Video of activist Sara El-Yafi ripping Lebanese government goes viral, sparks controversy

LONDON: A video of a Lebanese public policy consultant and activist ripping apart the government during a TV debate went viral on social media platforms Thursday, with many lebanese sharing it as a way to express their mounting frustration with the current situation in their country.

Sara El-Yafi was highlighting the severity of the country’s crises on France 24 and used strong language to describe Lebanon's political leaders. 

“They are mafia lords, militia lords, a can of carcinogenic worms who thrive and survive in sectarian divides,” she said in a fiery monologue that summed up what many Lebanese people had been feeling over the past year. “Hyperinflation is a rare phenomenon in the world, but it is the daily bread of the Lebanese people. This comes at the backdrop of a country that has seen no economic growth for years due to the incomprehensible incompetence of a dreadful ruling class, a damning ruling class that has invested none of our resources on any form of productive investment or societal nation-building but instead was spending, embezzling, stealing the funds of the Lebanese people to uphold their mafia feudal kingdom.”

Lebanon is fighting battles across multiple fronts: An unprecedented economic crisis that has seen the national currency lose 85 percent of its value, a political struggle that has seen Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri still without a government months after being tasked to form one, and the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition, half of the capital Beirut was levelled by last August’s explosion that killed over 200 people and left around 300,000 homeless, and the caretaker energy minister earlier warned that Lebanon was heading toward “total darkness” at the end of the month due to its inability to supply electricity.