Close-up: The former "Little Paris" of the Middle East, a summer ravaged by war (Part 2)
2024-08-06
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(Continued from the previous article)
Hundreds of thousands of farmers in the south lost their land and income
The escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon has had the most direct impact on southern Lebanon. The southern region's economy mainly relies on tourism and agriculture, but the looming war has made it difficult for these two pillars to survive. In recent days, the frequency of the Israeli Defense Forces' attacks on Hezbollah's armed buildings and infrastructure in southern Lebanon has increased significantly, and vice versa.
Since the new round of conflict in October last year, a large number of residents in southern Lebanon and the northern border area have been evacuated. Xinhua News Agency reporters recently visited the southern town of Marjayoun and found that most of the local shops and commercial institutions have closed down, and there are no tourists coming to the Mediterranean beaches for picnics or swimming. The number of homeless people in the town is increasing.
On August 3, Israel's air strikes caused thick smoke in Deir Silyan, Lebanon. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Tahir Abu Hamdan)
Lebanon's Union of Restaurants, Nightclubs and Cafes told local media in March that the restaurant industry's turnover had fallen by up to 80% since October last year.
On August 3, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut urged American citizens to take any available flights to leave Lebanon, further spreading panic. The news spread like wildfire in the Chinese community in Lebanon, accompanied by anxiety and questions.
"Chinese in Lebanon should avoid going to areas where Shia Muslims live, and avoid going out or going to crowded places," Zhao Ying, president of the China-Arab Cultural and Trade Exchange Promotion Association in Lebanon, kindly reminded in a WeChat group of nearly 500 people, mainly Chinese businessmen and students in Lebanon, as well as Chinese tourists on short-term trips. "Try not to go to southern Beirut, southern Lebanon and northern Bekaa."
"We live near the airport (south of Beirut), and everything is normal now... My husband goes to the countryside (in the south) every day. Our hometown is on the border, very close to the UN garrison (interim force, located in Naqoura - Editor's note), and there is nothing to worry about. Occasionally we hear gunshots." Chinese businesswoman Lamees typed a "laughing through tears" emoji and said, "(The locals) are used to it, and have not been nervous since the day the fighting started... The Lebanese have a unique sense of relaxation."
Mo Yaoxi, manager of the Lebanese branch of Guangdong Xiwo Ruineng Technology Co., Ltd., is currently in Saida, a coastal city south of the capital, where he is mainly responsible for developing the market share of solar energy storage products. He said, "I personally feel the same as before. If there is a random bombing, I will drive directly north to Turkey." Under the economic crisis in Lebanon, the energy supply has also fallen into an unprecedented crisis. At present, the daily public electricity supply does not exceed two hours, and the rest mainly relies on private diesel generators and clean energy such as solar energy to find business opportunities. However, the problem of power shortage has also quickly spread to other economic industries, seriously affecting basic people's livelihood needs such as transportation, medical care, water supply, and food.
"The market (for the product) is good, but it's very competitive right now. You can probably find all the energy storage brands you can find in China here," Mo Yaoxi told The Paper recently.
However, according to the Lebanon monitoring report released by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) at the end of February this year, the Lebanese-Israeli border conflict since October last year has displaced more than 91,000 Lebanese people, mainly from Bint Jubail, Marjayoun and Sur in the southern conflict center. Monitoring data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) shows that 51% of these displaced residents are women.
"Southern Lebanon, especially in towns and villages close to the border, has seen a large number of displaced persons, leading to economic stagnation. Tens of thousands of people have moved out of their villages and are either renting houses in other villages and cities or living with their families in other areas," Ibrahim Halawi, a lecturer in international relations at Royal Holloway, University of London and an expert on the Middle East, wrote in an analysis for the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a Washington think tank, in January.
On the Israeli side, political commentator and long-time Hezbollah expert Dr. Ori Goldberg believes that there is also a problem in northern Israel. "After the outbreak of this round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 100,000 Israeli residents evacuated from the north of the country due to the illusion that Hezbollah (Lebanon) might invade. These residents believed that only by launching a war would they be safe enough to return home," he told The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) after the conflict continued to escalate.
"Even if the economic situation deteriorates rapidly, I'm afraid no one cares. People's livelihood issues seem to be unimportant, not only to the upper class, but also to the citizens themselves," Ori Goldberg emphasized.
According to a report by the United Nations Development Program, the agricultural sector contributes 80% of the GDP in southern Lebanon. Data from the Lebanese Ministry of Economy also shows that the southern region produces 22% of the country's citrus fruits and 38% of its olives. The importance of agriculture to the southern region is evident, and it is also a major source of employment opportunities.
“The conflict has had a negative impact on fruit and olive harvests…significant amounts of harvest have been lost,” the report added.
“The population of the border villages depends on tobacco and olive cultivation. That’s all they have,” an anonymous humanitarian worker recently told local media. “In the past, they could survive economically for a whole year on three months’ harvest, but now they have nothing.”
According to an article published in June this year by The Borgen Project, a US anti-poverty and hunger nonprofit organization, the olive oil industry in the south contributes 7% to the country's GDP and provides livelihoods for at least 110,000 farmers.
“The damage to the land in the region is very severe — around 12 million trees cover farmland used for the olive oil business, which accounts for almost a quarter of the country’s total agricultural area,” the local author of the article warned. “The Lebanese Ministry of Environment claims that the use of white phosphorus bombs has left farmland with phosphorus levels 900 times higher than healthy levels, especially in the areas hit by the Israeli military [in the south].”
In the southern Lebanese coastal tourist city of Tyre, a 21-year-old hotel bartender told local media, "This (local tourism) is a humanitarian cause; everyone should be more involved in it... The Lebanese army and Hezbollah are doing their duty to protect the country."
In a shelter converted from a school just a few minutes away from Tyre Beach, another police officer, who goes by the alias Ahmed, is one of the approximately 90,000 southern Lebanese displaced by the war. Hezbollah has given him a $200 subsidy, which has enabled him to make ends meet. "What can we do? The big country - the United States - is powerless, and those who started the war don't know how to stop it," he told the British newspaper The Guardian recently.
"The conflict with Israel has given a multifaceted Islamist group - a Shiite militia, a political party, an Iranian proxy - the opportunity to show the Lebanese people their best side: a defender of the nation," the article reads.
Ibrahim Halawi warned that the concentrated impact of the war on southern Lebanon has exacerbated the gap in socio-economic realities between the south and the north.
Economic seasonality drives shift toward dollarization
Xiaozheng, an international student, went to Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest port city, to pursue his undergraduate studies in 2019. This ancient northern city is 85 kilometers away from the capital Beirut, has a population of 500,000 and is the commercial, industrial and tourism center in the north of the country.
2019 was also the year when Lebanon experienced an unprecedented financial and economic crisis. According to a report released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2023, Lebanon's economy has shrunk by about 40% since 2019, the local currency, the Lebanese pound, has depreciated by 98%, the inflation rate has reached triple digits, and the central bank's foreign exchange reserves have decreased by two-thirds.
"When 2019 came, prices were still okay. But as the currency depreciated, prices have become higher and higher. The exchange rate has also been unstable," Xiaozheng recently told The Paper.
"The economy (at the national level) has collapsed. The exchange rate of the Lebanese currency to the US dollar used to be 1,500:1, and at the worst time last year it was 150,000:1." Ms. Lin from Zoukmakayyel recalled that her residential area is mainly inhabited by Christians, with better infrastructure and security.
Lebanon has implemented a fixed exchange rate policy of pegging the Lebanese pound to the US dollar since 1997, and the official exchange rate has remained at about 1,500 to 1. However, after the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2019, Lebanon has seen multiple exchange rates coexist, and the black market exchange rate of the Lebanese pound against the US dollar has continued to depreciate. In March 2023, the Lebanese pound fell below the 100,000 to 1 mark against the US dollar in the parallel market (also known as the black market) for the first time, that is, 1 US dollar can be exchanged for more than 100,000 Lebanese pounds. The continuous plunge of the local currency is an important sign that Lebanon is trapped in economic difficulties and cannot extricate itself.
In recent months, the black market exchange rate of the Lebanese pound to the US dollar has been relatively stable, fluctuating around 90,000 to 1.
Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science and public administration at the American University of Beirut who was born in the area, told The Paper that Lebanon is a bankrupt country, "with no economy and no money."
“Inflation is no longer a consideration, I think, because everyone is looking after themselves,” said Ms. Zheng, who also lives in Faraya, a famous ski resort and summer holiday destination north of Beirut, with altitudes ranging from 1,290 to 2,000 meters and a predominantly Maronite Christian community (the largest Christian group in Lebanon).
Lebanon's public sector has continued to expand in recent years. Before the outbreak of the economic crisis in 2019, it employed more than 250,000 people (including the military and security forces), nearly a quarter of the total labor force, and government spending that year rose to 32% of GDP (nearly $18 billion). In April 2022, Lebanon reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which will provide Lebanon with approximately $3 billion in aid within 46 months to help it get out of the economic and financial crisis, provided that Lebanon has a stable government, eliminates corruption, and carries out necessary reforms.
"In the past, the streets were relatively clean. Now the government has no money and won't give out any, so the streets are full of garbage," said Ms. Lin.
“This is related to the long-term political paralysis that has left key public function positions vacant and state institutions inoperative, if not completely stopped,” observed Ibrahim Halawi, lecturer in international relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, and an expert on the Middle East. He believes that the country has no effective decision-making and crisis management. “The biggest losses are borne by the middle and lower classes, who have lost most of their savings and wages… The current war has led to a sudden increase in consumption (broader economic activity) in some parts of the country - areas that were not expected to be affected by the war, while tens of thousands of residents in southern Lebanon have been displaced.”
“With central government inaction, local authorities have become a target of competition for those with guns and money. The ongoing banking crisis means that economic activity is increasingly conducted in cash, with politically backed trading houses for strategic imports — fuel, food, medicines and gas — becoming de facto monopolies in their respective sectarian strongholds,” he writes with concern.
Professor Hilal Khashan of Beirut agrees that the central government no longer has a say in decision-making: "Lebanon is a failed state. Hezbollah decides what they want."
As the prospect of war becomes more likely, Western embassies are urging their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. Lebanon, which imports most supplies, is expected to have no more than two to three weeks of food, water and medicine.
A February report by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) analyzed that income opportunities in northern Lebanon are limited due to a severe economic recession and the influx of Syrian and Palestinian refugees, who make up more than 40 percent of the population. Conflicts between residents and refugees are also intensifying as competition for labor opportunities decreases.
However, Xiao Zheng, an international student in the northern city of Tripoli, said that most of the people around him were girls who came to college. "Among the students in the classroom, there are only a dozen boys, and the rest are girls. Because there are few job opportunities for girls, and unmarried women have nothing to do at home, so they come to study. They attach great importance to education."
"Most of the men work." Speaking of local employment opportunities, Xiao Zheng observed during his four years of studying abroad, "Breakfast shops, restaurants, supermarkets, chicken shops, vegetable shops, and many other places here have Syrian child laborers, and most of them are 13 or 14 years old."
"Agricultural production in the north has been severely hit, which is related to low farm-gate prices and high fuel costs. The Acre and Bekaa regions (in the north) are the main producers of potatoes... Due to high production costs and low farm-gate prices, many farmers have chosen not to harvest the 2023 potato crop to avoid greater net losses," the FEWS report wrote. "The price of potatoes imported from Egypt is 20% to 40% lower than the farm-gate price in Acre, which is a major deterrent for farmers."
Despite the news that the conflict may escalate into a larger-scale war, the coastal towns north of Beirut are far away from the battlefield, and there are still many tourists and crowds on the beach. Compared with the south, the contribution rate of tourism in the north seems to be more optimistic.
“Without the massive diaspora of investment, remittances and seasonal visits, Lebanon’s economic situation would be much worse,” Ibrahim Halawi believes, but he is also concerned that the diaspora’s contribution has become more than half of the country’s GDP, so every holiday is tailored and even priced for the diaspora, which in the process further squeezes the local Lebanese middle class…giving both locals and expatriates an illusion of economic normalcy to encourage consumption in an economy that is still heavily dependent on imports. “Seasonal tourism promotes… a shift toward dollarization (at the expense of the national currency) and cash (at the expense of the banking sector).”
However, Xiao Zheng, a foreign student from northern Lebanon, said that the local Lebanese people he met during his four years of study gave him the impression that they were "relatively calm and never panicked when encountering problems." "Now many people around me tell me not to worry, there won't be a fight."
Zhao Ying, president of the China-Arab Cultural and Trade Exchange Promotion Association, just shared in the Chinese community a few days ago the "peaceful and serene" atmosphere she experienced when visiting the Abbey of Saint Charbel.
The Monastery of Saint Charbel is a must-visit place in Lebanon. It is also located in the mountainous area in the hinterland of Byblos, north of the capital Beirut. "People of all religious beliefs and races come here to pray." It is known as "a place of meditation that is particularly appreciated by all religions."
"I hope Lebanon will be peaceful soon so that everyone can travel here with peace of mind," said Ms. Zheng, who was enjoying the cool summer weather on the Lebanese mountain. She looked up and saw a sunset glow that had already colored the sky red.
(over)
The Paper reporter Nan Boyi and Zhu Runyu
(This article is from The Paper. For more original information, please download the "The Paper" APP)
