we have nothing. to lose we lost everything jobs funnily everything this is a country with 5000 years of history it is an amazing country they took everything we have nothing left this is why our only option is to go down on the streets and ask if if with violence we have to use violence we are fighting a 40 year career up the government in a money laundering drug trafficking of drugs weapons there's a lot of accusation i know it's not enough i don't know if you live in one who would not say that it is and i will say it again this is the actual reality tell me this is not an accusation never knew that when you just watch this and they're fighting there's no does no war was all people are facing they are suffering without collateral damage we cannot win if we don't lose we have to lose you have to sacrifice we have to still have struck bottom. to stand when you 1st took to the

streets i remember you were all chanting peaceful peaceful this individual rather large if i may say to show that this is like me i mean people who worked like like like we are people he's a father i'm an artist i like like like it's not we didn't want to confront nor we can confront that today i was putting my cast and i didn't know what to do it i looked at the cup but then you i don't even know how to put my defensive you know here are nearest to me we have tried before us i was not working there like this like 100 days rather. well the politicians so adrian is inconsistent at this defeat or angle that i am now mourning the former king about the nerds as a resort to violence in order to achieve their goals at the beginning our i do remember and i used to see the same protesters in the streets saying that those are the only way forward is to use peaceful means we are not going to be drawn into any conflict but. and you can see the anger people don't feel that they have any future

in their own country accusing really the politicians of taking from the people and not giving anything in return there's a barely any basic services in this country they mention the electricity company house the focus on electricity people are forced to pay 2 bills to have a private break company in order to have a system in your home and let's just remember what triggered this. tunnel tobar the 17th there was a proposal to thomas watson cars which should be free and that clearly was the tipping point for many people especially it came just a few days after wildfires the authorities were unable to put out wild fires because the equipment they didn't have the emergency equipment that they needed to do that so so it and you can see the anger for yourselves people expressing their frustration and their growing impatient with the politicians in power after serious

anahata reporting live from central beirut for the moment is a many thanks indeed if you've just joined us this is al jazeera with continuing coverage of events in central beirut where police firing tear gas and water cannon of protesters who are demanding a speedy resolution to the country's financial and economic crisis hundreds of protesters have been involved in running battles with security forces demonstrators angry over plans by the ruling party to form a government from the current political class joining us now on the line is one of those protesters mayor a to e. bay a we spoke to you what some 4050 minutes ago where are you right now what's going on around you. right now i'm next to us i think that few meters up the stairs have significant pick from the area nearby the 'd men's and right now everybody has scattered a the area is next to the. * 9 plan to move towards

possibly this me square which is at the other side of the parliament that you guys were too much good to handle the protesters had to remove significantly from the area. there was a lot of people who were saying things you saw the guises. and the police were chasing some of the protesters it's a different addy raised. by the parliament they are next to on the hard newspaper. the protesters now are in different squares trying to recover from the tear gas bombs with that intention to go back and want things have calmed down a bit but definitely the taking 15220000 protesters continue. pretty people so angry there in beirut tonight. i think there have been several people who have a commented on this but it's been nice for days there has been no response from the

government with regards to the protests to the demise of this evolution and continuously the governments are not. so there are plans to form a government that does not fit with the demands that the people have been speaking about for that d 94 days people have are becoming a more and more economically efficient every day people are starving people are hungry people are angry at the situation that we're living in while we were down there we were hearing that actually they were spending so much was there with the was there just so many on us and there are people who 4 just leave anyone just to their homes for the 1st 8 days and there are they do not prevent him all of the other. right basically when i think people are not succeeding in this government 9 to some was there to help care to an extent to see if saudi people have all of this has been actually making for reading longside rights 'd and that people are seeing that

this is their only chance to get their rights and from the government how long are you prepared to stand on the streets man. we're here for a few more hours i guess. and then we. can no longer hold the crowd but 4th row far the numbers have been enormous usually when these kinds of things happen and protests. try a way from the violence that's taking place right now but you're seeing hundreds of people holding their ground and now all right mayor many thanks indeed we had to either one of the protests and you can see on the streets there of beirut the streets that are thick with tear gas and the smoke from file works that are being thrown by the protesters as to where this is really corey journalism professor at the american university of beirut he's with us via skype from the city what do you make of what we've heard in the last 15 minutes or so those protests to say

that life is not worth living they've nothing left to lose they took everything and what may i was saying just a moment as year ago they got water for the water cannon but not for people's homes in beirut. yes that's right and this is a typical of what many of the protesters are saying and not just the young people out on the streets but a lot of middle age and older people people all over the country are really totally exasperated by what they feel is the disdain by which their own government treats them that we've had this terrible crisis economically now for months and months but there's been 3 months of protests and there's there are very few statements by government ministers talking about the economy the value of the lebanese leader essential issues there the government barely talks to the people and this is what either of them people have the sense of not just helplessness but almost

dehumanization that they're not treated like human beings by their own government it's not a you know foreign occupying power or a colonizing our or military invasion from abroad which happens all over the region and has happened here this is your own people. in your own country so you had really now this incredible convergence of 2 very. strong of forces the anger rage. and desperation of probably a majority of the population though they're not all out of the streets and at the same time the same kind of fear among the political elite that their spirit desperately wants to stay in power and is trying to carry our policies that they think will help them stay in power if they make just symbolic reforms and changes and you can see it in the symbolism of the slogans there was demonstrations i attended a few. to see what's going on the other day near the university and the slogans

that people lose they say that down with the rule of the security state down with the rule of the banks down with the rule of the central bank. they're there really expressing extreme anger at these authorities who they see as being in cahoots with each other and the banking system and politically elite will work and. work and it's hard to tell where this is going to go by the way what you're seeing in lebanon is very typical of what you're seeing in iraq and sudan. and and other countries where you have similar situations each one a little bit different particularly in its own situation but the driving forces of political anger if your mom extracts and psychological dehumanization those forces are all common throughout this region and that's why you've got demonstrations

going on now almost nonstop for the last 910 years across the majority of arab countries and it's really the question of who has what sorts who sets the rules and who benefits from the government system and this is not going to be decided on the streets ultimately it's going to be decided in a political showdown and nobody knows how it's going to turn out in lebanon what you need is a serious mediator here to step in as happened in sudan and sudan made a credible transformation with the governing council which has one more civilian member of the military and this is historic lebanon is going to have to go through something similar where the political elite and the citizens come to some agreement about how to make a transition now to resolve the pressing economic and technical issues like energy garbage or water let alone jobs or the value of money on of these sort

of each $1.00 of these is a big issue of that all. pressing on people simultaneously and when people see that . that the government is able to be so decisive when it comes to putting down protests but is totally. undecisive in terms of aggression that. is the impact of millions of people that's what really gets them angry running many thanks indeed for ceramic henri there in beirut. on the ground there in central beirut trying to dodge the clouds of tear gas. well we're still in marco square adrian security forces have failed really to push protesters away from this area as you saw earlier a lot of tear gas were clogged and for this square the epicenter really of the

protest movement people are very defiant who've been speaking to people here they say the more violence that we've used against us the more quote revolutionary we become so people are promising to stay in the streets to continue with their protest action and they're promising that you know police action like this is not going to stop them from trying to achieve what they want to achieve and what people here want to achieve is a change in course but nobody here really is under the illusion that this is going to be an easy darfur to wit that they've been on the streets for $100.00 days in the early days of the uprising that cows and people were peacefully protesting in square as they were also rocking roads to try to disrupt the public life there when security forces internally and then said we will not we will allow you to stay in prayers and to protest peacefully but we will not allow you to disrupt public life in the early days of the uprising if you remember agents schools were closed banks

were closed for 2 weeks but the momentum slowed in the past few weeks for a number of rings wondering if so many blamed the violence that protesters faced from the from the. from inside people still support the mainly sectarian political parties in power and they were attacking peaceful protesters here trying to discourage them from staying in the street and security forces also use. violence against them and people also have to return to their jobs to work they need daily wages in order to survive even though many 1000000 people over the past few months lost their jobs even salaries have been cut in half because businesses are closing and of course there was also the holiday season christmas new year in the weather was very bad on tuesday activists released a statement calling on the lebanese to resume this uprising against the political elite to revive the momentum and that's a pretty we've been seeing over the past few days more and more protests in various

areas and more scenes like this more violent scenes like the security forces push and prevent the protesters from storming either the parliament building or the central bank so we keep repeating this but this is this is the reality is people are telling you can no longer serve our economy is in near collapse. rami khouri was saying just a few minutes ago it's hard to know where this is going to go you said to me what 45 minutes an hour ago that it's complicated this is lebanon but these protests have been going on for 4 months now as you say. something's got to give at some point how does this end where do we go from here. levanon system our political system the sectarian based where cultism the government is divided and the difference that the president has to be american

christian the prime minister has to be a phony the parliament speaker has to be a shia parliament has to be split. christians and muslims but people here are saying enough is enough. we don't want the sectarian system of governance any longer because our leaders what they have been doing was exploiting the states resources by providing that they support to their own constituency in order to stay in power they want the stand they want people who are qualified technocrats to run ministries instead of politicians instead of political parties so this was the amount from the street they want change 3 decades levanon is the 3rd most indebted country in the world and there are no basic services basic services are lacking. healthcare not everybody has access to health care the firefighters in the civil defense don't get any salaries from the government they continue to volunteer and

do their jobs without getting anything in return so people are here are saying we have been giving this but nothing in return and what our politicians have been doing is stealing public funds we want accountability another one of the 4 demands of an independent judiciary because they accuse the judiciary of fighting with certain political parties even the security forces some of the different units answer to certain politicians so the divide is deep in lebanon what this uprising did was bring people together we have to move a bit further away because of. ok so what this uprising did really was bring people together just cross sectarian solidarity which is quite which is quite unprecedented of lebanon because in the past when you see that when you see protests it's either called for by a political party or it is just a certain sect involved now this is across the syrian

a movement which wants to overthrow a sectarian system of government but it has a hard battle to with those in power are entrenched in the streets. the state's resources security forces answer to them as you can see but there is the fun and there's defiance in the streets as much as they are firing tear gas it's very difficult to bring their using water cannons and yet people are still in the square . to all these protesters that's managed to interview a few of them. who appear to be regular people they've been testing regularly for the last 4 months or so but other elements within. this crowd who perhaps has been sent. by these various sectarian elements you tell us about to stir up trouble.

well yes this is this was the fear is especially a few nights ago when they were running battles outside the central bank and become a commercial district in the center of beirut when banks were bound the life cash machines were were destroyed what if there were 3 different groups taking part in that protest action you have the anti-establishment protesters has crossed the carrion movement but you also have the leftists who were venting their anger towards capitalists but you also have supporters of the ruling alliance. party in power the free food truck movement. they were venting their anger towards banks in a message it was a political message to the head of the central bank for more than one reason that the central bank and the banks are in one way or the other. imposing caps on withdrawals i think we need to move back in order for me to speak if osing caps on woodrow rose as a form of pressure to help the protest movement so they're accusing the banking

sector of working and to help those in the street but it's not just that the ruling alliance is also angry and wants to oust but the central bank governor. they believe here is implementing the tight restrictions of us. cover the law is leaving the rule of law and so funny right back to the group which is under u.s. sanctions and the central bank governor is implementing what to the united states u.s. treasury is asking them to do by imposing restrictions on banks not just on hezbollah as a group but hezbollah supporters and the mainly shia community which is the support base of hezbollah and they are singled out because of these measures so there was a political message oh that's nice when banks were vandalized with cash machines were destroyed it was a direct message from the ruling alliance to the central bank governor but people here will are also affected by they believe that the banks financial policies that

have you know all this to this economic collapse. so there are a lot of issues at play but now there is a flower struggle yes the street is trying to talk the old couple what they call the rich people who are in control of the space but those in power say we won we won in an election in 200-2018 we will control the majority in parliament so it is our right to be represented in government that is their argument and what their argument is is that fine we will make some concessions we will appoint some technocrats but people here are saying that these are just how those figures there are appointed by certain political parties so they are on all of the political elite which is what people here do not want because if people who are still linked with the political parties. in power then little change can be made corruption files can be opened and the investigations into the public funds and how public

funds were stolen cannot be the answer will try to have some of it many thanks welcome back to you in just a few minutes i'll give you a chance to have some moves to watch one area where. the air is not quite so thick with tear gas as you can see. in downtown beirut. a sick veil of what it's a mixture of tear gas and smoke from fireworks the demonstrators been throwing at the riot police the police have been using water cannons and tear gas canisters against protesters who are on the streets once again at the end. of range rage rather for months worth of processes to merit in a speedy resolution of the country's financial and economic crisis we've seen running battles between security forces and the protesters who are angry over plans by the ruling party to the current political class gets more analysis from

professor rami khouri who's still with us in beirut what do you make of what dana was just saying there romney. well it's absolutely correct jane has been living through this as all of us she's been out on the streets and talking to people all the time and people are expressing themselves very honestly and very openly they're no longer afraid one of the striking new dimensions of what's going on is how openly and directly and leave it lee protesters challenge the ruling elite by name they talk about the. old former prime minister of the speaker of the house the president of political parties they call them out by name they call them all kinds of names they challenge them openly they're not afraid of them anymore they used to be afraid of them even followers of these movements are no longer completely falling in line and many of them still do support their sectarian leaders as in

a correctly set but many others are saying look i support hezbollah our support president down my support how do you eat but i can't feed my kids my kids don't have a job they've dropped out of school. i don't have enough money to get a medical operation and so the existential requirements of daily life are now overriding any kind of political affiliations this is not oh this is this is this started as a biological revolution biological in the sense that people need to get enough food water shelter and medicine to stay alive and to stay healthy and there are a lot of people are having trouble doing that not everybody but a lot of people are having trouble just meeting the minimum requirements of biological life and the biological stress has led to much more ideological. action and what's happened as as in a sense correctly that the the old sectarian divisions have blurred to

a large extent and you now have very much a class based confrontation between a small group of wealthy people and a large and growing group of poor people in lebanon the poverty rate is somewhere. close to 50 percent now and nobody knows for sure because the government statistics are not very clear across the whole region 2 thirds of the arabs 2 thirds of the 400000000 arabs are poor or vulnerable according to united nations very credible data and in lebanon it's the same situation only about $25.00 or 30 percent of lebanese attend public schools the rest either go to private schools or they don't go to school at all and the reason is only 25 percent because they don't think they're getting a very good educational only about 3040 percent of people have social security or health insurance so these are problems in lebanon that you know problems all across

the region 5060 percent of people work 'd in informal labor they work without contracts with no minimum wage no health precautions so there's a sliding. continuous slide. towards a social stress economic distress and fragmentation and you're seeing it now in this kind of that action and this trees where the protesters by their way or increasingly sophisticated and prepared i am on what sop lists as many people are and you get notice is people now are some doing out notices if you go to the protests here's how you deal with the gas here is what you should carry in your pockets here's the number to call the few need help and and what's happening also which is pretty fascinating and so sit sociologists are going to have to step in here and help us out this is that people or and touch by social medium telephone and what soap hoops and they're sending messages saying are right now people was sunning less is saying there's confrontation done towns sundry

enforcement source and come down and join us but for peaceful protesters now you do have that element as you mentioned of the trouble makers the instigators who are sent quoi all kinds of of their from forces are other sparred to pin them down some of them clearly identify themselves bar their a by the religion or of their political leadership but do you do you have but this is this happens everywhere in the world are in member protests of the united states is a student in the late 1960 is you had exactly the same think people peacefully protesting the war in vietnam or or a racial intolerance and then the cup with people start throwing rocks at the a the police to sampling i've experienced at the jordan and palestine i was in france in 1969 and earned i was watch their student protests there and this is human nature this a let me do with is the particularly is of lebanon where do you got crowds of people representing mass anger and fear or existential fear about the future of

their kids or their own futures you will gets people acting in the dynamic wait out it and predictable of the and i am equip out in public and some political groups will exploit that from the right of the left or whatever including possibly some people from overseas who want to create more problems and not on the we haven't seen any evidence or document but this is something that is again human nature and happens all over the place so there's a lot of loose ends here there's a lot of dimensions to what's going on that cannot be clearly pinned down but the fundamentals are very clear and very obvious and it has to be resolved either through. one side beating the other in the streets which is unlikely to happen but it's possible you had this happen in iran you had it in egypt where the where the

where the state with its security forces beat up the protesters so badly and imprisoned tens of thousands in egypt for instance. that it finally broke the back of any civilian who thought that he or she could go out and peacefully protest because an amount they're going to go to jail or get tortured in the future cases get killed that's unlikely to happen to me in lebanon or you might force a political agreement ok rami khouri the professor at the american university of beirut just very quickly let's hear from. his professor of international affairs and the promise at the not saddam university in lebanon thanks for being with us professor your thoughts on what's going on in beirut tonight. when i am now at my home in sun or going to a suburb of beirut and i am looking at the number of the t.v. screens in front of me and views and just in about i've been a bit ugly today it has become these are getting a sense. that amongst the nation began more than 3 months ago.

private property public 2 property being targeted on a lot on a larger scale and that is that is because the man in the slaughters on the economy in all of what is happening the demonstration are no more demonstration for rights . 'd and for economic and improvement they have become outright but i at how to write broadening of the very precious resources of the country i myself had to study it and get bitten by united states for 13 years in a state no state no sitting in the united states no police department known only for this month the agency would allow that to happen why is this happening in our country lebanon the reason i was that i'm not give you the answer. out of security forces and what i 1 mean all the time turner security forces are being pressured

but i merely by the united states not to contain the demo station or not to come forcefully down on the demos but i don't i'm not either but this is a matter for any reason why these riots out of spreading all over the country and arresting the company wrecking the economy wrecking the banking sector banks are being targeted all over the country and destroyed this is no more about the freedom this is no more about our own rights knowledge no more about economic rights this is a well we are to save 'd our country being in a sure didn't sound of our own and all of the security forces on the head of the security forces are being threatened by the united states not to contain and not 'd the most. but i'm particularly that i have to. go so i thought out of criminal and you can't drink pregnant women and i have never been an incompetent and i want to know what's been going on i think that there's not been i would have been out you had to 2 go to sort of 11 on no more of them that i had

a plan i had about how i don't know how to run 'd our 2 guests so they could be up after so long to reach to do so i forcefully on those but i know that i'm down. to submission i don't know about the company because that has been no forceful action by the security forces or the kind of the oic lorna's people or kind of all started about getting onto the streets i'm the victim of that because many of your ability to sit down there's no truth. be told of people going back on t.v. and don't talk about what's going on. 'd one told us to do one corner of them got 3 big you know what had become very much i don't accept that well i've been interested in this country for 27 years of time how did i had to before of course talking you hadn't been likely to think it was we had a feeling that our legal profession had become yeah yeah i'm sorry 9 to say oh yeah i'm going to have to interrupt you i do apologize professor. on the line from his

home in beirut. for the past hour and a half or so we've been looking at these remarkable pictures from beirut where police have been firing tear gas was a candidate kind of protest and demanding a resolution to the country's financial and economic crisis at the end of a week of rage they called it hundreds perhaps even thousands of protesters have been involved in running battles with security forces and firing tear gas canisters at them the protest discipline using throwing fireworks back at the police demonstrators angry over plans by the ruling party to form a government from the current political crisis will continue to work monitor the situation while you're watching people in power right now to 0.

the form of the polling wall just over 30 years ago came amid sweeping changes that would end the cold war and see the downfall of corrupt authoritarian regimes across the city here and 3 decades on the pro-democracy optimism of those tastes has turned sour xenophobia and nationalism are on the rise political corruption is not going away in the 2nd of 2 special reports we've been to belgariad romania and wasp-y. the lessons of history haven't been.