Media coverage
Al Jazeera Net / Economy and People · 2008-05-26
This piece examines how people live through crises and catastrophes, with a particular focus on Gaza and Lebanon. In Gaza, it describes the impact of the Israeli blockade on employers, workers, and families, and how scarcity and unemployment push people to cut food consumption, sell savings and household goods, and reorder their priorities. In Lebanon, it shows how people cope with recurring crises by adapting to shortages, rising prices, and the risks of daily life during clashes.
This piece examines how people live through crises and catastrophes, with a particular focus on Gaza and Lebanon. In Gaza, it describes the impact of the Israeli blockade on employers, workers, and families, and how scarcity and unemployment push people to cut food consumption, sell savings and hou…
– Circumventing Growing Misery in Gaza – The Lebanese Have Experience in Dealing with Crises
Ahmed Bashto: Dear viewers, welcome to a new episode of *Economy and People*. How do people live and cope in times of hardship and catastrophe? From the latest crisis in Lebanon, the continuing siege on Gaza, and the scenes of violence and destruction in occupied Iraq, to the conditions of people in devastated Somalia and stricken Darfur in Sudan—these are crisis-ridden conditions in which people in those areas live. People in the Maghreb, for example, may not feel how people in those areas secure their daily sustenance, and people in the Gulf may not imagine how a father or mother in areas of siege and destruction manages to provide medicine and food for their children, not to mention education and securing the rest of life’s necessities. In theory, we may understand, but in practice we may not be able to imagine, and the picture may not be sufficiently clear. Through experience and the continuation of suffering, people in those areas have become experts in managing their crises, which require squeezing every basic necessity in order, in most cases, to obtain the bare minimum of everything. We will try to touch on that picture, perhaps to clarify it somewhat, in an episode in which we follow:
_ The Israeli siege is pushing employers and workers, alongside the people, into a life of misery and hardship.
_ How did the citizen in Lebanon deal with the recent crisis?
Ahmed Bashto: An episode that believes the generals of war do not feel its calamities as much as the people suffer them. Stay with us. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is unprecedented in modern history. There, in that narrow space, live one and a half million Palestinians, half of them unemployed, and most of them living on just one dollar a day. There, it is normal to hear the complaint of a father supporting five, six, or nine children and unable to find anything to stave off their hunger because, quite simply, he does not work. There, because of the suffocating Israeli siege, people have become accustomed to living with shortages in everything: food, medicine, energy, and fuel. There, one finds nothing but complaint, and yet the people there still have the ability to adapt to conditions that everyone who has seen them has described as tragic. But seeing is not like living the condition daily and coexisting with its details. The figures describing the situation may be of little value, for the dryness of numbers, statistics, and percentages will not describe, nor can it describe, a tragic human condition. In his following report, Wael Al-Dahdouh attempts to assemble the pieces of the Gazan picture.
Circumventing Growing Misery in Gaza
Wael Al-Dahdouh: It is as though the worries of the world have piled up on this man’s head as he watches his life’s project collapse. Abu Hassan, the owner of one of the most important garment factories in the Gaza Strip, began it three decades ago with three machines in his small house until it became this large.
Abu Hassan: Today, with the closures that have been imposed on us, this continuing closure, we are now unable even to employ ourselves. We cannot start again even from zero, nor can we employ our workers who were used to working for us. Today, we have reached a dead end.
Wael Al-Dahdouh: The recession caused by the siege has cast harsh shadows over Abu Hassan and his family at every level, especially since this situation has burdened him with large debts.
Abu Hassan: Personally, I stay confined at home, neither going out nor coming in, because no one hears my complaint and no one is concerned with my worries. We are employers, not beggars, and we refuse to be beggars. I mean, I tell you that as for me personally, I wish God would take me before I reach the stage of receiving vouchers.
Wael Al-Dahdouh: This is one of the 250 workers who used to work in Abu Hassan’s factory for a good wage. Today, he sells some sweets in the Jabalia market to secure food for his children with a meager profit.
The worker: I go around ashamed of myself—not because I sell guavas, but because I’m unable to feed my children. Because when your son comes and asks you for something and you cannot provide it for him, what are you supposed to do? Your small child will not understand the situation you are living in.
Wael Al-Dahdouh: A situation that leaves its mark on the reality of this simple worker’s family, which is trying, with whatever means it has, to face the burdens of a life growing more difficult day after day.
The worker’s wife: It changed a lot. Back when he was working in the factory, our situation, thank God, was good. But these days the situation is extremely difficult. I mean, it’s hard—we can no longer manage food. Now it has come down to food: we cannot bring food, buy food, and of course everything in the market is expensive, so a person cannot buy anything.
Wael Al-Dahdouh: And this condition, and worse than it, is present in the majority of homes in the Strip.
Abu Hassan: Today, we are dying a death slower than slow.
Wael Al-Dahdouh: Abu Hassan is only one of those whom the siege and closure have torn from a comfortable life into a life of misery, a life in which there is not the slightest hope of a near return to ease and prosperity, for the Israeli siege has swallowed everything. Wael Al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera, Gaza, Palestine.
[End of recorded report]
Ahmed Bashto: We will try to delve into the picture with our guest from Gaza, the economic expert Omar Shaban. Mr. Shaban, as Abu Hassan said, people in Gaza are dying a slow death. This is not news, of course, but what is truly striking is living and coping with the condition. How is that done?
Omar Shaban: There is no doubt that the people of the Gaza Strip are suffering in an unconventional way, and therefore this requires unconventional methods to confront the crisis. Although the Gaza Strip has lived for many years under tragic conditions, the tragedy of those conditions cannot compare with what the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have been living through since the siege imposed on 14 June of last year. Palestinian families deal with the crisis in different ways. At first, they try to do without their savings—gold and some other precious metals—and this happened a long time ago. Then comes the second line of confronting the crisis through beginning to dispose of or sell some used furniture or long-term household furnishings such as refrigerators and some pieces of furniture. It became clear in your report that some Palestinian families do not have furniture that constitutes the minimum requirements for any family in this era. The third line is where Palestinian families begin—and herein lies the danger—to reorder their priorities. They begin distributing, or redistributing, their very limited resources among basic requirements such as education and food. The Palestinian family in general, and in the Gaza Strip in particular, gives education an unprecedented sanctity and thus places education in first place, and this comes at the expense of foodstuffs, for example. So the Palestinian family gives up the habit of eating good foods such as meat, for example, and you find Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip eating meat once every month after it had been a basic item on the Palestinian family table. This has a devastating and dangerous impact on human health, and we have begun to witness the results of this catastrophe at the health level among Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip. There are indicators and studies recently issued saying that the rates of malnutrition among Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip have reached 30 percent. Dozens of cases of children in hospitals are suffering from malnutrition. Children in schools have begun to show signs of inability to concentrate and inability to comprehend. A number of children are unable to endure staying in the classroom for long hours, as a result of the quantitative and qualitative deficiency in food. Thus, although the Palestinian family has a creative capacity in confronting these crises, the intensity of the crisis has struck at all the capacities of the Palestinian family to confront this crisis. One additional point...
Ahmed Bashtou (interrupting): Mr. Omar, allow me to turn to the condition of the people in Gaza as they describe it themselves.
Participant 1: The current situation we are living in is bad; the tragedy is to the point of... to degrees below zero, I mean. We are living in a situation—we have never lived through such a situation before. The economy, the state of the economy, is very difficult in general.
Participant 2: والله God knows about these matters. I mean, how can a person manage in a time like this? Life is hard—there is a siege and at the same time high prices in the country.
Participant 3: No one knocks on your door and says, here, take this shekel. Not one of them, not any one of them knocks on your door and says, here, take this shekel. We are only living on the coupons, on the Agency, on the UN. I mean, when coupons come out, either we sell them, or we cash them in, or we eat them. This is our life; this is how we are living.
Participant 4: It is very miserable. I go out in the morning and I cannot come back until night, from requests and from here and there. I have nine children, nine sons and daughters; three of them are in the General Secondary stage. I have a son who needs glasses, and I cannot get him glasses because of the miserable conditions we are living in.
Participant 5: For three years, والله, not a single food coupon has entered my home. I am one of the workers of Israel. Neither the Hamas government gave me a coupon nor the Fatah government gave me a coupon, and I am living on... by God’s grace.
Participant 6: Excuse me, I have nine dependents. I have a son at the university; he comes first in his class and has memorized the Qur’an and teaches Qur’an memorization. I need to provide for him every day ten shekels at the very least; besides that he has books, he has many things, and he needs payments throughout the year, so I have to provide that for him. How am I supposed to provide it for him?
[End of recorded tape]
Ahmed Bashtou: Mr. Omar, as you have seen, the picture needs no comment at all. People may not imagine that a family of seven members on average has a breadwinner without work, without income, without food most of the time. After people have reached rock bottom, this bottom of the bottom, how are they dealing, or how do they continue to deal, with the crisis?
"The Palestinian family faces the siege crisis to the extent that it can dispense with many goods; there are many families that no longer have the ability to eat a third meal and now eat only two meals." Omar Shaban
Omar Shaban: Honestly speaking, the situation in Gaza has reached stages beyond a person’s capacity to endure, and we should not activate it in the sense of saying that the Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip can confront this crisis. This crisis is far more severe, far stronger, continuous, and encompasses every aspect of life to a degree that no family in the world, no matter how strong, can confront it. The Palestinian family confronts this crisis to the extent that it can through different mechanisms; as I said, it dispenses with many goods. Many families no longer have the ability to eat a third meal, and now eat only two meals. The nutritional level consumed by the average Palestinian family is declining sharply. The Palestinian family has begun, as I said, to abandon many of its habits; it has begun to reorder its priorities. There are grave dangers affecting the present and future of the Palestinian family. For example, as was pointed out by the one who has a son at the university, a son or daughter at the university, many Palestinian families have asked their sons and daughters first to withdraw from their studies. Some Palestinian families have asked their children not to attend university daily. Some families living in areas far from Gaza City, where the universities are located, have students come only once a week, and this affects their level of achievement. The picture in the Gaza Strip is bleak, and to clarify further, there are three bodies providing assistance in the Gaza Strip. The first is the UNRWA organization, or the Relief Agency, which is concerned with the refugee sector through provision in two basic programs: providing job opportunities for two months with a financial return not exceeding $250 per month, and this benefits anyone whose family exceeds six members and who works once every six months for two months. Thus, until now, the financial return from this program does not meet the minimum. The other program is the distribution of food coupons to families whose number also exceeds six members, and this happens once every three months, taking into consideration that the items distributed by UNRWA do not exceed three items: sugar, oil, and flour only, and thus do not include other items. The other program is the World Food Programme, which is concerned with non-refugees, and it also cannot reach all sectors of society. There is a sector of society—workers not listed with UNRWA, not listed under the category of non-refugees, and not listed in the social affairs program. For many long years, no one has recognized them, and they are the working class that worked in Israel, numbering more than one hundred thousand families.
Ahmed Bashtou: So it seems that people in Gaza must live on only the two black things, dates and water. Thank you very much from Gaza to the economic expert Omar Shaban. After the break, in Lebanon a brief crisis brought back to people’s minds memories of previous crises. Stay with us.
The Lebanese are experienced in dealing with crises
Ahmed Bashtou: Welcome. In Lebanon, politicians differ over everything, while the people agree on one thing: everyone is suffering from the crisis. From the Matn areas, Iqlim al-Kharrub, Akkar, and the southern suburb, unity with the state of crisis was manifested, despite sectarian differences and political disagreements. During the civil war that lasted 15 years, people in Lebanon lived through a crisis in everything until they became among the best experts in dealing with it. Mujaddara was the main food dish for many families for long periods, and mujaddara is a mixture of lentils and rice, and that is all. People recalled memories of mujaddara during the Israeli attack on Lebanon in July 2006, and with it they recalled memories of destruction, water scarcity, and electricity cuts. A few days ago, and for a few days, people once again recovered the feeling of crisis—may God not bring it back. Let us see how Salam Khadr observed it from the heart of Beirut.
Salam Khadr: The lady took advantage of a lull in the gunfire to head to a nearby pharmacy, as her need for medicine seemed stronger than her fear of the clashes. Many others like her wait for the clashes to stop to search for shops that open their doors so they can obtain their daily necessities, and once they find them they return with whatever they were able to carry. In the days of the clashes, the risk seemed doubled: the risk of leaving the house and also the risk of losing the basics of daily life.
Participant 1: Some roads are open and you bring your food and eat it...
Participant 2: Thank God it did not last long, but may God help the day laborer who cannot even manage to feed his children.
Salam Khadr: Lebanon is a country of successive crises, some say, and Lebanon is among the countries that know how to adapt, at the minimum, with crises perhaps. From among the earthen barricades, women and men would cross in search of a vegetable stall, fruit, or anything at all to bring back home. Of course, with every crisis the balance of supply and demand is disrupted, and prices rise. It is an equation that no one can control.
Participant 1: In these circumstances no one asks about high prices; the important thing is that the item be available.
Participant 2: Yes, there was price inflation. I mean, something that used to cost 500 came to cost 750 and 800, and what used to cost 1,000 came to cost 1,200, 1,500.
Salam Khadr: But as soon as the crisis in its field dimension ended, the phase of repairing the damage began as best as possible, so that movement quickly returned to the streets of the capital, along with scenes that had been absent for days. Cafés, shops, and passersby had been weighed down by the days of clashes and remain under the burden of the political developments, but they also seem determined to overcome them. Life returned almost completely to normal in the Lebanese capital, as the latest crisis proved that the Lebanese have the ability to overcome difficulties, especially since the latest crisis lasted only a few days. Salam Khadr, Al Jazeera, Beirut.
[End of recorded report]
Ahmed Bashto: We discuss the Lebanese scene with our guest from Beirut, Dr. Zuhair Hatab, Professor of Sociology at the Lebanese University. Dr. Hatab, what is striking is that people in Lebanon are able to live amid destruction. How did they manage to reach this ingenious formula?
Zuhair Hatab: In الحقيقة there is nothing ingenious about the matter. There is a desire and an attachment to life, and there is a desire for a person to secure his life and have at least a minimum level of safety and the ability to preserve himself and his family and secure the minimum required for living and for continuity. Lebanon has continued under these conditions and has coexisted with them since 1975 until today..
Ahmed Bashto (interrupting): The beginning of the civil war. All right, Dr. Hatab, specifically in the latest crisis, how were people able to pull things together quickly and adapt to the crisis despite its short duration?
Zuhair Hatab: The recent period was as though it had been cut out from earlier stages of experiences and problems that had lasted a long time. It was as though it were a kind of scene excerpted from that long period. In fact there was expectation and anticipation; people prepared for something difficult, but it was not expected with such speed and suddenness. The matter was limited to a general strike in the country, and like every strike it passes peacefully over Lebanon, accompanied by a march or something similar, and shops and schools close, after which everything returns to normal. But on that day it was clear that what began with the clashes, and to some extent the manifestations of violence in the streets, immediately gave an implicit signal to heads of households that they had to act in an emergency manner. Emergency conduct means that the family was now living in a situation outside the daily routine and outside daily habits..
Ahmed Bashto (interrupting): Meaning a state of emergency was declared inside the Lebanese family, and we will watch the reaction and views of the people regarding what happened to them in the Lebanese street.
Participant 1: Basically, we are already stocked up, and it has been proven that we are stocked up, like every Lebanese household, so that provisions remain plentiful in it, and goodness remains abundant, God willing, all the time.
Participant 1: Prices rose, rose—not just rose, I mean they nearly doubled, perhaps.
Participant 2: Everything was available, but all the co-ops were closed and only a few shops were open. Still, one could secure what one needed from the shops that were open.
Participant 3: Some shops were open and some shops were closed, but may God endear the Lebanese people to one another.
Participant 4: People manage somehow here; this is a country of wonders.
Participant 5: I mean, I have lived here in Lebanon through 15 years of war; I have become used to it.
Participant 6: I mean, we had some things and we were able to secure them, go out a little and take some risks and so on, and it worked out.
[End of recorded tape]
Ahmed Bashto: Dr. Hatab, perhaps what is also striking is that the strikes that occurred, or the crisis that occurred, took place in areas inhabited by middle-income families, not poor ones. The crisis might have been broader if the problem had been in genuinely poor areas.
Zuhair Hatab: In fact this is true. Urban areas are usually areas in which families’ economic conditions range and vary between poor, well-off, and wealthy. The streets affected by the events form a broad spectrum of this sample of Lebanese areas. They are inhabited by capable families, but there are poor families that cannot secure, or do not have, stockpiles they can rely on, or that they had accumulated for difficult hours such as these conditions. Therefore, the families that live on regular incomes and revenues were the ones able to move into a state of emergency and to live, in some way, with reassurance..
Ahmed Bashto (interrupting): All right, Doctor, if we consider that the crisis had a positive side, did it in some way increase social cohesion among people in Lebanon, especially in the areas exposed to the intensity of the crisis?
Zuhair Hatab: In Lebanon the matter has always been that families usually arrange their social relations on a kinship basis. In the past, in the beginnings of 1975 and in the last century, families—especially young families whose members had recently married—would move to housing in new areas or in areas witnessing new construction and reconstruction, even if that was far from relatives and friends. But today every family has returned to live facing its relatives and near its friends, and in areas where they share relations of a primary kind, meaning blood relations, kinship relations, relations of religious and sectarian belonging, and so forth, and consequently the person feels a kind of security. This network is in fact an existing network. In bad security conditions every person offers what he can to his relatives and to those who live near him, and they are in most cases relatives. Now I can tell you that these difficult periods we have gone through have shown that the existence of what we used to talk about a great deal with severe criticism—the cellular mobile phone—and the density of its spread in people’s hands, was a source of annoyance in periods of peace. But in the periods of the recent clashes it became clear that the presence of the cellular was tantamount to the presence of money, food, or household stock..
Ahmed Bashto (interrupting): And perhaps this is one of the advantages of modern technology..
Ahmed Bashto (continuing): Dr. Zuhair Hatab from Beirut, Professor of Sociology at the Lebanese University, thank you very much for this clarification. At the end of the episode, it is truly regrettable that all the crises people live through from the Atlantic to the Gulf are imposed upon them, whether due to external factors as we see in Gaza, Iraq, and Somalia, or because of the arrogance and mismanagement of Arab governments here and there. We hope you will write to us and suggest your ideas via email at [email protected]. Greetings to you from director Saeb Ghazi, and my best regards, Ahmed Bashto. Goodbye.
Text © Al Jazeera Net / Economy and People — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source