Accustomed to years of disappointment and setbacks, the Lebanese are trying to take stock of their emerging reality. After two years of political vacuum, it now has a president and a prime minister-designate: Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam, respectively.
Lebanese can now dare to hope. But years of disappointment have fostered deep-seated cynicism and low expectations throughout its society—one that has become accustomed to a culture of bribery, dishonesty, violence and intolerance.
Lebanon ultimately reached this point after years of failure to build sound pillars of a modern state, such as independent and transparent institutions. Its people thought the corrupt system inflicted on them was so entrenched that they couldn't even dream of breaking out of it.
Even the two seismic events that unfolded in Lebanon—the 2019 financial collapse and the 2020 Beirut port explosion—failed to shake the corrupt edifices of the state. Although people poured out into the streets in the millions demanding change, justice, reform and accountability, no meaningful action was taken to address their grievances. In the case of the port explosion, attempts to investigate the mishandling of ammonium nitrate mysteriously parked in the capital's port were met with threats and intimidation.
