The Lebanon Heist: This New Podcast Aims To Shine A Light On The Country’s Financial Crisis
Set to be released this autumn, the Kerning Cultures produced series delves into the root cause of Lebanon’s economic devastation
Investigative podcasts are well and truly having a moment. Few know this better than Kerning Cultures Network, the first venture-funded podcast company in the Middle East. Their latest offering – and their first foray into the true crime genre – The Lebanon Heist, is set for release this fall. It is a six-part series delving into the root causes of Lebanon’s devastating financial crisis, a crisis that led to millions of Lebanese citizens being robbed of their life savings. The stakes are high for the team – co-hosts Dalal Mawad and Finbar Anderson, and executive producer Dana Ballout – who are Lebanese, or, in the case of Fin, have spent years living and reporting in the country. Like the rest of Lebanon’s citizens and diaspora, they have not escaped unscathed. “It’s a personal story that touched me and the people that I love. I literally lost all my savings. My husband lost everything he ever saved, [along with] my parents and my friends,” Dalal admits.
Since 2019, the country and its entire population have been plunged into economic turmoil, rooted in a combination of long-standing economic mismanagement, high public debt, corruption, and political instability. Years of government overspending and fiscal mismanagement led to a large budget deficit and unsustainable debt levels, with the Lebanese pound losing 90 per cent of its value; the government imposing strict measures which limit the amount of money that depositors could withdraw from their own accounts and placing restrictions on transferring funds abroad, causing significant financial hardships for individuals and businesses. While soaring inflation has made it difficult for people to afford basic necessities such as food, fuel, and medication, and widespread layoffs and business closures have pushed many Lebanese citizens into poverty.
“Doing all the research and learning about what happened is one way for me to process what happened to me personally; losing everything that I lost and finding answers to questions that a lot of Lebanese [people] have,” Dalal says. “There was an impetus because as journalists, we’re looking for answers, we’re looking for the truth, but I’m also driven by this sense of justice; looking somewhere for that justice that seems very evasive.”
The concept for the podcast initially came about via Fin, who lived and worked as a reporter in Lebanon. He became frustrated at the lack of depth and interest in a story that felt so important, and that had such big repercussions – not only in Lebanon, but on a much wider scale. He took the idea to the award-winning Kerning Cultures Network, they loved it and began developing the series immediately, bringing Dalal on as co-host, alongside Fin.
Both journalists have many years of expertise reporting the news and so were excited at the opportunity to really dig deep; of not needing to shy away from their personal investment, something that many other, less in-depth – and less intimate – forms of media don’t really allow for.
“What’s nice about this podcast is that listeners are able to follow along in the process,” explains executive producer Dana. “Unlike a 500-word news story, or other formats, this lends itself to following the hosts as they come to their conclusions; you’re with them on the ground. It’s an experience for a listener, rather than just a plain story that you’re hearing or being told.”
The podcast is set to be released in both English and Arabic – Dalal in charge of the Arabic, Fin of the English – with two different scripts, hosting styles and sets of interviewees. The undertaking is a uniquely challenging but necessary one; Lebanon hosts a diversity of languages. But it’s also because the team are hoping to cater to both Middle Eastern and foreign audiences, the latter of which may require a bit more context and explanation. “I’m [currently] going over the intro to the very first episode, and it’s so hard to get right,” explains Fin. “Dalal’s is much shorter because we’re assuming – I think, fairly – that the audience is going to know a bit about Lebanon, whereas I’m assuming that an audience member for this show might never have heard of Lebanon before.”
“Lebanon often gets reduced to certain pithy catchphrases,” he adds, speaking to the tendency for international media and audiences to ‘other’ stories coming from the SWANA region, to consider tragedies as ‘normal’ or outside the scope of relatability. Dalal concurs: “I know people in France, where I now live, who’ve never heard of what happened. Someone that I met last week was like ‘Oh, really, you lost your savings?!’ This is an ongoing story, but the international media, they just lose interest; there are bouts of coverage and then it all disappears.”
The duo hope that their podcast will contribute to knowledge and change. “People get interested in, like, true crime podcasts; one person who has disappeared, for example, and that is a tragedy and those [do] make for very compelling shows, but here we’ve got a whole country!” says Fin. “It’s just like, how is that story passing under the radar? Hopefully, it will make people sit up and pay attention.”
The challenges in telling the story are many, not least because there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and no way of knowing how it will end. What’s more, none of the people on the inside of the banks have been willing to come forward and speak – either on, or off, the record. That said, the hosts have interviewed people across the spectrum, from economists, historians and politicians to people who have been personally impacted, like 28-year-old Sali Hafez, who went viral for raiding a bank (with what later turned out to be a toy gun) and forcefully taking her money to fund treatment for her sister, who has cancer.
Indeed, highlighting the human aspect and impact of the story is imperative for the team. “How is [it] affecting people on a daily basis? Who is bearing the burden of the collapse? It’s the medium and small depositors, not the political establishment; not the wealthy, connected people who were able to get their money out,” explains Dalal. “It’s turned the country into survival mode. Everyone is surviving on a day-to-day basis; how to find medicine and pay for it; how to pay for your children’s tuition? Every single sector in Lebanon’s economy has been affected by this financial crisis – by this political crisis,” she corrects. “It’s a problem of governance,” she affirms.
But, as Dana explains, this is, in many ways, a “David and Goliath story,” and the themes are universal. “Bank heist, desperation, going to extreme lengths for the people that you love, losing everything in life, resilience, corruption, embezzlements, international court case… The issues that we deal with and the reach of this is universal, beyond our imagination,” she says.
“Even one of the most powerful countries in the world [the US] is dealing with a potential – I wouldn’t say financial collapse, but banks are closing; a recession,” Dana continues. “There’s a massive misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about what happens to our money once we put it in a bank. I’m not advocating for us to put cash underneath our mattresses like our parents or grandparents did, but I do think that there needs to be a better understanding about what happens to our money and that [putting it in a bank] is not [like] putting it in a safe and [assuming] that it will always be there.”
Their work, this story, and their approach to it recall a quote by the American writer James Baldwin who said: “I love [my country] and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticise her.” It’s a quote that resonated with the team. “I’ve dedicated most of my career as a journalist to talking and reporting about Lebanon and I always said that I was doing it not because I hate my country – quite the contrary – it’s because I love it,” says Dalal.
“If you love your country, you want it to be a better place and that’s why you mention and highlight the bad things and you don’t just do good publicity all the time,” she adds. “It comes out of love, like when you criticise your children because they’re doing something wrong – it’s because you love them, not because you hate them.”
Illustration Oscar Yanez. Photos: Shuttershock, Marten Bjork, Unsplash.
From The Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s July/August 2023 Issue