FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE LEBANON March 15, 2019 - PRESENT

Historical Background

The Fridays For Future movement, school striking for Climate Justice, has been a cornerstone in mainstreaming Science through internationalist pressure. After more than four years, it is now evident that a lot more work needs to be carried out, especially involving the Global South, where some children don’t have the ability to go to school, let alone strike from it.

Historically, it is true that barely anyone knows about us, but our contributions and willingness to keep attempting to change the status quo should be remembered in the books. We not only foresaw the revolution of October 17, 2019, but had organized a dozen marches prior to this week which witnessed the largest wildfires we have ever seen, demanding PM Saad Hariri to declare a State of Climate Emergency. We also took part in the revolutionary protests, setting up community kitchens on food waste; clothes, books and electronics exchange; as well as a series of webinars you may find on YouTube with ex-combattants, artists and many more…. .

With an ever repressed youth movement in the Arab region this decade, we find ourselves held at gun-point to keep shut. Effectively, the Fridays For Future international movement contact in Lebanon found themselves having to protest and organize with the families of those suffering because of the political negligence which blew up our capital on August 4, 2020, as Justice was delayed for more than the five days promised, until today: they, who had launched Lebanon’s Blue/Green New Deal, were shot 18 shrapnels pointed at the chest and face, as Emanuel Macron celebrated France’s return to Great Lebanon, with TotalEnergies inviting the two arch-enemies of Israel and Hezbollah into bed over fossil gas profits, and planning for the Port.

Oil-rich Arab investments to rebuild post-war Lebanon were all for nothing, except the benefit of those who pillaged our archeological heritage! We are not asking them for favors, it’s their moral duty to finance us, properly this time, to start protecting our forests, rivers, endemic biodiversity and peoples.

GR18 Against Police-States and the IMF / World Bank

Today, unity was struck between Lebanon’s secular civil society, the families of the 235 victims killed, the thousands of injured and hundreds of thousands of those who lost their homes to the Beirut Port Blast, together with the feminist movement behind the longest sit-in in global politics demanding a recognition of victimhood due to war to the women whose husbands and children were disappeared during the 15 year Civil War; abruptly ending, recycling warlords to parliament.

Last week, in commemorating three years since the Port Blast, Fridays For Future Lebanon not only picked back up its radical hope to stop the delay of Justice by organizing at the side of a relatively new Secular students’ union – taking the frontlines, and single-handedly blocking the highway road which still constitutes an unresolved crime scene – but we also had a presence at the side of the families of the firefighters sent to turn off one of the largest non-nuclear bombs, reassuring them that we stand with them until the very end: until Climate Justice is served!

Certainly, we are better positioned to promote climate solutions than the IMF/World Bank with its disastrously corrupt dams, here.

GOALS

• The abolition of Kafala system of modern day slavery used here & to build the COP28 venue, raising awareness in Arabic & workers’ languages with eco-solutions to escape poverty and abuse.

• Creating new public spaces where local communities can safely flourish in solidarity, against a backdrop of ‘sextarian’ discourse blame shifting against LGBTQAI people, greatly at risk.

• Liaising with other youth groups, revolutionary political movements, grassroots technologists, and the religious establishment for a September of global actions to End Fossil Fuels for Climate Education & becoming the first Arab country to adopt the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

• Campaign for demilitarization with Arab peers, and put an end to creative emissions' accounting and fake solutions -- echoing Palestinians' call to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israeli settler colonialism.

• Show our peers at FFF MAPA and International what is possible when we organize using the best tools for bringing direct democracy.

• Introduce local eco-startups to web3 technologies, and serve them through DeFi.

Many thanks, for your support! Please don't hesitate to reach out with questions at fridaysforfuturelebanon@gmail.com