The Abou Rakhoussa market that took place yesterday in Downtown Beirut was a funny reaction to Nicolas Chammas’ press conference, where he called on demonstrators to leave the Beirut district because they were “cheapening” it, but I don’t think it sent out the right message. The #YouStink movement, as far as I know, is about fighting corruption, defending our right to protest and resolving the garbage crisis, yet turning it into a class war is a very bad strategic decision.
While I partially disapprove of Solidere’s practices and what Beirut’s Central District was turned into, #YouStink and other movement organizers should set their priorities straight and keep their protests strictly against corruption and in favor of accountability and a transparent solution to the garbage crisis. A lot of people I know are already starting to lose interest because 1) they don’t understand who’s asking for what anymore, 2) they are not taking the organizers seriously and 3) they don’t agree with the “new demands”.
Garbage is still around us and the first rains are coming soon. This is the real problem now and this is what the movements (I lost count of all of them) should focus on. I know that they’re up against a ruthless, powerful and corrupt political class, but they need to have a clear plan of action and specific goals or else the movement will die out. Time is not on their side and as soon as people lose interest in the protest, politicians will reach a compromise (in the process) and solve the garbage crisis under the table and life will go on. I really hope I’m wrong but this is the way I’m seeing things.
Needless to say, I will always side with the demonstrators and their right to protest and I condemn the disproportional and unnecessary use of force against them. Nothing justifies what happened two days ago and what has been happening since day 1 against peaceful protesters.
PS: All pictures taken from Abou Rakhoussa Facebook event.
The street market in downtown was a justified fun reaction to the ridiculous statements Nicolas Chammas made (we’re not related).
If you watch Mr. Chammas’ news conference, you will clearly see who’s trying to turn it into class warfare, using labels to scare people, a poorly disguised attempt by an elitist who is benefiting from the status-quo to delegitimize the current grassroots movements.
As if the only thing wrong he (and the people he was representing at the news conference) could think of are the few anti-dysfunctional corrupt deadlocked government protests.
And so what if there are many fronts and ways to protest and bring public attention to urgent issues and pressure decision makers into taking – correct – actions, be it the typical protests and marches or less typical actions like hunger strikes, reclaiming of public spaces, surprise sit-ins, etc.. Corruption has worked itself deep into the fabric of government and has many many faces, we need to try and expand our attention span to include and tackle more than one limited issue at a time without losing heart and interest.
I agree. There is no wrong reason to protest corruption, and income inequality is part of that. In fact Lebanon has some of the worst wealth distribution rates in the world (http://www.executive-magazine.com/opinion/comment/wealth-lebanon) with less than 1 percent controlling around half the country’s wealth. These protestors are not “turning Lebanon into a class war,” they are pointing out the uncomfortable reality that there is a class war and that goest to the heart of social injustice in this country. I thought Abu Rakhousa was a brilliant expression of that. Also why would one initiative cancel others? It’s great that people have different opinions, but to those criticize the lack of initiative, why not propose some?
I do not want to reply to this post in a detailed manner, I just want to correct a little detail,
“The #YouStink movement, as far as I know, is about fighting corruption, defending our right to protest and resolving the garbage crisis, yet turning it into a class war is a very bad strategic decision.”
The movement which took place on Saturday the 19th was not organized or planned by the #YouStink campaign. Reference: https://www.facebook.com/tol3etre7etkom/posts/1641656072763174
The #YouStink campaign supported the popular movement. It didn’t turn its purposes from fighting corruption to a class war.