Beirut 2020
Praise for
Beirut 2020:
Diary of the Collapse
“For anyone who knows Lebanon or is newly curious about it in light of recent events, Charif Majdalani’s Beirut 2020: Diary of the Collapse is a brisk, stunningly vivid, crushing account of a country in the midst of total self-annihilation. It’s a must-read for Lebanese abroad who’ve missed out on the events of the past two years in Beirut and in the country at large, and for expats and visitors, both past and future, who have long admired this beautiful and vexed country. Especially for those Lebanese who feel survivor’s guilt as they watch the devastation from afar, it’s a brutally honest account of what’s happened, what keeps happening, and perhaps what has happened once and for all—in the most hopeful sense possible—to a place we cherish.”
—Salma Abdelnour, author of Jasmine and Fire:
A Bittersweet Year in Beirut
“Covid-19, the economic crisis, the bankruptcy of the government, and the devastating explosion at the Port of Beirut on August 4, 2020. This is the chronicle of surrender that we witness in slow motion as Lebanon descends into social, economic, and political ruin. This is the diary of a man passionate about his country, written with anger and heartbreaking eloquence. This is the testimony of the mind-boggling absurdities of everyday life set against their political and historical sweep. While in the background there is the hum of the electricity generator and the smell of gardenias. Majdalani is magnificent.”
—Kerry Young, author of Pao
“Charif Majdalani’s Beirut 2020: Diary of the Collapse is the most important work of literature from a year of shared global tragedy. In astute and despairing prose, Majdalani shows us his beloved city’s pain, as the beauty and resilience of Lebanon are smothered by a surreal and menacing culture of government corruption and political rot. And then comes the explosion on August 4 of some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. Majdalani’s account of the explosion and the days following is intimately personal and particular to Beirut’s devastation. At the same time, in Majdalani’s wisdom Beirut’s tragedy becomes a global cry. The same forces of oligarchy, corruption, and deliberate incompetence threaten all of us with cascading collapses of climate and ecological systems.”
—Nathaniel Popkin, author of To Reach the Spring:
From Complicity to Consciousness
in the Age of Eco-Crisis
“The author’s hometown is falling apart. He watches with sorrow as life leaks from its body, drop by drop. Lebanon’s capital, which had been, for decades, the living symbol of the Levant, of its cosmopolitan cultures, of its joie de vivre, has morphed into a symbol of devastation and hatred and madness. Charif Majdalani is a survivor who still finds in himself the elegance to smile and hope.”
—Amin Maalouf, author of The Crusades
Through Arab Eyes and The Disoriented
“A searing, emotional rollercoaster of a read that deftly illustrates the despair and desperation Lebanese people endure daily. Majdalani expertly captures the hopelessness that most if not all Lebanese feel. And yet he still manages to entertain the reader with his sharp and cynical commentary on the country’s absurdities and injustices. As a Lebanese person myself, I felt like I was looking in the mirror as I read Majdalani’s powerful and vivid words. I could not help but cry throughout. But I also felt less alone.”
—Zahra Hankir, journalist and editor of Our Women
on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women
Reporting from the Arab World
“More than an invaluable testimony, Majdalani has written almost a vade mecum with a universal scope. A life lesson in complete humility in the face of tragedy.”
—Le Point
“Political reflections, from which the author’s cold anger springs, intertwine with his doubts and fears for the future. In strokes shot through with humor and dark irony, he builds on the portrait of a chaotic, lurching daily life.”
—Le Monde
“A searing text.”
—Lire Magazine Littéraire
“A book at once deeply affecting and very cognizant of history.”
—France Inter, L’heure bleue
“In his remarkable Beirut 2020: Diary of the Collapse, author Charif Majdalani examines the raw wounds of his country.”
—La Vie
“A book of rare acuity.”
—Transfuge
ALSO BY CHARIF MAJDALANI
Moving the Palace
Originally published in French as
Beyrouth 2020: Journal d’un effondrement in 2020
by Actes Sud, Arles, France
Copyright © Actes Sud, 2020
Translation copyright © Ruth Diver, 2021
Production editor: Yvonne E. Cárdenas
Text designer: Jennifer Daddio / Bookmark Design & Media Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
For information write to Other Press LLC, 267 Fifth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016.
Or visit our Web site: www.otherpress.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Majdalani, Charif, 1960- author. | Diver, Ruth, translator.
Title: Beirut 2020 : diary of the collapse / Charif Majdalani; translated from
the French by Ruth Diver.
Other titles: Beyrouth 2020. English
Description: New York : Other Press, 2021. | Originally published in French
as Beyrouth 2020: Journal d’un effondrement in 2020 by Actes Sud, Arles,
France—Title page verso.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021008274 (print) | LCCN 2021008275 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781635421781 (paperback) | ISBN 9781635421798 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Majdalani, Charif, 1960—Diaries. | Authors, Lebanese—21st century—Diaries. | Industrial accidents—Lebanon—Beirut—History—21st century. | Lebanon—History—21st century.
Classification: LCC PQ3979.3.M34 Z46 2021 (print) |
LCC PQ3979.3.M34 (ebook) | DDC 848/.912—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008274
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008275
Ebook ISBN 9781635421798
a_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0
Cover
Also by Charif Majdalani
Title Page
Copyright
Preface to the English-Language Edition
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3: July 1
Chapter 4
Chapter 5: July 2
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8: July 3
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11: July 4
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15: July 6
Chapter 16: July 7
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20: July 8
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24: July 10
Chapter 25: July 11
Chapter 26
Chapter 27: July 13
Chapter 28: July 14
Chapter 29: July 15<
br />
Chapter 30: July 17
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34: July 18
Chapter 35: July 20
Chapter 36
Chapter 37: July 21
Chapter 38
Chapter 39: July 22
Chapter 40: July 23
Chapter 41
Chapter 42: July 24
Chapter 43
Chapter 44: July 25
Chapter 45: July 27
Chapter 46: July 28
Chapter 47: July 29
Chapter 48: August 1
Chapter 49: August 3
Chapter 50: August 4
Chapter 51
Chapter 52: August 10
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60: August 11
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64: August 12
Chapter 65
Chapter 66: August 13
Chapter 67
Chapter 68: August 14
Chapter 69: August 16
Chapter 70: August 17
Chapter 71: August 18
Chapter 72: August 19
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
About the Author
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITION
Lebanon:
The Lessons of Complexity
During a stay in Beirut for a writer’s residency, a French author once declared that Lebanon condensed and summarized in itself all the problems of the modern world, and that if only one of these problems could be resolved in Lebanon, it could then serve as a model solution for the rest of the planet.
The problems this writer was referring to are certainly numerous, and cover issues such as governance, the relationship of citizens with the state, political tensions, the power of the banks, untrammeled liberalism, and the endemic corruption of the ruling classes. And in a wider sense, the writer was of course focusing on the question of multiculturalism, the mix and coexistence of religions and cultures—issues that are part of the very foundation of modern Lebanon and its government structure.
In the beginning, before it became the name of a modern nation-state, Lebanon was the name given to mountains in the eastern Mediterranean that were long celebrated in the Bible for their snow, their symbolic proximity to the divine, and especially their famed vast cedar forests. From the very beginning of the Christian era, these mountains served as a safe haven for all the religious minorities that were persecuted by the various imperial powers in the region or by other larger religious groups. The last pagans of antiquity went into hiding there until the sixth century. Then came the Monothelete Christians, called Maronites, fleeing the persecution of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire in the seventh century, then in the tenth and eleventh centuries the Shiite Muslim communities persecuted by the Sunni powers, and the sect of the Druzes persecuted by the Shiites. Much later would come the refugees fleeing countless conflicts: Armenians in 1915, White Russians from 1920 onward, Palestinians forced off their land in 1948, and finally, very recently, refugees from the wars in Syria and Iraq.
For centuries, the religious mosaic and cultural diversity thus introduced into the lands that would become Lebanon were more or less well managed by the central powers of the empires on which Lebanon and its neighbors depended. Of course, there were clashes and conflicts, but everything remained under the slightly manipulative control of the dominant powers, and notably, from the sixteenth to the beginning of the twentieth centuries, of the Ottoman Empire.
When that empire collapsed in 1918, victorious France and Great Britain divided up the Middle East. It was France that secured the mandate over Lebanon, thus fulfilling the wishes of part of its Christian population, which sought to place itself under French protection and to avoid British rule. It should be noted that the Christians had long felt closely connected to France. Many had adopted the French language and culture well before the period of the Mandate, and had dreamed of the French taking control of the country to rid them of the Ottoman occupation. This privileged relationship between the Christians of Lebanon and the French also explains why the Lebanese never felt any hostility toward France. In the Lebanese worldview, France was never seen as an occupying power, but rather as an ally. Only the highly ideological left-wing discourse of the 1970s attempted to represent France as a colonial power, which it never really was in Lebanon, despite some instances of very transient irregularities. In fact it was with the assistance of the Christians, and on their advice, that the French determined the current borders of Lebanon in 1920: they adjoined a long band of coastline and the interior plain of Beqaa to the original Lebanon Mountains, along with the northernmost part of Galilee in the south. The overriding aim was to unite as many regions as possible where the inhabitants were Christian. The Maronites, the Eastern-rite Catholics and Greek Orthodox communities actively worked toward the creation of the new nation in its present form, and considered it to have been founded for them alone, even though part of its population was Muslim or Druze. During a relatively soft Mandate that barely lasted twenty-five years, the French successfully managed the antagonisms between the various communities. But when Lebanon acquired independence in 1945, the foundations for discord were already laid, notably regarding the definition of the country’s identity. The Christians still felt closely connected to the West, the Muslims for their part felt they belonged more to the Arab world. Nevertheless, the two communities both demanded and obtained independence together, then found a way of avoiding conflict by decreeing that the new Lebanon was not a Western country, but nor did it belong to the Arab world. This was the famous affirmation of national identity by a double negative.
This peculiar identity could undoubtedly be considered as the source of all the conflicts to come, but it also proved to be Lebanon’s defining characteristic for many years: a nation straddling the great cultures of the East and the West, a crossroads, a herald of coexistence, openness, cultural exchange and integration. For the thirty years from 1945 to 1975, despite a few minor jolts, Lebanon also figured as something of an exception among its neighbors. It was the only country in the region not to fall prey to a nationalist military dictatorship, like Egypt under Nasser and Iraq or Syria under the Baath parties. It was the only democracy of the Arab world, and one of very few in what was then called the third world. It also developed a liberal economy which has endured to this day, within a region entirely dominated by so-called socialist models—models which, in Nasser’s Egypt and in Syria and Iraq, led to disastrous nationalizations, to the disappearance of their middle classes and the impoverishment of their populations. Lebanon thus lived for thirty years in unbelievable opulence and enjoyed exceptional cultural and economic vitality.
It now seems clear that it was precisely because of the diversity of its population and the complexity of its human institutions that Lebanon avoided dictatorship and the so-called socialist models that beset the rest of the Arab world between 1950 and 1975. Religious affiliation, which in Lebanon is more cultural than strictly faith-based, underpinned all political relationships and balances. This was made manifest in the strangest political system imaginable, called “confessionalism.” All government posts were allocated approximately equally between religious communities. Every single employment position in the public sector, from the highest level in a ministry to its lowest echelons, was reserved for one or another community, depending on its presumed importance. The president of the republic had to be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and so on. This political system prevented any single community or individual from contro
lling the government, and averted any possibility of hegemony or coups.
All this nevertheless created something like an oligarchic system, where the political leaders were systematically elected from the most important family clans within the large religious groups. They ruled the country collegially, on the basis of elections where the focus was always on the interests of the various religious communities, rather than on political issues. And yet the social classes that divided society were strongly intercultural. A real middle class had arisen from both Muslim and Christian communities, in the face of wealthy upper classes that also recruited from various groups, just as the working classes had members from both sides of the religious divide. However, social identity and affiliation never produced true class consciousness, but were always dominated by a very strong sense of religious, cultural, and community affiliation.
All this explains why the tensions between the large religious groups remained very strong, in particular because the constitution created in 1945 implicitly gave more power to the roles reserved for Christians than to those accorded to Muslims. The Muslims demanded reforms, but the Christians, fearing for their status and survival and continuing to believe that Lebanon was created for them, refused. Moreover, the Christians held great fears at the prospect of the rise in power and militarization of the Palestinian organizations that had sprung from the refugee communities in Lebanon in 1948, and that started demanding to play a role in internal Lebanese politics in 1969 and 1970. The strategy of these organizations consisted in giving their support to Lebanese Muslims. Faced with this coalition of Islamic-Palestinian interests, the Lebanese Christians took fright and armed themselves in turn, leading inevitably to the Lebanese civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990.
This was indeed a civil war, in that most of the fighting was between the Lebanese people themselves, but it was also very much a foreign war, because the Palestinians, Syrians, and Israelis were also involved. In 1982 the Palestinian militias were forced out of Lebanon by the Israeli invasion. But the Israelis had to evacuate the invaded Lebanese territories and confine themselves to the southern border regions adjacent to Israel. This opened Lebanon’s doors to the Syrians, who allied themselves with the Lebanese Muslims and Druzes, and with war chiefs such as the Druze Walid Jumblatt or the Shiite Nabih Berri, as well as with the Shiite Hezbollah organization, which was engaged in a war with Israel in the regions it still occupied. For their part, the Christians resisted the Syrians for years, under the command of men such as Bashir Gemayel and Samir Geagea. In 1989, the reckless and unruly Christian general Michel Aoun took it into his head to unite the Christian ranks, and threw himself into devastating wars against his rivals on the same side, notably Samir Geagea, which led to the collapse of the Christian camp in 1990 and to the entire country falling to Syrian control.