Author Archives: eliefares

Christian Only By Name, No 1st Communion For Bassam Abou Zeid’s Children For Having Special Needs

  
Over the years, first communions have become less about the religious value they uphold but rather about which child has the best combo of it all: souvenirs, party, ceremony. 

It was the case when I did it almost 18 years ago. My parents went all out. Things have only gotten worse since.

Despite the materialistic aspect of the ceremony, it remains a rite of passage for a lot of Lebanese Christians, mostly Maronites. For many children, it’s the highlight of their 8th year. For most parents, it’s one of the last religious festivities their children will go through .

Yesterday, news surfaced that well-known Lebanese reporter Bassam Abou Zeid wouldn’t be going through that experience with his two little boys: Matheo and Iowan. 

In a Facebook post, Abou Zeid detailed the ordeal his children were going through in the St. Doumit Parish in Zouk Mkayel; the ceremony organizers were having issues handling them so they required the parents to be present during rehearsals, which the parents obliged to, only to be faced with the ultimatum that their children were not a “proper fit” with that particular parish to undergo the ceremony.

When Abou Zeid spoke to the Parish priest to sort things out, parents threatened to take their children elsewhere if Abou Zeid’s children were to remain part of that particular first communion, for fear of them “ruining” it.

To summarize: this is one of the most disgusting things to occur in Lebanese society in years, there’s nothing Christian about this. Those parents – screw them – should be ashamed. Those ceremony organizers should be ashamed as well.

Let’s start with the ceremony organizers.

It is your duty as volunteers to hold such ceremonies to take in children from all kinds of kinds whose parents want them to take the next step in their Christian life. Bassam Abou Zeid’s children having special needs and you not being able to adapt to them does not reflect negatively on the children, it shows your ineptitude at doing your job. I don’t blame you. I blame the Parish that accepted you to run their ceremony to begin with.

To those parents who threatened to transfer their children if Bassam’s boys were allowed to participate, you are nauseating. Not only is this utterly disgusting on your part, it also shows that you are unfit parents, to condemn little boys in that manner, little boys whose only fault was to have special needs, which isn’t really a fault at all. I hope that your children never face the kind of discrimination you’re throwing at Matheo and Iowan. I hope you never have to be the parent in Bassam’s shoes, and have someone like you tell them: oh, we don’t want your children to ruin it for ours. The only thing Christian about you is the sectarian tag on your ID. I advise you to take your children out of the ceremony anyway, there’s nothing Christian about what you are doing there.

To the priest Joseph Eid, it is your duty to make sure that Matheo and Iowan attend that ceremony along with the other children. It is despicable and horrifying if you were to succumb to the parents’ threats about not wanting their children to have their ceremony ruined. It is your job as a priest to make sure that the God you serve, the one who wanted all God’s children to be part of His church, not to have some children be excluded because their parents are dimwits or because your Parish is inept: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Mathew 19:14. 

To Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch, there are things more important in Christianity than the number of parliamentary seats Maronites get, what the president can do or who he is. The life matters of your people are important too. This is not an event worth letting by.

I don’t know what kind of special needs Bassam Abou Zeid’s children have, but it doesn’t matter. They’re just kids, and they’re falling victim not only to a religious institution, but to people who have no ounce of humanity in them. Tfeh. 

Congrats Lebanon, We Have The World’s 9th Worst Passport

Oh so close. We almost dropped out of the top ten this year, but no such luck.

After all the hassle secondary to our General Security deciding out of the blue that a good bunch of the country’s passport would no longer be functional, it’s safe to say that apart from that useless bureaucracy, very minimal improvement has occurred to the state of our travel document over the past year. After all, how could it given that the only semblance of governance we get is when Saudi Arabia is upset at us?

Henley & Partners, the world’s leading Citizenship research consultancy firm, published their yearly report about passport strengths – the same one that gets us upset every year – and we’re at #96 when it comes to the worst passports of the world, in a list that tops at #104 with Afghanistan. We share the #96 spot, which translates to the 9th worst passport in the world with Bangladesh, Congo and Sri Lanka.

The bottom 10 is as follows:

  1. Afghanistan,
  2. Pakistan,
  3. Iraq,
  4. Somalia,
  5. Syria,
  6. Libya,
  7. Sudan, Palestine, Nepal, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran,
  8. Kosovo, South Sudan, Yemen,
  9. Bangladesh, Congo, Lebanon, Sri Lanka,
  10. Burundi, North Korea, Myanmar.

Meanwhile, a slew of European and American countries top the list with passports that give them access to more 170 countries visa-free. We are allowed access to 39.

The highest ranking Arab country is the UAE at #38 with a passport that grants them visa-free entry to 122 countries. The highest ranking regional country, however, is Cyprus at #17 with 159 visa-free country, bolstered by the fact it’s in the European Union. Our enemy to the South, meanwhile, comes in at #25 with around 147 countries its citizens can enter without a hassle.

The situation is not that bleak, however, because our passport rank has actually gone up from last year, mostly because a bunch of countries fell below us such as Syria, South Sudan and Iraq:

Lebanon Passport

We have, however, gained two more visa-free countries to travel to in the past year, up to 39.

There’s nothing more indicative about how being born somewhere is detrimental to your “worth” as a person as the hierarchy behind passports, a yearly reminder that if you happen to come from a place that is not Europe, not America, and not completely in the good graces of either of those two entities, your worth is inherently lower.

But that’s not the full explanation behind how low our passport and citizenship ranks. This rank is a reflection of the unstable political situation in a country that hasn’t had a president in almost two years and doesn’t seem like it will have one anytime soon, hasn’t managed to vote for a parliament in over 1000 days, has garbage piling up on its streets, has one of the most incompetent ruling classes to exist, has a militia roaming its lands with the ability to shake the country up at will (as in protests because of a caricature on a TV show).

Look at the UAE. A few years ago, they had only access to 64 countries without visas. In 2016, their citizens can visit double that number. Why so? Because their ruling class – new-age dictators and whatnot – have a clear vision for a future that enables their citizens to be the best version of themselves (within the limited freedom confines offered of course). We can make fun all we want of how fake Dubai is, of how silly it is to have a “Happiness” minister, but the fact remains that not only are Emiratis leagues above us now, they are also in an upward trajectory while we slumber in our lower ranks content that we have real snow and not a fake slope built inside a Dubai mall.

United Arab Emirates Passport

What can we do to fix this?

We need to be more aware citizens. We can’t bury our heads in the glories of days past and pretend that is a representation of our present. When the time comes to vote, we shouldn’t go back to what we know thinking it’s what we need – we need to see that there are alternatives to the parties that have been ruining our lives for years. As long as our politicians keep getting a blank space from us to do whatever they want, they’ll be content with keeping a status quo that enables them and disables us, including a passport that forces everyone to stay put – unless they were lucky enough to have a second one on the side to use at will.

 

When Lebanon’s Trash Becomes International, But We Are Too Busy Kissing Saudi Arabia’s Ass

Don’t call it brain dead.

Congrats Lebanon, we have made the international news cycle once more, the first time this year and hopefully the first of many.

No, it wasn’t about that viral Facebook fake-pictures-filled post proclaiming the beauty of God’s gift to Earth. I can hear your hearts break all the way here.

What made us international is actually old news to us. It’s so old in fact that not only does nobody care anymore, but the hype surrounding the issue has disappeared with each vanishing garbage bag stashed away in one of Lebanon’s valleys or on random roads, snaking around curves like white rancid rivers. Out of sight, out of mind – Lebanon style.


There is a bright side to the ordeal, however. Even our garbage bags look nice. They’re white, snow-like, built into winding rivers or towering pyramids.

Say hi to Buzzfeed.

Say thank you to CNN.

Wait for the upcoming onslaught from other outlets as well in the next few days. We are making it big. Aren’t we all proud?

Except, of course, this is *obviously* not the image of the country:

img_2545

I mean it’s always someone else’s fault, never ours collectively.

Putting lipstick on a dead pig level: Lebanon.

Is anything happening regarding the garbage crisis? Not really. Our government is busy doing other things, or just one thing to be exact: kiss Saudi Arabia’s ass like no country has missed another country’s ass before.

This past week, our government convened for SEVEN straight hours to discuss one item on their agenda: how to formulate a paragraph to please Saudi Arabia in order not to face their wrath manifesting in them not giving us money anymore, beggars-style.

I don’t think our government has convened for a total of 7 hours discussing the garbage crisis, or any other Lebanese crisis for that matter, over the last several months.

Live Love Saudi Arabia.

This past week, Saad Hariri decided to launch a petition across the country in order to show Saudi Arabia that Lebanon loved it so, akin to our country giving them a big fat political blowjob.

No politician cared enough to act about the garbage crisis, or any other crisis, since it started. Have we ever had a “Loyalty to Lebanon” petition circle around the country before?

Live Love Saudi Arabia.

This past week, minister of Justice Ashraf Rifi quit to protest the Lebanese stance towards Saudi Arabia’s recent embassy attack, first and foremost, and to a lesser extent protest the handling of Michel Samaha’s case. It took their reference country being seemingly offended for some ministers to resign.
Months after the garbage piled up on our streets, months after protests of hundreds of thousands… No other minister resigned or was even fazed by the notion of needing to resign.
This past week, Lebanese politicians of all kinds of kinds had something to say about Saudi Arabia. Even those that opposed KSA politically were at loss about what to do.
This amount of political maneuvering has not occurred not only with the garbage crisis, but with out presidential vacuum issue as well.

Live Love Saudi Arabia.

There comes a point where an entire country begging for absolution from another entity for the sake of money, for the sake of empty Arabism, for the sake of useless politics when that country’s capital is drowning in trash becomes not only humiliating but also insulting.

This is where we are today: a country sinking in garbage, but whose priority is how low it can go to its knees. But please, by a all means, don’t call it brain dead.

Let’s keep loving Saudi Arabia.

This Is Lebanon: A Braindead Country

Over the past couple of days, the entirety of our Facebook timelines has been overtaken by an overzealous, self-indulgent, horrifyingly cheesy, overtly saccharine, grossly inaccurate and utterly comical display of Lebanese nationalistic pride manifesting in a guy who runs a model agency publishing a set of pictures dubbing them “This is Lebanon” to the backdrop of a few self-described facts about this country.

You can check out that post here. And this is a screenshot if you don’t want to expose yourself to the atrocity:

Tony Medawar THis is Lebanon

About 10,000 likes to that album later, and countless of shares of its content – both photographical and linguistic – one can officially dub this land braindead; not only are we self-indulgent enough to think we are the shit of the shits where anything can be shat, no. We are so entranced by our Lebanese-ness that we fail to see what’s staring us right in the eye: this is a country where 1% of the cup is full and the other 99% is emptier than space – a space that doesn’t even have gravitational waves – and where most of the population likes to look at the 1% because it gives them a peaceful state of mind.

Mr. Tony Medawar. I understand there’s a very big need for you to drive tourism in the country to get business and models to your agency. Work must be slow. You can blame the garbage piling up outside your window, or did you forget that to include that in your manifesto?

Before I tell you what Lebanon is, let me tell you what it is not.

No we are not a desert. 

No we’re not. But then again how is the randomness of having a country be on a piece of land be any sort of achievement? That’s like saying one should be proud that one had one’s parents. I mean, did you choose them? (I love you mom and dad. <3).

No we don’t ride camels like others.

Oh look at those barbaric Arabs. They ride camels. How horrifying. That’s such a disgusting and backward thing to do that they are definitely nowhere near as advanced as those who don’t ride camels. Like us. Except, you know, Dubai. It’s such a shame though, riding camels would have cut down on the traffic. Did you forget that was Lebanon too?

We have natural ski slopes.

So do most countries north of the equator. Europe says hi. North America too. Some people are freezing in the Arctic.

We are a free country.

Yes, you are a free country that hasn’t had an election since 2009, where you haven’t had a president in 2 years. Is the mark of freedom only that you can wear, drink and eat whatever you want? Is the mark of freedom only what is allowed to some people and forbidden from the absolute majority?

Lebanon is 6000 years old.

Dude. Read a history book. Lebanon was founded by the French and Patriarch Elias Howayek in September 1920. We are literally less than a hundred years old. Some of the patients on my geriatrics ward are older than my country. That is unless you don’t think the Beqaa, half of the North, Beirut and most of the South are part of the country and you want to go back to the days of the Motasarrifiyat, in which case Lebanon would still not be 6000 years old. Maybe you mean Phoenicia? But that wasn’t Lebanon and also had parts of Syria and Palestine. Maybe you mean planet Earth?

The Bible is named after Byblos.

Oh my god, yes. #TeamJesus. Except there’s a little thing called etymology to prove you wrong. You see, Byblos is greek in origin for Egyptian papyrus. The word bible is latin for biblia, which is to say they have nothing to do with each other.

Europe was named after a Phoenician princess.

There was no such thing as a Phoenician princess called Europa. It’s a legend. But then again, what are Lebanese but people who love to live in legends and ignore reality?

Jesus did his first miracle in Qana.

I fail to see how where Jesus did a miracle of turning water into wine 2000 years ago is something that speaks of the caliber of the land or people that live in that land today. But no one really knows where Jesus did that miracle. Scholars say it was in a town called Kafr Qana in Northern Palestine. A debate does not a fact make.

You are reading and commenting on this post because our ancestors created the alphabet.

The Phoenician alphabet is the first documented alphabet. But it did not exist out of the blue. Over the years, what the Phoenicians did was also changed into a whole lot of other languages that died, gave birth to other languages that got mixed with each other to give some of the languages we have today. Such as Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac. You know, semite languages. English is actually of a different origin.

Now let me tell you what Lebanon is.

This is Lebanon, the land turned into a dumpster because its people are so inept that they’d rather take humiliation than seek out change.

This is Lebanon, the land where pictures taken in Spain or Japan are shared widely as part of it, and try to tell people otherwise. *collects head off the floor.*

This is Lebanon, the land whose people don’t ride camels, yes, but ride the backs of foreigners they deem of lesser importance for anything that comes their way.

This is Lebanon, the land whose people are so stuck on the glories of days past, glories that only faintly existed to begin with, that they can’t even begin to think of a future for themselves.

This is Lebanon, where so many people live in their own fictive lala land they think their country is all night life, joie de vivre, Mar Mkhayel on Fridays and Rikkyz on Sundays.

This is Lebanon, where so many of its people have never been past the airport or past the Madfoun checkpoint and think there’s no such thing as poverty, unfairness, and horrifying living conditions in the land of the Cedars.

This is Lebanon, a country with one of the highest braindrains in the world. You’d think such a wonderful place would at least manage to keep its people put.

This is Lebanon, where a girl posing naked in a bikini at our slopes caused a national outrage.

This is Lebanon, the land where people think that criticizing posts like Tony Medawar’s is what’s wrong with the country but fail to see the actual perils behind self-indulgence in a land where next to nothing actually works.

This is Lebanon, the land whose people are so braindead they’d rather gloat in their own death than seek out the reality that tells them of their own demise.

 

Dear Lebanon, The Garbage Crisis Is Not Giving You The Flu

Lebanon Garbage - 3

In the context of a country with any ounce of self-respect, speaking about a garbage crisis that has been going on since July would not only be old news by now, it would be solved old news. Except we don’t live in a country with an any amount of self-respect, and as such Greater Beirut’s garbage situation is still a topic, albeit less hot, of discussion.

A few months ago, when people were actually interested in the garbage crisis, which is to say when the garbage was visible on their streets and not tucked away in some valley somewhere or in a makeshift pyramid near the port, I wrote an article on this blog (link) about the health risks that the crisis might involve especially with the rain season.

As a very brief summary, in theory the garbage crisis and the many variables around it would cause the following:

  • Many types of bacterial infiltration of the waters,
  • Many heavy metals and other elements-related pollution,
  • Burning it will increase the amount of carcinogens in the air, as well as exacerbate respiratory conditions in people who have pulmonary disease when they have it.

As long term effects, we could be looking at an increased cancer incidence as a study after Italy’s waste management crisis in 2004 showed.

What the garbage crisis is not doing, however, is giving you the flu or other common infections that we encounter yearly.

Over the past few weeks, which happens to be the yearly flu season in Lebanon, everyone and their mother decided that whenever they got sick, it was because of the garbage crisis in Beirut. H1N1 – or as it’s more commonly known in the country now H1 and 1 – has become so commonly associated with the garbage crisis that the scientific community is probably considering whether to reconsider all the details surrounding H1N1 altogether.

We’ve also heard about “new” viruses attacking the country, such as metapneumovirus B, causing severe respiratory diseases.

This is, quite simply, incorrect.

For starters, metapneumovirus B is not a new virus. It’s been known for at least 40 years now and is actually one of the leading causes of respiratory infections in children worldwide. Lebanon has had this virus before, and it gets treated the same way we treat most viral infections: address the symptoms and provide the patient relief while their ailment resolves.

The case illustrated in this eTobb article (link) about a 25 year old who had a devastating respiratory infection secondary to the aforementioned virus remains, as it stands, a case that fell through the cracks of medicine in the sense that some people will get complications from common infections and we have no way to predict who would be the victim of such complications.

When it comes to H1N1, this is the current state worldwide:

Outbreaks are being reported in Bulgaria, Canada, Ireland, Ethiopia, Pakistan, etc. What do these countries have in common? Nothing, which is precisely the point.

Every year, the world is swept up by a strain of the Influenza virus which, when a person infected, gives them what is referred to as the flu: runny nose, sore throat, sneezing, fatigue, feeling pain all over your body for a few days, etc…. These symptoms usually resolve in a few days and you’re off on your merry way to health.

Some people may also be infected and not show any symptoms. The way this occurs is in sort of a pyramid fashion:

Assume 100,000 people in Lebanon got infected this year. 10,000 of those would show symptoms of the flu. Out of those 10,000 maybe around 100 would require hospitalization. And out of those 100 that needed hospitalization, 1 might die because of complications.

The garbage crisis overtaking Beirut has nothing to do with this. This will happen again next year, with or without a garbage crisis, and it will also happen the year after as it also took place in the years prior. Having a new shiny ribbon of erroneous but appealing explanation to wrap this whole thing with won’t make it go away. People are getting sick all over Lebanese territories simply because this is an infectious disease, not a garbage-related disease; the garbage does not cause H1N1 or the flu. It’s really that simple.

At this rate, getting the first case of Zika virus infection in this country will also be attributed to the garbage.

Therefore, I’m sorry to say that the answer to your question “how did I get sick” is simply “this is how things are,” and not “it’s the garbage that’s killing you.”

You can, however, protect yourself by practicing as much hygiene as possible. Thorough hand-washing is key to prevent the transmission of the influenza virus. Avoid sick contacts if you can. If you’re sick, don’t be a jerk and go around contacting others. Don’t trust your local pharmacist to start you on Tavanic or Klacid or whatever other medication he feels like giving you. This is a virus and antibiotics don’t work. Rest as much as you can, you’ll get better in a few days.