Will Riad al-Solh Step Down?

Two days ago, a group of nearly thirty young men and women gathered in Riad al-Solh square, staging another rally by the “You Stink” civic movement in response to the waste crisis. In the same square, families of kidnapped servicemen were still camped out, and only a few meters farther, the families of the disappeared in Syrian prisons had congregated.

The square has been

Lebanon has seldom witnessed cases of Cabinet's resignation, unless it is fraught with political undertones.

Schools might shut down, teachers may be beaten for days, and they would all march down to the square in stark rejection of the deteriorating situation without ever a word of the Education Minister’s resignation.

Scandals may need to surface to the public so that prisoners would be acquitted of their alleged crimes, floods may take over streets and invade homes and stores, power cuts could go on for days, our water may get polluted but not a single minister would entertain the idea of stepping down.

It may be the case, as it is today, that the streets may drown in mounds of intoxicating trash for almost two months, turning valleys into giant dumpsters, or that protesters may clash with security forces in Riad al-Sol square, and the minister of Environment would not budge an inch from the chair.

People are coming together near the silent statue, calling out for the resignation of their ministers. They sit under the blistering sun for hours, repeating the same chant “You Reek” but the morally-depraved hold no sense of shame, they all stay kaput.

People, helpless, they put out their anger on the security forces, forgetting that they too have had to deal with the trash eyesore, they too have been bearing with the constant power outages and water cuts.

Protesters return home, leaving their trash behind and ignoring the fact that all of their adversities have stemmed from the same political class that had promised them massive returns from oil extraction and is still unable to clean the streets from trash.

People will gather in the square days after days, they will shout out and lift their banners, they will demand the ministers’ resignation, but none of them will.

Perhaps we’ll see Riad al-Solh step down and dart out of the square, that’s as close as we’re going to get to witnessing a Cabinet’s resignation.

An article originally written in Arabic by Dany Haddad.