DUBAI: When 59-year-old Walid Alami, a Lebanese cardiologist, was 19, he worked as a volunteer in an emergency operating room and helped dozens of people who were wounded during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
After a major explosion ripped through the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020, she once again found herself in life-saving emergency action.
However, as has been the case with thousands of middle-class Lebanese professionals, the country’s long, overarching woes eventually proved too much to bear, forcing them and their families to move abroad in search of security and economic security. .
Alamy left a lucrative cardiology practice in the US and returned to Beirut in 2012 so that he could be closer to his extended family and his children to experience the nation of their roots.
“I wanted my children to grow up in Lebanon and know their homeland,” he told Arab News. “My hope was to replicate my American practice there, improve the system, innovate and care for patients like I did in America.
“But to my dismay, things didn’t go according to plan professionally because our system is corrupt, including the medical system.”
Undeterred, Alamy persevered in the hope that the country’s fortunes would eventually turn. But poor governance, institutional collapse and the country’s economic collapse soon began to take a toll on his family’s finances.
“I started losing money because of the banking system, corruption and declining incomes,” he said. “Financially and professionally, I was doing worse than ever.”
By 2021, Alamy decided that enough was enough. He once again packed his bags and returned to America to be reunited with his family. He had far less money in his pocket and more painful memories than he did a decade ago.
The lives of his two children were also affected by the economic collapse of Lebanon. He had trouble paying university tuition fees for his 21-year-old daughter, Noor, who was studying at NYU in New York. Meanwhile, 18-year-old JD was sent to a boarding school after the devastating port blast.
“It was my dream that he would graduate from American University in Beirut but it didn’t happen,” Alamy said.
“Over the years, I have not been able to generate enough cash for a small part of my daughter’s living expenses. I found myself in a situation where I could not support the cost of my children’s education from Beirut, especially with the devaluation of the currency and the fact that our funds were confiscated.
Alamy found himself in a position to borrow money from his family to help pay for his children’s education.
“I had no choice but to leave. And so, in 2021, I decided to return to the US,” he said. “I feel like I have lost my dreams. Going back to Lebanon, I want to pay back my country of origin. , was hoping to emulate things on a professional and social level.”
Although Alamy and his family were able to make changes to life back in America, the events of the past decade continued to affect his life.
“I’m almost 60 and now I’m reinventing myself as a cardiologist,” he said. “But I have to do what I have to do to support my family.”
The story of the Alami in Lebanon is a familiar one, as the country of about 6.7 million people experiences one of the largest waves of emigration in its history.
Since 2019, the country is in the grip of its worst financial crisis ever, compounded by the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and prolonged political paralysis.
For many Lebanese, the last straw was the Beirut port explosion, which killed at least 218 people and injured 7,000. It caused property damage of $15 billion and left an estimated 300,000 people homeless.
Nearly two years later, the country faces a worsening food crisis as the war in Ukraine has already fueled skyrocketing high prices of staple foods.
According to the World Bank, Lebanon’s nominal GDP fell from $52 billion in 2019 to $21.8 billion in 2021, a contraction of 58.1 percent. Unless reforms are implemented soon, real GDP is projected to decline by 6.5 per cent this year.
In May, the black market cap of the Lebanese pound fell to an all-time low of 35,600 against the US Dollar. According to the United Nations, the financial crisis has pushed 82 percent of the population below the poverty line since the end of 2019.
The parliamentary elections held in May gave a glimmer of hope that things could turn around. The Lebanese Army Party emerged as the largest Christian party for the first time, while the Hezbollah faction lost its majority. However, it is not yet clear whether Hezbollah’s opponents will be able to form a cohesive and stable coalition capable of implementing administrative and economic reforms.
These concurrent uncertainties have sent thousands of young Lebanese abroad in search of security and opportunity, including many of the country’s top medical professionals and teachers.
According to a report released by Information International in February 2022, the number of migrants increased from 17,721 in 2020 to 79,134 in 2021 – its highest rate in five years. The Beirut-based research center identified the emigration rate as “the highest seen by Lebanon in five years”.
A sharp increase in emigration was recorded between mid-December 2018 and mid-December 2019, with 66,800 Lebanese migrants, compared to 33,841 during the same period in 2018.
Historically, many Lebanese chose to relocate to Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, and the states of the Arabian Gulf. Recently they have been visiting Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Serbia and even Iraq.
According to Iraqi officials, more than 20,000 people arrived from Lebanon between June 2021 and February 2022, not counting pilgrims visiting the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
Fastfact
Lebanon’s nominal GDP fell from $52bn in 2019 to $21.8bn by 2021 (World Bank).
The black market price of the Lebanese pound fell to 35,600 against the US dollar in May.
Lebanese ambassador to Iraq Ali Habab told Agence France-Presse news agency: “Recently there has been an (people’s) movement.” He said the health sector has been particularly affected by the influx of Iraqi hospitals with “dozens of Lebanese doctors serving their services”.
With the financial means to relocate, the UAE remains a preferred destination for Lebanon. Mariana Wehbe, 42, who runs a luxury PR firm, moved to Dubai in August 2021 with her 17-year-old daughter, Sophie, who left Lebanon after the Beirut blast.
“Even during the (2019) revolution, explosion and crisis, we all found ways to continue working and working with clients abroad,” Wehbe told Arab News.
“Most of those who left did so to be with their families and to create a safe and stable environment for their children. My daughter needed a place to read safely and maintain her sanity. With power and internet cuts Beirut was no longer that. His formative years are ahead of him. ,
She said that, inevitably, some of this new generation of migrants will begin to feel at home after a while and may decide to return, filled with a renewed sense of hope.
“Lebanon has always been like this: you leave and then you come back,” Wehbe said. “You give up and then you have hope because we all want to go back home. So, many families are going back in the hope that things are getting better.”
However, the American University of Beirut’s Crisis Observatory said in August 2021 that it would be difficult for Lebanon to address the current talent shortage because it is the country’s youth who are leaving.
According to the results of an Arab Youth Opinion Survey published in 2020, about 77 percent of respondents in Lebanon said they were thinking about emigration – the highest percentage of any Arab country that year.
It is easy to see why so many young Lebanese would be looking for an exit strategy. According to the World Bank, one in five people have lost their jobs since October 2019, and 61 percent of companies have reduced permanent employees by an average of 43 percent.
“The migration of the middle class to Lebanon is wiping out the country,” Alami told Arab News from his self-exile in the US.
“A nation built on the middle class, and with all the engineers, bankers, lawyers and middle class professionals leaving Lebanon, I think we will see the whole foundation crumbling. It will be very difficult to rebuild with the current situation.”
The World Health Organization estimated in September 2021 that more than 40 percent of Lebanese doctors and nurses have left the country since October 2019.
“More than 35 percent of health professionals have left for the Gulf, Europe or the US to continue their careers,” Alamy said.
“I don’t see myself going back in the next 10 years from a professional standpoint, because there is no magic wand that is going to change things in Lebanon in the next decade. I just need to secure my children’s future.”
