Beirut 2020: The Collapse of A Civilisation

by Charif Majdalani

When Charif Majdalani begins to walk the streets of his city, and to write down what he sees, the first hints of unrest within a vibrant culture creep to the fore. Majdalani's reportage through the months of 2020 bears witness to the ways in which an ancient civilization slowly, then rapidly, descends into the abyss: corruption and vice infect the corridors of power; currency plummets into freefall, rats scurry between piles of rotting rubbish that grow higher along the pavements. Born from the rancour of existential pestilence, violence erupts and Beirut's citizens find themselves in high-voltage stand-offs with law enforcement.

Then, the unexpected, Beirut collapses under the explosive force of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. The blast kills hundreds and injures thousands. But through the rubble and the sirens, a people finds its strength to survive and its heart to unite. The city becomes the metaphor for each of our cultural capitals throughout the world.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Lebanon, Memoir, Middle East, Biography, Economics

Hardcover

Published July 22, 2021

About the author

Charif Majdalani quitte son pays en 1980 à destination de la France pour suivre des études de lettres modernes à l'université d'Aix-en-Provence. Il revient au Liban en 1993 après avoir soutenu sa thèse sur Antonin Artaud.

Dans un premier temps, il occupe un poste d'enseignant à l'université de Balamand puis à l'université Saint-Joseph où il est professeur de lettres.

À partir de 1995, il participe à la revue d'opposition L'Orient-Express, en charge de la rubrique littéraire. Cette collaboration s'achèvera en 1998 année de la cessation de publication de ce journal.

En 1999, Charif Majdalani revient à l'enseignement dans l'université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth où il est en charge du département de Lettres Françaises. Ce poste lui permet d'accueillir des romanciers français et libanais. Lors du sommet de la francophonie 2002, il publie un livre Le petit traité des mélanges. Parallèlement à l'enseignement, on peut lire sous sa plume une chronique mensuelle publiée dans le journal La Montagne.

"Villa des femmes" obtient le Prix Transfuge du meilleur roman arabe.

Reviews

[Bogi Takács]

A diary of first economic, then all-round collapse in Lebanon over last summer (including the explosion). It’s short, snappy, and gut-wrenching. There are some tableau-like depictions of the explosions that are going to stay with me for a very long time – but I was just as glad for the followup, what happened after Lebanon again dropped out of international news, and what Lebanese people thought *really* happened that caused the explosions (though of course it’s largely a matter of speculation).

I also appreciated the sections of the author’s therapist wife’s self-therapy attempts, included with permission. Quite unexpected and also very pointed and emotionally powerful.

I think it’s good to keep in mind that it’s a diary, I’ve seen some reviews complaining that the author only presented his own political views. It’s not supposed to be a book that tells you everything about Lebanon, it is one writer’s personal diary. To me it was clear that some other people would have a different view. He is also relatively well-off, etc. It’s not like he doesn’t acknowledge any of that; he does.

A tangent: I picked up this book on impulse from my library’s new acquisitions shelves because I’m interested in the Levant, but it also became a chilling read in another way, which I didn’t expect. Lebanese corruption and the way it structures politics on all sides really reminded me of Hungary, but like… further along the timeline if that makes sense. I live in the US now, but I’m an immigrant from Hungary, and all I can say is EEEEEEEEEEEK.

Another tangent: I’ve seen some really odd discussions on Twitter lately from white American leftists, I think I’m going to call them collapse denialism – basically that collapses always happen slowly and rapid collapse is a myth. I think this is some kind of weird Anglo-American-centrism, because there are certainly plenty of collapses that happened fast in recent memory, including some I lived through. I didn’t live through this one, but Majdalani describes it vividly.

_____
Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library

[Abby]

I have zero interest in the pandemic lockdown books that have sprouted on shelves within the last year. I was there, and I still don’t think we know what’s happening to us, and I right now don’t feel like reading about what you learned on your neighborhood walks. The exception is for Beirut or for the infinite other parts of the world whose experience of the pandemic was unique, quite different from mine, and egregiously underreported. This is a case where looking outward is the only way I can begin to weave some understanding of a domestic moment that feels chaotic, confused, patternless. I’m trying to get a look at some of the dark underground entanglements of our world economies, trying to understand just the tiniest part of our connectivities to people far away, to feel the butterfly wingflaps as they become hurricanes.

Basically, I will happily listen to Majdalani’s rendition of his neighborhood walks. His journal is built on tiny moments, smells, sounds, gestures, the anthropological principle of finding the general in the particular. I suspect there’s more to Lebanon’s political and economic story than Majdalani’s exact interpretation here, but I believe in his palpable fury at the massive government corruption that eventually took the last farthing. This is how the world ends–it might look different depending on your seats in the theater, but the basics are the same. Money and electricity become meaningless very easily. Food always means something–not just sustenance but taste, herbs and flowers. Companionship, education, health, ritual. These are, in fact, the basics, as becomes very clear very quickly in hard times. And I would add my voice to Majdalani’s here, addressed to the public officials who crashed an entire country and whoever was building bombs with the material that eventually flattened huge parts of the city: How dare you sacrifice them. How fucking dare you.

Personally, I’m no revolutionary. I’m too confused all the time to rally behind causes, and too scared of what it means to burn everything down. In general I am much more interested in the possibility of institutions that work. Of, for example, not allowing for the creation of an entire underclass of unhoused refugees who might decide to fill the ranks of militias. Or, for example, managing our impacts on land and water so that there might just be enough. And I believe, as some Lebanese still do, that even starting here at square less-than-one, we have what we need to begin.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In five seconds: two hundred dead, one hundred and fifty missing, six thousand injured, nine thousand buildings damaged, two hundred thousand homes destroyed, as well as hundreds of historic or heritage buildings and four hospi tals, ten thousand retail stores, workshops, stalls, boutiques, restaurants, cafés, pubs all reduced to rubble, scores of art galleries and studios belonging to painters, sculptors, stylists, designers, architects all swept away. In five seconds."

What was meant to be a diary of the "government's overthrow of the people," morphed into a first-hand account of the explosion in the Port of Beirut in August 2020, plunging a city and country, already at the edges of discord and financial ruin, into complete chaos.

Majdalani, a prominent Lebanese writer, writes in almost Hemingway-esque prose, though it is hard to tell if that is his style or the result of the translation.

Worth a read as a very cursory beginning to further understand the rich, complex, forlorn legacy and history of Lebanon.

[Lubna · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s an interesting book, and it was saddening to read about all that the people of Lebanon have been through in the past 15 years or so. What a clusterfuck. The parts I liked about the book were where the author describes daily life in Beirut in the time leading up to the horrific harbour explosion in August 2020. Beirut has always had a special place in my heart, I’ve visited it numerous times and have had many close Lebanese friends, it breaks my heart to see that this beautiful place has been so badly mismanaged to the point of destruction. There’s no doubt that rampant corruption and mismanagement have brought on this collapse.

However, I have some issues with this book since the writer makes serious claims and allegations without substantiation or evidence and veers into conspiracy theory territory in some places. He also provides long-winded theories about the reasons behind the crises in Lebanon, presenting as fact what is actually his own personal opinion. I also find comparisons such as “Lebanon was the Switzerland of the Middle East” to be quite annoying and the author makes such comparisons often. If anything, Lebanon in its glory days was way better than Switzerland, and with warmer, more charming people. Not to mention that Lebanese food far surpasses anything ever cooked anywhere in Europe. Just saying.

[Khazna · Rating 5 out of 5]

this should be required reading for anyone interested in the Middle East or general government corruption

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accurate and moving portrayal of Beirut through its multiple ongoing crises.

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir starts during the pandemic and is a brief primer on the corruption in Lebanon leading up to the civil unrest there in 2020 when the explosion happens and then goes into the failure of the state to assist with the rebuilding. I wish it were longer! I could've used more detail.

[Peg - The History Shelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can read my review at Shelf Awareness here:
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/reade...

[Crafty Cristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the books I have read this year, this one was my favorite by far.

The author tells with lyrical prose the story of high inflation, government corruption, and Covid 19. Then, suddenly, the 2750 pounds of ammonium nitrate explodes. He looks back longingly at the times he had previously thought so bad.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you open this small volume, you know that this is where the book is going to end up but its author, academic Charif Majdalani does not.

The English language version starts with a very useful preface ‘Lebanon: the lessons of complexity’ which provides a potted history of Lebanon over 9 pages. ..

The diary entries start on 1 July 2020, with the author running from one bank to the other. Both he and his wife are employed, they have two children, and he has plans to buy a block of land -a hobby farm almost- out in the countryside, where he grew up. Their friends are professionals, and they continue to have dinner parties with long after-dinner conversations. They visit the nearby suburb of Gemmayze, in the old district, which has been gentrified with artists, hotels and restaurants. But it’s all falling apart....

His diary entries are interspersed with short explanatory chapters, which expand on the information given in the preface about corruption, protest, the piles of rubbish. The presence of COVID and the refugee influx are mere background details. Still the book inches closer to the explosion that we know is going to happen. When it comes, as Chapter 51, it has just five words.

He cannot pick up his writing again until 10 August, and when he re-reads those words, it seems like a different time. It’s then that he goes back and fills in the details: his initial thought that the blast was an earthquake, the chaos in the hospitals, the blood.

I was listening to a radio program about Beirut last week, and the commentator mentioned that after the civil war, the corruption, the protests, power shortages, inflation, COVID, – the blast in August was just the last straw and that people had just given up. This book tries to end on an optimistic note, but it rings rather hollow.

For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2021/11/22/...

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't start this without reading the introduction! It gives a fantastic (and arguably, necessary) overview of Lebanon's history, from a land embraced by its towering mountains, to its administration by Franco-Christians, then occupation by Syrians, and its eventual religiously-split government, operating over the shadow of Hezbollah.

In Beirut 2020, Majdalani's criticism of the government's corruption is not pointed by theory, but instead corroborated by individual experience. In particular, Majdalani's use of daily diary entries make his commentary all the more powerful. Each entry stood on its own, symbolizing minute cracks in Lebanese society; collectively they multiplied in impact and culminated in the August 4th, 2020 explosion at the Port of Beirut.

A writer by occupation, Majdalani describes the gradual decline of Beirut with beautiful prose. In one passage, for instance, he and his compatriots sit in a restaurant, dimly lit due to the lack of electrification in the country; as he observes the blackout around him, he notices the starkly illuminated shades of reds, purples, and blues from cascading bougainvillea. In contrast, in another section, he remarks on the destruction wrought by the port explosion, ending a chapter with a chilling and painful reminder of hospital walls collapsing onto newborn babies.

A short (though not light) read, Beirut 2020 depicts the human cost when there's lack of government accountability.


Interesting tidbits:
- Majdalani's wife, a therapist, describes why she's felt unwell in her therapy sessions as the decline of her patients' lives (from estrangement, divorce, etc.) reflects the decline of hers and her country's.
- Plenty of Syrian refugees, including young women with children, beg in the streets of Beirut. These refugees are not supported by the government whatsoever.
- Trash collection hasn't been correctly implemented, resulting in a stench reeking of governmental corruption.

[Simcha · Rating 4 out of 5]

With clear and elegant prose, Majdalani invites us into his personal grappling with events, those that are recent but also those informed by the past. He provides a brief introduction to Lebanese history for the uninitiated, but it's just enough that the reader can appreciate the weight and importance of his reflections.

Taking us through the 2019 protests, to COVID-19, to the deadly port explosion in August of 2020 and the collapse of an economy, he illuminates these events via the backdrop of struggle the country has had over the last several decades. Majdalani exposes the cycle of inexplicable, defiant hope, and quiet despair that makes up the soul of a nation. I like the intentionality behind his writing style. He is mostly consistent, calm and collected (though passionate) until you reach several pieces covering the port explosion where his writing briefly shifts to a more disjointed, stream of consciousness mimicking the chaos of the environment in which he wrote the chapters. I'm impressed with how much emotion he was able to evoke in such a short space.

This is a great read for someone looking to get more context about modern Lebanon in a human, non-history textbooky way.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

At its best when at its most personal, but the author has a bad habit of slipping into stretches of oversimplified historical summary. He covers events too disparate to act as an introductory overview for newcomers and makes fairly opinionated claims with little to none of the substantiation required for the passages to do anything but perhaps mildly annoy people already familiar with the topic who don't already agree with his interpretations. In a longer book I wouldn't care as much, but dedicating a solid third of a 180 page tome already mostly comprised of half empty pages to what feels like purposeless filler leaves things feeling very unsatisfying.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book alot because it discusses a country that Americans usually ignore in the media. I knew about the explosion in 2020 and I knew about the economic collapse in the times surrounding that event, but beyond that I had no context. This book filled in some context and did it quickly. Maybe not in a comprehensive way, but enough so that the reader can understand. I was often confused at who people were, since only a few names were given relationships to the author, but that didn't impact the story much, just bothered me a bit because I wanted the full story when this book wasn't about the full story in any way.

[Ellie Rakoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredibly well written account, which felt both familiar and personal. Majdalani tied the 2020 Beirut financial crisis and port explosion to a history of corruption (1945-2020) in a way I hadn’t read before, and still managed to highlight human connection in a very tender way.

Not everything landed - I have a hard time with his denial that the French occupation of Lebanon constituted colonialism, and religion is oversimplified (e.g. in the quota system for ministry positions). But overall, I read this as more of a personal interpretation of Beirut in 2020 than a political account, and it gave perspective I hadn’t read before.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beirut 2020 is a deeply personal account that gives an insight into what it feels like to be Lebanese today. The book focuses on themes of betrayal and abuse on the part of the government and how those contribute to the current state of the country.

This book does contain the political views of the author but they are naturally introduced as it truly is a diary at the end of the day.

The way the author writes about his country is both gorgeous and heart-breaking in the way that it is beautifully descriptive but doesn’t ignore the injustices and terrors that Lebanon has on its hands.

[Nabil Hourani · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a short and heartful book-diary about the situation in Lebanon during last year. Charif gives his own to-the-point views with his simple and straightforward feelings, along with notes from his wife as a psychiatric. The diary shows his personal emotions along with people around him and his family. I would have loved the book to be more detailed and more aggressive considering the gravity of the story.

[delphine · Rating 3 out of 5]

maybe it’s because my benchmark for narratives of historical events comes from zlata’s diary and half of a yellow sun, but this felt somewhat incomplete. i would have liked to see a bit more flashbacks or memories of the past to compare to the narratives of the times after the crisis/explosion, and i would have also liked to get to know the characters more. i did really like the visualization of the city though, and it was quite poetically written.

[Christian Yeo · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a startling, lacerating, aching read. i spent 4 months in lebanon in 2021 and 2023, researching a novel and living in the same neighbourhood as majdalani. he puts into words what i heard almost every day from lebanese friends: the diaristic form that becomes universal. this collection feels to me like a testament to the power of creative nonfiction. kudos also to the translator.

[Veeral · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lebanon was already in a deep financial and political crisis before the big explosion last year. The author lays bare the corruption of the political parties that led to the ruination of the nation.

[John Shee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read both the book and the following review of it, which I find to be an excellent critique in Arabic by a native Beiruti. It deconstructs Sharif Majdalany's political and ideological biases quite well. Here it is:

https://bit.ly/3GHhqe5

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

The form of diary entries offers a personal perspective to the collapse of Beirut. Majdalani zooms out, informing readers about the state of the city, then zooms in to his personal experience. An informing and evocative read.

[Katelyn]

Wow, people living in Beirut faced so much in 2020. I had no idea. This really opened my eyes.

[Susan Dunker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short book about the horrors of 2020 in Beirut that barely touches on COVID-19. Heart-breaking for a beautiful historic country which I was lucky to visit in 2017.

[K C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Musings on a country's collapse, which appears to have come long before the August 2020 explosion which literally collapsed the city.

[Nathan Denzin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish the chapters were a bit longer and more in depth, but as a stream of consciousness this is amazing. Such a unique book to be able to unpack everything going on in Lebanon at once.

[Chiara · Rating 5 out of 5]

breathtaking

[Mads Floyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very important reading if one wishes to understand the collapse of the Lebanese government and civil society into the state in which it now exists.

[Maya Jamaleddine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful mix of history and personal journal entries. Fuck the Lebanese government truly truly.

[Ka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the short sharp chapters, unexpectedly moving.