strong and can last for up to 20 years. it did, but i got 9. no. ah it, oh god, no. 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. which is 84 year old father began making them when he was 8. it brace you get 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 grandson's already becoming the 4th generation of patch eyes to produce

the original 2 key upon hat. proud symbols not of panama, they say, but of their country ecuador. to see a newman al jazeera won't equity equity lie. ah, what shall desert me so robin and doe, reminder of our top stories around $180.00 ringer, refugees missing at sea and are presumed dead. thus, according to the un refugee agency, the root reportedly left bangladesh in november and was said to be drifting near thailand, malaysia and indonesia. and in a separate incident, a group of $58.00 men landed in indonesia, northern that shape of his on sunday, after being at sea for weeks. south korea says it's fired warning shots after several north korean drones entered its air space. local media say the aerial vehicles were detected in civilian areas near the border with north korea. unit kim

has moved from sol. the joint chiefs of staff, south korea military confirming that the north korean drones were detected. several of them near the border area. the military do my cation line inside of the dmc, starting at around 1030 this morning. and there were warning shots fired, as you noted, to prevent them from further incurring encouraging down south. but it appears that they have been flying for several hours. 3 russian military personnel living killed in the town called a base in san antonio. in the south west, the defense ministry says that were killed by falling daybreak after ukrainian drain was shot over angles military base. the same air base was targeted early this month. laska says it was a drone attack committed by ukraine. russian president vladimir putin as a keys, the west of trying to take his country apart. he maintains he is trying to unite

the russian people through it's offensive in ukraine. he also says law school, ready to negotiate on to the end of the conflict. and, and he said the people have died in the winter storm. the battering the u. s. the worse it states, his new york, quite tens of thousands of people have been trapped in their homes. those were the headlines. somebody will be here the news hour and just and a half last time to say would say aloud to their and talked to al jazeera, we also give the women of afghanistan were somehow abandoned by the international community. we listen, we are paying a huge price for the war against terrorism as going on. so money we meet with global news makers. i'm talk about the stories that matter on al jazeera. 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 on an independent journalist,

they say lebanon, where jonesy, campaigners are fighting for radical change. a challenges they face couldn't be more daunting economic collab political stalemate, social unrest, and the devastation caused by august 2020, to close it here and beta. in this episode, we need to young people using their skills to come back decades of corruption and victory. anything they believe a total with that is the only way forward. oh

oh, in can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and be able to were there any specific moments or events that saves your political activism? the early part of my childhood was not really influenced by politics, but oh, i grew older. gradually, i came into in the boonies my number, however, also force and loss of the ideas and concepts that were created by the abuse running class. in terms of the sectarian connotations of the crisis. so at the end of the day, we're all partly 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, seeing that the settler club is and pointing and will it have some kind of effect outside the cult of lebanese universities as i can, i love the started as a socio cultural, political space for students to know more about politics and the various developments happening and think of students as a social group. and this group had to have economic interest which had to be protected. whether it's leaning on who dition the buttons against the administration to protect student freedom or a needing long tuition strikes, which protects the students' rights or what? there is $1019.00. it was basically the youth student component of your former 17 opposing. but it also transformed into a force which was able to impose a certain dis, sports on the lebanese landscape,

or you're optimistic that their mother network will emerge as if electrical movement and lebanon. now the way i see the movement rigs or the political movements, the latter, it has an expensive social base and then has taken the grassroots as a strategy. it has taken the idea that it should be creating a counter, had romani, and challenged most that there in parties, ministers based on the various other forces which of these spaces and as are re forward. and i think that's all thanks for the medical movement. but 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 impacted physically, but also i took it in and i understood even when i was taught,

that's narratives impact the public opinion. but it was really during the 2014 garza war when i was interning at the major news organization. look, i understood the weight and the importance of accountability, journalism and independent journalism. so that towards the road that i took in my career oh, them on, on witness a suze of protests and the past years from 2011, 2015 and then the big 2019 pro with that. what was the role of the media and lebanon? the media are owned by parts is 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 me, the organization i worked for, i took on the daily news reporting and covering her violations against protesters. the photos that were happening all over the country. there were media black out, so we were the ones who said lights on what was going on in a way that most he needs it means to me did to them there has been an increase in attacks on journalists and on media 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 accountability. journalism continues with open source investigations in order to uncover the status quo and to dismantle it's completely cut in as that. thank you so much for being with us here today. your generation did not really witness the civil war in lebanon. however, everyone husband's card 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 didn't experience the civil war, we were taught or inherited the narrative about no sector in conversations, 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 we are trans, something this memorial and transcending the sector and connotations which exist alongside of it. and this is something we're currently working on. what about you? i? 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 viewpoints going into politics going into activism and going into journalism as well. so, is your generation more radical scheme, 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 political factions which exist in the country. and we're

suggesting that there's nothing static about them. lebanon is always in the binomial transformation, and we're here in experiencing another dynamic respiration which going about after october 17, which came about after the august 4 explosion. reducing that, we have the agency to create the vibe as alternative as a 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 who want to work together towards getting your, the chair of the political working group of the mother 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 the florida could already be 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 many society against a more sectarian reactionary components which have existed historically, the secondary clubs are the mother network and not only calling for secretaries, and they're also calling for a wider progressive package and also views would social justice, more democratic inclusion, ideas pertaining to mingle, the deliberated from the norms which have destroyed their society. so we're not an distant ideological group. we are part of the society you are 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 sex 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 through it which his client, amazon can someone, though it's for political fact they're also voting for the ability to get a job 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 times in the 6th system that has been ingrained in every institution and

every parts in parson of our life. so what you're saying basically, is that non factory, an 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 corruption in lebanon with establishing an anti corruption committee. and, and you law, tackling corruption in the country. what's your opinion on that? in lemon, on particular, the, the term corruption is basically, and potentially,

i mean, 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 banking 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 mueller brewed and unfair economy. so people that are saying we want to fix corruption, but don't even want to fight back to 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 their work call in the middle of it and then 6, so 8 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 a 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 found the carnage. it was a complete massacre. it was something that i think no one wants to live through again or ever would have gone to kennedy once. i heard the explosion

and i felt that everything was shaking the 1st thought. the games are mine, as of this is it's, i also was qualified than in 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 noticed that people are injured everywhere. so it was a huge catastrophic, a moment in which everything normal in our lives was host. i say 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 nitrate? where was it exactly and which warehouse i was able to look at. ok. this video a 2nd 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 have them of the answer to corruption. because thieving this regime

with more funds or theory by the international community with only mean to it's reproduction and safeguarding its own basis, the solution is in us is in the hundreds of thousands of people from various social groups and monroe's and sex. who believe if they mobilize and create the differences of solidarity this could potentially create an advocate resistance in the regime a but there is no certainty in sites, 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, and i like an institutional governmental perspective. but if there is corruption, one place, it's probably tied to corruption elsewhere. when megaphone used it an investigation about the origins of the ship that brought them on united states 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, boy dallas, 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 only really important what she said, but there's also something or a term for size on based on this that have been, is regime is tied to international and global interest 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 international network of people who think 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. he help where's tear gas? so this solidarity 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 secretary clubs that the protests are kind of on hold right now. how do you motivate people and how do you revive these events and this chiefs? 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 the people emigrate than they don't have her own. but this is a huge fantasy 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 and i can, i can,

the mechanisms are becoming online as dressers, movements. so people can take part in meetings and sharing ideas and talking to people and getting heaps of people to vote. so that's all about tracing 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 radicalize our hope for the future, which we saw on the streets in the beginning of the 17 october 2019 protest movements. people were coming together and dancing cooking together, singing together trading things with each other. and these are in form of systems of relationships and trades that had never been seen in at his downtown bay boots until before itself. a civil war. as that, we do know how media is monopolized in lebanon, how it's tied to private businesses, to politicians. how can you change that?

so 1st, i think we need to recognize that 12 political families own accused, half of the mainstream media in lebanon. the other half is either owned by business men, by individuals politically affiliated or by specific political parties. so the control over one, the media, but 2 and most importantly, the discourse and the sources of information is squarely in the hands of those and powered but independence. visa organizations have found ways mobilizing the jess border 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 movements where civil side to 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

a certain component that we need to talk about, and that is challenging. 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 been a secular government with the presence of such parties? 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 husband law, which is not just authority that distributes it's an infrastructure of us. they build itself, it ports the base and other conflicts in the region, and it also tokenize is on the 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 belvin for days? 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 hezbollah at all. in fact, that's a big mistake. many opposition parties are doing. we need to continue creating this counter hegemonic from a starting point, which is secular, progressive and insularity with all of those oppressed by his mama, and by not has more. 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 itself gives us hope because was happening this year, may not happen 3 years later. but the 2022 elections cannot be seen as a break, so it can only be seen as of today. however, many other breakthroughs await, because at the end of the day saddle had eat in october 29, 2019 was not taken out in elections. it was taken out by the streets and the street could reinvent itself as does that when his regime. so i agree completely with cream and saying that election to the it's not a means to an end. i think organizing through syndicates, through 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 linking thanks, sonia, bye.

course, the world, young activists and organizers are on the move. a generation change meets the new york as using alternative approaches to flight institutional racism. i'm leaks brutality a. this is indeed a nation wide problem. network wires, a systemic solution generation change on al jazeera. we don't simply focus on the politics of the conflict. if the human suffering that we report, we brave bullets and bomb and we always include the views from our sites with .