this is way too difficult. i've been trying and trying. i just cannot get it right . this weaving technique is so complicated and not to mention uncomfortable the position. so let me tell you this is not easy. work. pitch eyes. 84 year old father began making them when he was 8 in press, you kiss it by the price. one gets is very little compared to the time it takes to make these hats. so unfortunately, less people are making than these days. i am so if we feel eliza, some of the finest hats can take up to a year to weave. but the artisans rarely fetch more than $1800.00, even when they're sold abroad to the rich and famous for up to $25000.00. still, his grandsons are already becoming the 4th generation of package to produce the original to key upon hat. proud symbols, not of panama, they say, but of their country ecuador. to see a newman al jazeera monte,

christy ecuador. ah, just a quick reminder of the top stories of falling from london before we leave you. at least 26 people have now been reported dead as a severe winter storm system continues to batter several american states worst. his city in buffalo is buffalo in new york state, where 12 people have died. hundreds of thousands of been trapped in the homes the days in white. how blizzard conditions. the storm is now moving east. more than 200000 people woke up without power on christmas day. all of us think in historic and epic term is, but this one is for the ages and we're still in the middle of it. we still have people who need to be rescued. we have people with their power off in our communities and buildings where pipes are bursting and flooding is occurring. i as

it's happening in my own home right now. so this is what's happening in real time. it is a devastating experience. i cannot overstate how dangerous the condition still are for foreign aid groups if suspended their operations in afghanistan after the taliban band women from working for aid organizations. a group say they cannot effectively reach afghans in need without their female staff. cat or is expressed extreme concern or the taliban decision. urgent administration to review it. got a son is suffering unprecedented levels of hunger with 90 percent of the population . not getting enough food, thousands of rally that are going to car box largest city. it's a protest. the blockade of the regions only land linked to armenia, 2 weeks as a by johnny activists of block. the latch in corridor to protest, illegal mining armenia is accused as a by john of staging the demonstration to create a humanitarian crisis that as a my john says the blockade doesn't exist. shine is national health commission is

announced. it will start publishing daily figures of cov infections. hospitals are becoming overcrowded across the country. is it battles a wave of new infections? but no covert deaths have been reported for 5 consecutive days. so coming up next generation change takes us to bay route at a critical moment in lebanon's history. that's it from us for now, but we'll see you tomorrow. as 2022 draws to a clue, we reflect on the major stories that she told. well, join l g 0 per series of in depth reports. looking back at this year and ahead to 2023 in welcome to generation change a global series that attempts to understand and challenge the ideas that are mobilizing you around the world. i'm new enough,

want an independent journalist. they said lebanon, where jonesy, campaigners are fighting for radical change. ah battalion did they face couldn't be more daunting economic collab political stalemate, social unrest, and the devastation caused by august 2020 explorers in here. and they live in this episode, we need to young people using their skills to come back decades of corruption and think they're innocent. they believe the total with that is the only way forward. oh

oh, can you, can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and be able to were there any specific moments or events that saved your political activism? the early part of my childhood was not really influenced by politics, but oh, i grew older. gradually, i'm interested in the boonies my number, however, also important a lot of the ideas and concepts that were created by the abuse running class and terms of the sectarian connotations of the crisis. so at the end of the day, we're all portly products of the society and the general i eulogies and soon by the regime. but i got exposed to various other ideas, movements, groups that try to deliver an alternative vision for what the country may be, as opposed to what i learned to be as a child. or

why do you think that the settler club is and pointing and will it have some kind of effect outside the cult of lebanese universities as i can or club beside that as a socio cultural, political space for students to know more about politics and the various developments happening. it meant the students as a social group and this group had to have economic interests which had to be protected. whether it's leaning on who dition battles against the administration to protect student freedom or a needing long tuition strikes, which protects the students' rights that he had. 1019. it was basically the youth student component of your former 17 opposing. but it also transformed into a force which is able to impose a certain dis, sports on the lebanese landscape. are

you optimistic that another network will emerge as it relates to kill movement and lebanon? now the way i see the president briggs already a political movement, the network has an extensive social base and then has taken the grassroots as a strategy. it has, they can be the idea that it should be creating a counselor, had your money and challenge most that they're in parties, ministers based on the various other forces which are offered this basis and as are re forward. and i think that's thanks with american movie them as that you were part of the generation that was born and p site, but in 2006, this changed for you. yeah. can you tell me a little bit about dots, o, as in lebanon during the 2006, florida, during the summer, i was about to head for the clique, but also i took it in, and i understood. even when i was told that narratives impact the public opinion,

but it was really during the 2014 goes away. when i was interning at the major news organization look, i understood the weights and the importance of accountability, journalism and independent journalism. so that towards the road that i took in my career o, lebanon witnessed a series of protests in the past years from 2011, 2015. and then the big 2019 a pro. with that. what was the role of the media and lebanon? the media are owned by prices and groups and political parties which are the political class. that's a lot of people and the protest movement throws up against at the hearts of corruption. i enablers, which are the mainstream media. this information is the illustration of corruption in narrative and ideas. so it's really important for me to focus on the

media narrative and also counted it through investigative work. so with the independent media organization i worked for, i took on the daily news reporting and covering her violations against protesters. the protests that were happening all over the country. there were media blackouts, though we were the ones who said lights on north was going on in a way that most he needs it means to me didn't there has been an increase in attacks on journalists and our needs. our workers is freedom of speech and danger, and lebanon in your opinion. i think freedom of speech right now as going through a specific kind of challenge because of social media and the government's use of social media, who intimidates people into self censorship. we need to speak against that, whether or not the intimidation is there and i think

a lot of independence needs at workers understand the stress. and they understand that now is the time to continue with the accountability. journalism continues with open source investigations in order to uncover the start to score and to dismantle it completely. cut him as that. thank you so much for being with us here today. your generation did not really witness the civil war in lebanon. however, every one husband's cards in the country may be through our parents or through stories that we hear. now i want to start with euclidean. how did this shape your political activism in the country? no, although we experienced the civil war, we were taught or inherited the narrative about no sector in quotations, even forms of heroism in all the people that we were supposed to think of very highly. at the end of the day, we also formulated

a counter narrative. the idea that you are trans, something this memorial entrance, something this like there and connotations which exist alongside of it. and this is something we're currently working on. what about you eyes? so i also have a kind of unique, a bringing as my parents are both from secular background. so i had this angle that i got from my parents while understanding the trauma that they lived through during the civil war. since that said, inherited intergenerational trauma and wanting never to have this happen again. so this was basically my viewpoint going into politics going into activism and going into journalism as well. so is your generation more radical? katie, more uncompromising in a way we were thought for a long way, the lebanon, that this is the country. these are the relationships that exist between the ruling class and the people between the people themselves. between the various with decal

factions which exist in the country. and we're suggesting that there's nothing static about lebanon, lebanon is always in the dynamic transformation. and we're here, you know, experiencing another dynamic respiration which going about after october 17, which going about after the oldest for exclusion. we do thing that we have the agency to create the vibe with alternative. i think. what are the ways in which you can implement such change in your opinion? i think that we learned a lot from what's happening around us since they're so called arab spring and what people are age as when we're able to achieve not only in 2011, but also in 2019 with us across iraq, algeria, sudan, and, and swear. and we learned from each other about tactics and futures and his cities that we want to work together towards getting your, the chair of the political working group of the madden network, which connect secondary clubs across universities in lebanon, canada transform the student activism into any,

some lights political movement in your opinion. well, i think it's nordic, already the case in the sense that the network is established and more than 12 to 13 universities. this suggests that there is potential for genuine competition between secondary progressive components in the mini society against the more sectarian, a reactionary components which have existed. historically, the secondary clubs are in the mother network and not only calling for 2nd years. and they're also calling for a wider progressive package that also views with social justice, more democratic inclusion, ideas pertaining to being completely liberated from norms which have destroyed their society. so we're not an distant ideological group. we are part of the society you're speaking to them with their basic needs. how can you actually convince people who might be even older than this generation? to vote outside the scope of their sects,

when you have 18 facts and lebanon. when you have political parties that are based on their sex and that are not based on merit or even deep politics, the problem was tackling such a question is that we need to tackle it to it, which is client amazon. when someone though it's for a political fact, they're also voting for the ability to get a job. 4 to be able to get, to get in a school, to be able to get social welfare and all of these things that are tied to sectarian political parties. so really thinking about getting people to vote outside of their sectarian loyalty is we need to also be cognizant that we are telling them to make themselves vulnerable to a reality without their so should protections and the political protections of a mainstream political party would offer them so this opposition movement should have a certain as turn it is and realistic solutions to the sectarian plant in the 6 system that has been ingrained in every institution and every parts

and parson of our life. so what you're saying basically, is that nonsectarian opposition groups need to compete with these long last thing and political parties by proving that this is not the way. so actually, and this was a very interesting phenomenon that's happened after the august 4 albedo blast people came together from across lebanon and forums, networks of solidarity and financial and collaborative. certainly there is in networks that don't mimic the same authoritarian client in this thick structure that we're so used to getting the government would say that they are attempting to tackle corrupts and in lebanon with establishing an anti corruption committee. and, and you law, tackling corruption in the country. what's your opinion on that in lebanon, particularly the term corruption is basically, and potentially immune,

particularly when it's anti corruption. because the issue in lebanon was not just corruption in the sense that, you know, we have some interest being distributed within state sectors. it's a very structured and systemic issue. we have and has been amplified as the ninety's. we have a run based economy that is completely based on monopolies, the making sector, plus the real estate sector. we have a sectarian system which completely distributes all ministries, all as for use that have come across after the war. we have enlarged that we have a lot of the social and economic inequality. no productive sectors which reduce anything. and we're simply living the remnants of an extremely near the brood and unfair economy. so people that are saying we want to fix corruption, but don't even want to fight back the interests of the oligarchy and the banks. then we can't really trust whether they're actually fighting corruption. so as long as this is at stake, there is no such thing as anti corruption. i sat on august, 4th, 2020 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded and battled causing damage to the whole city

. can you tell me what happened on that day? so i wasn't the office, i had the work call in the middle of it and then 6, so 8th happened and then i felt a tremor that took me back and forth. and i hadn't realized what had happened. but i heard the noise of the huge explosion, and i saw that everything was destroyed around us. our colleagues were really close to the windows, and we were trying to figure out if anyone was injured. and because my apartments in my office were right beside each other, and i could see complete destruction of my apartment because this was an office for an independent media organization. some of our videographers took their gear and they went down to film, the carnage. it was a complete massacre. it was something that i think no one wants to live through again or ever. what about 2 penny ones?

i heard the explosion and i felt that everything was shaking. the 1st thought the event on mind is that this is it's, i also was quite frightened, the position i was in because i felt maybe the building could collapse at any moment. so it was extreme uncertainty about the next 30 minutes after i was out and took my car. i notice that people are injured everywhere. so it was a huge catastrophic, a moment in which everything normal in our lives was hosted. as that, you mentioned that you are in an office working with an independent media organization . did you manage after that to resume your work direct? he, i think what fueled us to continue and to actually double down on our reporting and on our coverage was our anger towards whatever happened and whoever were

responsible. so this could be seen with our investigations, with our daily news coverage and trying to piece together what's happened. why was there a fire? what's blew up before the ammonium night states? where was it exactly and which warehouse i was able to look at. ok, this video was taken on the roof of this building. and this time, this enables me to actually piece together something so that i can know what's happened because the anxiety of not knowing was worse than the executive. what's happened after $15000000000.00 is the number estimated when we talk about the damages that were caused by this explosion. there are so many alleged accusations that corruption reached aids where thus corruption and carrying the aid as thus had them of the answer to corruption. because feeding this regime

with more funds or the delivery by the international community, will only need to its reproduction and safeguarding its own basis. the solution is in us, in the hundreds of thousands of people from various social groups and backgrounds and sex. who believe if they mobilize and create the differences of solidarity this could potentially create an advocate resistance in the regime. but there is no certainty insights, but there is always hope. can you, can i just jump in here when i look at are i understand corruption. it isn't just from like an institutional government perspective, but if there is corruption, one place it's probably tied to corruption elsewhere. when megaphone used it and investigation about the origins of the ship that brought the ammonium nitrates to the bay to its poor. there were tied to syrian russian firms with addresses in

london, so corruption is the globin. now i think when we want to understand and to fight corruption, we need to think about it as a system of solidarity. that is boyd or less at the same time and collaborate with independent media organizations just like the panama papers have done to uncover money laundering scandals across the world. i think there's something really important when she said, but there's also something her and to emphasize on based on this that i mean is regime is tied to international and global interests which sustain it. now that is something to critique, but it's also something to look at and slightly so be inspired from that. if we do break these links or if we do create alternative links across borders that good or multiply the strength of our movement. and potentially, we could benefit from a,

an alternative nasa network of people who sing this way. and that's how we can create alternative power in the country and ultimately replace the current regime in site. i mean, cream. just looking at the protest starting tactics from the 20 october 2019 protest movement. we learned from hong kong we learned from turkey, we learned from sudan. and then again in may 2021, the george floyd protest. i said lebanese activists helped or created a guide for a black lives matter activists in minnesota in order to help them in terms of distance security help with tear gas. so this, sorry there to doesn't just transcend our fight against corruption, but also our fight against utter authoritarian regimes and oppressors. one of the so many challenges that the country is facing an integration or brain drain,

many of the young generation are leaving for good. i mean, you mentioned that you're a part of the meadow network, which is connecting different secular clubs that the protests are kind of on hold right now. how do you motivate people? how do you revive these events and this truths? not many people have the luxury to go else. a lot of people are stuck here in the sense and they have no choice but to fight back for these after the august for explosion, when the people basically occupied martyrs where they were and saying, you know, let's make some calculations and see if we can afford this or that they just went sometimes we assume that if people emigrate, then they don't have a role. but this is a huge fallacy at times the lebanese regime benefits from the bay as flora. they benefits from the fact that we're gonna export every one. and then they'll give us the money so we can sustain ourselves. the opposition has a reality. the reality is that people are outside. how can they benefit us? well, most of organization that mechanism i can the mechanisms are becoming online as

dressers, movements. so people can think part in meetings and sharing ideas and talking to people in getting heaps of people to vote. so that's all about raising alternative networks by using the diaspora that was exported by the regime itself. but also kareem, i think, as opposition groups, or as students or union organizers, we need to learn to that the college or hope for the future, which we saw on the streets in the beginning of the 17 october 2019 protest movements. people were coming together a dancing cooking together, singing together trading things with each other. these are in form of systems of relationships and trades that had never been seen in at his downtown bay dudes until before itself, the civil war as not, we do know how media is monopolized in lebanon, how it site to private businesses, to politicians. how can you change that?

so 1st, i think we need to recognize that 12 political family own, at least half of the mainstream media in lebanon. the other half is either owned by businessman, by individuals politically affiliated or by specific political parties. so the control over one, the media, but 2 and most importantly the discourse in the sources of information is squarely in the hands of. 2 those and powered but independence visa organizations have found ways mobilizing the just florida and becoming important sources of information from the ground since they are the only ones that film from the ground. from the point of view of the protesters from the point of view of the oppressed. but again, the independence media needs to work together with a grassroots movement with some of site organizations to bridge together all these things in order to have a sustainable future. when you talk about all of these hopes and dreams,

there's the ser and components that we need to talk about. and that is shannon zane . a secular state has been law as a dominant political shade fighting lebanon. now some argue that they are a state within a state. how do you build a secular government with the presence of such prices? i don't think it's even possible to look for genuine the radical reform of the country with the state of the state like hezbollah, which is not just a party that distributes it's an infrastructure of a state of itself. it parks the bates and other conflicts in the region, and it also tokenize is on various causes. now the question remains, how do we resist this? and i knew also have an issue with those who proclaimed to fight against has below . and in fact, they only tackled hezbollah from their own sectarian point of view. it was never

a progressive starting point. and that's something that's extremely necessary. they want to go a step forward. but isn't that challenging? because has bella says that they are present to defend, deliver these borders? the only way to tackle such a permeated nib state as well as to recreate a new narrative. it does not mean we have to concede to hezbollah at all. in fact, that's a big mistake. many opposition parties are doing. we need to continue creating this counter hedge money from a starting point which is secular, progressive and insularity with all of those oppressed by hello. and by not has model. yeah. so, is there is face for optimism and a country so complex, like lebanon that awaits for the 2022 elections or some kind of change. there's never pessimism or optimism. there is a complex reality,

as you said. and this complexity in of its says, gives us hope, because was happening this year, may not happen 3 years later. but the 2022 elections cannot be seen as a breakthrough. it can only be seen as of today. however many other breakthroughs await, because at the end of the day saddle honeyed in october 29, 2019 was not taken out in the directions. it was taken out by the streets. and the street could reinvent itself as does that them in these regime. so i agree completely with cream and saying that elections as a tool, it's not a means to an end. i think organizing through syndicates to clubs, to students unions and across identities and sectarian loyalties is really important. so are you going to be the generation that finds

a solution for this ongoing crisis and lebanon? i don't know. that's a lot of responsibility for a generation, because i think our parents thought they would be that generation. and i think their parents thought they would be that generation. so maybe i will listen. i actually think there's no such thing as this. you know, one time change in the country, lebanon, 200 years ago, was the, from the lebanon today. and social movements always existed and pressured in a certain direction. so i think each generation made this contribution and we're here to make our modest contribution and to see what comes ahead of us. that's it for this episode of generation change from lebanon. katie mazda, thank you so much for taking part. it's been a very enlightening conversation. thank you. thanks john. bye.

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