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I returned to Lebanon on Saturday. Four days before, my parents’ apartment overlooking the port had been blown apart by the explosion. They had only just moved in. Now broken glass and the rubble lay across their floor. It was a cruel symmetry. In 1978, my family and I left the country after a bomb blew out our previous home.
Still, we count ourselves lucky. Our country was already grappling with more than 1m Syrian refugees, economic meltdown, near-hyperinflation and Covid-19. Many friends, who had returned to Lebanon after the 1975-90 civil war, had begun to leave. After the blast, 300,000 people are now homeless, their savings and jobs wiped out by the financial crisis.

People ask me: how did authorities allow 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate to be warehoused next to a strategic grain store and a city of 2m people? There is an ongoing investigation. But most people, like me, believe it is a tragic example of criminal negligence, born of our country’s venal administration which usually never acts except for some narrow personal or political purpose. At best, the explosive chemicals stayed because it did not suit anyone to move it. That dynamic is why Beirut lacks electric power, despite numerous countries offering to build power stations. It is also why so many talented Lebanese emigrate, creating abroad the success that they should have at home.

This situation is common across the emerging world. In Lebanon, it also comes with geopolitical topspin. There are 18 officially recognised religious sects, with power shared between Christians and Muslims on sectarian lines. So there are lots of faultlines, and foreign powers exploit them. The result is a parliament where major parties essentially answer to nobody but themselves or a foreign overlord. That’s why political leaders shuttle to Damascus before important policy announcements, a prime minister resigns at the behest of a Saudi prince, and we all fear war whenever Iran and Israel exchange barbs.

Right now, the strongest emotion is anger. Over the weekend, outside our apartment in downtown Beirut, Lebanese of all political hues and religions protested against their leaders, seeking complete change. There is a symmetry to the protests too. In February 2005, the country also rose up after the explosion of a giant car bomb allegedly laid by Hizbollah at the behest of its Syrian paymasters. Syria withdrew its military presence, a fresh crop of progressive leaders emerged, and hope grew that Lebanon could change. Sadly, these brave and mainly anti-Syrian voices were assassinated, one by one.

Today, fearing a similar fate, no clear alternative leaders have emerged. So although the government has resigned, the same power brokers operate behind the scenes and it is hard to see how real political change can occur. That’s why many frustrated Lebanese are looking for external help. There have been calls to freeze politicians’ assets, proposals to sue the government in the International Criminal Court and an online petition asking France to assume a new 10-year colonial “mandate”. It got 50,000 signatures in just 48 hours.
The situation may seem irredeemably bleak. Yet Lebanon may have seen worse. In 1915, it survived a typhus pandemic, a terrible famine caused by war and a plague of locusts. To my mind, the most useful thing the international community can do today is direct its aid and practical support to local businesses and NGOs — bypassing government agencies — and suspend trade barriers that impede exports. That will foster bottom up solutions. Because at least at the micro level we can effect real change, creating small points of light that one day will form an illuminated grid that pushes back against darkness and tyranny.