The 1952 Beirut Taxi Strike That Transformed Lebanon
Om avsnittet
When Beirut's taxi drivers downed their horns in June 1952, they didn't just stall traffic — they brought down a government. This episode unpacks the 1952 taxi strike, a moment when Lebanon's fragile post-independence consensus cracked open. We trace the drivers' grievances under President Bechara El Khoury's corrupt administration, the rise of the Socialist Front led by Kamal Jumblatt and Saeb Salam, and how a protest over fuel prices and licenses escalated into a general strike that forced El Khoury from office. Along the way, we meet the drivers' unlikely allies — lawyers, students, and newspaper editors — and hear how the strike prefigured the 1958 crisis, which also saw Jumblatt and Salam at the barricades. The episode also touches on the role of the Lebanese army's chief, Fuad Shihab, who refused to fire on civilians, and the quiet diplomacy of the American ambassador. This is a story about how small acts of refusal can echo through a nation's history, and why Beirut's taxi ranks were never quite the same again.
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