{"id":46058,"date":"2020-08-13T17:41:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T14:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/abandoned-by-state-after-explosion-lebanese-help-each-other\/"},"modified":"2020-08-13T17:41:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T14:41:00","slug":"abandoned-by-state-after-explosion-lebanese-help-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/abandoned-by-state-after-explosion-lebanese-help-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"#Abandoned by state after explosion, Lebanese help each other"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Abandoned by state after explosion, Lebanese help each other<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n BEIRUT \u2014 In the southern Lebanese town of Haris, a newlywed couple is living in one of Safy Faqeeh\u2019s apartments for free. He\u2019s never met them before and they aren\u2019t on a honeymoon. Their apartment in Beirut was wrecked when last week\u2019s massive explosion wreaked destruction across the capital., <\/p>\n

Faqeeh is one of hundreds of Lebanese who have opened their homes to survivors of the Aug. 4 blast.<\/p>\n

The explosion, which was centered on Beirut\u2019s port and ripped across the capital, left around a quarter of a million people with homes unfit to live in. But they have not had to crowd into collective shelters or sleep in public parks.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because in the absence of the state, Lebanese have stepped up to help each other.<\/p>\n

Some have let relatives, friends and neighbors stay with them. Others like Faqeeh extended a helping hand even farther, taking to social media<\/a> to spread the word that they have a room to host people free of charge.<\/p>\n

The couple saw Faqeeh\u2019s offer on Facebook for a free apartment he owns in Haris, some 50 miles south of Beirut. They can stay as long as they need to, the 29-year-old Faqeeh said and he has a second apartment available for anyone else in need. \u201cThis is not help, it is a duty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When he was a teenager, Faqeeh\u2019s family home was damaged in the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and they had to stay in a house in Trip<\/a>oli, clear on the other end of Lebanon. Now he\u2019s paying it forward. \u201cWe have experienced several wars and they (people) hosted us,\u201d Faqeeh said.<\/p>\n

The help that Lebanese are giving goes beyond a place to stay. Armed with helmets and brooms, hundreds of volunteers have circulated through Beirut\u2019s heavily damaged neighborhoods, cleaning up people\u2019s homes and doing free basic repairs, often enough to enable the residents to stay there.<\/p>\n

The explosion left entire blocks in shambles, with streets blanketed in broken glass, twisted metal, broken brickwork. Yet within days, some streets were clean, the debris neatly sorted in piles. That was thanks to volunteers, often using social media to organize where to target.<\/p>\n

In some places, they were sweeping streets and hauling away wreckage while security forces or soldiers stood nearby, watching.<\/p>\n

That has only reinforced for Lebanese their government\u2019s failure to provide basic services, much less respond to the disaster. Many already blame the government and the broader ruling elite\u2019s incompetence, mismanagement and corruption for the explosion. Authorities allowed 2,750 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate to sit in a warehouse at the port unmonitored for seven years, despite multiple warnings of the danger, until it exploded when touched off by a fire. The blast killed more than 170 people, injured thousands and wreaked chaos across the city.<\/p>\n

The government almost completely left the public on its own to deal with the aftermath. Outside the demolished port, there have been no government clean-up crews in the streets and little outreach from officials to help beyond promises of compensation to those whose homes or businesses were damaged.<\/p>\n

The list of services people are offering keeps expanding. It now includes free glass for cars damaged in the blast, free maintenance of electrical app<\/a>liances and free cosmetic surgery for people with face injuries. On Facebook, a group called Rebuild Beirut quickly sprung up. Its volunteers are working at full speed, helping clean up homes and link survivors with donors who will cover the expenses of repairs.<\/p>\n

The individual acts of solidarity have been even more striking because Lebanon was already in the middle of a worsening economic crisis that has thrown hundreds of thousands into poverty and left households and businesses with little or no excess cash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so proud of the Lebanese people,\u201d said Kim Sacy, a 19-year-old university student. \u201cThere is no state, there is nobody, there is nothing \u2026 we are the ones doing everything in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sacy is studying at a French university and was supposed to be on a program in Sweden this year but the coronavirus pandemic grounded her in Lebanon. She was outside Beirut driving home when the blast took place. She didn\u2019t feel the explosion but when she reached her neighborhood of Achrafieh, she found it shattered. \u201cThis is where I lived my whole life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sacy\u2019s family home was damaged, but she still wanted to help others. \u201cIt is not important. I consider myself lucky,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is the people who make the home.\u201d She said some of her family members were injured in the blast but are doing fine now.<\/p>\n

Sacy began collecting food and other items to give to those in need. Around 25 families have reached out to her to donate, some she knows, but half are strangers. For the past week, she has been circulating around Beirut in her car to pick up donated furniture, first aid kits, bed sheets and kitchen utensils that she gives to a local non-governmental organization to distribute. When not doing that, she has been cleaning in the streets, including cleaning a fire station.<\/p>\n

The self-help spirit has roots in the long civil war, when central authority collapsed and Lebanese had to depend on themselves to get by. In more recent years, waves of anti-government protests have emphasized volunteerism and civic duty \u2014 boosted by social media that made connections bypassing the state easier.<\/p>\n

The shock of the explosion and the trauma of seeing loved ones injured or a home wrecked has exacted an emotional burden on Beirutis \u2014 especially with financial woes already weighing on people.<\/p>\n

The Beit Insan well-being center is offering free services to help people overcome the trauma that the blast may have caused. It is also encouraging people with money to \u201cpay it forward\u201d and cover costs for people to get psychological help.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know since all the events that have been happening, that less and less people have money for mental health,\u201d said Dr. Samar Zebian, co-founder and co-director of the center. \u201cWe are a social business.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Abandoned by state after explosion, Lebanese help each other” BEIRUT \u2014 In the southern Lebanese town of Haris, a newlywed couple is living in one of Safy Faqeeh\u2019s apartments for free. He\u2019s never met them before and they aren\u2019t on a honeymoon. Their apartment in Beirut was wrecked when last week\u2019s massive explosion wreaked destruction…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52938,52939],"class_list":["post-46058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-abandoned-by-state-after-explosion","tag-lebanese-help-each-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}