1/ thread: The #Lebanese Political Class is Killing Our Parents, Again

Today’s political leaders in Lebanon are mostly either civil war warlords/criminals or their (mostly male) relatives & lackeys. Between them, they both led the civil war & divvied up (&inherited) its spoils

2/I have always felt fortunate that my nuclear family survived the war intact. My grandfather was shot on the way to his store by a sniper belonging to a right wing family run-militia—this family has produced two presidents, and both of their sons are now MPs (the Gemeyels), my

3/grandma was shot at while on her balcony by militiamen belonging to another political party headed by the current President of Parliament (Nabih Berri/Amal) & our neighborhood was shelled & our building hit by yet another warlord—the current President of Lebanon, Michel Aoun

4/ There are many other stories of violence, some at the hands of the same militias, others featuring other militias and armies. But everyone in my survived physically. We are very fortunate for that. I grew up fearing my parents would be killed, a heavy weight for a child, but

5/ I am one of hundreds of thousands who lived this fear & still have it in our bodies

Our parents, or at least, the parents of those now in our 30s and 40s—are the people who rebuilt Lebanon. Whether they stayed during the war or returned to Lebanon after the war, they rebuilt

6/ this country that had been broken & robbed. Every time someone says Rafik Hariri rebuilt Lebanon I want to scream: No, Rafik al Hariri didn't rebuild anything without corrupting it. He also stole alot (hello Downtown Beirut!)

#Hariri did not rebuild #Lebanon. Our Parents Did

7/ The teachers, civil servants, engineers, architects, plumbers, NGO founders &workers, electricians, professors, taxi drivers, entrepreneurs & shopkeepers & more. They rebuilt, reinvested, rethought & re-enlivened Lebanon—literally. They remade a country that was broken

8/ by yesterday’s warlords & today’s political class. For many, all they asked for was stability. Today this generation is once again being robbed, and killed slowly, by the same people.Imagine a teacher who woke up every day schools were open, navigated checkpoints and curfews,

9/ & taught & protected the children under her care, every day during the civil war & continued to do so after the civil war. She helped prevent society’s total collapse during a civil war & helped rebuild the country & its new generations under bad work conditions & little pay

10/ This woman stuck her retirement in a savings account, the only income she had bc the Lebanese state does not have a social security system for retirees. Now, not only is the interest gone but so is the principle & in either case she can’t access it. There are millions of the

11/ same stories playing out every day at different scales of the middle class in #Lebanon. Today's politicians- the same men who fought a war she taught children through—have continued their war against her & her students by new & old means: corruption, graft, fear, smuggling

12/If my generation learned anything from the war it is that stress & anxiety can & will kill you. We all have relatives & know people who had stress-induced heart attacks & strokes during the war, or who survived physically, but died later of what are called “deaths of despair”

13/ including suicide, overdose & chronic stress & anxiety. People have lost their retirement & all they had hoarded away for their children (An obsession of ).They have been robbed, again, by the men who didn’t succeed at killing them the first time around. These men

14/ ALL OF THEM- (please don't misunderstand me, i hate them all) would rather burn this country to the ground than either
1) give up their seats
2) be held accountable
3) give back the money they stole

(fyi we could be demanding alot more, many are war criminals after all)

15/ When I think of my parents today, I think of how #Aoun couldn’t kill them that night it seemed as if the ground was opening up to swallow us around Salim Salam as "his" army bombed us, but Aoun’s regime of graft, corruption, and narcissism just might kill them in 2020

16/ I think of how they weren’t killed or kidnapped on their way to teach at LAU/AUB & IC/ACS every day in the 80s, but they just might be maimed& killed by despair in 2020.

I will know who is responsible. We will all know who is responsible, including those responsible

17/ They have killed before for power & they are doing it again. The ideology of the post war regime is "honor among thieves. They have been stealing our pasts, our futures and our presents for generations and across material, emotional, psychological, and physical terrains

I don't have a quick take or a smart idea. I'm just heartbroken and feeling aloud.

There are no solutions, only tears.

And rage

Maybe should say “trying” to kill our parents, again