: ‘This Is Our Last Chance.’ A Photographer Captures the Energy for Change in Beirut After the Explosion #WorldNEWS For the last three decades, the most reliable feature of Lebanon’s government

‘This Is Our Last Chance.’ A Photographer Captures the Energy for Change in Beirut After the Explosion #WorldNEWS
For the last three decades, the most reliable feature of Lebanon’s government has been its relentless decline.
Here was a country so brazenly corrupt the World Bank abandoned its usual diplomatic language in 2015, declaring the country “increasingly governed by bribery and nepotism practices, failing to deliver basic human services. ” Among ordinary people, the lived reality of Lebanese politics produced a gall that rose like the stench of the garbage that has accumulated on the capital’s streets because officials cannot figure out where to put it. In October, the announcement of higher taxes triggered gigantic daily protests across the country. But they have not yet led to any substantial change.

Myriam Boulos for TIMERiad Hussein Al Hussein and his wife Fatima Al Abid in the Mar Mikhael neighborhood of Beirut on Aug. 7. He was buying vegetables there three days earlier when he heard a small explosion. He asked the seller whether he thought it was a shell or a bomb, and where it had landed. Our discussion lasted approximately one minute and was interrupted by another sound of explosion, one way louder,” he recalls. “I shouted and said we needed to hurry inside the shop, and that is when I was hit by the glass. He later went back to the building where he was injured to assist with cleaning up. I wanted to help like I had been helped, he said. I wanted to pay it forward.

Myriam BoulosA volunteer named Ahmad, who works with a Palestinian organization helping victims, prays amid rubble in Beirut on Aug. 5.
Myriam Boulos for TIMEKevin Obeid cuts Jad Estephan’s hair in the Mar Mikhael area of Beirut on Aug. 7, three days after the deadly port explosion. Let us hope that this catastrophe doesnt destroy us even further, says Estephan, who lost his eye at the beginning of the revolution last year, but rather gives us a much needed strength. Obeid says he went to Mar Mikhael that day for two reasons: First, to help the people that lost their houses. As my family and myself have not been directly affected by the explosion, I consider it natural to help those that were affected. It is the least I can do. The second reason was that I wanted to use my skills to help people around me. I wanted to use my skills to fix them.
The question now is whether the catastrophic explosion of Aug. 4, which wiped away more than 220 lives and the homes of 300,000 people in Beirut, will ultimately take down Lebanon’s unique political system. The country’s constitution — which guarantees government positions to 18 separate religious sects — was intended to balance the interests and needs of a diverse, cosmopolitan nation.