amounting to a
maximum of six dollars per month—and also for context, WhatsApp is used by almost everybody
in the country, especially because telecommunication costs are so expensive.
So what we see is a gradual increase in taxes that do not really serve the people who are
being taxed, and tax evasion by the most wealthy and by the banking sector.
You mentioned more than $80 billion in debt.
Who holds that debt?
What countries are benefiting specifically or what financial groups from the Lebanese
debt crisis?
It is not really the international community that’s benefiting.
It’s actually the local banking sector that benefits from the servicing of this public
debt.
Of course, some the members of the international community—Saudi Arabia, Gulf states and
others—but for the most part, it is the local banking sector that is benefiting.
And the local banking sector is very tightly affiliated or close to the political class,
so they are in essence serving each other.
You’ve described this as a really anticapitalist mobilization.
Can you also talk about how this dates back to and what were the trash protests of 2015?
That this has been building.
I will just briefly talk about the 2015 demonstrations that were ignited after a garbage crisis that
continues to be unresolved.
Again, the primary difference between what is happening now and what happened then, even
though in 2015 there was a lot of anticapitalist sentiment that was expressed, we see it much
more vividly today.
One of the main protest sites is actually at the Central Bank.
People have been there for almost two weeks.
They are calling for not only the downfall of the current political class, but they’re
also calling for the downfall of the governor of the Central Bank, Riad Salamé.
They are also calling for the downfall of the rule of the bank in Lebanon.