Category Archives: Lebanon

Stalking and Spamming in Lebanon’s Smartphone Age

You’re a driving on the highway calmly, focusing on the road and the barrage of cars trying to violate your vehicle’s space. You look around to the motorcycle trying to block you and you see a guy is driving. Coincidentally, you happen to be a girl. He looks at you intently. You cross eyes for a second and then look away.

You thought that was it.

The next day, your phone starts buzzing. You look down – an unknown number is calling. A slide to answer later and it’s a voice you definitely don’t recognize.
– Are you [insert name] and were you driving a [insert car color and brand] around [insert time] on the highway at [location]?
– Excuse me?
– I’m the guy who was driving the motorcycle next to you. Don’t you work at [insert job], your dad’s name is [insert name], are originally from [insert town]?
– What the hell?
– I’m a really nice guy who would like to keep talking to you. Do you mind?
– Of course I do!
– I am persistent…

You hang up. But it doesn’t stop there. Next thing you know, your phone is buzzing again. This time, it’s whatsapp. You open the app and immediately block the number. A few seconds later, the same number is calling you from viber. You end up deleting the app.

The above story is not fiction – it happened with a friend of mine recently. And she’s not a lone example.

Another friend of mine – who also happens to be a girl – had a similar scenario happen to her as well. She was lucky enough to have her father answer the call and gave the caller a piece of his mind.

I am certain those are not two standalone incidences. In the time and age of apps that allow strangers access to your private information with a few clicks, whose job is it to draw the limit?
The problem isn’t with apps such as Tru-caller and address book which outsource their data to their users who willingly share their entire address books with the companies. If you’re worried about your privacy because of such apps, simply don’t use them.

It’s about the other apps that require a source inside some governmental headquarters to fill them in with all the necessary information about license plates and user information.

Should we be also worried about out-of-nowhere stalkers now whenever we buy a new car?
“You get a free freak with each car purchase.” Perhaps ad companies should use that tagline as well?

Our spamming and stalking situation isn’t restricted to sexually-oppressed people. More often than not, I’m finding myself in whatsapp groups filled with numbers similar to mine whereby someone is advertising something. I exit the group, block the group creator and believe that’s the end of it.
But they keep coming back: be it those who text me to buy phone numbers that hold some resemblance to mine or the companies you don’t even know existed who text you about their new offers or even getting some notifications from certain banks you had never set foot in that a credit card was used on your account.

What account is it again that I have so much money in without knowing?

On top of it all, a lot of people I know – including yours truly – are receiving calls recently from either blocked numbers which could be Israelis (it happened before) or international numbers originating from Algeria, Mali or some other place in Africa and sometimes Europe we are more than positive we have no relation with.

I once answered one of those calls – static is all you hear before the call is dropped.

The truth is that the political debates surrounding your “private data” which are used quite often to rally the masses are becoming more and more meaningless since a lot of your data is not only available for security personnel to use but from random people on the street who can pull up your number and make your life a living hell if they want just by writing down your license plate number.
How are entities in Algeria getting our phone numbers and calling us often in the first place? And what is the governmental source of those apps that give strangers unlimited access to part of your information? And when will we have control over the spam text messages and calls we are getting in increasing numbers lately?

Perhaps in the time and age of smartphones and apps, some leeway regarding some aspect of your privacy is needed. But I’m certain the current situation in Lebanon is not acceptable.

Hold on, a +213 number is calling me.

Santa Muerte Shrine To Open in Lebanon

Following the outrage of some Lebanese that other Lebanese were outraged at a possible shirtgate involving demonizing a Virgin Mary icon are not aware of well-rooted Mexican folklore, the Mexican embassy, in collaboration with the Lebanese government, will be building a Santa Muerte shrine in the village of DeirBella.

Issuing a brief statement on the matter, the Mexican embassy noted the “overwhelming support” their not-recognized saint has gotten over the past few hours in Lebanon. They were “absolutely dumbfounded” by the well-rooted knowledge of Santa Muerte among the Lebanese populace whereby everyone seems to be quite the expert. “We didn’t know Santa Muerte had so many fans in Lebanon,” they said, “this makes us quite excited about possible culture fusion between the countries.” The embassy was also quite “enthusiastic” about the culture fusion prospect in Lebanese society, à la St. Patrick’s Day and Thanksgiving.

“It shouldn’t be exclusive to the Irish and the Americans, now should it?” They said.

A date to celebrate the Day of the Dead is still being debated. They’re not sure if it fits with all the Halloween parties that will take place on October 31st.

The Lebanese government, on the other hand, sees this step as another confirmation of the deep ties between Lebanon and Mexico where a sizable expat population could be found. They find the building of the Santa Muerte shrine will strengthen the relation between the two countries, giving both expats and Lebanese residents a taste of Mexican lore. The government noted the choice of location as somewhere that has a Spanish flare in its name so Santa Muerte feels right at home.

Seeing as Santa Muerte is not recognized by both the Catholic Church and the Mexican Catholic Church, both governments have teamed up with country-gone-pop singer Taylor Swift in order to record an anthem taking a jab at the inadequacy of the Catholic Church and the ignorance of those who don’t know Santa Muerte outside of its natural habitat. The initial leaked lyrics read the following:

I remember when Pope Francis was elected, last month
We said this is it, now’s our shot
Cause like he wasn’t wearing a fancy robe
When he waved his one Argentinian hand
Then he came around again and said
Minions, Santa Muerte will not be recognized ever
And all of you have to deal with it
God Bless those who don’t know it exists.

Oh, Santa Muerte called me up last night and said
The Catholic Church and I are never ever ever getting together
We are never ever ever getting together
They can talk to their minions, talk to their friends, talk to me
But the Catholic Church and I are never ever ever getting together
Like, ever!

We are not entirely sure about the hit potential of the above song but rumor has it Najwa Karam was enlisted to write the accomagnying Arabic version. Her latest tweets have all been of the anthem’s possible lyrics: “Albi fata7, seret shouf, Santa Muerte ejet.”

Meanwhile, research is underway at the American University of Beirut between psychologist Thomas Renecamp and philosopher Patrick Henderson. This rare collaboration between these often-diverging sciences is centered around the peculiar reaction that was observed following ShirtGate whereby Lebanese people established a duality of freedom of expression. They are trying to understand the dynamics behind calling other people ignorant and condescending because of a simple disagreement of opinion. “Freedom of expression seems to go only one way only in Lebanon,” Henderson said. “If your opinion isn’t that of the cool people, then your opinion is automatically relegated to something subpar compared to the other self-proclaimed wise men and women.”

They are also working on a hierarchy of ignorance whereby different levels of the entity will be categorized as they have found the term to be thrown around very loosely.
“Not sure if an English word or a prostitute,” professor Renecamp was heard saying in typical German candidness.

If you feel like participating in their research, you can email TR8656@aub.edu.lb and PH7.13@aub.edu.lb.

The Maronite and Catholic Churches in Lebanon have yet to take any measures due to the Patriarch being on a European road trip for the next month and a half.
The shrine in question is set to open on April 31st, 2013.

Bershka Lebanon Insulting The Virgin Mary

A friend of mine just sent my way the following shirt being sold by Bershka Lebanon for 49,000:

Bershka Shirt Lebanon Christianity - 1 Bershka Shirt Lebanon Christianity - 2

The shirt called Lady of Skulls features a Virgin Mary-esque image that cannot, even with the most out-of-the-box approaches, not be considered as a distortion of many Christians icons of Mary

I am not the most sensitive person when it comes to religious jabs. In fact, I think we need some of them more often so people can light off a little. Caricatures or comedic approaches to some religious symbols might be acceptable – they are to me – but demonizing religious holy figures for the sake of having fun such as in this case is, quite frankly, unacceptable. I find it revolting and offensive.

 

It’s not about freedom of expression or freedom to wear whatever you want. This isn’t a book I’m saying you should not be reading or a movie you shouldn’t be watching or a website you shouldn’t be exposed to. It’s about respecting other people’s beliefs to the point where you don’t shove a picture that is clearly offensive up their faces just because someone out there thought it was fashionable enough to be worn.

Perhaps this is acceptable in countries where views towards religion is more liberal but the only thing this will lead to here is tension because of a silly and quite frankly hideous shirt.

This isn’t how you advance communities towards religious liberalism and breed tolerance, love, peace for all and a bunch of other cliches. Good job Bershka Lebanon.

It seems a Santa Muerte shrine is opening in Lebanon soon. (Link)
Virgin Mary standing on crescent moon

USJ, NDU, LAU, AUB Crushes: When Lebanese Students Have Free Time

You know all those memes and jokes about your crush not knowing you exist? Well, some Lebanese students decided to put an end to it all by creating a sort of gossip hub where they gather people’s infatuations and broadcast them anonymously for their entire campus to see.

This “gossip hub” has taken the form of several Facebook pages for most of Lebanon’s major universities: USJ, NDU, LAU and AUB. Despite launching only yesterday, the USJ page has so far near 1000 likes. The other universities haven’t caught on the crushes fever yet.

I find the idea to be smart: it gives those who have a crush on other people the courage that comes with anonymity to declare their feelings. It serves as an interesting addition to campus life that Lebanese universities have yet to see and, most importantly I guess, it just sounds like so much fun: the interaction that I saw on the corresponding Facebook pages because of it is proof enough for that.

The process is simple. You submit info about your crush anonymously to the page: they don’t know who you are and you can even make any info about your crush as ambiguous as possible. In turn, the page admins post the info on the Facebook page. People are guessing almost immediately who the person is and tagging them. The tricky part is for that person to know who got that post to be published on Facebook in the first place.

USJ Crushes Facebook

Some students have a crush on their professors:

AUB Crushes Facebook

Very smooth Elie, very smooth.

I commend the students behind these pages for the very clever idea. Don’t be surprised if you get contacted by several high profile entities regarding your pages quite soon. It’ll only be a matter of time.

Some more examples from the USJ page, which is by far the most interesting:

USJ Crushes Facebook 2 USJ Crushes Facebook 3

As for everyone else, if you feel like you absolutely must tell your crush that you are crushing on them – anonymously of course – here are the necessary links for you:

Hopefully students finding each other will lead to some form of much needed release in this country. I’m tired of recommending tranquilizing pills to the huge amount of people always on edge I’m encountering lately.

Update: Was just informed that, as I suspected, the idea is taken from universities abroad where the Facebook page in question has the format: Spotted: [X] University. 

Update 2: University of Balamand (UOB) and USEK have their own pages now:

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?

20130403-180940.jpg

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.