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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly |
And so now war is on doorstep, again (and again, and again...). If anyone remembers 2024 it is when - well, everyone - allowed the refugees to take shelter, or if not, to give them as much warmth and comfort as possible. Not to brag, but anything I could lay my hand on and I was able to donate went to a family who had to leave their house twice - funny thing is that they knew exactly what the donation was and still came with a car too small to load them (go figure!).
And still, the outpouring of sympathy was real, genuine and truly needed. Which brings us to today. And the fact there were missiles sent from Lebanon to "avenge" the death of Iranian supreme leader Khamenei. That people starting coming in drove to all other regions clogging the highways at all hours of the night is only normal. But the question is, what do we do with them now?
Everything that could be donated was already donated, people are truly struggling to make sense of the economy, the country has 50% of its population below poverty level (never mind the photos you see about people partying on Instagram, these are the exception that proves the rule), everyone is literally struggling to make a living, and now this.
The same influx of people, the same people as a matter of fact, they will go back and knock on all the doors they already knocked on in 2024. Mind you, municipalities are issuing orders so that anyone who has housed or rented to refugees needs to basically report the name, phone number, and number of people in question to the municipality.
I suppose what happened with the Syrians almost bringing the system to a break was lesson enough for all municipalities (at this point, though, we are going back to a pre-situation where only the "men" stay here but wives and children are being brought back to Syria, I know so as too many families now went back while just the head of the household remained in Lebanon).
But the question remains the same. What do we do with those now that the bottom of the barrel has been scrapped clean. When everything that could have been donated was donated out of kindness, solidarity and altruism.