2023-09-18 10:00:42
Every summer, the population multiplies in the Lebanon. Beirut International Airport is the port of entry for many of the country’s new visitors. But they know where they are going, they don’t need a guide, nor a taxi to pick them up at the exit. On the contrary, they know the only active Lebanese terminal like the back of their hand. After all, They are always the same ones who come back. His return implies a joy that goes beyond the emotional, since, in a country in financial debacle perpetual, bordering on the economic. Of the 2.2 million visitors expected for this summer – in the country of cedars, it lasts well into October – it is estimated that a 75% are Lebanese who reside abroad. Its presence is equivalent to 40% of the country’s population.
For many of those who return, the trip is a breath of fresh air between family, banquets and friends. For others, however, it is a reminder of the many reasons that expelled them from their country. David Abou Chakra He has lived much of his life in Lebanon, although, due to the war with Israel in 2006, his family moved to Canada where his mother also comes from. Later, they returned but, in 2014, she decided to leave one of her native countries in favor of the other to continue her studies. Now, she has completed her PhD as engineer of artificial intelligence and, for the first time in four years, he has returned to visit Lebanon.
“A foreign country”
“Before coming, I was very worried about the trip, because when I talk to my friends and family, it seems like they describe a country that seems foreign to me,” he admits to this newspaper. The Lebanon he left behind had more than two hours of public electricity a day, its local currency had not depreciated by 95%, nor the 80% of the population lived below the poverty line. Nor had the banks frozen the savings of their depositors, nor did they have one of the rates of inflation higher of the world. “It took me a couple of weeks to adapt to this new reality, but once I got used to it, it was like being back at home,” says Abou Chacra, who extended his initial two-week trip and ended up staying Two and a half months. It’s his house.
Instead, Murielle el Feghaly I was clear about it before coming. She was going to spend all of her three weeks of vacation in her country. She had two weddings and, in one of them, she was the maid of honor. Not even a year ago she joined the more than 200,000 Lebanese who have abandoned Lebanon in the last five years. “Summers in Lebanon are amazing, so, honestly, I wouldn’t like to spend the summer anywhere else,” he says from France, where she works as a surgeon. The tourism industry depends, in large part, on this type of tourists who come with foreign currencies willing to give a boost to the battered Lebanese economy, which is suffering one of the worst crises in the world since 1850, according to the world Bank.
With an unemployment rate of around 30%, tourism is one of the few sectors that creates employment. In May, Acting Tourism Minister Walid Nassar predicted that tourism sector revenues this year will reach 9 billion dollars, compared to $6.5 billion last year. This expected figure is equivalent to 41% of the reduced GDP from Lebanon. And Lebanese expatriates have a lot to do with it. According to 2022 figures, this group of visitors represented the 63% of total arrivals. In the first quarter of this year, its share increased to 68%.
Economic and social bubbles
In some ways, this relative dependence on Lebanese expatriates creates bubbles in which the local population, who is paid in lebanese pounds, it is difficult for them to access, since prices rise before the summer season and, once it ends, they do not go down again. “It gave me the feeling that there was a general anger, but at the same time, nothing has changed, everything remains the same, although at the same time everything was different,” recalls Feghaly. “Everything is more expensive and is charged in dollars, so I didn’t even have to change to Lebanese pounds,” says the young surgeon. Within the country, a large part of life and fun is reserved for an elite, since only 13% of families have access to dollarsaccording to a 2021 study by the American University of Beirut.
“Before, we were all more mixed and integrated, but now we see a clear division with those who charge in dollars,” Abou Chacra acknowledges. Returning to Lebanon does not always mean returning home. For this 31-year-old engineer, his relationship with the country is “dysfunctional” subject to a contradiction: “I feel very helpless to change something here.” “In the end, one of my two countries has been very good to me, and the other, on the other hand, has been a disaster,” says David. For recent expatriate Murielle, leaving Lebanon this time “broke my heart.” “Being in the diaspora is difficult and interesting and exciting and a mix of everything,” he confesses.
The instability resulting from entrenched conflicts and a broken economy has made the Lebanese diaspora is one of the largest in the world, with approximately twice as many Lebanese outside (8 million) as inside of the country (4.6 in 2020). “After the pandemic and the explosion in the port of Beirut [el 4 de agosto de 2020]those of us who lived outside felt strange, because we also we suffer but in another way,” Abou Chacra acknowledges. Therefore, returning every summer is key for these expats. “Lebanon is my roots, my ancestral land,” says the young Lebanese-Canadian without thinking about it.
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