Student A from party B attacked student C from party D. The headline reads as such. Substitute the letters for whichever news website you follow for your party of choice, and you’ll get the gist of what happened at NDU earlier today.

An important aspect of the NDU fights has been, to me at least, a serious wakeup call as to how time is flying. It was university election season again, or as I like to call it dumbo open season. I daresay there isn’t a better description for that in 2014.

The following is a video of the fight that took place at NDU today:

And to think that it was only just last year that we had the following gem circulating:

I don’t have pictures of people from other parties

When I recovered from the shock that it was almost November, I couldn’t help but wonder: do these things seriously still exist? Universities still hold these things.

In November 2014, at a time when Lebanon doesn’t have 1) a president, 2) a functional parliament, 3) upcoming parliamentary elections and 4) people with political intellect, universities are still pretending that it’s a necessity for the parties roaming their classes to express democracy.

The fact of the matter remains that the following is correct:

1) Student elections are irrelevant. The only purpose they used to serve is to enrich the democratic spirit within students. When those students start to bludgeon each other over useless politics, the entire purpose is defeated.

2) Student councils that arise from these elections are, in most universities, essentially stillborn. Student movements that you hear of in universities regarding rising tuition fees rarely emanate from those councils. Based on my experience, those movements immediately manage to circumvent the limitations of said councils in order to make bigger impacts and get to what they need. It’s worth to note that USEK, which doesn’t have student elections, also managed to protest their rising tuition fees, albeit that didn’t get as much coverage as AUB because, well, AUB.

3) I can’t believe Lebanese students, who should – in theory – be an example of educated youth wanting to better our country and, you know, all that cliche that is associated with the benefits of higher education, still believe that them voting for Geagea or Aoun is proof enough that the latter or the former command the Christian scene. I can’t believe that they still believe voting for Hezbollah is a referendum over the resistance’s weapons, or that voting for Hariri is proof on his popularity among the Sunni scene. You’re just a tool. It’s high time you see yourself as they see you.

4) It’s sad, read depressing, that these students’ parents keep on paying hefty fees for their sons and daughters to essentially forgo their entire education for a period of a month that starts with scouting for candidates, making sure those candidates fit the required bill, going through student “pointage” to figure out who’s voting for whom. And, because that wasn’t enough, those students end up beating each other up to defend the honor of their za’im of choice. Your $20K tuition is definitely meant from broken ribs, swollen eyes and bruised prides.

5) It’s mortifying that the students going into those fights believe that the politician they’re getting beaten up for actually gives a shit. Here’s a reality check for you: he doesn’t remotely give a rat’s ass about your sorry ass. In fact, he’s probably laughing his ass off while his henchmen write up a speech to pretend he’s coming to your rescue while his last worry in the world is you. Do those students seriously think their politicians would come to their rescue when they end up in jail because of those scenes, when their future is ruined or when they end up expelled? Guess again.

6) In a country of no democracy, university elections are not the last vestige of the good times representing the Switzerland of the Middle East, the freedom of whatever that we had and whatnot. They’re irrelevant and, as it’s become apparently clear, dangerous.

High profile Lebanese universities that do not have student elections are:

• The Lebanese University
• University of Balamand
• USEK

USJ is also considering canceling their elections this year. I say good riddance; USJ is the hub of yearly problems. I mean, what would Jesus say if Hezbollah won in Huvelin? Tsk tsk.

AUB and LAU are still scheduled to hold them.

If there’s a time to cancel university elections, it’s this year. The only thing at stake is a useless student council and political websites orgasming over them winning X or Z. Nobody cares – except the students beating each other up over it.

The news about the rising racism that foreigners in Lebanon, notably Syrians, keep on rolling.

Earlier this morning, Anastacia Al-Hajj was doing what she basically does every morning, take her commute road to work. On her way, she’s held up by a scene involving a Lebanese man shouting at a helpless Sukleen worker, telling him to kneel. The man put his hands over the man’s shoulders and tried to force him to the ground, insulting him in all kinds of ways in the process.

When the Sukleen worker didn’t budge, the Lebanese man animal held out a pocket knife and slashed the worker across the street. Seeing that no one was doing anything but observe, in typical Lebanese apathy to such scenarios, Anastacia went out to help the worker only to have one of the women in the nearby buildings tell her: “leave him, these foreigners all over our country, and they deserve it.”

Why was the Lebanese man assaulting the Sukleen worker? Because the latter was cleaning in front of that man’s building, which is the building’s orderly’s job.

Anastacia has reported the incident to Sukleen and they are investigating the matter. Of course, this will probably only amount to a few blog posts and a viral Facebook status, courtesy to the people in this country who still have an ounce of humanity left in them.

This is the Sukleen worker after he was attacked by the Lebanese goon. The look in his eyes is heartbreaking:

It wasn’t enough that these helpless foreigners do the jobs that many Lebanese find themselves to be too high-end to do, we now attack them when they go out of their way to keep our streets clean from all the litter we pile up, in pure animalistic fashion.

This sheer racism against foreigners just because they are foreigners is unacceptable. The argument that these foreigners have done their share of hardships against the Lebanese population is essentially mute. How despicable do you have to be, as a human being, to attack someone whose only way to provide for his family is basically collect the garbage that other people pile up in the most disorganized of ways?

I’m finding myself more and more lately wishing that these people, such as the animal who attacked that helpless worker and that woman who said that worker deserved to have his face cut with a pocket knife, end up with their sons and daughters and maybe even fathers and mothers abroad, working at low-end jobs to provide them with better quality of life, and have their family members being treated with the same racism that they’re treating those they deem are lesser.

Some people deserve to live in a barn. It’s only fitting for their inner animals, all surrounded by filth, their own manure and their ego. And, ironically, some Lebanese people have become as bad as Daesh. As I said before, some people deserve Daesh.

6-7-11.

The above numbers do not constitute my iPhone passcode. They are not random, arbitrary digits I chose to start a useless blog post that will have your head rolling: yet another nagging post by this guy? Meh.

6 is the number of civilians. 7 is the number of army men. 11 is the number of militia terrorists. These 24 people have all died in Tripoli over the past day, in the city’s heaviest clashes in many, many months. Not that you’d care. It’s understandable – deplorable, but understandable nonetheless. None of this goes hand in hand with Lebanese joie de vivre. What are we to tell the tourists?

It started when Lebanon’s army arrested Ahmad Miqati, a well known thug and terrorist, who also happens to be the henchman of a well-known Lebanese MP whose name roughly translates to “immortal going out.” Upon his arrest, Tripoli’s dormant cell of terrorists woke up from their deep slumber. How dare they?

Khaled Hoblos, a cleric at Haroun el Rashid mosque, then ignited their fury with a fiery Friday sermon. And the rest is undergoing present history.

The perfect summary for today

As Tripoli’s people suffered in national silence, oblivious to the bullets and missiles, Achrafieh was having another field day. It’s funny how Achrafieh’s 2020 days always take place when something fucked up around Tripoli goes. Conspiracy, perhaps?

It does serve to show, however, exactly how divided and segregated and lala-landish some parts of Lebanon are. 80 kilometers away they may be, perhaps, but it’s an entirely different world out there. Kids playing, young adults trying to find that perfect instagram picture versus men carrying a body out of Nahr Abou Ali, taking pictures of the burned Tebbane souk as they hear bullets echo in the distance, in areas that those bullets had never visited before.

Ironically, this seems too familiar. Around the same time last year, after I had finished watching La Vie D’Adele at the European Film Festival and, while walking home, I looked at the parties taking place in Gemmayze and Mar Mkhayel. People were alive, proving whatever point they had to prove. Tripoli and the people I knew there were tucked away in corners of their houses, convincing themselves that the following day would be better, après l’éclipse le beau temps style.

Of course in times like these, everyone and their mother have an opinion. More often than not, that opinion stems from well-rooted political convictions that are, well, as worthy as garbage. But everyone’s got an opinion, right?

And, at times of national crises such as this, the least you’d expect people is to at least keep a united front facing the terrorism, horror and death. Well, guess again.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Such people’s logic wants to have a city of half a million people eradicated from the Lebanese scene just because they don’t agree with that city’s sect, politics. Of course, young as these people are, they probably got their ideas from their parents. Do you think blinded hate is a recessive or dominant trait? I’d go with the latter.

What’s sadder is that such a point of view is not a lone cry in the Lebanese wilderness. It is shared by many. The saddest part is that the people who have such ideas are the upcoming generation on whom everyone’s hope resides. I suppose you better find better foundations for that hope you have of a one-day prosperous Lebanese nation of understanding and love and intra-sectarian mating and whatnot.

Those people in question don’t know that there are people from that city they want burned who know exactly what’s wrong with their hometown and who are trying to change it, unlike useless hateful tweets:

By Mu’taz Salloum

People such as Mu’taz Salloum, who have no problem blaming everything and everyone for the situation in their city and their country, make me happy. Is it because I’m a natural-born downer?

The situation, however, is not Muslim-exclusive. Lebanese Christians have their own share of messed up stuff taking place, from extremism against the Syrians, to self-appointed guarding duties across Lebanese towns, to their sheer inability to govern amidst self-conviction that their existence in the country is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The people of Achrafieh at today’s event were probably having the following conversation with each other:

– T’as entendu qu’est ce qui se passe à Tghipoli?

– Tghipoli? C’est quoi ça?

– Ben, j’en sais pas. Je crois qu’ils ont quelque chose qui s’appelle Daesh.

– Daesh? C’est bien demodé chez eux. La vie est jolie chez nous à Ach.

The Lebanese South, prior to its liberation in 2000, was not as disassociated from Lebanon as Tripoli and effectively much of the North and Northern Beqaa are. If that’s not saying something, I don’t know what could.

This is beautiful ❤

However, ladies and gentlemen, things are not all bleak. There is news to brighten your day, news that will make all of the above disappear. Or at least that was the case for some people to pretend that we have the Paris of the Middle East again, Switzerland of the East, *insert some other possible cliche about Lebanon here.*

It’s that time of the year again. No, not Christmas. According to Siri, that’s in sixty days. It’s time for Conde Naste to publish their yearly list of the world’s best cities according to that magazine’s touristy readers. Drumroll please *drrrrrr.* For the third year in a row, Beirut has found itself a nice little spot on that list. Not only that, but Beirut has made great advances in ranks, up from number 20 last year, based on the voting of the tourists that read that magazine and have visited Beirut recently, which amounts to how many people exactly?

Beirut beat Sydney, and Paris, and Vienna, and *insert other eye-grabbing capital that makes Beirut’s feat all the more impressive.* Our very own capital. Can you believe it? The little city that could, with all its characteristic buildings, well-kept roads, clean sidewalks, enriching cultural life and activities, diverse touristic options within its boundaries, the insane amount of tourists and its charm that is overflowing.

What’s the mark of greatness in a city that’s destroying its own heritage, has little to no respect to its people and is making sure it becomes what it believes everyone wants: another Dubai, effectively losing everything that made it, once upon a time, charming?

Between people dying, people wanting those dying to be eradicated from existence, people who have no idea the former two categories exist and people who have massive orgasms every time a Western publication mentions Lebanon somehow, the Lebanese situation is utterly, devastatingly and surely, beyond measures, fucked.

BUT YOU GUYS BEIRUT IS THE WORLD’S #14 CITY. TAKE THAT PARIS. (Paris <3).