Lebanon teetering under the weight of apathy

The rubbish crisis in Lebanon is spiralling out of control, writes Michael Karam.

Rage is a legitimate weapon in the columnist’s arsenal, but I will concede that last week’s piece was a bit of a rant. Still, I couldn’t help myself. The first rains of the Lebanese autumn had sent some of the thousands of uncollected tonnes of rubbish coursing through the streets of Beirut and its suburbs like some biblical plague. Surely, I argued, heads would now roll.

But this is Lebanon, where accountability is for the weak. And so it came to pass that one week later, the same politicians who led the country into a constitutional and economic cul-de-sac are scratching their collective heads, trying to figure out how to solve an environmental crisis that began in mid-July.

Back then, Sukleen, the company contracted by the state to collect and dispose of the nation’s trash, declared that not only was there was nowhere left to dump it but its contract was also up for renewal. Until the two issues were resolved, Beirut’s waste would remain uncollected.

At the time, the story made global headlines. It was a good news story with dramatic images of piles of rubbish and fed-up Beirutis wearing masks. And we hoped that the world would put it down to an administrative glitch in a chronically creaky country. End of.

But the longer it lasted the more serious it became and now there are fears that lethal toxins are leaching into the soil and the groundwater. This will surely have serious economic and social consequences if it is not resolved.

Indeed, many experts are saying we are already too late.

Our tourist industry was already in intensive care. Now it surely must be flatlining. It was never an easy sell. With charter flight fares “stopping” at Istanbul, Lebanon was always a relatively expensive destination.

We also knew, even if we never admitted it, that we were never as beautiful a country as we claimed.

Our fabled red-tiled, stone mountain houses have all been knocked down and replaced with concrete apartment buildings, while what is left of our bona fide countryside, including the Unesco-listed Qadisha Valley, is full of more litter.

But we didn’t appear to mind. We didn’t need the uber-discerning Europeans.

The Arab tourists who came to relax in Beirut and the coastal towns liked us just as we were. They came to shop, eat, smoke shisha and sleep. But now they have the added thrill of knowing they might glow in the dark after brushing their teeth with, or showering in, contaminated water.

Panic is even setting in among the usually phlegmatic Lebanese. After last week’s floods, residents of Beirut and its environs were advised, via text message from an NGO, not to drink tap water, avoid meat, fish and dairy products and to stick to lentils and tinned food.

Most Lebanese don’t drink tap water but those who are unable to buy bottled water have no choice and already there are fears of a cholera and typhoid outbreak.

Finding the funds to cope with such an epidemic would put a huge strain on the state’s coffers at a time when the government is already feeling the pinch. In fact, last week it emerged some units in the army had not been paid in six weeks.

Then there are the implications for any foreign investment opportunities, Lebanon has been trying to create for the past quarter of a century.

The cost of doing business is already exorbitant – tortoise-like internet and a complex and bribe-riddled bureaucracy – but now the world knows that government can’t even decide what to do when a rubbish collection contract comes up for renewal because the bidding process is riddled with political influence. It’s just a mess.

Either way, Lebanon can’t go on collecting dubious accolades.

We used to be simply mad and bad. Then we were mad and bad, but by golly did we know how to throw a good party. Then the party ended and we went back to being mad and bad but with 2 million refugees. Now, we are mad and bad with 2 million refugees, a collapsing infrastructure and an unfolding environmental disaster.

During his Sunday sermon the Maronite Patriarch declared the state close to collapse. It’s hard to disagree.

Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton.

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