 Hello everyone and thank you for joining us for our first panel discussion at Open Forum. Open Forum is a joint initiative running in parallel to the 17th architecture exhibition at the Venice Biennale. It is born from a collaboration between co-habitat Beirut exhibitors Carla Aramuni and Sandra Frayn, Waal el Awar curator at the UAE Pavilion and the GSAP Collective for Beirut, an interdisciplinary organization founded by alumni and students in the aftermath of the August 4th Beirut Plast. My name is Maureen Abiranen and I'm a PhD student here in Colombia's urban planning program, as well as a member of the GSAP Collective for Beirut. I'm also a collective member as well as GSAP graduate Iyad Abu-Aida will be joining me in moderating today's session. Before introducing our panelists, I would first like to extend our gratitude to Dean Andraouz and GSAP for their tremendous support to our alumni community, current students, collective and partners. We also wish to thank Leila Catelier for helping us organize this series of events to create a space where we can voice our thoughts at a time of complete uncertainty in Lebanon's present and future. This year marks the 100th year since the inception of Lebanon as a nation in 1921. What was initially thought to bring stability and harmony resulted in clashing and polarizing ideologies, which translated in the built environment into fragmented ecosystems of differences. Today's discussion of forum one titled Centennial Ideologies and Ecosystems, Potential Futures for Lebanon is the first of a series of three virtual events that will investigate stages of crises and how they can trigger fertile grounds that advocate for togetherness and the rethinking of cities through the lens of Beirut. In these three events, various participants will be invited to converse and reflect on the central theme of the Biennale, how do we live together. The aim is to rethink this ideological gap in our hyper polarized realities of Lebanon. Today, we welcome a panel of scholars, practitioners and activists. Our participants have been thoughtfully selected to create a cross disciplinary panel. We believe that the multitude of fields, work experiences, projects and voices can capture the diversity of thoughts that are shaping current and future visions of Lebanon. Our discussion is with Amal Andraus, Dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, as well as co-founder of WorkAC. Amal Andraus, architect, geographer and founder at Pato and a member of Beirut Shifting Grounds. Carla Aramuni, architect and assistant professor of architecture at the American University of Beirut as well as a member of Beirut Shifting Grounds. Charlotte Hayek, historian, teacher, heritage expert and consultant. Rania Masri, environmental scientist, political activist and lecturer at the Lebanese American University. And Rony Lahoud, engineer, chairman and general director of the Public Corporation for Housing. Finally, before we begin, here are a few brief logistical announcements. The chat box should be used only for discussion or questions regarding the session. After the panel discussion, we will have time for Q&A from the audience. And to ask your questions, the audience can type in the chat box and we can read them. We will be coordinating the Q&A with attention to diversity and inclusion. And finally, the event will run for a total of 19 minutes. And with that, I will hand it over to Iyad and hope it will be a spirited and informative discussion. Hey everyone, I'm very happy to be here and we'll start the conversation by letting each speaker briefly introduce themselves. We'll start in their background. We'll start with Dean Amal Andraouz. Thank you Iyad. Thank you Maureen. Thank you everyone for being here and sharing in this conversation. So I'm Dean and Professor Ajisab. My scholarship and research has always seemed to come back to the question of Beirut as a city and all the aspects that it poses not only to Lebanon but often to the world, a kind of lens through which to see much of the world. And in practice with Work AC, we are currently engaged with a couple of projects in Lebanon, including the Beirut Museum of Art, which is redefining itself in this current moment. So I'm very excited to be contributing today. Thank you Dean Andraouz. Rania Mustri. Again, thank you very much for this invitation. I'm thrilled with the questions that you all shared with me and with this opportunity for us to think together and to go beyond the surface and to think about such potential futures for Lebanon. My own expertise, if I may use such a heavy word, is in environmental justice. I graduated with degrees in environmental management, all while being very active within community justice and social movements around anti-war and liberation, first in the United States and for the past 15 years in Lebanon. So I consider my ideology and my experience to be grounded in political ecology, grounded in the humility of environmental justice. And I'm thrilled to have been part of a collective called the Environmental Justice Atlas that you all can find online. And also I'm very thrilled to be part of a political party in Lebanon called Mottinon and Mottinat Fidola, Citizens in a State. And thank you again for this opportunity. Thank you, Rania. Karla. I'm Karla Aramuni. I'm an architect and assistant professor at the American University of Beirut. My work actually intersects architecture with subjects that look at the expanded environment from infrastructure to landscape and ecology and specifically with a really specific interest in Lebanon and how we can think of alternative possibilities for the built and national environment. And within today's, I think, panel, the focus would be on the work that we've done as a collective for the Beirut shifting grounds, where my part actually focused on research on multi-squares metamorphosis in time. Thank you, Iyad. Thank you, Karla. Roni. Hi, everybody. First, thank you all for the organization of this webinar, and hopefully we'll have an output from this meeting that can help the citizen in Lebanon and especially in Beirut after the blast of the port of Beirut and especially in this economic crisis in Lebanon. I am for the moment the chairman and general director of the public corporation for housing in Lebanon since May 2014, and at the same time a member of the Supreme Council of the General Directorate of Urban Planning and as well a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Fund for the internal displaced persons in Lebanon. Thank you all. Thank you, Roni. Poulos. Hi. Thanks a lot for the invitation to this talk. And like Rania said, thanks for the interesting questions and the interesting topic in general. I'm an architect. I practice in Lebanon since 2010 with my partner Sandra in Plateau. And at the same time, since I'm a geographer and I work on research and strategies throughout Lebanon, so I have always had this activism, activity going on a local scale in the north specifically, or in general in Lebanon. And I'm always interested in this. And lately after the revolution, I haven't even pushed further to political activism all the way, like they say, because you know, I just felt that architecture is very interesting, but activism, I think we are needed there as well. So this is it, I guess. We still have Charles. He's a historian, unfortunately he's stuck in traffic. We're waiting for him to join us briefly, hopefully. In the meantime, we can start the questions with the first one. This forum comes as a response to the B&I provocation, how do we live together? This year marks the 100 years since the inception of Lebanon as a nation states. What was initially thought to bring stability and harmony resulted in clashing polarizing ideologies, which translated into the built environment into a fragmented ecosystem of difference. As architects, historians, ecologists and activists, how can we look at these differences and crises as fertile grounds that could advocate for togetherness? How can we create safe and dignified spaces that allow for conversation across the political spectrum divide, one that allows us to investigate alternative futures for Lebanon? Please go ahead. Maybe Carla, you can start, like we would, it would be great if we can talk across different scales and spectrums in this topic. And Carla, you can go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, it's always very difficult to be the first person starting, but maybe I'll start with a point, you know, in us coming together as GISA with Wael and the Beirut Shifting Grounds, I think, a group. I mean, the intention really came from the opportunity of, of course, the Biennale as a platform for us to meet, but also to talk about Lebanon in this very time. And to talk about it, not from, you know, the points of divisiveness, but actually from the possibilities or the potentials of the act of togetherness as at this point is really the only way for us to move forward. And I think that resonates a lot with somehow this question, but also in what we need to maybe reevaluate in Lebanon, to move beyond what you're noting as these fragmented ecosystems that we currently live in, to move more towards new grounds, new spaces that are safe and that are at the same time advocating for togetherness as a model. I think maybe I would like to share my screen, I had just a few slides that I'm not really presenting, but sort of hoping that they can run in the background. Let me just test if this will work. Yeah Carla, it's working. It's working. Okay, so I think in response to this question, maybe I'd like to reflect on the work of they do shifting ground specifically in looking at the time based lens of changes of the ground as a possibility for a form of collective to happen and specifically about Martyr Square, which is quite, I would say famous for its ability to be a symbolic center but also to have had the capacity to change this one through the ages yet always being able to bring really diverse community together over there. And I think as a node, and as a note across time, it offers very important lessons and those lessons of a space that is unifying in a space that can advocate for the public sphere to be an active one. I think should be somehow seen and reflected back on today as a potential learning for for the future to come. I say this because in looking and having you know tried having performed this research through these remodeling of the square in time. There's an aspect that is I think very important which is how it started as an open me then as a space that allowed different forms of collective to happen and make it what it is whether as an economic or a trade center or a leisure center, that got structured through the ages until it's demise post war to become today again, even as a road junction, again an open Sahel or an open midan. And this as a fact, even today with its symbolism is still able to attract a new form of collective to reimagine it and to make it so what we saw in Thaura, for example, is a proof to that capacity. And I think, again, not to maybe repeat it as a point but to really state that in order, I think for us to start imagining the potential future that these ideas of nodes that defy different aspects of otherness or divisiveness but actually tries to bring people together, to form new types of nodes I think should be an important learning for the future. And I will stop at that. No, thank you Carla I think public spaces and nodes are something crucial to bring together people where they can converse openly. Maybe I would ask Dean Amal and Rania since they're both educators, and how do you create that in any classroom, and how do you start bringing different voices together and creating especially in a program of diversity and bringing together different people from different backgrounds to talk about futures and how can this be scaled up, maybe on a city scale or on a country scale or a regional scale. That's a really important question, Iad. Just reflecting on GSAP in general, and GSAP in the last year, let's say. You know, one of the reasons why I've always loved the school is precisely because it's in its DNA for as long as I've known the school, there's been this ambition to bring a diversity of voices together and kind of be constantly shifting perspectives and there's a real across all of the program desire to push the boundaries to question foundations to, you know, and to sort of ongoing really not take anything for granted as authority or stable it's a school where destabilization of, you know, knowledge is welcome. But in this last year, I think it was kind of intensified in that, you know, I think with, you know, the movement for black lives with COVID with looking at the impact of COVID on the most vulnerable people with, you know, of course climate change always there, you know, this kind of real sense that what we call diversity of voices is not enough that we have to really intensify spaces to allow for to amplify underrepresented voices so it's a kind of much more proactive, you know, whether sort of action and I think we've been really focusing on that and just to give a very tangible example we formed an anti racism task force with the faculty across all the programs and I would say this is probably one of the first task force that is so cross disciplinary at the school. And, and are they, you know, we're putting forth, sort of orientation workshop slash course called common circle for students to come in every year that will really kind of try to dive deeper into these questions of encounter beyond a sort of neutrality. So, you know, I don't know how that will play out but there's a kind of real sense of we need to foster respect but also knowledge and curiosity, you know, beyond a sort of let's just agree to be together without intersecting. So, you know, we need to move beyond the kind of individual bubbles that 1020 years ago, were maybe okay. Because as someone said on this screen, I think it was Maureen, you know, unless we create collectivities and we move forward with there's no forward to move to. And so I, you know, I think I'm, you know, just looking at the screen and the panelists and you had you were asking about the frame through which we advance these conversations and I'm really kind of encouraged to, you know, kind of thinking across scales has also been something that I've been very interested that Jesus like really, I mean I think architecture has been fragmented. You know, we're planning urban design preservation, you know, these but they are all the, you know, it's just different scale to, to look, you know that and we need to bring these scales of knowledge and intervention back together also. And I think thinking about geography environment, social justice, etc, across scales is something that without which we, we can't articulate new frames in a way. Do you want to fix that. Yeah, I actually want to go back to your original question yet because it's one of these very loaded questions with heavy assumptions. So if you don't mind if I just work a little bit to deconstruct it, because there's this assumption and the first question that Lebanon was actually established to bring stability and harmony. I would argue that that was not the raison d'etre of Lebanon to begin with Lebanon was established from the beginning as a political sectarian states, you know, under the rubrics of a civil state of course but it was and remains a political sectarian state. So how else could this sectarian system have evolved what else could it have offered us, but the economic destruction that has fallen our country, the political disillusionment that has fallen and the export of our children as commodities. And we've exported them in very, very large percentages since the end of the so called civil war. What I am arguing is that the political sectarian system is itself designed to be destructive and designed to be corrupt and so where we are in today is only a natural consequence of the very construction of this entity that we call Lebanon. And when you ask the second question. How can we work together to build a togetherness myself as an ecologist the first question I have to ask you is who is this together, who are we defining as together. So are we defining that together as Lebanon has been defined for decades as 18 communities coexisting, which I would then have a problem, because the moment we define ourselves as Lebanese people as coexisting with Lebanese people, then we are differentiating ourselves and denying ourselves citizenhood. Okay, so I would start by first saying we are Lebanese, and the way that we choose to worship God or if we choose to worship God is between us and him or her, and has no place within a national system. As an ecologist I would take that further because if we truly want to develop something that is harmonious, something that is beautiful, something that is sustainable something that will be worthy of our children, then we cannot only think of ourselves. We have to think about the non human animals, we have to think about the trees, we have to think about the mountains and the rivers and the airs and everything else. We have to be included from the beginning in our design of the togetherness they cannot be included as an afterthought. So then we ask the question, how can we build an economic political social system that is truly inclusive and I don't mean just inclusive of our citizens and a inclusive of all the awe inspiring glory species with whom we should have the humility to share this land with. What are the models that we can then build forward. Okay, and there's so many and they're beautiful, and they all stem from from a foundation of humility, but it starts with that Do we want to live in walled suburbs as rich human beings living on living on top of poor human beings who then live on top of the environment that we are destroying and we know then we are just living on a ticking bomb, or do we actually want to develop a system a model economically, culturally, culturally, linguistically, that truly meets the needs of all the people within the means of this extraordinary planet, and the extraordinary nature that we are blessed with, so that we can thrive together and that is personally what I want and that is personally I think we should be pushing for within our educational system within our political system to tear down these compartmentalizations and to actually have the courage and the audacity to imagine a different kind of economic political and social system. You know, we, that's, that's, that's very powerful, but and I think togetherness is we don't live on this planet alone, we live with other people and we should all come together to find a sustainable solution. Maybe Amal, do you want to, because I know Jesus has worked a lot with environmental justice and has been pushing the boundaries on that front for years now since you became Dean. Do you want to maybe respond on that, how architects, how we as architects can relate to these different environmental questions? And Rania said it very eloquently. You know, I think, for, for, for one, I think we can't just say this is a little boundary as an architect. I mean, you know, and this is my building and as long as my building performs, everything will be fine. There is no boundary. I mean, I mean, we have to be zooming in and zooming out and realizing that everything is connected, that everything is extracted, that there are issues of labor that, you know, and I think getting all of us students, faculty, et cetera, to think about those connections at every single and never look at, you know, constantly shifting the frame, obviously we can't we at some point we do end up framing something as a planner as a geographer as a, you know, but but understanding that that frame is only one moment. And it's incredibly porous. I think that's been maybe the part that I've been most excited and seeing, you know, we have increasingly the numbers of our students who are doing dual degrees, you know, who come to architecture and then say, you know, I want to do I want to also join with planning, I want to do preservation, you know, so it's stitching back together, because we can't separate and it's not, you know, outside doesn't exist. You know, and so I think it's it's thinking across scales understanding that everything is connected and yet still finding a scale to act, you know, within is something that we've been trying to support, but you know, I think what Rania said is exactly what we should be striving for. And I think, sadly, and in an amazing way Lebanon is always this lens that, you know, if you if we could figure it out, you know, a lot could be figured out in the world because a lot of the complexities that are that we think are specific are also found in so many different places around the world and so the conversations that are have been building across, you know, the global south, etc. You know, Lebanon has a big role to play Lebanese scholars and planners and activists and sharing knowledge and learning and exchanging in that sense. Thank you. Yeah. So just in fact, just to add one one one point in fact on these on this item, or a question. In fact, we should start thinking as nationalism. So it's, it's not the case for the moment in Lebanon, and we should put our nationalism on the first stage before religion, religions and sex. So to change the mentality. It's not so easy. And maybe we should start it by what was during and just after the war, or the civil war, the compulsory military services that they stop it and a good educational system that also for the country. And it's especially with the COVID-19. So we should we should rethink these things and have a good educational system in Lebanon. And on the other hand, also when we saw what was modified in Beirut and especially with the border and so we are not really preserving the history and heritage. And it's related directly to the businessman that they are trying to change the investment factors. And this is the big also issue in Lebanon, because if we rethink it in a different way, that preserving the history and heritage can keep a little bit or more than the case for the moment, the tourism to visit Lebanon and to see what's happening and what was the the history and the region. For example, if we take the example of Daryl Amar, we are trying to keep what was before the war. And in this case, the tourist can visit Lebanon and see what's what's going on. But what happened in Beirut because of the investment factor, we are losing a lot. Later on, we'll discuss these details. Yeah, I think we jumped, we skipped into some questions. The second question I think many of you have touched as well on is looking at the approaches presented by the different isms, federalism, nationalism, the unification with neighboring states, borders, environmentalism, capitalism, socialism and beyond. As examples, which structure do you think are the most viable and most sustainable today? If we are to envision a future of togetherness as designers, architects and planners and scholars, what are the major takeaways that can be drawn to inform the built environment? Oh, sorry, I wasn't going to go. Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to start with the first question, I guess, and then maybe talk about the second one. Well, the idea of Lebanon is what I want to say is based on living together, really. It's, okay, Rania said that it's a system of sectarian but I think it's a system of communities actually and sects that decided at some point in time to live together and create this state, whether it was by choice or not at first and maybe at the end they all agree to it. But now we are after 100 years of this crazy adventure of trying to create a state of our own that we are calling still Lebanon. And we are still trying to say that even though we are very different, not us, the communities and the more the system became complex, especially at the latest stage, the communities felt they are different, the more it's a problem. And during the wars, there was always these issues of different communities working with outside forces, etc. In order to dominate other communities, we had all kinds of issues and all kinds of problems that were going against the idea of Lebanon, which is in my opinion, still relevant. And the revolution of 17 October, if you want to be a bit optimistic, gave us this hope that no people really know what a state is and they really want a state at the same time as they want to stay within their communities and they have their own ways of life and they have their own connections with outside countries that are different from each other, some to the west, some to the east, etc. All these complexities seem to have a solution. You can feel that no, maybe there is a solution. Maybe people understand more and more, since if you want the 2005 revolution and now more and more people are taking the Lebanese flag, not another flag. Every time, because they know that this is their only option and this is their only solution. And they are more and more convinced that they should let go of this communal control obsession in order for them to move to the state. Now I want to talk about a bit about Beirut shifting grounds and how we started the idea by actually trying to express this diversity that we have, which is Beirut itself. So we were thinking of how to do this and the idea was to depict the ground for Beirut. So that's where it all started. Because we were thinking and it was just around the revolution and before and there was a lot of problems, fires, etc. And I remember, and we were thinking that we want something positive and want to show Beirut in an interesting way and positive way. And it was, of course, the diversity that exists in Beirut, which is what makes it interesting. And at the same time problematic. While we were working on the research and COVID happened, the crisis, of course, the revolution then the last, we started changing rhetoric a bit and we started talking about how Beirut is always shifting and the ground of Beirut literally shifts and how we can see this and study it and understand it if you want, because Beirut is something really special, you think, and it's worth more than what we did, of course, a lot of research I think should be made to this. If I want to answer your second question. I think, I think the system, the Lebanese system is not an easy task to solve the needed system I mean in order for us to finally get some peace and get some get something working. And I think there is a mistake, not a mistake, but historical any problem that political problem that was happening, which is that we are trying to import something which is the the secular state. But the idea is that we have to be true to ourselves, we have to be true and honest with each other, and know that there are communities living here that don't know what democracy is. There are communities who have zines, they exist. In my opinion, they exist less and less, because people are going more and more to schools, but they exist and we have to understand that and we have to take it into consideration and whatever system we are building. I'm only saying this because I know that we have to work on a new social contract and whatnot. This is a must. I agree. Maybe not now, you know, like now in this crisis, but in the near future, because the current system is a lie, I think. And, and every time we do a system, it's not, it's for the wrong reasons. So this time we have the, the, the chance because of the crisis and because of the revolution because of everything. So we have the chance to create a better system, something, Bishwa Lebanon, something that is close to this mosaic that exists in our country. Yeah, if I may. I agree with you bullish that we do have an opportunity today and it's a marvelous opportunity marvelous I mean horrendous but it could be marvelous. But I think that's about it that I agree with you on. As a scientist, I have a problem using words without their clear definition. So if we are to say that we are 18 communities, how do we define communities at the very basic a community is a group of people living together that have shared characteristics. Okay, if we are to define Lebanese as 18 sectarian communities, then we by design by design deny ourselves any organic nature we deny ourselves the ability to change, we become forced to because we are forced to. So basically, we are forced to in violation of our constitution by the way, which grants us the freedom of religion, we are forced into blocks that are denied the ability to change and therefore the very idea of defining Lebanese as sectarian communities becomes the antithesis of a community in and of itself. So at the very least we can say sectarians are sex sex by definition are a contradiction to communities, or we can be more gentle and say, there are many different ways that we can define ourselves as Lebanese within our politics within our government within our residents, but to continue to look at ourselves as 18 sects denies us the ability to build a democracy denies us the ability to build citizenhood. If you're in agreement if we are in agreement that we want to build a state. Okay, I think you understood me wrong though. If we aren't the agreement that we want to build a state. Okay, because we want a state that will then make the difficult decisions of how we distribute resources, with whom we build relations on the outside and how we design those relations. What investments do we have in the country and what for what we have those investments, these are all the decisions and responsibilities of the state how we design our military. If we want to do what Ronnie left is suggesting which I completely agree with which is conscription in our military so on and so forth. All of these are decisions of a state so then the question becomes, what kind of state can function accordingly, and given the construct of Lebanon. Given the fact that we represent different nationalities. I am sure amongst us we have different national identities, given the fact that our army is broken we cannot be a military country given the fact that we do have different religious perspectives so we cannot be like Turkey with one religion in charge okay, the only way therefore that we can develop a state is by being a secular civil state. I must argue quite the opposite that secularism is natural to this region. It is not an import from the West, because it is in this region that we have always chosen different ways to worship God and lived alongside each other. In my family name is only one example bait al-musri we literally have every religion in Lebanon signs bait al-musri you know, so we are the very embodiment of secularism in Lebanon in this region in and of itself so then the question becomes, if we do want to develop a secular state how can we go about doing that. And it is from here that I really want to answer the question yet that you raised in question to what structures are the most viable and most sustainable today. For me the structure that I look for that I get my guidance from and forgive me if I sound very romantic is the tree itself the tree how do we as human beings behave like trees, how do we learn from trees trees are rooted in their place. The trees invest in each other the mother tree gives of its nutrients to younger trees. It does not gather its nutrients to only feed itself. It gathers to feed others trees are by design and embodiment of collectivism. They are an embodiment of cooperation. They are an embodiment of a lack of disposability because the magnitude of the tree above ground is nothing compared to the magnitude of the roots underground. They have no borders they are crossing it all. So how do we build models that learn from the ecological models. So in Lebanon that means we invest in people and we invest in places. So we invest in universal health care for everybody. We invest in empowering education for everybody and empowering education not the kind of education that we have now. We invest in an economy that is built on local production, not on foreign consumption. We invest in our youth so that we don't look at them as commodities for export and for remittances, but we look at them as the very vitality of our country. That is what it means to be investing in places and investing and investing in people and investing in places means that we start to build for the long term. We look at our trees, we look at our rivers, we look at our mountains, not as stocks for us to dismantle and consume, but as places for us to enrich and develop in a real humbling unifying sense and we can do that the models exist for that. The models of respect and equality and solidarity exist economically and socially, and I think we can learn a lot from ecological models about that. We can learn a lot about eco socialism by building such a system. You know, we can learn a lot from ecological models and we can learn a lot about the failures of capitalism, because capitalism is and I would argue by design, anti scientific. It is built on constant growth, which violates the second law of thermodynamics it violates the laws of science, and it astounds me how we continue to teach economics within scientific, you know, or real departments in our universities rather than teaching economics mainstream capitalist economics under the rubrics of science fiction where it belongs because it is truly an anti scientific philosophy how do we build an economy that recognizes the limitations, the finite resources that we live in, and that is not both that is not built on the same disposability, where we do not look at humans as disposable labor or disposable commodities, but we look at each other the way that a forest looks at all its microorganisms, where we are all needed and we are all loved and we can all work together. There's much more detail about those models and about how they exist of how we can build those structures but I would really appreciate if we would think in that manner how we can build a country of citizenship of equality for citizenship away from sexism away from sectarianism and a model that encompasses us all for today and for tomorrow and like I said those models do exist. Just to note, because I think I've been understood wrong so just, yeah, what I meant, no. Yeah, what I meant Rania is not that I'm, I don't think a secular state works 11 on this, not what I said. I'm just saying how to achieve a secular state now to get there. We have to understand that we are still in part a communal society, this is all I said, I'm all with you. I'm definitely with a secular state and there's no other way of having a state. If all citizens are not equal. This is not an option I think. So I'm just saying that we have to be creative and how to achieve it. This is all I'm saying, and I would talk maybe about decentralization among other things but this is that's it for me now. Thank you. Just one thing Charles, I think he joined us you can turn your camera on a since he was stuck in traffic. And it was just to go back to your thing and to what I was saying. It seems like within these shifting grounds and within how Ronnie I think she very eloquently described their vision and their eco environmental approach which I, which is great. Because architects we can relate we can start designing and and relating these spaces that negotiate these kind of like different communities, different approaches, and how can we come together. And a lot of ground and discuss. No, I mean I think this this question also maybe links to what Rania was talking about before and which I completely agree with. So, for me it seems like it's important to move more towards this new kind of ism whether it is national or natural even naturalism as a way of thinking of the country. I just wanted to know that for me this idea of 18 different sex, you know, sex, living together in this country with a lot of differences for me this is really a constructed narrative that for me never really aligned with how I lived or how I saw people I always believe that there are much more things that we share. And if we think about culture if you think about food if you think about our landscape and how our morphology has shaped all of us. This this has beyond anything else has transcended any kind of difference that we have, which might remain religious but even if we look at the religions in this country. There are not even a lot of shared values a lot of shared aspects that align rather than different. For one thing, for example, a lot of Lebanese are still quite religious, whether Christians or Muslims, etc. And this is not something that you find in a lot of countries this kind of connection that is also across religions. We don't know how in different religious icons or locations or landmarks in Lebanon, different set different religions actually flock there regardless of these differences. And these are these are things that we really need to learn from. And we need to for me construct a completely new story and narrative about Lebanon, we have to form it. We have to form it by looking at our shared values, our shared culture, and of course culture transcends everything else, and our shared landscape and territory. And to move to your, to your second aspect of your question yet I think redefining what territory is as architects and as urbanists, not to see it anymore as the only obvious ideal of free to save development of value for only an territory, but to redefine the value of our resources to really look back at water and look back at rivers, and look back at our mountain tops, and all of these aspects really need to become part of how we understand Lebanon, and not not in the stereotypical sense of five minutes you know from the mountain to the beach and all these narratives that have turned into stereotypes rather than any form of reality. So we come back into questions of how we build, how we integrate our architecture with our national environment, how we build on slopes, how we redefine our building code actually to respond to these needs, rather than only prioritizing built up areas as the reference of the value. I think this this comes in line with a new story about Lebanon a new story about territory, and everything else need to somehow expand from there. Anyone has any comments regarding that question. I'm going to add it to Carla was saying about the important the importance of built space in general in Lebanon and all the issues that has. I think we as with architects slash activists. We have a lot of work to do. And I encourage all architects that think that they can add something or work on something that they do so actively, because what I'm trying to say that I think we turned the eye for a very long time. We now have a very broken landscape kind of country. If I want to go out of Beirut that is, we have a big issue in our planning models and laws, definitely the laws. So I'm saying that we should start being really active on not just on the architectural level and on the planning level but also on the political level in the sense that we should start working on new laws for construction, and new planning regulations, definitely for Beirut and for other places just like Carla was saying, we have to start putting forward our agenda, our own brackets, which is what has to do with protecting the environment, which has to do with giving chance for public ground to come back to Beirut somehow and some miracle. We have to have equality for all the culture of equality for all through space and through construction doesn't exist in our country. It's a very privatized country. The individual comes always before the public and we should really work to reverse that. It's a very long struggle for all of us. And what I'm putting forward is that we have to be active politically and not just architecturally and in the planning and the research which is great and we have to work on that. We also have to target all these new political parties and activists that are working, trying to take the city of Beirut hopefully in the next elections. We have to help them and give them guidance and work with them in order to come up with something even on the national level for the construction law in Lebanon that allows you to build everywhere you want, except in planned area. So if there's no planned area you can build in it, just like that. That's crazy. All these things should change. And we as architects, we have to advocate for these. You have a question regarding grassroots movements. There should be architecture, grassroots movement that work on the ground and advocate for this, for these ideals and for these ideas in general. Continuing from what Willis was saying, especially as architects being at charge, do you have actually, I'm very sorry for the delay and the crazy things we're living in Lebanon now. I want to build on two ideas, very important ideas that were mentioned. The idea of preserving our natural heritage and the idea of preserving the architectural heritage. Because both of these elements are completely absent from the historical narrative in Lebanon. So only the historical narrative, the official one is profoundly divisive and sectarian and is there to actually define and justify the existence of the corrupt and sectarian political regime, but it also completely disregards our natural heritage and giving the legislation that allows building to be everywhere, we do not have proper strong legislation to protect this heritage. And as you know, in every process of building a country, of building a state, of building an identity, protecting this heritage and reshaping the link that exists between this natural, architectural, urban, ruler heritage. And the citizen is a key factor in building an identity. The chaos that is now beirut, the chaos that is now the unplanned building in Mount Lebanon and especially the very fertile region is catastrophic on the long run. So, given that we are now living in the first centennial of Lebanon, it's crucial to consider and address these problems in setting and thinking of new ways of better heritage protections, natural and architectural, and linking through education, again, the Lebanese citizen and especially the Lebanese youth to this heritage. This was the idea I wanted to discuss. And there was, if I may add, also because I'm building on ideas that I heard when I joined, the idea that we are a team sect, I completely agree, is a fiction. It's actually an idea that is one of the building blocks of the narrative, that we are not one people that have a shared system of values. We are 80 different sects that are legally different on the personal status level, and that they never actually form an entity. This is not historically accurate. What is shared is way more present than what is divisive, and the historical narrative never takes into consideration the shared values. They only build up on the divisive elements, and if you read Lebanese history, they would only work on the conflictual events as events that justify the existence of 18 separate sects that would only work together if they can protect and justify their own sectarian narratives as Haqqouq al-Tawa'if, something that has became now pivotal in the discourse and narrative of the ruling units. This is what I had to say. So I think I'm going to try to change a bit the third question, just building up on the conversation. And I think what Charles at the end was talking about heritage preservation, whether it's the built or the natural environment, it is very crucial. And previously, Rania was talking about looking at ecological systems, knowing that as architects, and then Boulos was talking about architects being activists and these challenging architects to engage with politics. Like Lebanon, there have been many cycles of reconstructions in Lebanon after disasters from Solider to Wa'at, and they all in a way informed and shaped the socio-political and urban structures of the territory. Once again, today we are facing the same scenario after the August 4 blast. So how can we envision a new city that is connected to everyone? How can we as architects, thinkers, and educators and ecologists and historians more or less stand against these notorious projects that we are used to that are happening in the city throughout the past 40 years and has been dividing the city? I will start if you want. Thank you. So in fact, even before the blast of August 4 and before what happened after the civil war in Beirut, like Solider and the project of Wa'at, we start, in fact, with the National Construction Division after the earthquake in 1956, where in fact they called some region as Ta'amir region. We still have a lot of lands, in fact, in Lebanon. Now it's depending from the PCH, the Public Corporation for Housing. And here, in fact, the state acquired lands for housing, those affected by the earthquake. But the citizen, in fact, during the civil war, they started building housing units on it randomly during the war. And now the situation is very catastrophic. It's not like what happened in Solider and what happened in Wa'at. Because here we have the lands and the citizens start building houses, units randomly inside, especially. I have some pictures, but maybe it's not the case for the moment. And later on with Solider, the Lebanese company, in fact, for the development and reconstruction of Beirut Central District, where they built, in fact, I don't know if we can say it, but somewhat successfully experimented. But at the same time, they changed the Beirut archaeological features and did not care about public transportation and made the hurt of the capital for the rich people. And finally, it ended with empty streets and buildings. If we take the example of Wa'at, it's more a party experience by excellence. Return the citizen to the same environment and neighborhood. But at the same time, maybe it will not give the good solution for what we need for the moment in Beirut. So for me, the necessity of developing a housing rescue plan, it's a must where we can coordinate the process of decision making to avoid overlapping responsibilities and conflict of powers. And at the same time, we should unify standards, work plans, assistance and benefits. So to review and update all relevant registration to the sector. And at the same time, we should develop an approach to reorganize slums area and coordination with the general directorate of urbanism and municipalities. And after all, at the same time, it should be, I don't know, maybe automating the systems in the Lebanese administration to have all these steps going around. So from now, the public corporation for housing, for the moment we write, in fact, a new housing policy related as well with the transportation. And at the same time with the general directorate of urbanism, we got the approval of the Minister of Social Affair because we are depending on the Ministry of Social Affair. But still waiting for the new government to sign it and send this new housing policy because in fact it's not a new housing policy. It's the first one since 1943, unfortunately. So hopefully we'll discuss all these details because it's about 42 articles in it. So it will be discussed later on, but just to give you an idea about what's happening and where we are going. Thanks. If I could add a few comments. Yeah. First of all, I can't when I hear about Solider and placed alongside the word reconstruction, you know, my body has to respond because Solider wasn't the reconstruction, it was a destruction. And then an exclusionary. I agree with you. No, no, no, I'm just referring to the question I completely agree with what you said. I think we need to always recognize what Solider was that it was nothing about reconstruction everything about deconstruction transformation exclusion, etc, which is the very model neoliberalism it's the very model of capitalism. I mean to me solely there is capitalism on steroids and if that is what we want to do then that is where we're going to be going into empty streets and, and world apartments. I think what would be fascinating for us if we think about a model for Lebanon would be how do we think about holistic policies. So how do we think about our cities that are designed for people and not designed for cars, but designed for people to be able to traverse differently because currently our cities are highways they're designed for private vehicles. It would look like if our cities were designed for individuals communities human communities, non human communities, and public transportation, what kind of a construct would then be built what kind of a living space would we then create. Same would apply to housing, if we're going to think about housing holistically. So here we go beyond simply thinking about a housing policy, what kind of a taxation policy could we have in Lebanon. I would encourage housing in a different way we currently have a very large number of vacant apartments in Lebanon, and more than 1000s of vacant apartments in Lebanon and they're vacant because of the taxation policy, because of the speculation in real state, because of the way that our financial and economic policies are designed. So let us think about a housing policy that unifies that. Let us think about increased taxation on vacant apartments so that their price of these apartments can go down and so that they can become affordable. And at the same time, let us think about encouraging buildings that are constructed with multiple economic uses. So we can think about our buildings resembling our cities. Instead of having one economic community living in one building and other cities living in slums, we can think about them as living alongside each other, organically encouraged by financial policies encouraged by taxation, encouraged by housing plans instead of thinking about the housing plans as separate. All too often we in Lebanon have thought that the loan is a right for housing, we have the right to a loan to get a house, but a loan only supports the owner of a house who is selling the house at a magnified price, rather than supporting the tenant. I'm not so much in support of loans, I'm in support of lowering the prices of the houses, lowering the prices of the rental constructs so that they can become more financially realistic. While we increase the living wage of our people and thereby we would be able to live in different parts of the country, rather than more and more of us are being forced to live outside of Beirut. While we forced to privately commute into Beirut to work in our broken economy, so we would think about it holistically, how do we support the development throughout the country, from Makar to Nabati, in terms of our housing, in terms of our transportation, in terms of our economics, while at the same time thinking about the preservation of what remains of our water bodies and what remains of our green spaces and what remains of our magnificent hyenas and wolves and foxes, with whom we have the honour to live with, and we can do that, but it would require holistic policy planning, really, really holistic policy planning. I agree with you, in fact, and that exists, in fact, in this new housing policy, just to give you an idea, for example, we are thinking about allocating a percentage of new buildings as affordable units sold at cost, so we'll have from each new building like 20% for the affordable housing or social housing, just to have this mixity in the same building. For example, as well, we have to encourage the formation of corporative and civil groups to build housing complex for citizens, and as well, we add to introduce new urban parks following international standards for green space within cities, just to give you an idea, for example, if you think about Bush Hamoud, it's really catastrophic, so if we have any problem and nobody can go and be there, for example, just to, if we have any problem after the fireworks or anything like that, and at the same time, we are thinking about foster rural development and limit migration to cities. All of these ideas, there is a lot of other ideas, but it's already exists in this new housing policy. Hopefully that we will have this new government and having the green light to move to the parliament to start writing the law or the new law. I would like maybe to follow up just by adding maybe a different point to this question, more related maybe to what has history taught us in the different reconstruction efforts that had happened in Lebanon, especially now post August 4. I feel it's really important to be careful about the aspect of the erasure of memory that has happened so strongly after the Civil War, particularly of course with Solider, where there was almost like an intentional removal of all traces of what Beirut was to construct a complete new model of it. And post August 4, of course, we saw this again with new developments that came about with the German model, for example, that somehow they cleaned all the last area and gave us a completely new future, where I feel that for the city really to be, of course, housing strategies, transportation, infrastructure and whatnot are extremely necessary policies, but I think what's more important is to reconnect at this point and to make the city's connection to the port, and to somehow try to, not this time, not do the same mistake this time of erasing what was there, but to kind of come to terms with it to accept it as part now of the history of the city, and to see in what way can the current site of destruction can become maybe new moment that can have another value or another experience. What we lost, especially in Martyr Square, which is kind of why I've done that research is because of this somehow this idea that stayed in our mind of a part of Beirut that we never knew except in these iconic photographs of a part of Beirut that our parents lived and I've always identified with but that somehow after the 15 years completely disappeared and that they cannot even recognize anymore. And I feel this as an aspect of city is much more traumatizing than sometimes partial destruction is the complete removal and replacement of something cleaning it up and really enforcing social amnesia as has happened in Lebanon and Beirut. And that is why also as part of this research it was very important to reconstruct that memory of the square to hope in hopes that it can become part again of our psyche and our narrative and I really feel that this is a lesson that with the poor destruction that we need to make sure that doesn't happen again. I would like to add, if it's possible, this idea that was just mentioned is actually at the core of Reconstruction politics of Solidaire, the erasing the memory of the city and erasing the human link between public spaces and the inhabitants of the city. How can we accept that after 100 years of existence as a state, existence as a state, Beirut still doesn't have a public unifying iconic square and we do know the historical rule that Saht al-Buruj or Saht al-Shuhada with its multiple names and narratives played in the history of Lebanon. And as you just mentioned, this psyche of losing memory and belonging to a space that isn't there anywhere was at the heart of the Reconstruction policies adopted by the Lebanese state because kind of these erasing memory policies serve the sectarian agenda and the sectarian regime because actually they enshrine this cohesion instead of building on social cohesion. And what Solidaire failed to do and I do agree that Solidaire is not a Reconstruction program, it was a deconstruction program. Solidaire did not take into consideration the human element. What makes a city living is the connection between the inhabitants and the streets and the squares, the local artisan, the diversity in social class. They only went for gentrification for one class and completely destroyed the spirit of the city. However, we still do have examples to follow. Tripoli is still to a very large extent a living city. Saida also, Baalbaq also. But also as was mentioned, since there is no clear policy on public transportation, these cities were made to serve transportation by car whether you had to build really large highways and sometimes these highways destroyed natural and archaeological heritage. So the issue now is to have the challenge now. So it is to have a city that is living again that can be a capital of a new Lebanon built on shared values and also having enough public space and green space around historical and very iconic public space. Hi, if I can just jump in, I was very encouraged to hear Rony Lahoud's plans, I mean to think about it's all the question is the right to infrastructure, right, that's what we're talking about the right to mobility, the right to housing, the right to water. The Solidaire story we know it all of us, you know we've revisited it so many times it's a monumental failure. And I think what Charles just said and I think Boulos you mentioned it earlier, you know, maybe looking outside of Beirut and stop focusing. I mean, of course, we sometimes focusing on what is around as opposed to, you know, can be helpful and, you know, I was struck, Rania, it's true we export our youth and and we import everything. Right. And so is there a movement now to to reconnect with the making with food production with agriculture with a return. I mean, these are the actions that that I know are happening and that are so, you know, so important right between nature and the urban is the rural. And if we can reclaim that space. So I'm just encouraged by the conversations turn from, you know, the built form to what is in between buildings which are vectors infrastructures and systems and underground systems and food systems and you know to kind of learn how to support ourselves, you know within within the within the country itself which is, you know, maybe, maybe this is the chance. If there is a silver lining to this horrendous, you know moment the country is in. If I may add to build on many of the things that Dean Andra was just said and and Charles mentioned and Carla, I have I'm going to combine a couple of questions. One is from Sandra frame, one of the organ co organizers of this event. I'm just asking directly, Ronnie, how do you see the way forward to bring back affordable housing in Beirut, given the high rate of vacancies and building stock of the city. And I would like to combine that with another question from our attendees. Naja, how can you initiate a housing policy when the last official census dates back to 1932. In fact, when we start writing or working on a new housing policy in Lebanon, it was in since three years ago. So, first of all, we are thinking about all these questions and we are trying to avoid some some problems and it, for example, just to give you an idea about the Beirut. So as I said before, at the beginning of this webinar, if we take the example of solid air, there is a lot of vacant apartment. So we should start by adding a tax on the vacant apartment, just to push this person first or to sell it or to to rent it. And as well, we should set a new renting low, because for the moment we don't have any, let's say, any criteria about on how much we should rent this apartment and it depends in which area there is. As well, we should add like a new index for for the renting from one, I mean, from one year to another year, which is not the case for the moment so we don't have an index for the for the renting and yearly index. So, all of these standards should be as well be added just to give you an idea for the for the moment we don't have a leasing rent with option to buy low in Lebanon what we have it was a low in 2006, but we should add a lot of still need a lot of amendments to give the incentive in fact for the developers to rent. These these apartments with option to buy. As well, if we take the example of rent, we should define standards of what constitute adequate housing. For example, you can rent in Lebanon an apartment without any any window. It doesn't exist anywhere in this in the load. So determine also the ceiling for rent, according to the apartment's condition and its location, define an adequate yearly index. So all of these things should be added. For example, in in Beirut, we can take the we have an apartment with 400 square meters. These apartments should be divided. In fact, in two, I don't know, maybe two or three apartments with 100 square meters. So all of these ideas can be implemented. There is a book that we we we write as well. We call that think housing. So I don't know if I can send you like some examples to be to be distributed between all of the panelists, but it will be. We have like 23 ideas in it, just related to the old rent low, because for the moment, in fact, even if we talk about the old rent low, the tenants benefiting from the old rent control make up of about 20% of the resident in Beirut. So we should also protecting the social fabric, economic, cultural, sectarian and historical urban character. So all of these is I will not read all of the housing policy, but we have we already think about all these ideas. Maybe we'll like set another maybe meeting for for it because it's a long story to discuss. I don't know if there is other questions because I saw a lot of questions in fact about this housing policy. And after all it's still not published for the moment we have the headlines in fact of this new housing policy is still not published because we are still waiting for the new government to approve it and it will be published later on. And Rony we had a second leg of the question which was, how are you, you know, how did this housing policy come together when the last census happened in 1932. In all the, in all the countries there is a housing policy except in Lebanon. So now we are working closely in fact with the French government and the French ministry of of habitat and ecological is the same ministry and in France, and they visit Lebanon two weeks ago, and we are trying to elaborate elaborate this housing policy as well. Even if it is not the case but the the rental law that we can we can put it the the the new law in fact for the old rental law is a catastrophic as well, because we didn't avoid the demolition, we should work to prevent eviction for the elderly retires and people with special needs. So all of these things should be added in fact in somewhere in the laws. Till now in fact what we did each time we have a problem, we are trying to create or a new company like Solidare or some laws that we are adding it and but we cannot honestly, or it's not preventing or helping the citizen. So this is why we should think about out of out of the box we should think out of the box and thinking about a complete housing policy, where we should relate as well the public transportation and urbanism and everything, including in it, and then someplace as well we should like thinking about building housing units and with partnership with the municipalities and the private sector, we cannot avoid the public sector, and especially that we have also the PPP partnership, private partnership law. So, so we cannot say that we are still in 1932 and I don't know stop doing all what we should do in fact. Thank you, Ronnie. I think it's really interested and we're interesting and we're looking forward to see this housing policy and how it's going to be implemented. It's also interesting that you're looking at mobility and the city and the public sector. Is there any way are you looking into like the ecology and not as in green spaces but actually how can we design houses that are also generous for non human beings and where it's, we are improving the qualities of lives of humans and non humans, because they would, as we know as a city of concrete, and the only public parks or gardens they we have they are more like a stage, rather than an actual ecological sanctuary. And with housing like do we have any vision regarding that. Yes, for sure. But for example, for Bush Hamoud, for example, we, we tried to to think in a different way with the UN Abita, where we can all the old building that is not really an heritage building what we can remove it and start rebuilding it in a different way. And for sure adopting new methods and building techniques, for example, moving from concrete to light building to reduce construction costs and corporate corporation with the order of engineering and architects. So, at the same time we should think also about the green space and. But, but at some point, we should take into consideration as well that if we go to build the green, the maintenance can be can cannot be affordable for the social housing. So, at the same time we should think green but at the end, creating this parks for for the citizen. And, but at the same time, we should take all the related things and the maintenance into consideration. So it will not be on the first stage but here we are talking about long term strategy, but as well if we go to have this new transportation, public transportation, also policy and related to the housing policy, we can push also or move the people to the poorer area. Okay, thank you, Roni. Now we're going to jump from back to a bigger scale. And with our last question. Over the past year, all of 11 structures and systems have been challenged and pushed to the extreme. Yet in these precarious times many grassroots movements global alliances and initiatives have come together to counter these crisis. And I think that all of systems and alliances can be cultivated to challenge the unbalanced relationships that shape politics, economy, ecology and urban life, among others. I think Willis you talked about grassroots sometime in the previous question if you want to. You talked about grassroots as a way to to advocate for our, our ideas, but concerning grassroots movement that were happening after the blast. I think they were very good sign of what the Lebanese people can do and want to do when they want to reconstruct or construct etc. But I don't think it is enough to to just work with NGOs and grassroots to reconstruct anything actually and while while we me as an activist and we think that we want our state back our institutions back from these mafia people. I also think that the reconstruction should happen via the public administrations. That should have their, that should work correctly for once. Finally, maybe have the correct people the correct places, and they should lead this work, the city of Beirut should lead it, not the NGOs. Not this municipality, of course, and along with the order of engineers. These are the people that should lead this effort of reconstruction, along with grassroots movement and NGOs, but just putting everything on on the NGOs and on the movements. They are not going to help us very, very much, especially that a lot of love, a lot of, not just the power or the, or the structure needed to do this work is not with them but with with the state and with this state administrations, but also the the legality and the responsibility is, should be where people are, have, what I said about the word, you know, they can be held responsible for what they do and Joe's do what they do and just leave. We understand that, you know, this is how they were, but when they're responsible and then administration does something wrong. That's a problem. So, so what I think I'm saying that we have to bring it back to the right or the correct way of doing things. Yeah, I think it's like grassroots movements are very crucial. But at the end of the day, we don't want to end up in a like NGO Republic, where nothing is working and everything. And there needs to be some alliances between these movements and the state. I don't know, Rania, would you like to elaborate or talk about that since you've been on the ground somehow working and advocating for change and how would the state that you are envisioning would actually bridge those the work between the state and the NGOs to come together and I agree with what Bullos was saying one of the problems of NGOs is they lack accountability and another big problem of NGOs is that they think of one issue at a time rather than think of things holistically we cannot be having that we cannot solve the housing crisis without solving the tax problem and we cannot solve public transportation without looking at highway so on and so forth so we have to step out of the NGO model and step into something called political parties. And I know that there's been a movement over the past 20 years to look at politics as a bad word and political parties as a bad word but political parties to me is the way forward for us to be thinking holistically to be thinking about political transformation. So within that lens, how do we step forward. And here, Carol asked a question in the Q&A which is, how would one push a holistic plan that I'm suggesting, while taking into account the fragility and instability of the country, its resources and the staggering differences between the two classes and my answer to that it is it is only by examining it holistically and recognizing the massive economic crisis that we have our country is bankrupt the vast majority of us are poor and destitute, while the billionaires of course continue to get fewer and richer by recognizing the economic crisis by recognizing where we are today and by thinking holistically that is how we step forward by thinking about how do we build a society that holds itself accountable to everyone and not to any of these false narratives of a community. Okay, we do have that ability that this is what is astounding when we think about false narratives not only where we given this false narrative of 18 Lebanon that we have always been this way and we cannot change, but we've proven that wrong. And we have to remember that we are the people that liberated our lands, twice from Zionist occupation both in Beirut and in the south, without a surrender agreement between us and the enemy we did what many thought was impossible. And we can do that again, which is build something from the ground up that is needed, build a secular state, build a state that is economically responsible, we have the economic models for that we as a party have have designed and publish economic models that could work forward, which is we step out of consumption we step into local production we look at regional production and regional relationships that would support the interest of the state. And it's full human and not human ecosystems we look at that forward, but we need to have the courage to make decisions, and we need to have the imagination to believe that we can build that courage. And right now is one of the critical opportunities for us to do so because truly without any exaggeration. I don't believe that over the past 100 years Lebanon has ever been in a worse situation than it is today. So we need to do all that we can to work together under clear political discourse to be able to build a direction forward by building institutions by building accountability by building current courage by having political vision, economic vision, cultural vision so on and so forth, all based on what we know and all based on where we want to go forward, I can speak in a lot more detail but I'm afraid that would take us to a different kind of seminar. So I just want to present that and if anybody wants any more information please do reach out to me and we can talk further. So I would add to Rania's point is also the importance within this holistic vision to include the diaspora as part of these alliances, the diaspora that has proven to be extremely, extremely essential, especially in this year and in this fourth year and it has also proven to be continuously connected to the country in contrast to what many also assume. And I think this is part of our richness it's not just about being within the limits of Lebanon proper, but by by force of freely expanding on this community and potential lobby that we can also move and build on this forward. Sorry Charles was also trying to say something and I kind of No, no worries, no worries, I was trying to actually build on what was said and now build on what also you said. The, as we know the narrative that exists is a narrative that embodies sectarianism and does not build on shaped values. Also, it's a narrative that doesn't actually mention that we already tried to build a state. It's a narrative that completely disregards what happened under the Shihabi period and what happened also in the early 20s when Lebanese diaspora elites played a major and crucial role in developing the idea of Lebanon and Lebanese proto nationalism. So we need a holistic approach. We have given, as it was said, for the last century, this is the most profound crisis that we have known in our recent history. However, we have a chance to actually start state building. If we agree or planify an approach that would incorporate all the diaspora resources or the local resources to bypass sectarianism to bypass corruption and build a sustainable state that would enshrine human rights that would enshrine proper living standards of the 21st century and also enshrine our sustainable progress in time because given the horrible state of building laws and pollution levels and destruction levels, Lebanon cannot be viable anymore for a long period. If you do not respect the natural heritage and planify the building. This is what I wanted to build on that. We have a chance, even given the crisis, we can and we already did it twice. So we can do it at the time. I think we passed our time. Let's end it on this good note. We have a chance and we can make it. I want to thank all the panelists for their participation. It's been really amazing listening to all of these different viewpoints and opinions come together to discuss the futures of Lebanon. And I think this is something that the collective deeply believes in, that we need to come together regardless of our ideological and political differences. We need to sit, listen to each other and converse to escape more or less these bubbles that are set in this very polarized world that we live in today. And for the architects and designers and planners in the audience, we challenge you to keep the conversation, talk to other disciplines and converse with other experts to envision new ways of living together and designing cities that are equitable and dignified for everyone. Thank you everyone. Thank you Yad and Morin for moderating this and the really super interesting questions that you guys have developed with the rest of the team from GSAP.