economic disaster | Arabia Policy

Protesters in Lebanon returned to the streets on Saturday as COVID-19 curbs eased, but demonstrations turned violent off the back of sectarian clashes and calls for Hezbollah to disarm.

The protests that engulfed Lebanon from the end of October until the COVID-19 outbreak hit in mid-March returned with a vengeance on June 6. Lebanese people returned to the streets, gathering in Martys Square in downtown Beirut after the easing of coronavirus curbs.

Demonstrators, many wearing masks, began peacefully protesting the country’s economic collapse, endemic corruption, and lack of government services, while some called for the disarmament of militia group Hezbollah.

“We came on the streets to demand our rights, call for medical care, education, jobs, and the basic rights that human beings need to stay alive,” 21-year-old student Christina told the French Press Agency (AFP).

The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated Lebanon’s economic and social decline, pushing unemployment to 35% and the poverty rate to 45%, according to government figures. The country is also in the grips of a currency crisis, and the Lebanese pound has fallen from an exchange rate of 1,507 to more than 4,000 pounds to the dollar, causing inflation to skyrocket.

Some protestors clashed with police, throwing stones, setting fire to rubbish bins, and looting luxury shops in the city center. Anti-riot police hit back with tear gas, injuring 48 protestors and hospitalizing 11, the Lebanese Red Cross reports.

Sectarian clashes

Calls for Iranian-backed Hezbollah to be disarmed triggered sectarian violence after some counter-demonstrators insulted the Prophet Mohammed’s wife Aisha and other historic Sunni figures, inflaming Sunni-Shia tensions.

The military and riot police held back Hezbollah and Amal counter-demonstrators who gathered near downtown Beirut to clash with protestors calling for disarmament. As security forces dispersed the main protest, Shia Hezbollah and Amal supporters taunted protestors in Sunni neighborhoods around the capital and in regional cities such as Tripoli and Sidon.

Clashes between Sunni-Shia protests and counter-demonstrators went viral on Lebanese social media, and gunfire rang out in some Beirut suburbs. The police and military were deployed to ensure calm and Lebanese religious and political leaders were united in calling for peace.

The top Sunni religious authority, Dar al-Fatwa, warned the faithful of “falling into the trap of sectarian strife.”

“The cursing of Sayyida Aisha can only come from an ignorant person who should be enlightened,” Dar al-Fatwa said in a statement.

“I appeal to all countrymen in all regions to follow the call of Dar al-Fatwa and warn the Muslim public against falling into the trap of sectarian strife,” former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in a statement, reiterating Dar al-Fatwa’s entreaty.

Current Prime Minister Hassan Diab joined the chorus of voices denouncing the Sunni-Shia clashes and the use of religious slogans on Twitter.

“The prime minister condemns and denounces in the strongest terms, all sectarian slogans … and calls on all Lebanese and their political and spiritual leaders to exercise awareness and wisdom and cooperate with the Army and security services,” he wrote.

It remains to be seen if protestors will heed the leaders’ warnings or if Lebanon will experience another night of violence Sunday evening.

In the three months since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, US billionaires have become $565 billion richer, while 43 million Americans have lost their jobs, a report by the Institute for Policy Studies has revealed. The report reflects a vast disconnect between the world’s richest and everyone else.

Far from being just a US problem, the world’s billionaires have profited from trillions of dollars in tax-payer funded stimulus, meaning the poor and working classes are literally paying for the success of the wealthy. Politicians have justified stimulus for stock markets as a way to ensure citizens would not lose their jobs, but the opposite has happened.

No crisis for billionaires

Tens of millions of people in the US alone have lost their jobs, and, after the crisis, they will be asked to pay for the stock-market stimulus through increased taxes or reduced public spending.

The colossal transfer of wealth directly from the poor and working-classes to the rich that has occurred over the last months has not been an exception, but the rule over recent decades.

Because billionaires do not work for their money but instead profit from investments, they pay minimal taxes over their income, often paying less in taxes relatively than a shopkeeper, office worker, or taxi driver would.

Multi-billionaire Warren Buffet highlighted this problem when he revealed that his secretary pays more of her income into taxes than he does.

Global concentration of wealth

The concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few is a global problem. According to the EU, 70% of the world’s population owns only 3% of the world’s wealth. In 2018 alone, billionaires’ wealth increased by 12%, or $2.5 billion a day, while the poorest people’s combined wealth actually declined by 11%.

The decades of supply-side economics have literally taken money from the poor and given it directly to the rich.

Over the past three decades the world’s richest have become 300% richer while the world’s poorest saw no increase in wealth whatsoever. If our current trend continues, by 2050 the world’s richest 0.1% of the population will own more wealth than all working people on earth.

Middle-Eastern fortunes

In the Middle East and North Africa, the concentration of wealth is harder to measure as fortunes are more opaque and often hidden in foreign bank accounts or real-estate. Forbes magazine compiles an annual list of the world’s richest that reveals some of the vast wealth held by a few in the region.

In Israel, 9 individuals hold $28.6 billion in private wealth, Egypt’s 11 billionaires have $15.4 billion, and the UAE has 11 billionaires worth a combined $24.7 billion. Turkey has the most egregious concentration of wealth, with 22 people hoarding $37.1 billion of wealth. Like the United States the ultra-rich in the MENA barely pay taxes, meaning they are literally taking from the poor.

Stark contrast

The fortunes of the world’s moneyed elite stand in stark contrast with the fate of the poor. The UN announced that thousands are likely to suffer and die in Yemen, after 30 nations together failed to raise $2.4 billion required to fund COVID-19 and basics like food and water. The UN has warned of an approaching famine of “biblical proportions.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program in Yemen have had to halve the food rations they give to starving people due to lack of funds. The total bill to save thousands in Yemen is $2.4 billion, which is less than 7% of the money Amazon-owner Jeff Bezos’ has made since March 18 this year.

The contrast between the vast fortunes of the rich and the terrible plight of the poor reveals that our world appears to have returned to a state of feudal lords and working peasants. While it might not be immoral to be tremendously rich, doing so while your neighbors suffer and starve defies human morality and basic compassion.

Tag: economic disaster

Fueled by Sectarian Clashes, Protests Reignite in Lebanon

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