Lebanon: 2020-21 like living in Juliana Seraphim painting

Untitled - Juliana Seraphim 1980 (source)

There, this is the best metaphor I can give: In Lebanon, 2020 and 2021 were like living in a Juliana Seraphim painting. To be living the surreal as if it was a day to day occurrence, some Gabriel Garcia Marquez magical realism. Honestly how can one explain that Covid is not even in your top 5 of problems? The banks, the money or lack of it, the fuel or lack it, the meds or lack of it, the Dollar or lack it, and the list goes on. Did anyone notice I still did not go to the covid situation? I am twice vaccinated but missed the last marathon to get my booster - living outside of Beirut, I need to organize myself well before stepping out of the house (a small calculation led me and my cousin to average 500,000 Lebanese Liras as a budget for any out of home excursion!). I said it before, despite all this, I was one of the privileged one that managed to have a Christmas of some sort (nephews got a gift), the table was not exorbitant but at least present. 

But truth be told, it is difficult to live by comparison. I think in all of 2020 I clocked like 5 nights of sleep. Insomnia was a daily thing, and no sleep would come before daylight for a meager couple of hours. The stress level was off the chart, and the only thing that stopped my mind from going off the rails was working on my "Simulacra and simulation" video about the Lebanese collective memory. Was 2021 any better? Well, to begin with, sleep came back at some point. No, work was not much better (I left university lecturing at end of 2019 due to inflation because I was keeping a lousy sum of money in my pocket at the end of a teaching day!), and projects have been too far and in-between. 

Weirdly enough I have not been pursuing work in full force. Maybe I am still traumatized for having worked for fiercely for several years and lost all the money I put aside in the current financial crisis. So to start anew with the same vein at my age (note, I was born in 1974) is not really palatable. My current plan is simple: Salvage what can be salvageable, play a long game, and not plan much - the last time I planned is precisely what got me into the place I am in right now. 

So here we are, little or no logic, all shapes are distorted, "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" as the side-mirror engraved words so philosophically say. I suppose like everyone else, these two years seem both very fresh, haunting but also in the rearview mirror all at once. I did say that during lockdown, time is elastic. I guess for 2020-21, outside of lockdown too.

In Lebanon 2021 picks up exactly where 2020 left....

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Wherever we go (and we are not going anywhere), there we are...

In Lebanon, 2021 is starting exactly where 2020 left off. 

Saluting the medical staff which is fighting covid (wait, haven't we done that enough?).

Cases of covid surging to unprecedented heights (haven't we gone to such heights before? Actually, no, with people being reckless after an original super tight respect for the law - as I predicted here - the number of cases is spiraling out of control).

We are heading towards our umpteenth total (?) lockdown with our (incalculable?) exceptions (again, haven't we seen this enough in 2020 - the best part was the nightclubs open but without dancing).

Banks are still running totally crazy. To begin with there is zero coordination between them. No bank is acting the same, and when a new policy is enacted, clients (remember it's the clients' money in there) are told after the fact not before it. Mind you all banks are acting this way, meaning, a client comes trying to withdraw money only to be told that no, this month the amount changed (usually decreased!) or what not.

We still do not have a new government (what else is new?). The political discourse in Lebanon is still very stagnant at this stage. Interestingly, everyone is waiting for outside signals to come by (mainly the US transition of presidency, which astounds me, because - in case you have not heard - the new administration has bigger fish to fry!).

The advertising scene - the focus of this blog usually alongside with communication - is still in, literally, the death throes. I recognize there are some campaigns running on billboards but this is no indicator that things are picking up. 

Many agencies are either handling their MENA accounts from Beirut (if they have international affiliations), tried to establish satellite offices somewhere in the gulf, are creating systems to avoid having to deal with banks when it comes to payments, and are trying to pick up the debris (literally) of the August 4 Beirut explosion.

Freelancers are really being hit hard. To begin with, companies are recruiting them on the cheap (very very cheap) under the guise of "fresh Dollar" (which means they are paid in new Dollars as opposed to "Lollar" or Dollar already stuck in the banking system in Lebanon) and considering the difference of value between the two, companies in the gulf are recruiting them to do work from Lebanon while abusing their need to survive here. 

Also, banks are blocking all incoming money which these freelancers have gained - the excuse is usually "fear of money laundering", and this only leaves companies like Western Union as a way of payment (the payment is deducted by 2% upon arrival by the way, unless it comes from an American bank). Interestingly, companies cannot send by Western Union, it needs to be individuals - which added a further layer of trying to jump through hoops!

If so far you are not dispirited just by reading this, try living this on day to day basis. 

NYE ads: The lackluster end of a lackluster year

Well, a few years ago, hotels, clubs, cafes, restaurants would be competing as to book the biggest stars of the Lebanese artistic scene (singers, dancers, entertainers, one-man-show performers, etc...), this year the two or three ads only add to the macabre feel of the whole year. I only took one, showing Casino du Liban with two stars performing - there were as I said a couple of others, but this year (and NOT just because of COVID-19) has been a very tough year. Actually, there is an urban myth (which could probably be true) that sometime in the mid-80s factions agreed on a ceasefire on New Year's Eve to allow popular singer Raghab Alameh to cross from Western Beirut to the Eastern part because he had a contract with two restaurants on either sides of the divided city.

But as I said, 2020, was the perfect storm on Lebanon on all possible fronts. 

2020, the year of small joys

Was this year horrible? By all  measures it was.

And yet, we survived it. Only a few days and it would end. Of course, when one remembers it, maybe the most striking day would be that of the August 4th explosion, if you happen to be a Lebanese (I almost died twice that day). I previously have cautioned how to survive 2020 - the trick is simple - suspend all comparisons (here). But if I choose to remember a day of this wretched year, it would be September 11, the day of the Ethiopian new year.

You see, A., our househelp was invited to a sleepover. Her mother in Ethiopia firmly banned her from going because of all the Coronavirus cases popping up. To say the young girl was disappointed was an understatement. So I suggested she would host a party at our house. At first she thought I was joking, but I doubled down with "so, who do you want to invite?". Whereas she did not answer, I knew she was plotting it in her head.

And so indeed, on September 11, day of the new year, she went about cleaning the house and cooking and what not. Then early in the afternoon, I smelled something being baked. I went to the kitchen to check what the smell was, and A. put her finger on her mouth to indicate secrecy. It turned out to be a cake. 

So indeed, nuts were fried the Ethiopian way, leftover Lebanese roasted nuts and potato chips were assembled in small dishes, pop corn was popped, cola bottles manifested themselves (including a Mirinda which is the choice drink for celebration in Ethiopia), a small low table was decorated with flowers and an incense diffuser (with coffee cups for after the food and drink), and A. changed into a nice dress and high heels which she had ordered from an internet shop and which had arrived the day before. All this happened without my mother noticing as she was sitting in her Morris chair in the salon.

Two girls who worked in neighboring houses came by, and A. invited mother to preside on the celebrations. To be honest even I did the effort of actually wearing something that was not my usual house shorts. And there we were, eating cake and having cola drinks, mother was bestowing well wishes on the girls and they would repeat with "Amen" after each one in unison (health, wealth, prosperity, peace of mind and so on....). I made sure to take photos of everyone and send them to A. on whatsapp who immediately sent them to both the girls there but also to her parents in Ethiopia.

About three or four hours later, A. changed into jeans and trainers and went with the girls to the house where one of them worked for dinner. At about 8 in the evening she came back all smiling and giggling. I asked her if she had fun during the day. And she answered with a resounding "eehhh" (Lebanese for yes), and if she thought this was better than the sleepover - again she agreed.

Actually, we are a very low-key house in term of celebrations. Rarely do I invite people over (by choice mind you), and we do not hold extended family celebrations. Even Sunday lunches are a 15 minute thing. In case you did not know, Sunday lunches are Marathonic affairs in certain families that join lunch to dinner and go well into the night. So hosting a party was totally out of character.

But hey, 2020 was indeed a year of small joys. And the day of the Ethiopian new year was one of them. 

Thankfully no more Black Friday

Sigh of relief. No more Black Friday in Lebanon. At least for this year.

Like other "traditions" or rituals imported from other cultures (the Halloween and St Barbara mix still astounds me), we bastardized everything. Black Friday came to Lebanon sans Thanksgiving. But with the full regalia of the discounts and the "opening of the festive season" (the earliest postings point to 2016 the last right after the crisis started in 2019). With the Lebanese cash strapped this year, with the advertising so exceptionally down (Independence Day was a good indicator) and with the whole mood of the land particularly morose, the Lebanese are - understandably - no longer trying to pretend. 

So how come I seem upbeat about it?

Well, I am not against rituals and traditions, far from it, and I often argued it is rituals that agglomerate communities rather than faith. But it would be nice not to import cultures and just shove them in the face without understanding where they come from. 

With open shops and shoppers who are buying too few and in between, with Lebanese people are driven to the edge, with cash too spare for most families and middle class being tested to the point of vanishing, perhaps - if you have faith - now is the time to delve into it, and if you enjoy rituals, to accommodate them to the size of this all out horrible year.

A trick on how to survive 2020

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Am going to start this post with an admission: I have had it with my European friends and their first world problems. Only yesterday a friend in Vienna was complaining that he had to show his ID at the border and answer questions as to why he was travelling. I wanted to tell him about how last time, after grueling bureaucracy I got my work visa to Europe only to be put in a glass chamber in front of all the airport for no reason at all for 45 minutes. But honestly, what is the point? 

Europeans have no clue how bad 2020 is for Lebanese people. It is exponentially bad. I have called it before, the "perfect storm" (whereas I was talking about the advertising sector, same can apply to the country at large). 

Capital controls? Check. Political meltdown? Check. Devastating explosion? Covid-19? Unemployment? Poverty? Check, check, check. The list is astronomically long. And all elements in it feed on one another. I spoke to someone the other day, and he asked me if the Dollar was going to go back to 1500 Liras. I tried to make him understand that we are currently paying that peg with the current crisis. His brother was certain that we were going to get money - as in huge quantities of money - from Europeans, particularly France. I did not have the heart to poke his dream. And again, the more you talk to people the more fallacies you hear, and the more the scenarios are outrageous.

Yet one thing I learned about 2020, is that, by hook or by crook, one needs to survive it. Like everyone else, my money is stuck at the bank (unlike everyone else, I believe long term thinking will solve it). Like everyone else COVID-19 has changed my daily routine (unlike everyone else, due to diabetes and common sense, am taking it very seriously. Or as I mentioned earlier, it was not the original hysteria which broke out that got me worried, but rather what would happen later.) Like everyone else I was about to die (twice) on the day of the Beirut explosion (unlike many, I escaped unharmed). Like everyone, I have made it to October pseudo intact (unlike everyone else, I know how taxing this is on mental health, admit to it, and have tried to to amend to it as much as humanly possible).

Well, so what is my magic trick to survive 2020? From the get go, I stopped comparing it to previous years. Everything: The Dollar exchange rate, the bank withdrawals or lack of it, the new normal (or rather abnormal), the price of things, etc... I keep reading all these people ranting on Instagram - two specific people come to mind - who have zero economic vision, no financial knowledge, and yet who act as moral arbitrators and assign the blame on anyone who is anyone, not understanding their ranting - though popular on Instagram - is actually hollow.

But once you stop comparing, once you go on living as you used to (within one's means), once you do not see today's pricing in the view of last year's economy, once you accept that this is a tricky phase where one must "make do and mend" (literally, I found, not one, but two great tailors in a city nearby), once you understand that subsidizing the fuel must end because it is eating away what is left if the central bank's Dollars... Only then will 2020 make sense to you.

But again, once you stop comparing. Once you readjust your expectations to reality, you will end up surviving 2020. With three months to go, that is no mean feat.