By Maher Khazaal
On Friday, September 16, more than 10 banks were taken over by depositors in order to obtain their frozen funds.
Lebanese banks decided to close their branches next week for a period of 3 days, starting on Monday 19th, against these operations.
The spark of this movement was set by the young activist Sally Hafez, who entered a Blom Bank branch this Wednesday, with a toy gun, and forced the bank to give her her frozen money in order to pay for her sister’s cancer treatment.
What is happening today is a natural reaction of the people who lost almost everything, all the money that was deposited in the banks is gone, while the bankers, together with the rotten political class cannot give clear explanations regarding why the money disappeared, the people do know who is responsible for this.
We know that the banks have rejected financial solutions that achieve the minimum level of justice and reject everything that affects their profits.
We know that the bankers have manipulated the depositors’ money to finance the corruption network for more than 30 years.
We know that it is the banks that led the country to destruction and pushed society to the lowest levels of poverty.
And in spite of all this, they still refuse to take responsibility and their only solution is a 3-day “bosses’ strike”.
This strike is not a solution, the strike is an escalation in the face of the people, which we will confront by escalating our actions.
The anger of the Lebanese people is still alive, it is an anger that will never be extinguished until we manage to change the political cast that is built by warlords, that is built on the bodies of the innocents who were killed in the civil war, that is why we have to organize, to be able to strike with a united fist and make individual actions actions that make this class tremble, and build a political organization to answer to all the issues we are facing, and manage to give the last blow to this corrupt system, so that we can begin walking the road to build a just country, where the poor and working people have the reins.