Tag Archives: Beirut

A Rape Attempt in Hamra

A 20 year old girl recently suffered through a rape attempt while going back to her apartment in Hamra. The man followed her to her apartment where he attacked her and ordered her not to scream. But she did scream. So he beat her up and she kept on screaming until the neighbors and people on the street ran towards her.

The man was given to authorities. The man was a married man with children and who worked with our army, an entity theoretically tasked with making sure our women and children are protected from the travesties that living in Lebanon entail.

I salute that woman’s courage. Not only for standing up to her rapist and shouting her lungs out despite him threatening her life, but for having the courage to stand up to him when he was taken into custody and tell her story for the world to hear.

A friend of mine was sexually assaulted in Gemmayze almost a year ago (her story). It wasn’t as physical as the story in question but what my friend and that woman are is lucky Lebanese women.

How many more stories that are similar or worse than this should we propagate and hear before we get a law that makes sure that, if the worst case scenario were to happen, the rapist in question wouldn’t roam the streets with the least repercussions possible?

How many more times should I hear the phrase “you’re lucky you’re a guy” from friends who happen to be girls and who are afraid to walk certain streets alone at night? Till when are our women supposed to live in legal and protective dark ages while the country boasts liberalism that is truly anything but?

And till when should the violation of our women be a matter of taboo that should rarely be discussed through public means?

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Lebanese Blogger Gets Assaulted In Beirut’s Downtown… For Taking A Picture

Habib Batah, a professor at LAU and blogger at The Beirut Report, got physically assaulted today by a bunch of henchmen at Downtown’s soon-to-be-constructed District S… because he dared take a picture of the ancient ruin inside the property which they were busy dismantling.

After being forced to delete the pictures off his phone, Habib tried to complain to Lebanon’s police who dismissed him with their typical “nothing to see here.” Again, we’re only paying our police so they can have Malek el Tawou2 for lunch or dinner. Protecting us or trying to keep our rights, the simplest of which is us being able to take a damn picture at a construction site of our heritage, is just too mainstream to be included under their umbrella of duties.

You can read the full story here (link).

In this occasion, I believe a series of thank yous are in order.

  • Thank you Solidere for your beautiful work in Downtown Beirut. It’s perfectly understandable that ancient ruins aren’t business-centric. The Khalijis sure don’t like them. 
  • Thank you Lebanon’s Ministry of Culture. Your continuous efforts in making sure there’s nothing about this country’s history that  isn’t history are much appreciated.
  • Thank you Lebanon’s Ministry of Interior. You’re just too busy not looking at those self-enforced anti-Syrian curfews and not working on elections for you to get your police to do their job.
  • Thank you Lebanon’s police. I feel safer every single day you tell me to “forget it.”
  • Thank you to every single entity in this God-forsaken country that makes me hopeful and happy and content into what I’m being offered every single freaking day.

How much more shit are we supposed to take before someone out there decides to do their bloody job? How many more people need to be assaulted because they tried to stand up to their constitutionally-given rights? How many more of our rights are we supposed to forsake because of well-connected people everywhere? How many people need to become victims before someone out there wakes up and realizes that this – all of it – is downright unacceptable?

 

When Haifa Wehbe Went To The SMAs

I watch Lebanese award shows occasionally when they air on some television channel. I laugh at the amount of plastic in them, the people kissing up to each other only because social class dictates as such, the winners who are so shocked it’s obviously fake, etc…. The thing about those Lebanese award shows is that no one is taken aback and starstruck by some megastar, effectively making the entire show about that person. I never thought I’d attend a Lebanese award show, let alone be nominated in one. But the Social Media Awards were a Lebanese award show by excellence.

The worst part about the SMAs wasn’t performers such as Poly singing to empty chairs or as a friend said having a “Paris Hilton winning best neurosurgeon award” with Lebanese Memes beating out Donner Sang Compter in a category for NGOs, something I had predicted 11 days ago (link) or how Anis Tabet’s blog somehow lost. The worst part wasn’t the fact that trying to get food at the food court could have resulted in some form of asphyxia because of how many people were there. It wasn’t the dress code that was resoundingly disassociated with social media.

Haifa Wehbe came around 10:30. No pun. She was obviously three hours late because someone as busy as her cannot mingle with the commoners who had been sitting there for three hours prior listening to one category after the other and who are not used to flashy award shows. She came to accept the award she hadn’t won yet for best celebrity on social media.

So in case it wasn’t obvious she was going to win, you should have taken a hint. Elissa was definitely rolling in her bed at that point. It wasn’t as if Haifa Wehbe winning wasn’t expected. But she sure knows how to make an entrance. The entire award ceremony was stopped so she can have her photoshoot and her poses and people scrambling to take pictures with her. Even the category being announced at that moment was put on hold for her. How respectful is that to the winner? Well, what do I know I guess.

Many minutes later, someone came back to their senses. And because Haifa is a very busy woman who doesn’t have time to wait for the rest of the categories in the evening’s planned proceedings, her category was brought forward. And surprise surprise! She won. She went on stage and accepted her prize. Was it deserved? I don’t follow her but “Twitter is my bodyguard,” she said in a speech that she wanted to say in “Arabic.”

And the same mania repeated itself, this time ten times over. The cameras, the flashing lights, the poses, the air kisses. Again, who cares about the other categories of the people who were waiting almost four hours for their turn to come up? Those people – like yours truly – are obviously irrelevant.

I wasn’t sure at that point if I was attending the Social Media Awards or the Haifa Wehbe Show. The award show that was supposed to be about 200 nominees, most of which had worked really hard  for a year to get nominated, became about this woman’s ability to make men drool and preteens go gaga. And they love it.

Note to self: must visit Nader Saab to improve my assets in preparation for next year. The Elie Fares show sure has a nice ring to it.

Haifa Wehbe showing up put things into perspective. The SMAs weren’t about really honoring the year’s best blog with those 50 people in the room at the time of the announcement. It wasn’t about the irrelevant categories sprinkled here and there to which we campaigned and had fun doing so even if we knew we weren’t going win. It was about getting the flashiest result possible. A few days from now, few will remember who won what. But they’ll only remember that Haifa Wehbe attended. Everyone & everything else is simply besides the main point.

Note 2.0:

Thank you to every single one of you people who took the time to vote for A Separate State of Mind. You people are beyond brilliantly awesome. 

Comparing Beirut To Dubai

An American writer for the Huffington Post wrote an article today titled: “Thank you, Beirut. Your Friend, Dubai” in which she basically paralleled the rise of Dubai to the gradual decline and possible near-demise (never ever?) of Beirut.

The writer’s opinion of the Lebanese capital was favorable – even favorable of the go-to Lebanese scarecrow for Americans Hezbollah, trying to explain its popularity among many Lebanese and the reason for its increasing political strength.

In typical fashion, Lebanese across the internet have been sharing the article fervently. It’s about Lebanon. It’s about Beirut. It’s by a very prominent publication. Click, click away.

However, the question I want to ask is the following: is comparing and contrasting Beirut to Dubai warranted?

I, for one, think drawing similarities between the two cities is comparing apples to oranges for the following reasons:

1) Beirut was never made out of money. When you talk about Beirut, you don’t talk about an economical hub for a region or a city made entirely because they discovered oil beneath its soils. You talk about a city which made itself by itself and who, when the factors leading to its prosperity are affected, undoes itself by itself.

2) Beirut has never had poured into it the same amount of money going into Dubai daily. The Lebanese economy – even in its heyday – has never been as strong as the Emirati economy is (or was if we’re accounting for the recession). Up until a few years ago, we didn’t have oil. We won’t see any benefits from that oil until 2018 at the most optimistic expectations (link) and I’m sure the economy driving Beirut won’t be nowhere near comparable to that of Dubai anytime soon.

3) Beirut and Dubai have two entirely different experiences to give their visitors. The joke goes “I’ve never been to Dubai but I’ve been to Zaytounay Bay.” Many moguls are sure trying to turn Beirut into a new Dubai. But I believe their attempts will end up futile. They can build as much malls as they want and spend copious amounts of money into flashy projects that pale in comparison to any developments in more developed countries. They can build the fanciest hotels and the most hedonic of night clubs. But the fact of the matter remains, and it shows in the point the article’s author tried to make: Dubai is for show and Beirut is for heart, however tacky that might be. Can you compare both?

4) By comparing Beirut to Dubai, the comparison can be extended to the countries holding the two cities. Is the “Lebanon” experience of tourism compared to the “UAE” experience? I highly doubt it.

5) The governing bodies behind Beirut and Dubai are highly different. On one hand, you have an iron-first ruling with a twist of enough liberalism not to step on bigger political toes. On the other hand, you have a state barely keeping it politically together as everyone fights for a piece of the Lebanese cake.

Beirut is a city with woes. There’s political instability at every turn. Civil strife can erupt at any moment. The city is that of 18 sects trying to live together while working for their communitarian benefits, some of which are mutually exclusive with those of others. But don’t you think that for a city as chaotic, with a serious lack of infrastructure and urban design, to be compared to Dubai at every point is poignant enough to tell which city has more promise? And If Dubai’s oil reserves ran out tomorrow and its economy started going down the drain and the expats in it decided their futures better be spent elsewhere, would it still be the mega-brilliant city everyone makes it out to be today?

Disfiguring AUB with Zaha Hadid’s Building

Zaha Hadid AUB

Towards the end of my AUB days, someone decided to close down the area that held an infirmary in order for some new construction to take place.

I am not unfamiliar with construction projects at AUB which filled my time when I was there: both the Olayan School of Business and the Hostler student center opened when I was a student. I’m no expert nor do I know anything about architecture but they never struck me as disembodied elements of AUB’s campus.

The building depicted in the above picture is what’s standing in place of the infirmary today. Is it hideous? You bet. Is it an atrocity? Definitely. Does it take away from the charm of AUB’s upper campus? Well, it is a concrete block with holes in it. Again, unprofessional opinion here.

Why is such an ugly building overshadowing Nicely Hall? Because it has Zaha Hadid affixed to it, the world’s most famous architect, who “won” the competition to build this. As if the pull of her name alone isn’t enough to sway the competition.

I have to ask – and it’s obviously too late now for such a question – but didn’t anyone from AUB’s administration get a tinge of nausea as they passed by this growing structure and saw it disfiguring the campus many of them call home? And isn’t the mere presence of such a building disrespectful to the architecture faculty at AUB which is more than capable of coming up with better and more campus-relevant buildings?

But I guess this is how things roll around the country: go with the flashiest, most expensive, most prominent names because that’s sure to be better. Issam Fares- no relation-, after whom this building is named, should probably sue them for libel.

Thoughts on Beirut’s Social Media Awards

Before the award ceremony is held next week and this gets considered as a post by one of those bad sports who didn’t like not winning, I figured I’d pitch in on the current “it” thing on Lebanon’s social media scene.

First things first, I believe I have to commend the organizers for their work. They’ve been withstanding the barrage of not-constructive negativity well and devoting their time for this – free of charge.

Now, since I cannot, for the life of me, be absolutely gushing about anything, I feel like I have to give a few remarks which I hope are taken into consideration for the awards’ next iteration:

The nominations:

The nomination process was all over the place. I personally didn’t nominate myself nor anyone else for that matter. But I believe that, since databases in all of the awards’ major categories are present, perhaps it would have been better if the judging panel relied on those and narrowed down the nominees instead. Moreover, does the fact that someone randomly nominated a blog or an institution to a category mean the nominee is particularly representative of said-category?

As an example: is the most engaging tweep category truly representative of Lebanon’s most engaging tweeps? Doesn’t it lack some names such as @TawaNicolas, @MarkInHd, @TKHaddad or @Shadonium?

The categories:

Some of the categories are either too broad or too ambiguous. For instance, my blog is nominated for “best news blog” along with several others, one being Naharnet which later pulled out of the competition to allow bloggers to compete among themselves. I personally think Naharnet should be the only one in this category because they are the only one really providing news. But they’re not a blog. And I don’t think we are really providing “news.” So which is it?

Another example that comes to mind is the best NGO/community category which has Lebanese Memes campaigning against several NGOs such as Donner Sang Compter and Foodblessed. Is it really fair for NGOs who are actively trying to save lives or change the way people think to compete with one of Lebanon’s most popular Facebook pages?

In a recent interview, Aline Chirinian – a member of the Online Collaborative running the awards – said that the NGO/Community category is the most voted on particularly because of Lebanese Memes. I personally find it nonsensical for them to win just because the category was made to include them. And Lebanese Memes are obviously winning.

The Formula:

The 50% judges/50% voting formula is fair. But it would have been better if we didn’t know how nominees stood among the judges. When the voting began, SMABeirut’s twitter account tweeted that nominees were listed in the descending order of judges’ points. If those that are not listed first were to have any “decent” shot at winning, they’d have to get a huge number of votes and I’m not sure how feasible that is with the judges re-voting on the categories later on. Revealing how the judges voted very early in the competition takes away from the competitive spirit.

I’ll take my case as an example. I’m fifth in the blog of the year category and last in the best news category. I’m not optimistic to the point of foolishness about my prospects and it’s more than okay. I’m having fun with the campaign more than anything else. After all, how many times does the Pope endorse someone? However, it would have been more interesting for me if I didn’t know that the judges prefer four other blogs over mine as the year’s best blogs.

Potential Winner Bias:

When members of the jury were announced, it was also made public that those members won’t be in for the running for any potential award. This affected Lebanese politician Nicolas Sehanoui who is, without a doubt, Lebanon’s most active politician on Twitter. However, as I was voting, I couldn’t help but notice that other categories also had some bias to some candidates which are involved in the organization of the Social Media Awards. As an example: Phoenicia Hotel is hosting the award ceremony and they are up for an award – conveniently first in their category as well. Another example: Alfa is both a sponsor and up for several categories.

Judging Panel Bias:

A question that can’t but be asked about the judging panel is the following: can they leave their own personal preference aside and judge a medium in which they are personally interacting with most of the nominated candidates and are on better terms with some than others?

Final Thoughts:

I applaud you if you’re still reading till this point. Many have been telling me how these awards may not be very useful and that their purpose is misguided, spamming timelines in the process. Well, I think this whole thing is just for fun and better have our timelines spammed with this than with posts about the weather, no?

And in case you still haven’t voted for this blog (what are you waiting for, seriously?), please do.

Accidental Sectarian

Answering “we’re in West Beirut” to a question of location was my mistake. I hadn’t really meant the war-sense of the word but when you grow up hearing about areas being in West Beirut and other areas being in East Beirut, the terminology sticks. 

For the person who heard me, however, I was another one of those – the people whose heads are transfixed with their own region, their own bubble, dismissing everything else in the process. I tried to explain that I didn’t mean it that way. No amount of speech could change things.

Today, a few months after that incidence, I sat reflecting on it and only one conclusion presented itself to me.

It’s not the cliche line about how the war hasn’t really ended yet. It’s not the even more-cliche line about remembering and not repeating: “tenzeker w ma ten3ad.”

I am a person who, like many people from my demographic criteria, is in a dilemma of pride and blame. I cannot not be proud of where I’m from or the houses, families and regions that built me. But there’s also a tinge of blame for those houses and regions and people that I cannot shake off. I am caught between Christian pride and Christian blame. And I think others are caught between Muslim pride and Muslim blame as well – in the sociological aspect of the notion, of course.

But the truth of the matter is that I have no idea what actually happened during those 15 years. I keep hearing about how some politicians were vicious warlords back then who killed people mercilessly or about MPs standing on checkpoints as military men. I keep hearing about those battles whose names keep getting thrown around, as I nod without having a clue what’s being discussed.

Does anyone really know what happened during the civil war, even those who actually lived it? Of course, they would never admit the answer is no. Everyone I know considers their side of the story as scripture. I’m sure the other side of the country has a different story which they take as scripture as well. And both sides get offended if you insinuate they may not know the whole story.

When the current ruling class of the country, most of which was the class leading the civil war, throws around war-era jabs at each other when the going gets tough, what can you expect from all the regular folk who considered those politicians their reference during Lebanon’s civil war?

How could we actually be called to learn from the civil war when those who ran the battles and the politics of the war haven’t sat down and discussed what happened between 1975 or earlier and 1990 to agree on what  needs to be learned in the first place?

We cannot rewrite the history that hasn’t even been written yet.

Until a time when the notion of west and east Beirut becomes purely geographical, I am, like the majority of Lebanese today, an accidental sectarian of the conditions in which I was brought up, of those hidden green lines that exist between regions and people and of the rubble we’re still sifting through 23 years later.

Carrefour Lebanon’s Tough Path To Success?

Carrefour was one of the simple pleasures of my life in France. It was close to my apartment – a two minute walk. I would find everything that I needed among its not so numerous shelves: the place was as small as a mini-market in Lebanese standards.

Carrefour also represented an entire shift in my thinking paradigm when it comes to grocery shopping. For starters, they didn’t offer plastic bags for your purchases for free. I no longer needed hypermarkets to find mundane things I had come to believe only existed there. But most importantly, it made me deviate from buying the brands I had grown used to in favor of its own offering: the brand Carrefour.

Let’s take a simple example: fruit yoghurt. 12 Carrefour little packets of the substance cost €1.23 whereas half that amount of other brands such as Danone or Nestlé cost at least 3 times that much.
This quickly perpetuated to my purchases of my entire grocery: from cheese to bread to toilet paper. The amount of money I was saving up because of that kept me from thinking about any potential difference in quality which I frankly didn’t even encounter: the brand Carrefour offered stuff which were equal if not sometimes better than the more expensive alternatives.

Today, Carrefour is opening in Lebanon in Beirut’s City Center – a new mall in Hazmieh, because places outside of Beirut and its suburbs are not supposed to get malls. It has ads spreading all the way to Tripoli announcing the place. This is proof if you don’t believe me:

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Is Carrefour overdoing the marketing blitz? Definitely. How so? Well, ask yourself this simple question: regardless of how much money you’d be saving, would you be willing to drive 81km in Lebanon in order to buy grocery?

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But that’s not the major hurdle Carrefour will be facing in Lebanon: it’s getting an entire country to have the paradigm shift I had when I stayed in France, something that other brands tried to do and failed.

Spinneys, for instance, does the same thing Carrefour will be doing in a few days: it offers its own tissues, its own grains, soda, chips, etc…. But people rarely buy them because we, as Lebanese, have somehow associated the cheapness of the brand and the fact that it isn’t as trustworthy compared to others with it not being good enough.
Carrefour, which is sending text messages to almost everyone in Lebanon, will not be cheaper than any of their other already present alternatives if people refuse to buy its brand which begets the question: will it be any different and do we really need another chain in the country?

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Besides, will the Carrefour brand be cheaper than what the market currently offers? For instance, will Carrefour yoghurt be cheaper than the one Taanayel offers? Or will it feature a price hike because it’s “signé” and imported from “Paghis” à la Paul and Fauchon and other French outlets in Lebanon?

Moreover, the success of Carrefour in Europe stems from it being accessible to everyone through small shops like the one I described previously. Few are the Carrefour hypermarkets across France but many are the mini markets, which makes any customer’s shopping experience more personal and less hectic.
In fact, the entire city of Lille, France’s 4th in size, has only one major Carrefour store in the city’s main mall Euralille. However, it has dozens of smaller Carrefours spread around the city and its suburbs offering almost the same thing.

Will Carrefour adopt the same approach in Lebanon? Or will it be the same thing all over again: spreading across the country in huge chains that won’t offer anything different from what’s already present?
If Carrefour wants to spread in Lebanon and offer a true alternative to the Lebanese, shouldn’t it start differently from what others did and not follow up with the current trend of you finding everything you need in malls only?

If Carrefour moves to Tripoli for instance, it will have a very hard time battling it out for market share with the wildly popular Spinneys. But if it offered smaller shops around the city, then people might end up making it their go-to place.

Perhaps market research showed some room for an alternative. But I don’t think the alternative is necessarily another grocery chain but a whole new approach to what’s already here: to get people to buy cheaper and equally good products, make things more accessible and make them need driving from Achrafieh and nearby Spinneys or TSC to said alternative.

I don’t think Carrefour will do that in its present form.

Vote For “A Separate State of Mind!”


Overwhelming success! Celebrity endorsements! Awesome blog! You don’t believe me? Well, check these out:

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Well, not quite. The above tweets are not real. But they could have been. Am I right?

Ok, I’ll take my antipsychotic pill now.

Anyway, this blog is nominated for “Blog of the Year” and “Best News Blog” – I know, I know – at Beirut’s Social Media Awards. I’d appreciate your support.

  1. Go to www.smabeirut.com
  2. Log in with either your Facebook or Twitter account
  3. Vote for “Separate State of Mind” in the first two categories. You can only vote once so be careful to choose right! Voting happens by clicking on the “vote” button next to my blog’s picture (that of a brain).
  4. Tell your friends.
  5. Come back here to receive your cyber hug.

This is how your screen turns once you’re successful:

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Thank you awesome readers!

 

Beirut Bel Aswad Wel Abiad (Beirut in Black & White) – A Lebanese Short Movie

This Woody Allen-inspired short movie is one of the best ones I’ve seen lately. It’s directed by Alba student Marie-Louise Elia and produced by Marie-Noel Bou Haila (A lot of Maries in one sentence). You can find the former on Twitter here.

It’s a candid, honest, funny, sarcastic and extremely witty portrayal of Beirut – characteristics you rarely find this authentically in Lebanese productions. Many aspire to incorporate such elements in their movies but end up coming off as over-pretentious instead. Not this one.

The director, Marie-Louise Elia, is currently searching for actors for her upcoming movie. So if you’re interested, talk to her on Twitter. If her upcoming work is anything as good as this, it’ll look good on your resumé.