In less than two weeks, two residential buildings collapsed in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing more than 15 people and injuring dozens more.
The familiar roll call of culprits surfaced at once: the state in all its agencies and institutions; the ministers and parliamentarians who have represented the city for decades while allowing it to sink into grievous neglect, stripped of services and burdened by infrastructure so degraded it has virtually vanished.
Tripoli is home to Lebanon's wealthiest citizens and its poorest—a tragic paradox where the impoverished are repeatedly mobilised to fuel political and sectarian contests, summoned when needed. Here, palaces sit beside shacks in a long-standing arrangement sustained by those who monopolise political representation and exert control over livelihoods, loyalties, and even personal affairs, while dispensing crumbs of assistance in exchange for obedience.
But Tripoli cannot be understood without understanding the tightly-woven web of interests linking its power brokers and wealthy elites to state authorities who carry out the marching orders of the ancient city's real leaders.
