5. “Factions Are Like Shops”: Aid, Discipline, and the Structural Effect

Abstract

Now [the factions] are all dakākīn [shops]. Meaning now a student gets 43,000LB [30 USD]. He doesn’t give the money to his parents anymore; he goes and buys cigarettes. They bring him to the protests, it’s not that he goes of his own will; no, they bring him. If he doesn’t come to the protest, he doesn’t get paid the next day. Payday is always after the protest. And when they started giving him 100 USD he stopped working or trying to get an education. He just goes and guards the offices for a couple hours. He lives by night and sleeps in the day, smoking all the time. —Abu Rashid, thawra generation, Shatila camp, December 7, 2010