The British singer, who has Lebanese roots, shared in the country’s grief over the deadly Beirut explosion.
A massive warehouse explosion in Beirut last Tuesday (August 4) killed at least 157 people and injured thousands more, destroying the city’s port area. While investigators continue with the rubble, Protestants have vented their anger against the Lebanese government, accusing leaders of years of negligence in storing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate linked to the explosion.
British glam-pop star Mika (real name Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr.), who was born in Beirut and whose mother was of Lebanese descent, wrote a letter to the Lebanese people to share their grief and anger over the incident. Billboard an English language transcript was sent:
My dear Lebanon, my dear Beirut,
It’s still early in the morning on the other side of the Mediterranean and I feel so close and yet so far away from you. So close to you, while you have been destroyed by the apocalypse, I can not stop dying, fit, after the abusive utterances of my brothers and sisters. In her eyes I feel her terror, her tears. I shudder when I see a wounded person carried through the back window of an old car, a young girl covered in blood in her father’s arms, with shocked shocked residents walking through streets lined with rubble, broken glass and burnt buildings … So far away from you, haunted by the devastation, I hear in my head the convincing sound of the two explosions that haunted the inhabitants of Beirut. The screams of grieving families and threatened victims merge in the middle of the night with the screaming sirens of ambulances. I also told of the silence in the early hours of this morning, of the smell of the smoking ruins.
In the midst of this chaos, I recall a line by Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran: “one can only create the day by taking the path of the night.” For several months now, you have fallen into the path of the night again. There are divisions, echoes of conflicts at your borders, corruption, the powerlessness of your leaders, the monetary crisis that has plagued your families and then the rise of the coronavirus epidemic. The carefree Lebanese nature, the response to dramas in the past, was replaced by anger and fear. I was overwhelmed every day, just like my wounds, the roots I had left behind at the age of only one and a half, finally engulfed me.
And then, suddenly, at 10.10am on Tuesday, a tragic gray cloud came up from your harbor, mowing your exhausting people. The thick orange smoke drowned out the skies of Beirut and replaced the distant memory, so often told by my mother, of the yellow light that bathed our fourth floor, sea-facing apartment on the Corniche. I can only think of these two explosions as a symbol of a system that has shattered. The accident of bombs, killing in streets still marked by the scars of war, cannot be unheard of. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab has vowed to hold those responsible accountable. But who is responsible for whom? For what? Those responsible for 30 years of pain that have transformed the land of cedar trees into iceland. It is said that a catastrophe is a tragic outcome, the end of a series of accidents.
After dark comes the day. I know your resilience, your strength and your solidarity, nurtured by your mix of cultures, by this special place you occupy, halfway between the Arab world and Europe. Tomorrow you will rise as you have always done before. Music goes out of your windows again. People will be dancing on your patios and perfumes will be wafting from your kitchen. I’ll be there.
Mika
