The Lebanese authorities manage the public spaces upon security concerns rather than people interaction, and make them only accessible for a “polite” public proving good behavior. In the name of regulation and safety, informal economies, customary practices, cultural uses, individuals, homeless people, and marginalized groups are often expelled from the public space. In the name of hygiene, ethics, and public health, public spaces are closed and access is forbidden for people who need such spaces the most. We will discuss through this text a critic of the authority’s practices and tools, as it makes the public domain ineffective, non-inclusive, and barely used. Moreover, we validate the way used by the State to turn the public common property that represents the inalienable public domain into a private common property (including sidewalks), which increasingly deprives the public from spaces, facilities, and services.
Authorities are approaching public spaces in cities as empty and constant spaces that must not change or adapt to people needs. We were notified, from time to time, about some achievements regarding the removal of infringements on sidewalks, and the expulsion of beggars and scavengers, as a part of the process of “cleaning the city”. However, such actions did not solve the problem of beggars and scavengers as marginalized groups without any rights, nor the infringements as an alert to the place-based needs of people.
After a meeting with Beirut’s Governor and the President of the Municipality, one member of the parliament informed us about addressing a long paper of demands with some municipal specialists, regarding the organization of the public space in Beirut, including the removal of “beggars and scavengers who are performing very dangerous and chaotic actions in the country.” This discomfort due to beggars, scavengers, and infringements is a result of a technical approach that perceives the city and its public spaces as spaces of exclusion, except for people who have privileges. Moreover, the initiatives aiming at removing the poor of the city are an attempt to remove the poor and not poverty. In the midst of the economic crisis and rise and expansion of poverty rates, along with the manifestations of displacement, begging on roads, or the search for alternative income sources, such as the manifestation of scavenging, the Municipality of Beirut surprises us, as confirmed by a statement of the Department of Public Relations issued on 16/12/2021, by a “campaign led by the Guard Regiment of Beirut against the beggars and scavengers in the street of Hamra.”
The statement said that the City Guard Regiment started to expel the beggars who were lying on the floor of sidewalks and roads in the street of Hamra, because they were annoying the pedestrians. The statement also said that some “scavengers” were chased and arrested. Their trolleys were seized under the pretext of throwing the content of the waste collected on roads, which led to multiplying insects and rodents, and to the emission of unpleasant odors. The statement announced to the people of Beirut that these measures would be frequently taken in the main streets, crossroads, and commercial markets of the city.
The Municipality of Beirut, just like the State, is in a denial of reality. Although poverty rates are rising, and destitution affects most households and individuals, the State lacks any policy to deal with the consequences of the growing economic crisis and its social impact. The municipality takes the initiative to adopt some actions that are mildly an additional crush of the most vulnerable groups of this society. The responsibility of fighting poverty lies with the State that continues to evade its responsibilities. Instead of expelling beggars, the State must develop fair social support policies and provide alternative housing; instead of arresting the scavengers, it would have been more meaningful to create job opportunities in the field of waste sorting and treatment, a process also neglected by the officials. The unpleasant odor in the city is due to the streams of waste on roads, while a plan to treat the waste crisis is absent. The authority succeeded to turn the waste from a wealth that can create a productive sector into a curse that makes the city’s population under the mercy of private companies that collect waste through suspicious tenders without any follow up or accountability.
The action of the municipality is not a matter of pride. No good ever comes from dealing with minors who lost their minimum rights as being treated like criminals. Although the municipality tries to “clean” the streets and sidewalks from people who don’t have anything, it acts as it is implementing an urban policy capable of improving the reality of public spaces and the quality of life in the city. In fact, the State (not the municipality alone) does not only evade its responsibilities to provide the basic needs for people in the worst economic collapse affecting Lebanon, but also turns to be a small dictator who hits, whenever possible, the most vulnerable groups.
The decisions of the municipality to remove the so-called infringements on public spaces is another step on the path towards the “filtration” and reduction of social diversification in the city. The campaign has a wider context, where authorities are encouraging real estate development projects to violate public spaces, while public gardens remain closed illegally upon a decision by the Municipality of Beirut.
Moreover, the State’s way of approaching the public domain on the level of streets and public spaces is leading to the destruction of streets and sidewalks, while creating a negative impact on the residents of the targeted neighborhood. This matter resulted in leaving the public domain, and thus excluding people from there, especially people who need it the most, including women, elderly people, refugees, and poor.
Even nowadays, after ending all the protection measures of the pandemic, the public gardens in Beirut and regions are still closed under the pretext of the pandemic. While the public gardens in Beirut are totally closed, and are in a poor condition even before the pandemic, it is surprising that the Municipality of Beirut is spending big amounts that were supposed to be used to maintain and take care of these gardens. The decisions of the municipality highlighted that it approved, between 2020 and 2021, granting 11 advances of 280 million Lebanese Pounds. Most of these advances were for the “need of irrigating, clearing, and grubbing the gardens and centers. In general, these advances were distributed sometimes in Beirut, and sometimes in specialized places such as Ras Beirut, Ain El Mreisseh, El Mousaitbeh, El Bachoura, Zuqaq El Blat, Ashrafieh, Mudawar, Rmeil, El Saifi, El Mazraa, and Saquiet El Janzir. We don’t know where these amounts were spent in reality, and the reason of spending such amounts during the complete shutdown and lack of maintenance of gardens.
While cafes, restaurants, and bars are reopening their doors for consumers – with more threat to public health and a lack of respect of social distancing, and in closed rooms or rooms that lack enough ventilation – the State is showing the public gardens, the safest places in the light of the pandemic, as unsafe. It is obvious that the authority is disrespecting the health of people, and is seeking to deprive the least able to consume in a cafe, restaurant, or bar from their right to public spaces and recreation moments in a crowded city.
In addition to the almost complete absence of maintenance, management, and shutdown of public gardens, Beirut and regions suffer from a lack of public spaces and a withdrawal by the municipalities from assuming their responsibility to turn their lands to gardens or appropriate lands to this purpose, while there is more need to this kind of spaces, whether as a result of the pandemic or economic collapse and people’s need for public spaces, especially outdoor spaces, for entertainment and gathering.
A studio of works, submitted, in cooperation with many groups, a petition to the Municipality of Beirut and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and claimed to open the public gardens. The Department of the Secretary of the Municipal Council answered to the petition by referring the demand to the legal committee that decided to keep the demand, i.e to neglect it. The Department of Administrative Affairs provided an oral notification by Mr. SAMER YAACOUB, who said to us that the gardens were closed upon a decision by the pandemic committee, and some others due to restoration. At last, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers didn’t answer up to date.
Finally, the authority, within its different elements, is actively working on suggesting projects of the abandon of the State’s public property by ending such property. The State’s public property is all the things set to be used, due to their nature, for the public interest. Such property is not sold and cannot be acquired over time. It is not registered in the register of ownership, and is not given property numbers. Such property includes the courses and sides of rivers, winter courses, beaches, waterfalls, lakes, irrigation and drying channels, public roads, passages, and sidewalks among others. Therefore, such property is protected, as the State cannot use it or sell it.
In this context, the authority created legal solutions that allow it abandon the State’s public property by issuing decrees – so-called the “termination decrees” - where the quality of public interest is ended for this property to be used accordingly.
We mentioned the termination decrees since 1992 up to date[1], and analyzed them in terms of content, frequency, and geographical distribution.
It was clear that ending the State’s public property to remove the restrictions on the public authorities to use and privatize this property was an embodiment of how the State dealt with its property, perceived all what was public, preferred the private interest instead of achieving the public interest, and dedicated its concept of earth as a good and guarantee used to generate a financial or political profit by distributing it as a part of benefits and the nepotism network.
The request of ending may be justified, in some cases and within the grounds of the decree, by achieving the public interest, since an official actor may claim to end a public property, in order to build a public facility, such as an official school. Therefore, the ownership is transferred to the concerned ministry, i.e the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and becomes a private State’s property. But the share of the private actors (an individual, a company, an endowment, a union, or an association, etc…), who are often owners of the neighboring properties, in order to benefit from these decrees was the highest (83%). Ending a public property may occur as a result of diverting a road or the course of a channel. Then, the public interest ends for the old part since it is replaced by a new diversion or in exchange for a waiver of a private property in favor of a public property (26% of these decrees). However, these decrees may often include secrets. If we look into their details, we will find that they are somehow related to a kind of nepotism by serving up some parts of public property on a silver plate to the powerful people, influencers, and close people to the political actors, or to purchase political loyalties.
As the authority tries to purify and filter the public domain, the right to mobility becomes a good, since groups and individuals are prevented from mobility by restricting the possibility of using the streets and spaces inclusively and for all. Therefore, such streets and spaces cannot be changed to adapt to their needs.
The organization and management of the public domain, as a responsibility of the State’s entities, is mainly targeting the interest of most people. Preserving and using the public domain is necessary as preserving the State itself. Therefore, any tool used to privatize the public domain, restrict its uses or the diversification of its users, or exclude people from it, is an illegal tool, regardless if it is used to justify the use of the concepts of the system, security, and public health.
[1] According to the website of the Official Gazette, which includes all its publication issues. In our research, the term “termination” ("إسقاط" in Arabic) has been used in the title’s field to search for some decrees where the State’s public property was ended in favor of the State’s private property. That’s why, there may be some missing information, in case some decrees are undocumented.