Category Archives: Lebanon

The Jamerek That Cried Wolf

The last time Lebanese security personnel openly beat up civilians with absolutely no regards to the potential repercussions to their actions was when the Syrian security apparatus was ruling our country. Back then, I had to cross checkpoints set up by that army in order to go to school. We were not allowed to voice opposition… or else. We were bombarded with images of the young men and women who tried to defy that apparatus: how they were beaten up then taken in those army vehicles to some jail cell in who knows where.

Things have been miserable in Lebanon, yes. But amid all of the tensions and the violence and the country not knowing where it’s heading, I didn’t think I’d see people getting beaten up by armed forces whose job is to supposedly maintain order.

NewTV’s journalistic crew was researching the corruption that infests Lebanese Customs at our one and only airport. We all know such corruption exists. I know of stories about the hints they drop regarding the money you should pay in order to get certain equipments into the country. Of course, no tangible proof exists and even if such proof were to be found, what would change?

NewTV’s crew didn’t think the country that championed freedom of speech and of the press would do such a thing to them. So they took their megaphones and braced those Beiruti roads and called for the head of customs to grant them an interview. They got beaten up and arrested. People were outraged. Customs officials were scrambling to come up with excuses: they were bad-mouthing our chairperson, they said in a statement they hoped would explain where they were coming from, as if that’s an acceptable excuse. Can you imagine, for instance, what would have happened if American military personnel beat up a civilian for bad-mouthing Obama?

NewTV’s crew was released late last night. They had bruises over their face. They looked victorious and proud of what they had accomplished, as they should be. They had – even if only for a minute – gotten the country to look at our customs that have been using laws that, similarly to the entirety of Lebanon’s laws, have not been updated in a long, long time and which enable them to blatantly do whatever they please without any consequences.

I have to wonder though, what would happen to the people like you and I who don’t have the platform of a TV station to support and protect in case of such transgressions to their basic rights? Make no mistake, this isn’t a case of freedom of speech. This is a violation to those journalists’ human rights. And it happened in broad daylight. And there will be no repercussions for it, because that’s how Lebanon rolls.

But the story doesn’t end there because our jamerek figured it would be such a great idea to go on a strike to protest what had befallen them a day earlier. Their rights had been violated, I’m sure they thought, which include the right to guzzle endless amounts of money here and there to build their villas and buy their fancy cars and rise above the system that is geared towards decimating the finances of those like you and I, all while such “rights” are overlooked due to the countless of reasons that make up Lebanon’s political landscape what it is today.

I give it one more day until this becomes old news and we are forced to reckon with other more “important” things. Lebanon is always exciting that way. 

Maskhara At USJ: A Sum-Up of What’s Wrong With Lebanon

They say our country’s future resides on our generation. You know, the generation that supposedly doesn’t have illiterates, that has people going to our country’s universities to get the education that the people before us did not get to have. We were supposed to be brighter, more aware, more critical and less extreme.

We are anything but.

One of Lebanon’s universities, USJ, will close its doors tomorrow because its students decided to express civility today. It was not enough, for instance, for Hezbollah supporters that the entire country has to deal with their party’s reckless practices and their consequences and not get a say in the matter or that their hypocrisy has redefined the definition of terrorism in Lebanon. No, let’s not talk about any of that. Let’s talk about how some of their supporters decided it was a brilliant idea to remove the pictures of an infamous politician in the area where Huvelin exists and to plaster the thug that assassinated him around the place while chanting his name.

Because the country needed such a thing happening in it now. Because there’s absolutely nothing else pertinent taking place currently, the least of which is dealing with the ramification of an explosion that happened in Hezbollah HQ less than a week ago. Because someone figured: Jeez, we lost the elections a few days ago there so wouldn’t it be fun to do such a thing? I’ll get away with it anyway because, you know, I’m a Hezbollah supporter and I never, ever get into trouble. Never. This is my country and all of you just have to deal with it.

The counter reactions were not at a better level.

USJ is a Christian university. Because employing sectarian rhetoric is precisely what is needed in such conflicts, precisely what the country needs right now and precisely what is required to diffuse the tension. Let’s just bring it right into the fold and make it part of the debacle. Let’s not make it a battle of politics anymore. Let’s give our constituents exactly what they crave and what they itch for. Let’s give them what resonates with them at this very moment of a Lebanon that has fundamentalism on the rise. Let’s make this a battle of us versus them, of them trying to control us and to take over our campus.

What campus, you ask? The campus of Bashir, referring to Bashir Gemayel, the former Lebanese president around whom the current debacle took place. The campus of those who believe in his ideology and who follow in his footsteps. So is everyone else not welcome? Perhaps such an argument is tough to swallow but just because someone attended a university, however important that person is, does not turn that university into his property or into something that should always pay homage to him, regardless of who that person is.

Hezbollah’s aggressions are unacceptable and are bordering thug-like behavior. But the replies to those aggressions, even if only verbal, do not a point make. They do not even advance the situation or try to resolve it. Instead, we are left with kids playing, unaware that their actions in the Lebanon of today can have ramifications that none of them, I suppose, would want to see. But let them play. And let the politicians who support them and are defending them in the closed circles meetings taking place as we speak play. Or perhaps I was just being optimistic that my generation would be more mature than this. I guess not.

How Lebanon’s Armed Forces Spend Your Money

It’d be interesting to see if there are many other non-military countries that have their armed forces spend so much money on self-indulging propaganda.

The latest is a Lebanese Army billboard spread all across the country titled: “Sha3bak Bi7ebbak,” which translates to “your people loves you.”

Underneath the caption is a picture of ordinary men, which I’ll assume are army personnel, helping out in the olive picking season which befell Lebanon back in October. This is the billboard in question:Lebarmy-425x314

 

I don’t get what’s the point of an army telling itself that the people of its country love it. I also didn’t know olive picking was part of an army man’s job description. In fact, isn’t it odd that our army would dispense people to go get their Kodak moment on when the country is on the precipice of collapse and while Tripoli burned?

Sounds like a grave misuse of resources if you ask me.

In the general scheme of things, I will never get why our army and internal security forces feel the need to fill our roads with posters to celebrate their anniversary, to celebrate their importance in keeping our independence come November 22nd or to celebrate anything that they feel should be celebrated.

I will never get the messages these billboards are trying to pass on. Are they trying to remind us that there are armed forces we should love? I daresay a billboard will not induce any affection in me. Are they trying to bring people together by rallying behind a common cause? I daresay that’s not working at all. Or is this just another manifestation of a country that loves appearances with our armed forces being unable to separate themselves from the need to show off?

Instead of buying themselves weapons, instilling new training programs or simply making their entire workforce efficient our armed forces use our tax money and whatever donations they get in order to fill our highway with billboards whenever the occasion arises. And in my opinion, that’s just sad. 

A Lebanese Tragedy: The Devaluation of a Life

Who gives a fuck? was the first thing I heard today when we were made aware of another Beirut explosion. It was just a bomb all over again. And people were dead, as usual, all over again. Typical and warranted was what I had heard.

On the other side of the room, a frantic woman was calling her parents to see if they were okay. If their house was intact. If she still had a roof to return to. Then she drew a sigh of relief. And I was relieved for her. But I was also disgusted.

There I was in a room of supposedly intellectuals with two drastically different reactions to an event that should have, at least, gotten everyone to feel sorry and disgusted and horrified. Pity the nation that was more upset at a cat being microwaved or a concert being canceled than at its own children, men and women getting blown to pieces because of retarded and narrow political calculation.

This is a reply to Qalmoun versus the reply will be in Qalmoun. Are you serious? Lebanese were using this tragedy to give some credibility to their demented politics, as mothers grieved their sons while sifting through the remains that our media were more than happy to show on their screens. Look! I’m holding an arm! Pretty cool eih? 

I guess it’s too redundant to talk about media professionalism, about not jumping to conclusions when news first start trickling in.

There’s a time and a place to die. But 2013 Lebanon on a random Beiruti street, due to a cowardly act of terrorism isn’t it. 2013 Lebanon where your death is meaningless, another figure in a growing number of casualties who will soon be forgotten is not it.

Do you know what the saddest part in all of this is? There are those who believe such deaths are “fida” whoever it is they follow. Perhaps I don’t get it. Perhaps I don’t understand how it is to be part of such a sociological following. But I’d hate for my life to be wasted for someone who couldn’t care less, sitting in a bunker twenty feet under or in a fortress in some mountain throwing accusations here and there before proceeding with la dolce vita once the poison stops dropping.

I’d hate for my life to end and be called  a martyr by entities who cannot not be politically correct in order for my mother to feel better about it while I’m just a victim of this country where everyone does as they please without any ounce of calculations of possible ramifications on all those people, like you and I, who don’t get a say in how things in their country should run, in their safety (or lack thereof) and in the way they should die: not in bits and pieces on a desolate Beiruti street.

Our lives are more important than to pretend it’s okay for us to die as a “sacrifice” for someone, whoever that someone is. My life is not “fida” anyone. Your life should not be “fida” anyone. Thinking that it’s okay for a life to be dispensable for someone is not okay. Thinking that it’s okay for your life to be dispensable means such tragedies will keep on happening as long as there are people who are willing to be collateral damage in a war that isn’t theirs, that doesn’t involve them and that doesn’t infringe upon them except in death.

There is no ulterior purpose being served. There’s no cause being championed. There’s no heavenly place awaiting the victors. There’s grief-struck parents being left behind. There’s a deeply split nation whose divide is growing wider. There are nauseatingly political individuals who have begun milking this for whatever purpose floats their boats. And there are those who are awaiting the next opportunity for their lives to be “fida” someone.

Our turn is next week, a friend of mine from Tripoli said. I couldn’t tell her she was mistaken.  

Meanwhile, life around where I was went on normally. People had no worries on their mind as they shuffled through their daily motions, seemingly indifferent that the other part of their capital was going to cry itself to sleep tonight.

Rest in peace to all those wasted and forcefully devalued Lebanese lives we have lost and we will lose to bombs, explosions, suicide bombers and ruthless politics, those lives that are more important than to be wasted “fida” anyone.

When Lebanese People Cannot Afford Hospitals

Hospitals have a way of desensitizing you. They overwhelm you so much that shutting off that part of you that is forced to care all the time is the only way possible at coping. And no, I’m not talking about medicine.

There’s a lot to be said about the state of healthcare in Lebanon. I’ve seen some aspects of it. The numbers behind it are all over the place. But no matter how those numbers are shuffled, you are left with almost 1 million or so Lebanese, in a best case scenario, that are not covered in any way or another and are forced to withstand the pressure of Lebanon’s increasingly costly medicine on their own.

Many crumble under that pressure and figure that dying is simply better than getting overwhelmed with debts or simply getting a hospital’s door slammed in your face.

There are a lot of stories to tell. They happen at a lot of the country’s hospitals. I’ve heard of a well-known hospital that wouldn’t take in a 2 month old patient because his parents couldn’t afford to pay down the required deposit for his surgery. I’ve seen old people who have no one left and nothing left to pay for the simplest of blood tests. I’ve seen exorbitant prices for surgeries, some of them possibly warranted given their complexity, that cannot be afforded by 99% of the Lebanese population.

Perhaps Lebanese hospitals focus on the business part of their affairs much more than they should. But are they to blame? They need to run their facilities, pay their employees and still make enough profit to constantly improve their brand of medicine seeing as Lebanese medicine is so specified that not having the latest it-machine at your facility means you’ve fallen behind the times. The people who can pay simply hospital-shop and go to the one with the newest toy, newest hotshot doctor….

Should they provide such highly costly services for free and then not be able to run themselves anymore?

A lot of patients cannot afford healthcare in Lebanon. Insurance companies make sure to screw you whenever they can. The Lebanese ministry of health has a limited budget that is allocated in an even more limited way and benefits mostly those who know someone who knows the minister more than those who actually need something. Many of the people who can afford insurance, for instance, simply do not buy it because they have good enough connections not to pay while those who cannot afford insurance rot at hospital doors.
The national social security fund is not really national and hospitals find themselves in financial problems because of it more often than not and decide to relegate patients who present with that form of coverage into the “we don’t have a place for you bin.”

What does a Lebanese person have to do to receive one of his fundamental human rights? I guess they can just die in a state that couldn’t care less. Many of you probably don’t give this a second thought but it’s time you do. If you can afford insurance, go and buy one as soon as you can. If you can get enrolled in the National Social Security Fund, make sure you do so as well. If you can find any possible means of coverage for you and your loved ones, seek it. There’s no better investment.

After all, we live in a place that is so behind the times that talk about universal healthcare is light years from becoming mainstream enough and where our grandparents’ fate is to get people to feel sorry enough for them to raise money for them to do their blood tests.

I wish I could tell all the stories that I have to tell. Maybe someday.