Your health matters.

I’ve said the previous sentence to so many people lately, possibly as a byproduct of my medical education, that it’s become akin to a broken record. The people I tell it to are always hesitant to agree. They never do. My advice always falls on deaf ears. Everyone thinks they’re invincible.

The biggest restraint I’ve gotten is from women my age, who are not in the medical field, and who always inquire about elements pertaining to an entity of their life that they almost never share with anyone. I always advice them to seek out a gynecologist with whom they can establish a good rapport and take good care of themselves.

Why would I want a gynecologist, they’d reply. What would people think of me if they knew?

I’d go on and on about the need for a gynecologist at any age. I’d tell them about the importance of being healthy. But the stigma is too much for some.

I find the following video by Marsa to be simply brilliant, perfectly summarizing how Lebanese society gets its women to look at their private parts as shameful organs that should be hidden, tucked away from everyone – even themselves.

 We talk about laws to protect Lebanese women, to empower them and make them stronger in our patriarchal society. But will any law take hold if our women’s view of themselves remains tainted by the years and years of upbringing that have only served to bring them down? Will those laws take hold if many of our women view their vaginas as nothing but shameful?

Think about it.

Sitting on the sidelines is good up to a certain point. But there comes a time when you can’t but act. AUB students did that today. And irrelevant me is proud of what they did.

I’m sick and tired of people constantly barraging anyone who goes to AUB and is complaining about tuition fees rising by saying: “you could always go to a cheaper university.”

How is their business what AUB students protest peacefully? When has everyone become so apathetic by default that they can’t but bring down people whose only goal was to be proactive in their own campus, against an administration that has become so corrupt with bureaucracy and is trying to remain afloat on their backs?

When I was at AUB back in 2010, I paid about 10 million LL in tuition fees for my sciences program. My brother whose program classifies under arts (i.e. cheaper than sciences) pays 14 million LL for the same amount of credits. His tuition is set for another increase.

Today’s AUB students reminded me of the days when I was a student there and the entire student body shut the university down to protest upcoming tuition increases. People camped out in front of College Hall. My friends slept nights on end there. We ended up with results.

It’s not because these students just want to have a cause for the sake of having a cause. It’s not because those students are bored and want something to protest. It’s not because they are all rich people who don’t understand the struggles of other Lebanese who can’t go to AUB.

It’s for our parents’ sake that we protested back then and that those students are protesting today, because we know how hard it is to make ends meet in this country, because our parents don’t grow money on trees and because going to AUB doesn’t mean you’re the son or daughter of someone who lights their cigars with dollar bills.

It’s for future students who can afford AUB today that we protested back then and that these students are protesting today, so they can still get the education that they can get.

It’s because the increase in AUB tuition fees has rarely, if ever, been a matter in which the student body was involved. It has always been a matter where administrative figures with six figure salaries (in dollars) gather to discuss how their salaries would remain relatively unchanged if not increasing over the years while putting forth lame arguments of “research funding, retaining professors, lack of endowments.”

Education is not an entitlement. If you have the means to get the best education you can get, go for it. But accepting the fact that the best education you can get is slipping out of your means due to corruption, plain and simple, is what those AUB students are not doing today by raising their voice, withstanding the barrage of people ridiculing them for doing what they’re doing in the process.

AUB’s administration is blaming the Lebanese situation and them wanting to maintain their level for wanting to take tuitions on another rise. But isn’t the Lebanese situation also affecting the parents who are required to pay those tuitions? Last time I checked, the  situation was general not selective. And is maintaing a level not contingent upon excellent and remarkable students who are forcibly being pushed out?

As an alumnus, AUB’s current students made me proud. The pictures of them protesting made me happy. Seeing their numbers and those signs made me smile. They can’t change the situation in the country. They can’t fix politics. They can’t ameliorate the economy. But protesting and hopefully stopping arbitrary changes in their university is something they can do. Getting news of X dropping out because they couldn’t afford their education from becoming current is what they’re trying to do. Good for them. Stop bringing them down.

The following are pictures from the protest that I got off twitter. Kudos on the slogans:

The rhetoric lately when it comes to explosions and suicide bombers has become that of “we’ve become used to it.” People go about their business usually, not caring that people had just died and that suicide bombers being among us is not something that permits us to go about our business regularly.

On February 19th, 4 days ago, two bombs rocked Bir Hassan in Beirut’s Southern Suburb. 50 minutes after the news of the explosion broke out and all necessary politicians copy/pasted their required indignations and political messages, our president issued a message to a young twitter activist accepting his apology for some defamatory tweets. Nice gesture? Perhaps. Was it the proper time? I guess we can all agree it wasn’t.

There was a time when explosions taking place occupied our news for hours on end. Yesterday’s suicide bomber and the army men and civilians he killed only did so for a brief period of time before our TV stations resumed their regular broadcasts. The Voice here, another trivia show there. Life went on.

If one wants to plot the effect of explosions on the Lebanese populace over time, you’d get a curve that is somewhat like this:

Yesterday’s suicide bomber news was eclipsed by two news items that made the innocent people that died seem irrelevant, the news about their death being absolutely secondary to the major problems the country was facing at the time, à la OMG WHATSAPP IS DOWN!

Whatsapp:

The jokes about Facebook and Whatsapp sky-rocketed yesterday. But the most ironic thing was our TV stations issuing breaking news bulletins about Whatsapp being down while showing footage of the suicide bomb. They knew where people’s real interest was. Our new minister of telecom, Boutros Harb, even tweeted about the service’s problems:

I guess people can’t shoot down his twitter skills after all. On Twitter, people discussed their Whatsapp service being off more than the bombs. The former was interesting news, the latter being very been there, done that about 24 times in the past year. How would they come up with their Saturday night plans? How would they know if they should hit Mar Mkhayel or Hamra tonight? How would they know what to coordinate what to wear? Our priorities are well established.

Angelina Jolie:

Picture via Annahar (obviously)

I commend Angelina Jolie for being more interested in Lebanon’s Syrian refugees than our governments, as well as most of the Lebanese population. This isn’t the first time she comes to Lebanon for that matter and I’m assuming it won’t be her last. She also slept at some hotel in Zahle. Good for her? Not quite. It’s good for the entire country, people!

Her secret visit immediately became the hottest news piece of the evening (literally, perhaps?) for our news services and people alike. A tweet leaked her location. News services latched onto it and started their retrospective analysis to confirm such news by figuring out why the Lebanese Army blocked the roads leading to that hotel. Our own paparazzi squirmed to take her pictures at the camps she was visiting. Angelina’s secret visit was secret no more.

This is good for the country, some said. Such a high profile visit might change perspectives, other said to try and explain their obsession with her visit while it didn’t pertain in any way whatsoever to whatever agenda they believed she could advance.

Pity The Nation?

Pity the nation that cares more about the image Angelina Jolie might give than about the reason she’s actually here. Pity the nation that cares more about its whatsapp connectivity than about the people whose pieces were burning as they panicked over them not able to stalk their ex’s last seen status. I understand you want to move on quickly, Lebanon. But aren’t you moving on a little too quickly sometimes?