Author Archives: eliefares

A State of Lebanese Twitter

Lebanon + Twitter

A friend of mine decided to start using Twitter recently. She followed enough people to get a taste of it and stayed on the sidelines, observing our timelines as they got busier and busier with tweets flooding their minutes and seconds, some original while others basically deja-vu.

A week later, the conclusion about the Lebanese Twitter scene that she came up with, by following the people that most of us follow and read, is the following: this is one hell of a hostile environment.

I tried to change her mind. But I wasn’t convinced it wasn’t the situation either. The past few days have not only revealed a hostile environment, they revealed an utterly disgusting infestation that I can’t begin to describe.

People on Twitter are panicking over 140 characters. Let me rephrase that: People are getting hormonal on 140 fucking characters. Do you have any idea how stupid that is? Do you have any notion how utterly ridiculous you sound when you post screenshots of your private messages with the people you want to ridicule just because you have “dirt” on them? Do you know how disgusting you come off when you screenshot your private conversations to use them as material to bully people?

Do you know how moronic it is to make fun of others because they asked for retweets fully knowing that you had also asked for retweets at a certain point? The difference is the people you asked retweets from are actually decent enough creatures not to spread your laundry for everyone to see.

The courtesy doesn’t seem to go both ways.

Some Lebanese on Twitter feel proud lately about them ridiculing teenagers, getting them feel insecure – basically bullying the bejeezus out of them. They are proud to have started Twitter wars. The Twitter community isn’t much different from its offline counterpart. And what for?

Because of a stolen tweet? Because those people are not original? Because they delete tweets? Because they tricked their way into followers? Because you think they’re dicks?

News flash: bullying, which is what many of you are doing, is not original.

The Lebanese Twitter community is witnessing a growing infestation of bullies. They are people who take pleasure in bashing others for the fun of it. As one twitter user put it on Sunday, they must check their dicks after each bullying tweet to see if it got longer. There must be an association there somehow, I’m willing to bet. And they can somehow fathom coming up with excuses to their bullying. They’re proud of it. They don’t hide it. “Nfokho” is what you get when you point it out.

Bullying cannot ever be justified, let alone when it’s about a reason as silly, as retarded, as stupid as one tweet.

You’re annoyed by someone “stealing” your oh-so-original tweets? Make it known. You’re annoyed by someone’s tweets or by the fact that they delete their tweets? That unfollow button is bigger than Jennifer Lopez’s ass. You’re annoyed by someone who’s annoying you? Block them. You don’t want to get anything from them anymore effectively making their presence non-existent? Turn off retweets. Mute them as handles, mute them as keyword, mute them as hashtag. Mute the hell out of them and just cross that bridge.

But wait. Some of you are STILL stalking those that you block. Masochism much? Are you so fixated on bringing people down that you can’t seem to move the fuck on?

I’d post some of the tweets inundating my timeline but I don’t want to give the many attention-seeking people behind them the attention they crave.

Here’s some perspective for those concerned, especially those who see a tweet getting stolen as the next coming of doomsday. I go to the hospital every day at 7:30AM. I deal with dying patients and children all day. I see grief and horror and people dealing with it on daily basis. We had to tell our patient’s mother yesterday that her bundle of joy will not live to see the tender age of 5. Then I come back home and check Twitter only to find some people acting like prepubescent teenagers with surging hormones who panic over the most meaningless of things, who treat Twitter like some holy shrine, who don’t view a tweet as just a tweet: 140 miserable characters to communicate an idea. Not to get you popular. Not to get you famous. Not to turn you into a major star, its only purpose being for you to have fun, to make friends, to let off some steam.

Isn’t that why those “major” Twitter accounts whose asses many are all hell-bent on kissing simply couldn’t care less about people stealing their tweets, about people calling them unoriginal and about many flooding them with sheer negativity and bullying and dimwittedness?

The Lebanese state of Twitter recently has sucked the fun out of what used to be a decent place for people to have decent exchanges. I met my best friend on it so I would know. People worry more about the number of retweets their tweet would get than about the things they should be worrying about. They worry about the copyright status of a joke that has been milked all the way from Mercury to Saturn. They get up in a fit about the most meaningless, worthless of things.

News flash 2.0: that internet explorer New Year joke has existed ever since Internet explorer became a source of jokes. Just an FYI for the wise asses who think their nostrils drool originality.

The only thing some people have turned Twitter into is a typical old fashioned catfight between two matriarchs in some Lebanese town who are arguing about whose progeny is first in his class. It’s downright childish, despicable and horrifying. And there are still people who look at the people on Twitter as the sign of a better future. Screw that future if this is a sample of the ride we’re in.

Here’s to those awesome people who don’t get a surge of testosterone behind the shroud of an online handle.

The First Lebanese Born Without a Sect

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I’m sure you all remember Khouloud and Nidal Sukkariyeh, the first Lebanese couple to get a civil marriage without going to Cyprus and forcing our government to recognize it as legitimate, using a loophole that existed in our constitution back from the days of the French mandate.

We all knew as well that they were awaiting their first born when the news of their marriage spread like wildfire among the Lebanese populace. We wondered what would happen to that child, bureaucratically and whatnot. Well, we now have our answer.

Ghadi, Khouloud and Nidal’s firstborn, is – I believe – the first Lebanese citizen to be born without a sect plastered across his papers. The Lebanese mold has been broken once again.

This is obviously great news. It’s another firm step in getting our country to become more aware of citizens like Khouloud, Nidal and their son who don’t want to be governed by regulations that are detrimental to their well-being as citizens and which are custom-made to the community they just happened to be born in.

It’s a firm step in getting people who have lived all their lives believing there’s no alternative to realize that yes, something could be done about the situation we’re in. And it’s also a firm step in, maybe, changing the perception of those who view all of this as one big load of unacceptable actions.

But I have to wonder: is 2013 Lebanon the best place for a child like Ghadi to be born into regarding his sect-less identity? Our country is divided among sects. Job interviews need you to be honest about your religious affiliations. You can’t get into certain places if you don’t have a wasta that is contingent upon your political affiliation and your sect. The entire country is built in a way that allows those and only those who exist within the grand mold of a “sectual” identity – even if only on paper – to truly have a shot at making it.

I hope the current status quo isn’t bad news to Ghadi because it would be a shame for a child that just made the history books to go down memory lane unremembered. Allah y3ayysho.

The Ultimate Lebanese Fail: Our Politicians

Once upon a time, I was a political person with a clear politician affiliation. I didn’t hide it. I wasn’t ashamed of it. If anyone had a problem with it, it wasn’t my problem.

I supported a party I had thought out to be the victim of current times. The rhetoric of the person in charge appealed to me. I thought he had a flawless run through a few years. Everyone else, on the other hand, was busy making mistakes all over the place. How could people not see that? I kept asking myself.

It may not be true. But I’d like to think I grew up since then. And it took me a long time to realize that it was okay to feel this betrayed, this deceived.

That same party I supported feels desolate and strange to me today. I’m not sure if the rhetoric that appealed to me back then changed or I developed some form of allergy to having it shoved down my throat. The man I had come to believe wasn’t the figure people had portrayed him to be was suddenly filing libel suits here and there. The people I knew were proud. I was appalled and disappointed. I was also disgusted by the utter bigotry that manifested, for instance, with him telling people they don’t know how to vote for an election that he worked on postponing. I voiced disdain throughout. They started shutting me out. I couldn’t care less – I liked it better on the outside.

That other politician I’m demographically supposed to like changes opinions faster than a weather vane in January changes directions. And his people change directions with him as well and it’s supposed to be completely normal. He wants everyone to believe he’s breaking through the mold of our feudal-like political successorship. But don’t tell that to his son-in-law.

My parliament, whose track record is worth looking into as the least efficient parliament to ever walk the Earth, has been ruled by the same person ever since I can remember. He’s an American citizen who hates America. In theory, my almost-24 years of life have had another speaker. In reality, he’s the only entity I can remember hammering away as session after the next failed to reach quorum.

The other side of that speaker’s coin is a beard that has an affinity to wars. Hold on, let me rephrase. It has an affinity to branding divinity onto wars we theoretically have/had nothing to do with. Eventually, we find ourselves in some deep mess but we can’t not take it because that’s what Allah wants.

There’s also that one who doesn’t even know where he stands regarding things and pretends he knows what he’s doing anyway, dragging an entire community that looks up to him and him alone – they’re getting nauseous from all the spinning, I bet.

And there’s that politician who is defining how it is to have power and rule a country all the way from a distant land which he’s aiming to get naturalized in, I suppose. A baggage of influence, wealth, power and corruption is synonymous with his name. Who said those can’t be put to good use at les Champs-Elysées?

Then there’s that prime minister who comes from a city torn apart by war while he attends Cirque du Soleil. And there’s that who’s supposed to replace him and who said, once upon a time, that we were getting a new government. The only thing we’re getting is news about his gastroenteritis instead. There’s also that president who, on a visit to the country he’s supposedly ruling between his many travels and as part of his country burns to the ground, he attends some honorary event for a random mayor of some random town. And there are those who rule over us without having a brevet certificate. I remember jokingly saying to my 14 year old cousin this past summer that she’d be an ass (in the animal sense of the word) if she didn’t pass that exam.

A friend of mine has been unemployed for the past 6 months in a profession that shouldn’t be this impossible in Lebanon. He thought his unemployment would last only one month. And that friend likes to joke about his situation often but it kills me every time to realize that there’s nothing I can do and that no one of those who can actually do something (refer to the above politicians) cares, for my friend is not a lone case in this country and the utter despair that my age-segment of society feels is due to the policies, or lack thereof, that these politicians enforce. And, apart from the people living on cloud 9, I’m willing to bet this despair isn’t exclusive to my age group. People are tired. People are exhausted. And who’s to blame?

That same friend has also been unable to sleep for the past few nights. It’s not because he has insomnia. It’s because he comes from a city that has been witnessing a Lebanese civil war-esque fights. It’s because each explosion feels like it’s happening inside his house. It’s because those politicians couldn’t care less about that city, as they slept in their fortresses and their beds, absolutely carefree without a single worry to trouble their good night’s sleep.

I’m tired of living in Lebanon and that’s not something I hide. But I’m not tired because of the country per se. I’m tired because our politicians are such a failure at what they do. They can’t come up with policy. They can’t come up with laws. In fact, they work on breaking them. They bicker like hormonal teenage girls in some American high school drama, fully knowing how their bickering reflects on the masses that follow them. They complain of a status quo but do nothing to change it. They couldn’t care less about the people they like to talk for. They don’t know how to rule. They have no idea how to govern. And they’re glad with chaos, believing chaos is what we all want.

They don’t get it. They will never get it. They will never know how it is to try and make ends meet. They will never know how it is to be unemployed and hopeless and feeling useless. They will never understand how it is to see your parents worried all the time about paying your university tuitions. They lack the empathy to try and understand. They will never understand how it is to live in the country that they have given us because their version of it has nothing to do with ours.

Lebanon has many shortcomings. But if there’s one that tops them all, it’s our politicians. All of them. And the sad part is they’re staying there till kingdom come.

On Lebanese Priorities: Tripoli is One

The total disassociation that Lebanon has isn’t just sad, it’s tragic.

It’s almost midnight. I’m getting ready to sleep in a comfortable bed, in a place I call home. The only thing troubling my ears is a song I probably shouldn’t be listening to.

A few minutes away from me, Lebanese party goers are busy pretending Thursday is the new Friday. Some students are overnighting for an exam they have in a few days. For others the night is still young and they’re out to get lucky.

And, for some people, tonight is a night where they don’t get to sleep in their beds. It’s a night where they are forced out of their homes to live on the stairs of some random building because it’s the location that shelters them the most from sniper riffles and missiles that are falling over their heads.

I don’t care if you think I’m talking about Tripoli often here. What’s happening in that city makes me sick as a person and it makes me disgusted as a Lebanese.

Our filthy politicians run these fights and sleep soundly at night. People like you and I, on the other hand, are forced to cower in the corners of their homes to take shelter from bullets, from explosions, from sounds that shake the concrete housing them. Ma fi gheir l m3attar ekela.

Tripoli should be a Lebanese national priority. The bus full of school children that was shot yesterday should be a national priority. These people who are living on some stairs and can’t go back home should be a national priority. And a meaningless security plan just doesn’t work anymore!

We’re too busy fan-girling over a useless ranking instead.

Would You Wait for a Miracle?

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I have a two month old patient, whose bed is way too big for and who hasn’t cried in my presence once. She has blue eyes, which I could barely see through her constantly dilated pupils. Her skin is whiter than snow and colder than ice. She’s not responsive. She has more peripherals connected to her body than a body of that size should handle.

My two month old patient, precious and young as she is, is brain dead.

For a while, my friends and I lamented her young life. She is a person who will never live. She will never utter the words mom, she will never walk, she will never ride a bike. She will never even have solid food. Why was she being kept alive? Why  was she being put in such pain?

The medical aspect in us couldn’t understand the point of keeping life tethered to that girl. It didn’t make any sense. There’s no way she will wake up again. There’s no way she will recover. For all matters and purposes, that girl who has lived for two months exists no more.

But still, her parents kept her alive adorning her bed with rosaries and religious icons as they prayed by her bedside.

“I know it’s over,” I overheard her mom say while crying. “But I’m hoping He’d look down at her and see how such a precious creature she is and help her.”

And the mother would ask us: what will happen if things worked out with her? What will you see? Isn’t she snoring? What is that sound?

We’d answer in a way to stay true to the medicine without squashing her hopes. Hope, in this case, is a double-edged sword.

They were waiting for a miracle. My friends would even chuckle at the thought. But even though I also thought it was absurd, I just felt terribly, terribly sorry for what that mother had to go through, seeing her daughter’s shell in front of her: alive but not.

I’ve been thinking about miracles ever since I was allocated that little girl. While they round on other patients and they reach her case, I often find myself thinking about the miracle she is waiting for. I don’t get miracles. I don’t know if I believe in them. I think I don’t. But if there’s anything about miracles that I’m sure of, it’s that they are unjust.

Then I thought about what I’d do if I had been the father whose daughter was in my patient’s bed, with tubes going out of her in order to keep her alive. My answer would have surely been a resounding: turn it off. Purely medical. Pure electrolytes. Pure CT scans. Pure EEGs. Pure data. Or so I thought.

Today, as I saw that woman crying over her daughter, I didn’t pity her. I was utterly shocked that what she was doing didn’t feel odd. It didn’t feel weak. It didn’t feel like something I would remotely try to ridicule, like many people I’ve encountered would. Because the shocking revelation was that I’m not so sure I can turn it off, in spite of al the data.

Would you?