On 17 October, the announcement of new taxes provoked demonstrations in Beirut. From Riad Al-Solh, the stronghold of the protest movement that is now igniting the whole country, Christina Haddad, a 20-year-old student, testifies to her anger against political corruption.
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"I was in the Bekaa Valley, about sixty kilometers from Beirut, when the protest began in the capital on the evening of October 17th. I watched on television the images of the small crowd in the downtown streets, shouting his anger. I was boiling, I wanted to be. Impossible. The roads to Beirut were closed by protesters. The next day, I went to the Riad Al-Solh square, in the heart of the demonstrations, in front of the government headquarters. Since the 18th of October, I am in the morning in the middle of the night.
Everything is jostled in my life. Usually, I share my time between Beirut and Bekaa, between my studies in psychomotility and my job as a waitress. At this moment, I have no course: the direction of the Lebanese University, a public institution, had announced the reopening a few days after the start of the dispute, but students and teachers refused. I also suspended my work at the restaurant in Deir Al-Ghazal, Bekaa.
"We, the youth, do not have many prospects. Unlike others, I never thought of emigrating. I want to live in Lebanon. "
I do not see my mother, a teacher, until she comes to gatherings; my younger brother is showing up too. My father, an engineer, is an expatriate in Jordan, but he supports us with all his heart. I am lucky to have idealistic parents. I belong to a generation that did not experience civil war (1975-1990). I do not argue with this "software", I dream of new blood in politics, that those who stole this country are thrown out of power. Only a change in governance can affect the economy. We, the youth, do not have many prospects. Unlike others, I never thought of emigrating. I want to live in Lebanon.
I meet wonderful people in the Riad Al-Solh square, people from different backgrounds that I would not have had the chance to know otherwise. It hurts me when I see all the young people who have not had the chance to study. I attend many organized discussions. I regret that some are locked in their way of thinking, but various points of view are expressed. There is a lot of solidarity: moms cook for us. In the Riad Al-Solh square, I participate in a cordon of women, to separate police officers from young men who demonstrate. I want our movement to remain peaceful. Violence leads to nothing.
When she's home, my mother is stuck on TV, and whenever there's a little tension here, she calls me. In our neighborhood, in Sad El-Bauchrieh, a suburb north of Beirut, people criticize the paralysis of the country, the blocking of roads, the strike … They say they want to continue working. But no one has reproached me. I swing between disappointment, sometimes, and energy and optimism, most often. "