Beirut blast: In their grief, are the families of the victims allowed to blame those who stole their dreams from them?

Did you know that today, January 13, is meant to celebrate several national or International days? In this post, two of them will be discussed by Bambi in relation to the surrealistic Beirut port double explosion of August 4, 2020 .

The first national day is called Make Your Dream Come True. The second one is the National Blame Someone Else Day. To begin with, even after taking the time to read about them (https://bit.ly/3XrHLV), Bambi still does not know the exact meaning or purpose of these days. As she already asked on this blog: who assigns those events to each day of the calendar?

Regardless, and if she may, she would like to pause for a few minutes today to try to integrate both of these January 13’s celebrations using the example of a tiny yet complicated country of the Middle East, called Lebanon.

While doing this mental exercise, Bambi will specifically think of all those affected by the surrealistic Beirut port double explosion. She will contrast the latter with the careless-criminal attitude of the Lebanese political class… and the frustrating silence of the international community. To do so, she will go back in time, using her own memory, with the assistance of “the archived memory” of her blog, to that doomed day of August 4, 2020… and to its following 891 days. She will not re-post any of these earlier posts because the list is TOO long.

Mind you, she does not have to go that far back in time. Just the last couple of days are enough when a few impatient families of the victims may have stormed the Justice Palace in Beirut. They did so to demand the continuation of the investigation by Judge Tarak Bitar. In other terms, they wanted to ask the Lebanese political class to stop interfering in the judicial system.

Look what happened to them? On the next day, they were called by the Lebanese security authorities for investigation. In contrast, those who either remained silent or were directly responsible for the stored ammonium nitrate, which exploded in August 2020, are still free like birds. Yes, like the latter, but not any birds. Rather ugly ones because they fly with total impunity for their criminal negligence. Is this fair?

Of course, it is not good to throw stones on any building, including and especially a country’s Justice Palace. Let’s be clear here: Bambi is against any form of violence, including the one coming out of tiny stones. In her mind, someone may have been too upset to do something like that. If you have seen your own city decimated or if you are a parent of a victim or the friend of a person who is still in the coma or is disabled for life, wouldn’t you loose your mind too? Or what was left of it after the corrupt political and banking system of your country stole your savings?

Pictures re-tweeted by a Beirut-based journalist.
A picture re-tweeted by a Beirut-based journalist.
Thank you Amnesty MENA

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