The Lebanese Phoenix
My morning dark coffee was mixed lately with the sorrowful news regarding the collapse of the Lebanese economy. People are losing their jobs, their purchasing power, and even their hope to rise again. I felt for a couple of times that we are powerless and it’s the time to accept that hope is only a way to package the melancholic truth.
In my attempt to find any light inside the deep dark hole that we are inside, I remembered the metaphor of Lebanese phoenix that I heard about during the 2006 July war. Phoenix is the bird who can arise from the aches according to Greek mythology. Beirut, the capital of the old country, like the phoenix, was rebuilt more than seven times according to legend. So, to strengthen the glimpse of hope with actual reality, I searched for a recent stage where Lebanon was rising. I surprised when I found that between 1950 and 1974, Lebanon was in a golden stage with a GPD per capita is greater than many developed counties nowadays! So, my current concern becomes while drinking my morning coffee is how we can make the Lebanese phoenix rise again?
Note: I created this graph using tableau software based on the data from Maddison Project Database 2018.