Pauline Letter

Kareem Tayara (2003-08) writes from Lebanon

I was born and raised in London to Lebanese parents; I am British, but I am also Lebanese. I have been visiting Lebanon for as long as I can remember, but until recently, I have always been just that – a visitor.

Without first-hand experience, our opinions of a place are shaped by what we see, hear and read. And for Lebanon, that is shawarma, the odd explosion, falafel, Hezbollah, halloumi, and ‘best off the beaten path’ travel listicles. Even with first-hand experience, it is difficult to get the true flavour of a place. I have been to Lebanon probably over a hundred times, but only now feel like I am starting to ‘get’ it. For most of my life, my relationship with Lebanon has been largely one-way; to butcher a JFK quotation, I had only ever asked what my country could do for me, never what I could do for it. I would come to Lebanon, see my family, have fun, and leave. I like it here, but, until recently, I never really thought about it as ‘my’ country. That changed after a couple of events in summer 2020.

On August 4th last year, a massive ammonium nitrate explosion – among the biggest non-nuclear explosions of all time – devastated the Lebanese capital Beirut. My family and I were in our house in the mountains, 25km away from the blast site, and it felt like an earthquake. Had we been in our apartment in Beirut, 1.5km from the blast site, we would have almost certainly ended up in the hospital, or being treated in the street because the hospitals were overflowing. The blast caused 218 deaths, 7,500 injuries, $15 billion in property damage, and left an estimated 300,000 people (5% of the population) homeless.

A couple of weeks later, my friend Clem came up to visit. Clem is the founder of CodeBrave (www.codebrave.org), a charity that provides tech education to children from disadvantaged backgrounds in Lebanon. Having fallen in love with Lebanon during her year abroad studying Arabic, she moved here from the UK after university. At dinner, when my parents asked her why she decided to stay in Lebanon, she answered that the country “has a soul”. While volunteering at a shelter for the homeless, one of the boys asked to learn coding and she realised that tech education could give these young people the skills, confidence, and opportunities to access jobs of the future, so she decided to start CodeBrave.

The confluence of the explosion and Clem’s visit made me feel…something. For three days afterwards, I was practically mute; I could not understand why I felt so troubled. Eventually, I realised it was a feeling of dissatisfaction and guilt at my apathy towards Lebanon. The explosion was one more kick in the teeth to a country already on its knees. But its needlessness, its severity and its tangibility brought to light for me how much this country has suffered. Clem’s perspective – that of someone not even Lebanese – made me understand that my attitude to my country was not a reflection of who I wanted to be. As a well-educated, well-connected diaspora member, I am in a position to help. To butcher another Kennedy quotation: if not me, who and if not now, when? I am not quite arrogant enough to believe that I alone can be Lebanon’s saviour, but collective action cannot happen without individual action. For the first time in my life, I am starting to put real thought into what I can do for Lebanon.

During all my visits I found it easy to identify Lebanon’s faults, but I am finally appreciating why it is I care about this country – my country. There are the usual things you might hear about Lebanon; the food; the sights; that you can go to the beach and go skiing on the same day; the nightlife. They are rightfully praised, but there is so much more. There is a thriving creative scene. The nature here is genuinely breathtaking and, in a country half the size of Wales, there is a seemingly endless list of places to discover, each more beautiful than the next. Most of all, there is a resiliency and a sense of community that is truly remarkable. The people here know they cannot rely on their government so instead rely on their neighbours. My father and I hike for one to two hours most mornings. People say hello. They invite us into their houses. Some we know, some we do not, but that is how people are here. After the

2020 explosion, many drove to Beirut from all over Lebanon to help clean the sea of glass that showered the city. Builders repaired homes for free. Whatever they could do to get people back on their feet. That is how we are here.

I believe that it is Lebanon’s unique context that forged its spirit – that resiliency and sense of community that I am only now truly starting to appreciate. The 2020 explosion was a horrifying accident, but it was also the product of the same issues that have plagued Lebanon for decades – corruption, mismanagement, sectarianism and geopolitics that are much bigger than Lebanon. Since the brutal 15-year civil war ended in 1990, the same band of politicians and their relatives has ruled Lebanon. It is a cartel of shifting alliances that fight among themselves until any outsiders try to gain power, at which point they close ranks. Politics and religion are inextricably linked in Lebanon’s constitution, so voters typically stay loyal to their sect, because they think that is who will look after them. These sectarian flames have been fanned by wider geopolitics; Lebanon is a microcosm and proxy battleground for the fight to control the Middle East, with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the US variously involved. Add in a refugee population that makes up over a quarter of the total population and a major political party (Hezbollah) that has more military power than the army and you get the powder keg that is Lebanon. And yet the people have endured, survived and built something special here.

But that powder keg has now exploded. Even by Lebanese standards, the suffering over the past 18 months has been truly extraordinary, with years of political corruption finally coming home to roost. And I am worried that the people, despite all they have been through before, are finally starting to break. Lebanon is in the midst of a financial crisis and hyperinflation, where the currency is now worth 15 times less what it was previously worth against the dollar. That means the average salary, already meagre at $1,000 per month, is now an untenable $65 per month, and people’s savings have been decimated by the hyperinflation. Fuel shortages have crippled the country: there is no longer any electricity or Internet for most of the day; schools and hospitals are being forced to close; people are queuing for 5 hours to fill up their cars. Other essentials such as medicine and bread are now rare commodities. Combined with the psychological trauma of COVID and the August 4th explosion, I am seriously worried that Lebanon is starting to lose its soul. Spurred by my belated sense of belonging, I have started to take some action to try to help. I have been volunteering with CodeBrave since March 2020. After that meeting with Clem in August last year, I asked to increase my role. There are many (many) problems to fix in Lebanon, but I believe providing digital literacy to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, teaching them key cognitive development skills, including the ability to self-educate, and training them to get remote work from outside Lebanon is an effective way to break the cycle of poverty and provide Lebanese children with a realistic chance of a better future. I am lucky enough to have a job that I can do from anywhere, and I now spend a third of the year in Lebanon. I have donated to CodeBrave and other initiatives that I believe are helping Lebanon – both short-term relief and long-term change. I am trying to “buy Lebanese” whenever I can. I have registered to vote. I am looking into how best to support the protest movement. It is nowhere near enough, but it is a start. Sometimes I want to stick my head back in the sand, it was far easier. But I cannot – I now care for my country. 

“The blast caused 218 deaths, 7,500 injuries, $15 billion in property damage, and left an estimated 300,000 people (5% of the population) homeless.”