Anatomy of a Collapse: How 2020 Rewrote the History of Lebanon

By The Lebanon2020 Archive Team | Historical Retrospective

To understand the sheer magnitude of the tragedy that befell Lebanon in 2020, one must first understand the illusion that preceded it. For decades, Lebanon was held together by a fragile glue of sectarian power-sharing, a banking sector that promised impossible interest rates, and the resilience of a people who had learned to dance on the edge of a volcano. In 2020, the volcano finally erupted, not with lava, but with a convergence of crises so severe that the World Bank would later rank it as one of the top three most severe economic collapses worldwide since the mid-19th century.

2020 in Lebanon was not merely a bad year; it was a year of unraveling. It was the year the "Switzerland of the Middle East" narrative finally shattered, revealing a state hollowed out by decades of corruption, mismanagement, and negligence. It was a year defined by three distinct yet interconnected catastrophes: the financial implosion, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the apocalyptic explosion at the Port of Beirut.

I. The Economic Freefall: The Death of the Lira

While the protests of October 17, 2019 (the "Thawra") set the stage, 2020 was when the economic floor gave way. For 22 years, the Lebanese Lira had been pegged to the US dollar at a rate of 1,507.5. This peg provided a semblance of stability and purchasing power for the Lebanese middle class. But it was a stability built on a Ponzi scheme engineered by the central bank and the political elite.

As 2020 dawned, banks began to tighten informal capital controls. Citizens found themselves unable to access their own life savings. Dollar accounts were frozen, and withdrawals were limited to pitiful amounts in the local currency, which was rapidly losing value. The term "Lollar" was coined to describe US dollars trapped in the Lebanese banking system—numbers on a screen with no physical reality.

By mid-2020, the currency had lost 80% of its value. Hyperinflation set in. The price of bread, medicine, and fuel skyrocketed. Scenes of fights breaking out in supermarkets over subsidized powdered milk became commonplace. The electricity grid, already failing for decades, collapsed further, plunging Beirut into darkness for 20 hours a day. The social contract was obliterated. The state ceased to provide. It became a predator, devouring the wealth of its citizens to keep its own heart beating.

II. The Pandemic: A Crisis Within a Crisis

Into this economic inferno stepped COVID-19. When the first case was detected in February 2020, the country held its breath. The healthcare system, once the envy of the Arab world, was already buckling under the financial crisis. Hospitals were running out of supplies, unable to import equipment due to the dollar shortage. Doctors and nurses were emigrating in droves, their salaries rendered worthless by inflation.

The government imposed lockdowns, which were medically necessary but economically suicidal. For a population where day laborers rely on daily wages to eat, "stay at home" was a sentence of starvation. The pandemic exposed the utter lack of a social safety net. There was no stimulus check, no unemployment benefit, no government aid. The only thing that kept people from starving was community solidarity—neighbors feeding neighbors, NGOs filling the void of the state, and the diaspora sending fresh dollars (remittances) to keep their families afloat.

III. 6:07 PM: The End of the World

And then came August 4th. At 6:07 PM, a fire in Hangar 12 at the Port of Beirut ignited 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that had been stored improperly for six years. The resulting explosion was one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in human history.

"It felt like a nuclear bomb. The air was sucked out of the room. Then the glass shattered, the walls crumbled, and the city turned to gray dust. In a split second, the heartbeat of Beirut stopped."

The blast killed over 218 people, injured 7,000, and left 300,000 homeless. Entire neighborhoods—Gemmayze, Mar Mikhael, Karantina—were pulverized. These were the heritage districts, the hubs of art, culture, and nightlife, the very soul of Beirut. The destruction was biblical. But what followed was perhaps even more traumatic: the silence of the state.

In the days following the blast, not a single government official visited the stricken areas. There was no army coordination to clear the rubble, no state emergency response. Instead, it was the youth of Lebanon who descended upon the city with brooms and shovels. It was the people who cleared the glass, the people who triaged the wounded, the people who cooked for the homeless. The state was not just absent; it was the perpetrator. The ammonium nitrate had been there with the knowledge of security officials, judges, and ministers. They knew, and they did nothing.

IV. The Political Vacuum and the "State Within a State"

The explosion led to the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government, but in Lebanon, resignation does not mean departure. The political elite—the same warlords who had ruled since the end of the Civil War in 1990—engaged in their usual macabre dance of horse-trading. Months passed without a functional government. The investigation into the blast was stalled, obstructed, and politicized at every turn.

2020 highlighted the paralysis of the Lebanese political system. It is a system designed for deadlock, where sectarian quotas ensure that no one is ever held accountable because everyone is complicit. The concept of the "State" became abstract. In reality, Lebanon was a collection of fiefdoms, creating a power vacuum that sucked the hope out of the population.

V. The Great Exodus

Faced with starvation, danger, and a total lack of future prospects, the Lebanese people did the only thing left: they left. 2020 marked the beginning of the "Third Exodus." Unlike previous waves of emigration during the Civil War, this wave was different. It was a brain drain of existential proportions.

Doctors, engineers, professors, artists, and entrepreneurs packed their bags. They were not leaving because of war; they were leaving because of the peace that felt like a slow death. The airport became the saddest place in the country, a daily scene of tearful goodbyes as parents sent their children away, knowing they might not return for years. Lebanon was losing its greatest asset: its human capital.

VI. Resilience or Curse?

Throughout 2020, the world praised the "resilience" of the Lebanese people. But for many in Lebanon, the word became a curse. To be resilient means to endure the unendurable. It is a romanticized way of saying "you are on your own." The Lebanese are resilient because they have no choice. They generate their own electricity because the state doesn't. They buy their own water. They fix their own roads.

However, amidst the darkness of 2020, there were flickers of light. The civil society groups that formed after the blast showed a level of organization and capability that far stripped the government. Independent media outlets blossomed, challenging the narratives of the sectarian parties. A new political consciousness was born—one that rejected the feudal lords and demanded a secular, civic state.

Conclusion: The Phoenix Must Burn First

As 2020 came to a close, Lebanon was unrecognizable. The Paris of the Middle East was dark, broken, and hungry. The scars of August 4th were still fresh on the city's skin. The bank accounts were still frozen. But the illusion was gone.

If there is any silver lining to the catastrophe of 2020, it is the death of denial. The rot at the core of the system was exposed for the world to see. The old Lebanon died in 2020. Whether a new Lebanon can be born from the ashes remains the question of the decade. The myth of the Phoenix is that it rises from the ashes, but we often forget the first part: the bird must burn. In 2020, Lebanon burned. Now, the long, painful work of rising begins—not by the hands of its leaders, but by the will of its people.