In almost all countries, the state of the economy determines politics and policy, but in Lebanon, it is the other way around. As such, Lebanon is an anomaly where politics dictates and enforces economic, fiscal and monetary policies. Since the early 1990s, successive governments borrowed, without collateral, huge amounts of money from the Central Bank (BDL), which they did not pay back. As the public fiscal debt skyrocketed, BDL used the citizens’ bank accounts to fund corrupt Lebanese state expenses, pay civil servants, and import consumer goods. Thus, the debt became unsustainable: over US$100 billion, which is 176 times higher than GDP. This is something that the economy of a small country of five million citizens cannot cope with, especially since Lebanon hosts around two million refugees (Syrian, Palestinian and Iraqi) – the highest refugee proportion per capita in the entire world.

In short, even before the October 2019 WhatsApp Revolution erupted, the economic situation was on the verge of collapse and the political system was in dire straits due to constant political bickering; a tug of war that trapped the country in a state of political paralysis that resulted from decades of faulty governance and elitist-hegemonic political participation.

The ruling elite are putting their bets on the potential lying in nonharvested oil and gas maritime fields (blocs), but their serious disagreements have prevented the realisation of these dormant natural treasures. Although these fields were discovered around the same time as those of neighbouring countries, such as Israel, Israel has been harvesting oil and gas for years, and has signed billions of dollars’ worth of deals with Egypt and Jordan.

While the WhatsApp revolutionaries are between a rock and hard place due to constant state repression and stringent COVID-19 lockdowns, they are exploring other ways than protest to advance their demands. This chapter has three sections: The first section sheds light on a century of political corruption, nepotism, and a sectary (sectarian) political system. The second section studies the WhatsApp Revolution and its demands for political reform and the revival of the economy. The third section discusses humour, revolution, and COVID-19, as the Lebanese are renowned for oxymora and the ‘scourge of evil laugh’.