As journalists, we are trained to take a step back from the story, let it speak for itself and always be objective. But nobody teaches you what to do when you become part of the story, when you share the same pain, the same traumas. How can you remain objective, calm and only state facts when you are crippled with anger, pain and immense grief?
This is what happened to me on August 4, 2020. For the past three years, I had been a journalist based in Beirut. The city had become my home, and my friends were my family. On that day, at 6.07pm, I was in my apartment, which was around 3km away from the port. It was a good day, as the government had allowed businesses to reopen for two days after new restrictions had been put in place due to a surge in Covid-19 cases.
Around that time, I was chatting on Instagram with a group of activists based outside of the country. I had hurt my foot a few weeks prior, and I was limping through my living room when the building shook.
“My first earthquake,” I thought. But as soon as I had finished my sentence, a gush of hot wind flew through my apartment. It was followed by a deafening sound and then all the windows flew open. I fell to the ground.
I would later find out that an enormous explosion had just ripped through the city and its surroundings, and was felt as far as Cyprus, 200km away. It would very soon have a name: “the Beirut blast”.
“What happened?” yelled my neighbours downstairs. We did not know, but the reality was bigger than any of us could have imagined. I rushed outside, grabbed my camera, the gas mask I had bought for “revolution” days and looked up.
A pink-orange cloud ripped through the blue Beirut sky. Beautiful, terrifying shades. The streets were chaotic as shattered glass covered the pavement, people who looked like bloodied zombies walked aimlessly and cars were destroyed everywhere with their alarms ringing into the void. There was a wounded dog, panting alone on the street.
We quickly knew it was the port; it was easy to see from a distance. I rushed, as fast as I could to get there, hopping onto motorbikes that doubled as taxis and ambulances, witnessing the definition of devastation.
The Beirut port is an important landmark of the city. It is located close to popular bars and restaurants. We all know it, we all see it, but we don’t really look at it. That day, I wish I had looked at it better, learnt its intricacies, the importance of those silos and remembered what it looked like before.
I began receiving calls from the French news outlets I worked with, and began reporting on what I was seeing, blocking all form of emotions that might affect my coverage. This went on for a few days.
On the first night, I was live for four hours straight, and the only three hours of sleep I got were disturbed by a nightmare of my aunt, the last person I had talked to that day, disappearing in an explosion.
The day after the blast, I interviewed people on the streets. They had come spontaneously to clean up the rubble and shattered glass, allowing ambulances to pass through. Everyone showed up with a bucket and a broom. That’s when I thought: “There is no way I am leaving this country now.”
I went on talking on live television about all those lives lost, trying to maintain my calm when speaking about Alexandra and Isaac, the two youngest victims of the blast. I tried to describe, in written articles, what I had seen, but I refused to believe it.
One editor called me, asking me to rewrite an article, saying the tone was not grave enough. “The whole city has been destroyed!” he told me. That shattered me. I wanted to snap back: “I know, I live here!” But I didn’t.
Seeing it with my own eyes was already heart-wrenching, and now I had to go through it again and again for my work?
I am lucky enough not to have personally known anyone who died that day. One of my best friends had lost the music studio he had spent years building, and another had lost her house. She was, thankfully, out of the country that day.
But the questions remained. Who do I talk to about my feelings? How do I talk about it? How do you explain that in a few seconds, everything you knew disappeared, and that you know and feel like you’ve been changed forever?
All those I interviewed in the following days were incredibly courageous; those not affected were rushing to hospitals to donate blood, while those affected tried their hardest to rebuild their lives, once again.
That day, I realised objectivity is not only a rule, it is also a shield, one that prevented me from collapsing. I realised the importance of giving a voice to those affected. Because that day, they helped me put into words what I couldn’t at that moment, and things I could not personally share.
