On a drive back to Beirut from Bar Elias, my colleague, Maha, started thinking aloud. She said that Bar Elias was a 'critical place'. I asked her what she meant by that, to which she listed off a number of apparently unrelated practices and characteristics which we had come across in the past few weeks. Hash, porous borders with Syria, smuggling, a lack of governance, immense inequality, low educational attainment, all combined together to make the town 'critical'.
Thinking on that now, I think she was suggesting that Bar Elias seemed to exist on the edge. People could snap at any moment, out of their day-to-day and into something far more intense. Because the day-to-day is shot through with toxic politics: reproductions of power and (in)justice (Liboiron, Tironi & Calvillo, 2018) which can press upon people.
On the 'Official Website of the Litani River' by the River Litani Authority, is a description of how a lack of governance, coupled with the behaviour of chemicals from factories in the river water, have led to the 'deterioration and shrinking of many permanent rivers'. The same authority is responsible for overseeing heavily contesed water exploitation projects, including the Bisri Valley damning project. This artefact is taken from the Save the Bisri Valley Campaign, which argues that 'the project is based on an insufficient understanding of the water balance in Lebanon, and an incomplete consideration of alternatives, favoring expensive large-scale infrastructure instead of an integrated, environmentally conscious water management plan.'
In their eyes, the same authority in charge of protecting the River Litani from toxic waste is responsible for its destruction. This is toxic politics in action.
On a drive back to Beirut from Bar Elias, my colleague, Maha, started thinking aloud. She said that Bar Elias was a 'critical place'. I asked her what she meant by that, to which she listed off a number of apparently unrelated practices and characteristics which we had come across in the past few weeks. Hash, porous borders with Syria, smuggling, a lack of governance, immense inequality, low educational attainment, all combined together to make the town 'critical'.
Thinking on that now, I think she was suggesting that Bar Elias seemed to exist on the edge. People could snap at any moment, out of their day-to-day and into something far more intense. Because the day-to-day is shot through with toxic politics: reproductions of power and (in)justice (Liboiron, Tironi & Calvillo, 2018) which can press upon people.
On the 'Official Website of the Litani River' by the River Litani Authority, is a description of how a lack of governance, coupled with the behaviour of chemicals from factories in the river water, have led to the 'deterioration and shrinking of many permanent rivers'. The same authority is responsible for overseeing heavily contesed water exploitation projects, including the Bisri Valley damning project. This artefact is taken from the Save the Bisri Valley Campaign, which argues that 'the project is based on an insufficient understanding of the water balance in Lebanon, and an incomplete consideration of alternatives, favoring expensive large-scale infrastructure instead of an integrated, environmentally conscious water management plan.'
In their eyes, the same authority in charge of protecting the River Litani from toxic waste is responsible for its destruction. This is toxic politics in action.