October 17th Revolution – Lebanon Is Rising – 1/2

I remember that on December 2018 I decided to go back to blogging after I started the blog in 2012 and neglected it for years and in few months I have created a big and great community and also good friends that are in touch outside WordPress. 💕💕
Maybe there’s something about December, or there’s time for writing, time that I’m finding it hard to find since I left WordPress, so I decided to write now and share with you some of our struggle and crisis we are facing since October 17th 2019, the date of the revolution startup in Lebanon.

The hashtag we are using for the revolution: Lebanon is rising “Loubnan Yantafed” in Arabic

No the revolution haven’t caused the crisis, the revolution has started because we’ve been living in a deep shit for years, in debt, not having our basic rights from people that are stealing us continuously but we didn’t stand all united and said a big “No” until October 17th and after that date they couldn’t hide the big crisis and collapsing anymore!

First I hope you are all good and well and you are having better days than the ones we have here 🙂 and I hope the new year that will start in few days will bring you all the joy and peace and prosperity and lot of love and happiness ❤💕😊 I thank all the great people that stayed in touch through mail and social media ❤

Maybe our country is invisible to many of you, a small country that everybody has a seat on its table and a word to say and impose and eventually we are a very small part of a very big game in this world!

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Probably you are right, but there is a lot more than this nasty game and stupid fate we are born to, there are very smart, well educated and courageous citizens that really fed up from the entire situation and decided to revolt.

Lebanese revolting all over Lebanon ❤

Why not before?

So simple, because many lost hope and left the country, many tried and the authorities have managed to label them with many accusations such as treason which is the best accusation to destroy each and every effort to build a real country! Of course as citizens we made a lot of mistakes by trusting certain people and electing them for many years.
And on May 2018, during the last parliamentary elections, more than 50% of people abstained from electing because they are too hopeless that they might change the system and we blamed them a lot!
But what is more frustrating? Not electing because you know the results in advance or electing and hoping that you might change but being disappointed big time because you couldn’t change a thing?
I personally elected new people from the civil society and they couldn’t have even one voice! The elections law was made by them and for them to win! The same parties, same system, same corruption, the quotas and the sectarianism! It was deadly for me and I stopped believing in any hope until October 17th.

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  Zouk – Kesrwan

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  Zouk – Kesrwan

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  Down Town Beirut

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  Jal el dib

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  Tripoli

What happened on October 17th?

The week before October 17th, the country has all burned, we woke up on many fires burning randomly all over Lebanon and they hardly could extinguish it before it burned buildings and trees and lands and some people died fighting the fire. It rained and it was really a miracle to help the fire fighters save what is left!
It turned out someone planned for this and of course we couldn’t prove, but they caught few individuals trying to light fire red-handed but we couldn’t catch the mastermind of course, we just heard conflicted news. And at the same time we were struggling with fuel crisis, each now and then we stand in lines to have the fuel for our cars, and then they threaten to stop delivering bread so we stood in lines to buy bread for days, the prices are increasing instantly, no censorship at all, I didn’t mention yet our usual problems, that we have no electricity, the water is polluted, we have the highest cancer percentage in the world probably, no age security, people die on hospitals doors because they are poor, unemployment percentage is increasing and the situation is awful! Each time it rains we float and roads are blocked from water, etc…
Nothing is functioning properly in the country and we have of course 90 billion US dollars of debt! And for years all what the political parties were doing is stealing and making the situation worse!

This Lebanese reporter couldn’t stay neutral while covering the fires!

This is after rain falls in Lebanon! Happened this month

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  we make jokes of everything! This is how we manage to survive

On October 17th, the government decided to impose new taxes, one of them was a tax on Whatsapp! Yes, our government wanted us to pay 6$ per month for a service that is free worldwide. That night people just went down to streets spontaneously, they burned tires and blocked roads and we thought it will end next day as usually. But it didn’t stop and the few protestations have become a “revolution” because people were extremely full, angry, down and frustrated! The numbers kept increasing day after day and people kept flooding and expressing their frustration, their crave for the basic rights they don’t have! They need electricity, water, work, education, security, age security, they need to be able to live a decent life for the high taxes they pay for a greedy government, a corrupted system that stole the country and sucked its blood until the very last drop!
Let’s say the Whatsapp tax was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

This man just fell apart! Having no money, no job, frustrated after the riot officers were trying to remove him from road with other revolutionists

we revolted in style!

Our beloved and hypocrite leaders have started the denial policy with the revolution, the party that has the majority in parliament and basically it was the party most attacked by the revolutionists, has expressed that this revolution is not against them and they support us and all our demands! Of course the people were so angry and the other parties did the same until they reach a point of frustration because the roads are blocked and people are struggling to move and reach their destinations and many people are still with the political parties, so they used this point to create conflicts and problems between the people with and against revolution and the Lebanese army tried many times to open the roads by force but suddenly some orders arrive to not hurt the protesters. There were always conflicted orders between the Lebanese army leader that didn’t want to hurt the people and the Minister of defense and the secret agents that belong to the majority in the parliament that consider the protesters belong to their opponent party and therefore they need to remove them from streets.

When the orders arrive to open roads by force, a Lebanese soldier was crying ❤

Also the former prime minister Hariri, that have many issues with the parliament majority party, wanted to protect the revolutionists and the Ministry of Interior follows his orders and this is what helped the protesters many times.

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  A doctor from the revolutionists granted this man an artificial leg (check video below)

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  me 🙂

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  Above is the revolution and below the rulers

One of the revolution aspects, people helped people and many many people received all kind of help from each other’s!

What happened from October 17th until today? Stay tuned for part 2.

The Arabic word on hand is “Thawra” means revolution

Thank you for reading, your thoughts and comments are always welcome 💕😊

Huguette Antoun – December 29th 2019