After initiating a new section on this blog called The Lebanese Help, the details of which you can check out here, LBC has procured a video of an Ethiopian maid being beaten up in front of her embassy by a Lebanese man.
I won’t comment on the content of the video. I’ll just leave you to judge.
The whole anti-racism movement in Lebanon is so weak it grasps at straws, even if it’s a harmless comedy skit. We also tend to get up in a fit the moment something like this video surfaces. We never see the maids as people who are coming here because they really have to, not because they want to.
We think with our $150 we can own them. We think with the miserable salary we give them, we can silence them.
But the maids have a story. And I will tell it. Those who will read them, good on you. Those who don’t, you’ll find company in darkness.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 
Walaw!!
This is ridicoulous.
He’s sick. Lebanese are sick actually. They think the help is a toy you can play with it however you want.
This is too sad.
I feel so bad for her
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He’s a pig. I wouldn’t generalize about all Lebanese. Most are very good people. But some are, like this man, simply the filth of society.
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No one from her embassy could come out and help? I also feel sorry for her. Does she have no rights at all? Doesn’t she deserve to be treated decently? If that is how she was treated in public, just think what awaits her when she is back in the house in private.
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Exactly. I can only begin to imagine the beating she must have been submitted to after he dragged her into the car and back home. Sadly enough, they actually have rights – albeit limited – but they’re not aware of them and no one actually works for enforcing them. There are attempts to make them aware of those rights the moment they arrive to the airport and give them a hotline number to call, in case anything bad happens. But those attempts have been futile at this point.
And not all embassies have exceptional man power so that’s why, I think, her embassy people couldn’t help her.
The man is a pig.
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The embassy people actually turn away those who complain of abuse, maybe this girl was also turned away into the hands of her abusers. The paranoid regime back in Ethiopia sends embassy personnel so that they may spy on their own nationals outside of the country.
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I didn’t know this. Thank you for pointing it out.
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i imagine some one is doing the same with his moms and his sister , he should be beaten in font of all the people and put in jail. animal need to be treated as an animal .
am not proud to be a lebanese if the governemt will not do anything about .
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The government won’t do anything about this, just as it hasn’t done anything about the countless cases of abuse before this. They have more “pressing” issues to take care of.
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You know what Elie – it was almost 20 years ago?? Actually around 18 years ago (in college) that I wrote a paper on domestic workers in Lebanon. I wonder if I could get my hands on that paper just to see if anything has changed. I remember contacting organizations in Lebanon to get info for it. Either way, this is not something that all Lebanese participate in…but from seeing people I know there ..I can say that this is definitely the dark side of Lebanon. A side that paints a very sad picture of our society.
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I doubt things have changed much. And I agree. Many Lebanese condemn this type of behavior. The irregularities stand out, though.
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the most disturbing thing is how everyone just stands there WATCHING.
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I think the people were accompanying him. Or else they didn’t want to be involved. Stupid, I know.
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This is another arab barbarism against black africans, no wonder why the Israelis mistreat them badly, this is how arabs behave. Such barbarism is not an isolated incident, they have been doing it for generations. Young and liberal arabs need to work hard to change the image of the arabs. Its time to prosecute those who mistreat others.
This is not what Allah expect us to behave, we need to follow our lives accoring to the teachings of allah.
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You’re basically doing what those mistreating these women are doing: generalizing and stereotyping.
Ideas need to change. But this is not the way to do it.
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Its very sad, those idiots are beating this defenceless house maid, if they can do this on the street imagine what they will do to her in their house. I wonder how some arabs mentality is, its such a worrying trend of arrogance, the only people who seem to fully understand the psyche of the arabs are the Israelis. Isarel has the antidot to arab brutality.
God will continue to punish those who did evil against fellow human beings. House maids are treated as slaves in 21st century arab countries. This is becoming like a tradition for some arabs, so many domestic workers are commiting suicide because of such brutal mistreatment.
Thanks for posting the Video, it will help to name and shame those who were involved in the beating and mistreatment of such a defenceless lady. I hope the Lebanese government will bring those involved to justice. This is the only way how the image of aarabs and Lebanese can be corrected, failing this we africans will curse you the way we cursed the Nazis.
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Israel is the antidote to Arab brutality?
1) How is this relevant to the conversation at hand?
2) How is Israel killing thousands of defenseless women and children not considered brutal?
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I have informed the BBC every black american magazine and press to make sure no black woman sets foot in this is dreaded nasty country. I hope the lebanese get the same taste of their medicine in west africa where they work in the diamond mines stealing all the blood diamonds.
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1) Not all Lebanese do this.
2) The act of one individual does not get you to generalize about a whole population.
3) I am Lebanese and I’m writing about this.
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What really pisses me off about this video is that all the people around him didn’t actually care that he’s beating a woman! they’re so cool and calm and only telling him to let her go.. its a shame really.
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The people around him just don’t care enough. It’s the sad truth.
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Carine nfe5iiii!
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