On Friday evening, people crashed a bank-sponsored Beirut Chants Christmas concert in Beirut Souks to demand the Lebanese depositors’ stolen money.
“We want our money back, we don’t want concerts done with our money!” shouted the protesters from within the audience.
The economic situation is pushing the country to the brink. Even the prime minister-designate trying to form a rescue government can’t seem to do his job. The way it looks now, there is no clear solution in sight.
Before the Beirut Port explosion, Save The Children estimated that 1 million people would starve to death in Beirut alone. Over half that amount was estimated to be children.
Now, with the grain silos destroyed along with the threat of lifting subsidies on basic goods, the situation is bound to get worse. That’s in addition to banks imposing their own capital control outside the law, and limiting people’s withdrawals from their own savings.
With just that in mind, the audacity to have bank-funded events in a time when Lebanon is heading to social catastrophe is beyond comprehension to Lebanese activists.
For weeks, they have been calling to boycott the holiday festival because it is sponsored by SGBL chairman, Antoun Sehnaoui, and Bank of Beirut.
Two weeks ago, people stormed a Beirut Chants concert raising banners that denounced the banking mafia and its attempt to whitewash its image with music.
الف تحية للشباب والصبايا يلي تظاهروا اليوم ضد SGBL و انطون الصحناوي يلي كان داعم حفل beirut chants. رسالة لSGBL وباقي المصارف انتو حرامية وحسابكم رح يكون عسير باللبناني #SGBL #لصوص_المصارف pic.twitter.com/h3ojTDvChS
— لـــبـــنـــان يـــنـــتـــفـــض (@lebprotests) December 1, 2020
In the latest event, people stormed the concert carrying banners with exclamations such as, “SGBL = Thieves and Looters.”
Others had more hard-hitting ones that read, “When you steal people’s livelihoods, no matter how much you make, you’ll always be poor.”
The activists even made it to the stage. directing words to the event organizers for collaborating with the banks and had some choice words for Sehnaoui himself.
