The Lebanese Revolution Unleashes A ‘Week of Anger’

With the country collapsing, the government ignoring the obvious and the people’s outcry, and only very few crises haven’t hit Lebanon yet, the revolution is just escalating into a week of anger across the country, with a plan and a warning.

The revolution of hunger has just started.

While many sites in Lebanon are boiling today with demonstrations, including in Saida and the Ring, the Revolution has planned to unleash the “Week of Anger” tomorrow Tuesday, with escalations at various sites in various areas of Lebanon.

An activist has stated to An-Nahar that the revolution will actually start escalating Monday night. That means more blocked roads, including the bypass roads.

“The Last Warning” message to the politicians is planned to be enacted with demonstrations in the streets, the universities, and the schools, car processions from the Fists in all Lebanese regions, pans and pots pounding in all the squares, and so on.

A march will set off at 3 PM from Martyr’s Square to Talet El-Khayat “with one demand and that is the formation of a rescue government of independent members within a time span of only 48 hours and no more.”

Failure to do so by the given time, a general strike will be declared on Thursday, January 16, to initiate as of Friday, January 17th, and a summon to all Lebanese to march to the Parliament on Saturday.

Confidence in the political system is hanging by a thread. Lebanese politicians are not allowed in public areas anymore by the protesters.

Many are being shamed in public, kicked out of restaurants and shops, especially this past weekend, which marks the onset of a more targeted revolution tactic.

Thursday 14 January is the last warning to the government, according to the protesters. They have given the assigned PM Diab and the politicians a 48-hour window. 

Activists are now calling for a full-on revolution after the relatively calm period of the past weeks in hope that the politicians will wake up to their responsibilities towards the country. None did!

The street calmness seen during the past month was an illusion that fooled the ruling parties and their partisans.

Activists were actually planning, organizing themselves, studying their next steps, and coming up with new tactics to force the government to heed the demands of the people.

Calls to students to resume their participation in the demonstrations are circulating online. Palma and Ring highways have already been closed. Protesters are asking parents not to send their children to schools as all the roads will be closed. 

This coming public outburst is believed to be more vicious than before, and certainly more determined. 

People have had enough; enough misery and humiliation that have even increased these past few weeks:

The new outage of electricity due to misgovernance, families evicted from their homes, news that the internet will be cut off, and the banks holding people’s money hostage against the law, and so on.

People standing in endless lines in banks to get the bare minimum, prices of the essentials increasing, and complainers threatened, arrested, and interrogated on the reason for their ‘illegality’ to complain. 

What the ruling officials are failing to see or admit is that this is not a political revolution or a political party’s revolution for the government to hang on fiercely against its political opponent.

This is a revolution of the people suffering for so long, and now in anger. The officials have failed their people, and the least they can do now, the very least, is to do right by them.