In a neighborhood they used to stay up in, men and women replaced cups with brooms, and volunteered to clean a street that turned into a kind of battlefield, following the massive explosion at Beirut Port, without waiting for action from the state accused of corruption and neglect.
Ironically, Melissa Fadlallah asks: Where is the state? "If we had a country, it would have sent someone who cleans and works with us to clean the street. We are the ones who help, we are the ones who donate blood, what do they do?"
Melissa is one of the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who took to the streets last October demanding the fall of the entire ruling class, accusing it of corruption and neglect and of not finding solutions to the successive crises that led to an unprecedented economic collapse.
And the Beirut Port explosion, which killed 137 people and injured 5,000 others, came to be the drop that essentially filled the cup.
In the neighborhood of "Mar Mikhael", the closest point to the Beirut port, which has long been a meeting place for young people, nothing remains the same after the massive explosion.
Hundreds of years old heritage buildings have been cracked, pubs and theaters whose facades have been blown apart, and their belongings scattered in the middle of the street.
The day after the bombing, young men and women spontaneously arrived to see the damage that had been done to it and to help its residents to clean it.
Initiatives and campaigns
Melissa put gloves and a muzzle on her face, and she carried a large glass plate that fell in front of the EDL building.
"For me, this country is just a dumpster," she said, referring to the ruling class, adding: "We are the ones trying to reform the country, we want to reform it our way, and as we and not we want."
Civil defense personnel inspect the damaged buildings in search of wounded people, while volunteer young men and women are distributed in small groups, remove the pieces of glass and put them in huge plastic bags, and some offer their homes to the residents of the affected houses.
The people, but the people, are the ones who will come back to build Beirut .. A
word of thanks a lot to people ❤️ # Beirut pic.twitter.com/oreKaT56ha
- Chazofrenia 🇱🇧 (@sh_azaaa) August 5, 2020
"We send people to the homes of the disabled and the handicapped to help them find homes to sleep in, and we also help them clean and arrange their homes," says Hussam Abu Al-Nasr.
"There is no country to take care of these measures. We took care of ourselves."
Since Wednesday morning, messages have been circulating on social networking sites from residents of several cities and towns expressing their willingness to house families affected by the explosion.
The Maronite Archbishop's Council announced the opening of its parishes, institutions and monasteries to help those affected.
In Beirut itself, residents opened the doors of their homes to receive their relatives, friends, or even strangers from them whose homes were damaged and became uninhabitable.
And the Governor of Beirut, Marwan Abboud, announced on Thursday that "between 250 and 300 thousand people of Beirut became homeless, after their homes became uninhabitable."
Let them leave power
in Mar Mikhael, and put plastic tables with water bottles, sandwiches and food on them.
"We are trying to help with water, food and even chocolate," Rita Farzly said. "It is just moral support." Everyone should help. Nobody should stay home ... even a smile helps today. "
Social media and chatting applications on mobile phones transmitted messages from glass company owners and repairs offering their services at low prices, and a group of young people offered a free service to help residents repair their homes.
Abdo Amer, who owns a window installation company, says he made a similar offer after he survived the explosion, as it happened that he crossed next to the port just "3 minutes" before it happened.
Amer offers to exchange windows for half the original price, and offers free windows to families in need. "I have received more than 7,000 calls," he says, asking, "Do we have to wait for the state? We want them to leave power."
Lebanon is currently experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Civil War (1975-1990), and is the result of years of slow growth, with the state unable to carry out structural reforms, sagging public facilities and infrastructure, and rampant corruption.
On the nearby Gemayzeh Street, Muhammad al-Saywar says, "They sit in their chairs under air conditioning ... the last thing that interests them is the country and its people."
He added, "We ask the Lebanese people to stay on the street to bring down this corrupt system; we can no longer afford it."