Beirut explosion: The missing Lebanese link | Middle East Eye
Article by Mayssoun Sukarieh
▻https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/beirut-explosion-how-much-responsibility-lies-world-global-shipping
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/images-story/beirut+port%202020%20afp_0.jpg
Is it certain that the ammonium nitrate arrived in Beirut purely accidentally and remained there purely through local incompetence and international shipping lawlessness? Or was political agency involved?
Interesting discussion on Facebook between Reinoud Leenders and Laleh Khalili, among others.
Before we let this getting buried by the ‘this is all to blame on global neoliberalism’ mantra. Besides, how many other cities in the world get blown up at 4.5 on the scale of Richter just because global shipping is so awfully capitalist and unruly?
▻https://www.facebook.com/reinoud.leenders/posts/3272992076122766
The first criticizes a neoliberal understanding of the blast that is used by Lebanese elites to divert responsability outside of Lebanon.
Laleh Khalili answers that her argument, in the Guardian article (▻https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/08/beirut-explosion-lawless-world-international-shipping-) linking the blast to the lawless world of international shipping has been edited by the Gardian in a way that almost absolves the local elites.