The other day a friend asked why I always offer up a jaundiced view of Lebanon’s prospects, and added that it was probably a good thing that I would be spending more time abroad, as this would give me the space to develop a sense of perspective. “You might,” he ventured, “once again love the country you’ve been bashing every week for five years.” Ouch.
But charting Lebanon’s economic “progress” as well as its potential for private enterprise and investment of any stripe, is, these days, a thankless task. Lebanon, by its very nature, is either a brief feast or lengthy famine, and at the moment we are scrabbling in the dirt for radish leaves.
The Syrian civil war has crippled us; the government is in an induced coma, and the Arab tourists have gone to Marbella, where they can drive their Lamborghinis without fear of disappearing into a pothole or being kidnapped by Bekaa tribesmen.
All this has left the private sector, the country's main economic engine, clutching at increasingly desperate straws. Last week, Lebanon's Daily Star ran a story that tracked the migration of the country's residential real estate boom – or bubble depending on how you see it – from Beirut, where demand for luxury homes aimed at wealthy expats and high-net-worth Arabs has fallen off because of security concerns and political uncertainty, to the more affordable and less volatile Christian suburbs of Metn and the Keserwan.
Nothing unusual there, you might think. What with the conflicts in Syria and Iraq and the spate of recent car bombs in Beirut, Lebanon’s Christians are in a bunker mentality and the land is relatively cheap. It also stands to economic reason that buyers who are priced out of the capital are naturally going to look for affordable homes in areas on the urban fringes. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
But what made this story leap out from the screen was a quote from one property developer who would have us believe that “with the return of [former prime minister] Saad Hariri, [Lebanese] are [now] considering buying property before prices go up”. In other words, he would have us believe that Mr Hariri’s brief visit, after three years of self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia, heralded something of a golden dawn of stability and prosperity.
“All it takes,” he said, “is three months of stability. If we have that, then construction and property sales will continue to grow throughout [the rest of the] year.”
So much madness wrapped up in so few sentences. But let’s start with what actually constitutes a period of prosperity. According to our man, three months will do it. I’ve known gamblers to have longer runs of luck at the casino, but I guess that’s the nature of a “smash and grab” economy.
But how in the name of all things sane can they believe that the sudden arrival of an absentee MP, albeit the son of an assassinated ex-premier, is a sign that a “deal” has been struck and Lebanon can once again make hay. Has the Lebanese business community taken leave of its senses? Has it forgotten that only two weeks earlier, the Islamic State had been battling the Lebanese army in the Bekaa, while the international community is once again pouring weapons and manpower into Iraq?
Mr Hariri has apparently jetted back to Riyadh and as far as I can tell Lebanon is still in the precarious situation it was in before his moccasined feet touched the tarmac in Beirut. The reason for his “return” was, as far as I can tell, twofold: to oversee a US$1 billion donation to the Lebanese army to help it counter any future extremist violence and to donate $15 million to Arsal, a Sunni town in the Bekaa that has become a hotbed for insurgents battling the Syrian regime. It was an exercise in flying the moderate Sunni flag in a time of heightened tension. Nothing more, nothing less.
So now you know.
Michael Karam is a freelance writer based in Beirut and Brighton
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