Beirut residents on the aftermath of deadly blast

Brut America

"Beirut is broken."  Beirut residents spoke to Brut about their country's long history of trauma and their fears for the future after the devastating explosion... amid a pandemic and an economic crisis.

Transcript

00:00Today, Beirut is broken. It's devastated because this came at a point where Lebanon was already

00:06struggling. It was already in a survival mode. We had an unprecedented economic and financial

00:13crisis. We were fighting the pandemic.

00:15The shock was so immense. It was almost a surprise that the building didn't just come

00:33crashing down. It was terrifying to not know where anyone was, where my mom was.

00:37Fortunately, I was home when the explosion happened. We've been working remotely from

00:42home. And I say this ironically, the coronavirus saved us because our office

00:47looked like a war zone the next day. The windows, the glass was shattered.

01:02So imagine on top of all of that, an explosion that is so devastating. Half of the city is

01:09destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless today. Who's gonna help rebuild? Who's

01:16gonna help all those people? To be frank, I think the virus and the pandemic and all of that is the

01:21least of anyone's concerns here in Lebanon at this point. Hospitals are overflowing with injured

01:28people. They were already overwhelmed with coronavirus patients and it's just too much

01:36for Lebanon. Lebanon is currently hit by the worst economic crisis in its modern history.

01:42The most disastrous consequence of the crisis is that we are now on the brink of a hunger crisis.

01:50And some even say that this could develop into a situation of famine

01:55as the middle class is progressively sliding into poverty.

02:09When I went to the site of the blast, you know, I'm a journalist and I've lived in Lebanon and

02:14covered various explosions, suicide bombings, political assassinations.

02:18And to be honest, I've never seen anything like that. The magnitude is just stunning.

02:24Even for a city that's witnessed a civil war, that's witnessed so many bombings in the past.

02:31So for people my age, we have the very much inherited trauma and memories of the war and

02:39everything we grew up hearing and knowing and how we were taught to navigate our identities,

02:44our cities. We've also lived through violence ourselves, be it attacks or wars or conflicts

02:54or mass uprisings. On the other hand, though,

03:00nothing like this has happened in the city or the country.

03:03People don't trust the politicians anymore. We had an uprising in October. People were

03:24protesting against the political establishment and they're wondering today, are we capable of

03:29rebuilding? Do we have the means when we are bankrupt? Do we trust the politicians to conduct

03:35a transparent investigation into the explosion? I think what we see of the future is the need

03:42to take down this system in all its forms, this economic system, this political system,

03:50the political elite that are war criminals, that have built this country into something that is

03:57really unlivable in terms of the violence that we face, both implicitly and explicitly

04:04on so many levels. The only thing keeping us hopeful really is each other, the people.

04:12Today, people are down in Beirut. There are housing, cleaning, feeding, clothing. They

04:18are taking care of each other. They've picked each other up from the rubble

04:21and they're ready to rebuild Beirut again as has been done before.

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