Category Archives: Lebanon

How To Get Results of Lebanon’s Official Exams: SV, SG, SE, LH & Brevet

Word has it that the results of Lebanon’s official exam results will be out starting today for the Life Sciences (LS/SV) and General Sciences (GS/SG) branches, followed by SE and LH tomorrow with brevet in the coming few days.

Back in my days, we had a website called Schoolnet that posted the results. It crashed way too often but was at least free.

It seems students now have to pay for a texting service in order to get their results, at a rate of 9 cents/text just to know if they passed or not. Everything turns into a business in this country, even knowing whether you can go to university or not.

Fear not, Lebanon’s high school and middle school students, there is another solution which allows your anxiety and worry to be well expressed while keeping your mobile credit intact.

To get your results, click here (link) to access the service hosted by Naharnet.

Good luck to everyone especially my little brother whose results should be out today.

Tripoli’s Best Cafe: Ahwak Ben Tafesh Threatened By Extremists

Ahwak Ben Tafesh Tripoli - 1

I remember when I first went to Ahwak ben Tafesh in late 2012. I was reluctant to visit. I figured the place was definitely over-hyped. Why would I want to visit the go-to place of Tripoli’s liberal crowd?

How wrong was I?

I remember being captivated by the restroom. It was filled with graffiti, the most surprising of which was a sentence scribbled at the top right corner saying: “your lack of scientific knowledge is not proof that god exists.” Someone later on scribbled out the word god. I guess blasphemy is somewhat haram even on bathroom tiles. But these exchanges are all kind of peaceful and refreshing.

Ahwak Ben Tafesh Tripoli Lebanon

I’m not a coffee person so I don’t visit Ahwak for the beverages which are, based on my modest experience, quite good. What they serve, however, and I find exquisite is their carrot cake. It’s homemade and all kinds of awesome. Simply put, it got my carrot cake-hating brother to become a fan. Now isn’t that saying something?

Soon enough, Ahwak became a regular stop in my increasing Tripoli visits. During my latest stop, I was greeted by the main worker there enthusiastically, asking me about my extended absence. I had become a customer. This visit in question was this past Saturday, post Iftar in Tripoli. The place was packed. Some were discussing religion, it was Ramadan after all. Others were discussing politics, which is of vital importance in Tripoli, a city torn apart by the military ramifications of these politics.

Across the street from Ahwak, religious people were exiting the Mosque after the Ramadan Tarawih were done. The women were wearing long flowing robes as they walked by the cafe goers, returning home. The men huddled together, possibly talking about fasting. It was a peaceful scene. It was a beautiful time.

Ahwak Ben Tafesh Tripoli - 2

But that didn’t last.

On Sunday July 14th, around 11:30PM, the cafe goers at Ahwak were surprised to see a bearded man who had been released from jail a few days ago storm the place with a few of his henchmen. They sacked the place searching for the presumed alcohol that Ahwak served, which is non-existent. They were disappointed not to find any. But they didn’t stop there. Before leaving, after having terrorized every single person in that cafe, they told the employee that the adan from the mosque off the street will ring higher and higher to drown out the infidels in this cafe across the street.

The thugs then rode their vehicles away. They had done their damage. They will never be caught or questioned.

We can voice our support however we want to the owners of the cafe at hand. But what good does it make when it’s their business that’s in danger, when some ignorant dimwits might – at any given moment – stop the place from existing because it doesn’t fit with their retarded view of how Tripoli ought to be?

What good does it make to say that this too has passed when this might repeat in a worse fashion, at another cafe or store, at Tripoli or any other city in this country? What good does it do to milk a silver lining out of this when the people causing such mayhems are protected by even bigger thugs who might be MPs, ministers, prime ministers or has-been politicians wanting to reclaim their glory days?

Till when should the overwhelming majority of the people of Tripoli, which finds these people to be disgusting and repulsive, suffer and have their reputation suffer just because someone decided that personal liberties contradict with his view of the world?

This isn’t about alcohol. This isn’t about Sharia. I’m sure most of the people in Tripoli will rise against Sharia implementation in their city or this country before any of us blog, tweet, Facebook or do anything about it. However, what protects cafe places like Akwak which, in them being different, give a better view of their city – a nicer view? What protects the people whose only weapon is a few coffee beans and some divine cake when they face men whose weapons are presumably protected by some divine entities? Till when should the people of Tripoli worry about going for a coffee or grabbing a burger or doing anything just because someone out there with means finds it unacceptable?

Ahwak, I am one of your infidels. And I’ll see you soon.

Neshan and Jon Stewart, The Zionist

Is there anything better than your healthy dose of Zionism to kick off the day?

While hosting Bassem Youssef on his show yesterday, Neshan decided that Youssef’s friend, the infamous Jon Stewart, is nothing more than a Zionist. Just because he’s Jewish.

Bassem Youssef was polite enough to tell Neshan that, contrary to popular belief, Jon Stewart’s religion has nothing to do with his political mindset, that he is a defender of the Palestinian cause, etc.

Of course, you might as well have been talking to a wall.

Not to expect the mentality set forth by the likes of Neshan in this part of the world is absurd. But what’s shocking is that someone like Neshan – a self-proclaimed educated individual (you only need to listen to his degustation of every letter in an Arabic sentence) – doesn’t know the simple and yet very important fact that we all need to grasp: Jewish does not equate Zionist.

Instead of trying to stop the perpetuation of this blatant racism and incessant ignorance, Neshan not only fuels them but helps affirm them in the minds of the millions who already believe such ideologies.

In what world is Jon Stewart a Zionist? In the world of ignorant individuals who can’t get past their hate, their prejudices, their closed-mindedness, their ignorance, their racism.

There’s nothing different between what Neshan believes and between those who believe all Muslims are terrorists. Except maybe one generalization gives the people in this area some drive, some peace of mind while the other makes them rally in anger.

In the grand scheme of things, Neshan is irrelevant compared to Jon Stewart. I don’t even like his style of interviewing. But he apparently represents a mentality that people with the exposure he has should not possess. And that mentality is more dangerous than his presumed pretentiousness.

Domestic Violence in Lebanon: A Law Isn’t Enough

Let’s call her Rachel.

Rachel is a brilliant doctor. She went to the US from a far away country, battled her way through a speciality and ended up doing a subspecialty that brought her salary to the six figures. She had what many people – not just women – around the world can only dream of: economic stability and independence, influence, power.

And yet, Rachel went to work one day with a bruise on her arm. Her secretary asked her where that bruise had come from. I bumped into a revolving door, Rachel answered. The secretary was skeptical but dismissed it because she couldn’t do otherwise. A week later, Rachel came in with a bruised eye. There was no revolving door which can cause this, so the secretary called 911 who made sure Rachel’s upcoming days were nothing short of safe, away from the monster back home who was using her as his punching bag.

Why would a woman in Rachel’s shoes, who has the prerogative of a police task-force that is willing to bring hell on Earth for her, not report the constant threat on her life?

When I was in France last August, I was taking a walk one night around Lille when I saw a shady looking man, smoking a joint with while clutching the hand of a girl who looked at him with nothing but fear in her face. He was either too stoned to see me or the night hid me well or that man didn’t care that people might see him, but he turned to the woman and tried to feel her up. She recoiled and tried to get herself off of him. So he slapped her hard across the face. As she clutched her face in pain, I heard him shouting across the street: “You stupid cunt, you better make up for this. Once we get home, you will give me a blow job. You hear me, bitch?” She nodded.

These women, in spite of the environment that enriches them: laws, jobs and possible economic security, still find it somehow fathomable not to report the threats on their lives. But they are not lone examples. Their submissive mentality is the case of many, many Lebanese women who don’t have their prerogatives.

As a future physician, I am required to learn how to take proper patient history. It also happens that I am currently rotating in obstetrics and gynecology, which is the rotation where many battered women end up for consults that have nothing to do with the battering. You’d think we should be allowed to tackle such issues – after all, medicine isn’t confined to a patient’s physical state but extends to their state of mind. Think again. An advice I got from an attending was the following: calling the police is useless. Their reply is always: let them sort this among each other. What’s worse, the question about domestic violence – which is typical in history taking in the United States – is near-forbidden over here. People are not willing to divulge such information, especially the women.

Many in Lebanon believe a law preventing domestic abuse is the solution to the problem for which people are becoming increasingly aware. Many believe the law safely tucked away in the drawers of our dysfunctional parliament is enough to prevent deaths such as that of Roula Yaacoub.

What those many fail to realize is that Lebanese women are more than just the liberated bunch who are vocal on social media, who go to the rallies asking for women rights, who believe they have the right to abort at will, who believe their body is theirs and theirs alone and who believes men are equal (if not lesser creatures).

Lebanon has the women who can’t visit their gynecologist without their husbands by their side, answering when their last menstrual period was. Lebanon has the women who let their sons badmouth them and let them be because they don’t want to break their ego. Lebanon has the women who vote the way any male component in their family wants – the more senior, the better. Lebanon has the women who stay silent to insults just because the men have seniority. Lebanon has the women who bottle things in just to avoid scandals. Lebanon has the women who would rather be some neo-martyrs than to fight for what they should have and have their reputation tarnished.

Those women are not just Lebanese. They are the ones we forget about – they are the more numerous, the ones shaping generations that will have their sons inflict such violence on other women.

Lebanon also has a police system that is as corrupt as they come. Lebanon has MPs whose minds belong in 10,000BC when it comes to women rights – our rights debate needs lightyears to be about pro life and pro choice. Lebanon has physicians who perpetuate such violence against women with mentalities that are non-medical to say the least. Lebanon has a dysfunctional legal system, where law is near-hereditary and where justice is so dragged on it’s impossible to find it anymore. Lebanon has a mentality towards laws that prevents any of the ones that do not bring upon the state some form of revenue from being strictly implemented. And even those are not implemented as well.

What does Lebanon need? We need some massive de-learning of our ways in order to learn ways that will protect our women. How is that achieved? I really don’t know. What I know, however, is the following: this domestic violence law they keep telling us about is not the definitive answer and nor will it be for our women who are losing their lives to belts and kicks and punches.

Harissa To Become Nature Reserve

The view from Harissa sure is great if you scan the bay. Look down and it’s a disaster: ugly buildings springing up everywhere, eating away the mountain and the greenery, infesting their way around like cancer cells – uncontrolled and non-stopped.

Nazem Khoury, minister of environment in our dissolved government has, therefore, issued a new decree to turn the Harissa mountain into another nature reserve to stop the pangs of urbanism and keep whatever form of nature that the mountain had intact. The conversion to a nature reserve will happen with the help of the Maronite patriarchate and the Jounieh municipality (link).

Good news? Perhaps it is. But only for Harissa, which seems is still salvageable enough despite the many concrete blocks that have ruined part of it forever.

However, the question begets itself: what about the countless other mountains which do not happen to be religious shrines, do not get similar attention and do not exist in areas which are of touristic focus?

Turning Harissa to a nature reserve is a positive step. But it’s troubling that we need to turn an entire mountain into a nature reserve just to protect it from impeding construction and real estate. Is our only environmental solution to spring up nature reserves here and there just because we do not have a grasp on existing laws and cannot really contain the corruption that infests real estate and the mentalities of people towards the environment, à la nature is God’s given poubelle of the Lebanese people?

Because the root of the problem isn’t fixed, there will be another mountain out there which causes some environmental outrage down the road, maybe even bigger than Harissa. Nature reserves are needed, sure. But what we need even more is for municipalities across the country to be more stringent in the criteria employed to give away building licenses. We need relevant ministries to be more strict with urbanism laws that require certain standards be met, along the lines of no apartment complexes should spring up in Lebanese mountains where they don’t belong.

I doubt any of the aforementioned will happen anytime soon. Such issues are forcibly ranked so low on our list of priorities they might as well be deemed irrelevant. Good news for Harissa.