Flames light up the facade of the Mohammed Al-Amine mosque, Friday, June 12 in the evening, at the corner of the Place des Martyrs, in downtown Beirut. Garbage cans are burning. The windows of several surrounding stores were shattered. Shirtless, their faces masked by their T-shirts, young people are throwing stones at the security forces, which are flocking in reinforcement.
"The anger will grow because the pound is crumbling and the government is unable to respond," prophesies Ali, a former unemployed restaurant server, in reference to the collapse of the national currency, which lost 70% of its value against the dollar. "Who is playing with the book? wonders Hassan, another protester. There are people who profit from its collapse and it is we who pay the price. Let all these incapable politicians go home! Violence, I'm not for it, but it's the only way to be heard. "
Protesters launch anti-denominational slogans, calling for unity between Christians and Muslims, between Sunnis and Shiites, similar to those heard in October, at the start of the uprising against the politicians, accused of carelessness and corruption. But they are no match for the young thugs, who arrived en masse from the suburbs of Beirut, to do battle with the police. "I can't take it anymore, my salary is equivalent to 200 dollars today", says a soldier in civilian clothes, dressed in a colorful shirt, who came to demonstrate for the first time in his life.
Partisan calculations
The euphoria of the October 17 "thaura" (revolution) has never seemed so distant. The movement, which had obtained the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, was overtaken by the monetary crisis and the maneuvers of the ruling caste. While the national currency was still trading in the fall at the rate of 3,000 pounds for a dollar, it is now close to the 5,000 mark, very far from the official rate of 1,500 pounds for a dollar, which does not is more respected than by banks.
Under the effect of this depreciation, the economic slowdown – exacerbated by confinement – and rampant inflation, the poverty rate, estimated last year at 35% of the population, is now close to 50%. After the parenthesis of the health crisis, anger, more intense than ever, begins to be expressed in the street. But the spontaneous and unitary protest of the fall, braced on a few key messages, such as the end of political confessionalism, is giving way to a chaotic, deleterious agitation, increasingly parasitized by partisan calculations.
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