The search for Lebanon’s new diaspora

Two months after the Beirut blast and one year into political and economic disruptions of local identities, the people of Lebanon are finding themselves divided in yet another invisible way. Some of the better-to-do individuals and families are proclaiming ‘never again’, and mean that they already have, or are seeking, to emigrate; their economic realities and very existences – homes in upscale Beirut, residential developments in the downtown, and the Achrafieh district, literally shattered. Cuddling his infant son in the lobby of a midmarket hotel in Verdun in late August, Ahmad is a chance encounter and example of such an émigré. Giving only his first name, he says he left his home in the Saifi Village after it was destroyed in the August 4 explosion, will move within days to join a family business in Western Africa, and intends to never come back or create emotional bonds to his ancestral