Category Archives: Lebanon

What Lebanese People Think of the Syrian Refugees

We’ve discussed the matter of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon over and over and over again. And then some.
Every aspect of the issue has been exposed. Racism, realism, illusionism – all forms of arguments have been used.

And yet, in the midst of the 1,000,000 plus refugees that our country has received, very few polls have taken it to the Lebanese who are not on social media, who do not have blogs and who do not tweet the day away.

A recent study published by Fafo attempted to see what the Lebanese population thought of the increasing Syrian presence. You can check the study here. Some of the findings are as follows:

  • 52% believe Syrian refugees pose a threat to national security. This number rises to 80% in responders from North Lebanon.
  • 71% of responders believe sectarian clashes will erupt soon. The number is high among Sunnis and low among Shiites, expressing the ongoing divide in the country (and strengthening the study, perhaps?)
  • 67% of Lebanese believe the conflict in Syria will drive Lebanon to a new civil war.
  • 82% of Lebanese find Syrian refugees are taking away their jobs. 75% believe they are the cause of decreasing wages across the country.
  • 50% believe the Syrian refugees are receiving too much money. This number rises to 74% in the North.
  • 61% of Lebanese are not comfortable having Syrian neighbors. This number is higher among young people and among Christians as well.

    • A lot of the information revealed in the study is old news to most of us who are living among the people who fall into those many percentages. But are all the woes invalid?

    A recent lecture I attended at medical school with Doctors Without Borders revealed to us that the situation of the Lebanese citizens in Bab el Tebbane, Jabal Mohsen and Akkar is far, far worse than the worst conditions they’ve seen with the Syrian refugees, which is echoed in the disparities that responders from North Lebanon exhibited in the study at hand.
    This prompted me to ask the head of the MSF envoy to Lebanon about what was expected of Lebanon regarding the Syrian refugees given the state of many of its citizens?

    He couldn’t answer.

    What the study shows, at least to some extent, is what many of us had doubted for long: Lebanese people always want to blame others for their problems but never themselves. And the Syrian refugees are our go-to blame with the current events unfolding. Is the blame unfounded? Perhaps so. But what’s to be expected when the political rhetoric being used to command people’s mentalities uses those refugees as ammo in anyway possible?

    What’s even more disappointing is how the youth view the matter of the refugees. I thought my age group would be at least more aware. I guess not.

    What is certain, however, is that the matter of the refugees has to be regulated. By the end of 2013 the country will have 20% of its population as Syrian refugees. In other terms, that’s more Syrians than Maronites. And you know things will only go downhill from there.

    Lebanon Is Not Egypt

    The title is stating the obvious. Sadly, it’s not that apparent.

    It was 2011. The Egyptians took it to the streets. They removed Mubarak. A sense of pride swept around the Middle East. The “Arab Spring” they called it. Freedom this way comes. Everyone wanted to be Egyptian. Everyone was proud of Egypt.

    But none so more than Lebanese.

    We felt more involved in what was happening in Egypt than whatever was happening back home. Fun fact: January 2011 was our own mini coup happened. Many Lebanese wished they could become Egyptian – patriotic opioids sure run across borders.

    A few months later, as the events in Syria raged and the promise of an “Arab Spring” started quickly running down wintery lanes, Egypt disappointed as well. The Lebanese sentiment quickly turned to “Morsi” et au revoir. We had gotten over it.

    It is now 2013. The Egyptians took it to the streets again. They were protesting the Egyptian “winter” they had voted their country into. And Lebanon was involved anew. Nothing was wrong here at the time again. Fun fact 2.0: The army was fighting Al Assir only a few days ago and Hezbollah is still fighting in Syria. Morsi was uprooted very fast, with the help of the Egyptian army. And fireworks erupt in Lebanon in celebration. The same sentiments of people who wish to be Egyptian rose to the surface. Egypt, the beacon of democracy. Egypt, the torch of hope. Egypt, making us proud. Bigadd kan el manzar mofre7 awi awi. 

    Then, naturally, you get those many, many people who want whatever happened in Egypt to happen here. If they did it, why can’t we?

    Well, here’s why.

    Egypt is 100 times Lebanon’s size. It has 20 times its population. That population in question is divided in the following way: 90% is Muslim and 10% is Christian. Official positions in Egypt are not divided according to sectarian lines. The president, for instance, doesn’t need to be Muslim. He just happens to be every time by power of probability and mentalities.

    The recent events in Egypt were bolstered by a catalyst that sped up the process remarkably: the Egyptian army. Roadmap or whatnot, it is the presence of a strong army with centralized military power that helped the 30 million or so Egyptians who protested get to where we want. Which army will help us in Lebanon if we were to have similar coups? The Lebanese army with its 60,000 personnel many of whom have ammo-less weapons while militias roam the country freely, protected by their weapons and popular support?

    Moreover, I don’t believe the issues in Egypt are as politicized as they are over here. Case in point? Let’s examine the following scenarios:

    What do you want to protest about in Lebanon? Electricity? I’ve just made the issue political right there. Half of the Lebanese population won’t go to my protest, even if the demands are true, simply because they’ll see it as a protest against their poster child. Let’s say I want to protest against slow internet. That same 50% of the Lebanese population will turn a blind eye to my protest for those same reasons. Now let’s say I want to protest against people like Ahmad el Assir. I’ll be joined by that same 50% which boycotted my last 2 protests while the people that attended the first two will not. In case my protest doesn’t have some undertone supported by one of the main camps of the country, good luck finding ten people to attend it – regardless of what the activists that pop up right before elections every four years say. And God forbid I try to protest against militias and arms that exist outside the jurisdiction of the Lebanese state, which brings me to my next point.

    There are no issues in this country upon which enough Lebanese agree in order to cause change. Hezbollah’s weapons? Half of the country hates them. The other half adores them. The weapons stay. It’s that simple. The regime? the governing half doesn’t want it changed because the people it likes are in power. The other half wants it changed just because the people it likes are not. What alternative regime do we want? I’m willing to bet I can’t find a sizable portion of this country that can agree on a format. You only need to go back to the electoral law discussions and how very, very few Lebanese branched out from the rhetoric being spewed by their political party of choice (especially Christian parties) when it comes to the electoral law they see best. Party say, person do.

    Egypt not being as divided on sectarian lines as Lebanon means the sectarian sentiment that is overflowing here doesn’t exist as much there. Sure, many Egyptian Muslims hate the Copts (and vice versa) but the same exists in droves over here while we pretend otherwise. The sectarian sentiment overload doesn’t only cloud people’s judgement regarding so many things in the country, it also limits whatever actions they would be willing to do to what’s best for their sect. Sect say, person do. Case in point: the amount of non-religious Christians who wanted the Orthodox law, of non-religious Sunnis who believe their sect is being threatened and of non-religious Shia who’d be the first to take weapons if you approach Hezbollah.

    Moreover, many of those same people who want Lebanon to become Egypt would, in case elections happened next week, vote for the same people all over again. I’m not saying they shouldn’t vote for whoever they want to vote for. It’s their vote, their choice, they can do whatever they want with it. But it is downright hypocritical to preach for change and not act out on it when the going gets tough just because some people cannot fathom not voting for the people they’ve liked for years.

    What I thought people learned back in 2011 is that the models of the countries in which revolutions happened cannot be applied here: you cannot extrapolate Egypt onto Lebanon. And yet people seem to want to do it anyway. The fact that Egypt and Lebanon are incompatible doesn’t mean one is better than the other. It simply means that if any change were to be done in this country, we need to find our own formula. As of now, we have none. Lebanon is not Egypt and I, for one, don’t want it to ever be.

    What’s Greater Than Lebanon?

    You can’t really blame the ministry of tourism for keeping its hopes up against all odds. After all, the country cannot function without a summer of tourists. They have, therefore, launched a new TV ad, enlisting the help of several Lebanese celebrities, to help boost tourism, gloriously titled: What’s Greater Than Lebanon?

    Come on people, we have awesome food and awesome nightlife and beaches… Why wouldn’t you want to come here?

    So just because you may have not heard of those touristic qualifications several times already, here’s how a trip to the great land of Lebanon can go:

  • Land in Beirut and keep yourself busy as you course through Beirut’s Southern suburb and its slogans.
  • Marvel at the wonders of Downtown Beirut only from afar. It’s unlikely – unless you’re super rich – that you’d be able to afford anything there. But isn’t that Rolex store beautiful?
  • Wander around Achrafieh. If you start to wonder why a lot of people are speaking French, don’t worry – that’s what happens around that place. Look at the beautiful Lebanese mansions while getting lost in the narrow streets that will soon be no more. Then, when you’re bored, do as everyone does where you come from and go to ABC.
  • You can also visit Hamra, which can also be called Beirut’s hipster central. Activists, militants, politics, hypocrites… You’ll find it all there. You can visit the local universities there for your daily dose of Lebanese elitists as well. Visit one of the pubs – they’re more expensive than where you come from, if where you come from has alcohol, but aren’t they just unique?
  • Your second day should include a visit to the South. Be careful not to cross the Litani river or you might have to answer to Hezbollah militants who get offended by your existence. I’d recommend visiting Saida but you cannot be certain clashes won’t kill you there so no Saida for you. Bummer… That marine castle is beautiful.
  • I hope you’ve been saving up money because today is beach day! Hurray? Well, we cannot go to any public beach because they are a reflection of how people act in this country: garbage everywhere. Odds are you’d get septic shock. So private beaches, which are also illegal, are where you’re supposed to go… Except entry will get you broke. Manage the pros and cons and decide as such.
  • Or you can use beach day to go North. The beaches are much nicer there and much cheaper. But I could be biased – that’s where I come from. You can visit the Cedar mountains and see our national symbol – all 20 left trees of it. You can listen to your friend or guide tell you about how this proximity between the mountain and the sea is unique and about how it actually snows – it’s best if you pretend to be super shocked by now – in winter here.
  • While up North, visit the Qadisha valley. Lebanese Christians use the remnants of this valley as proof that they were the original inhabitants of the country. So if your guide or friend is Christian, be prepared for a round of religious pride. But don’t worry, it’s not the kind with which you might end up dead.
  • You can visit Tripoli as well. They are the most underrated city in the country. They have a Crusade citadel, cheap and awesome food and several hundred bearded men roaming the streets to express their Sunni anger at the current situation of their compatriots in the country. But they’re going to heaven anyway because they don’t eat pork and drink alcohol. No Tripoli for you too… And don’t you dare go more North than Tripoli. Akkar is not a place we want tourists to see… Poverty, poverty everywhere.
  • Don’t worry though. It’s not all morbid. We have super awesome food. The tabbouleh they do where you come from is obviously subpar. How could it not be? The parsley we use is grown in trab el arez yalli aghla men l dehab.
  • You can visit the epic ruins of Baalbeck. The area is being bombed by the Free Syrian Army but don’t tell them I told you that. So instead of going there, just stay in Zahle and call it a Bekaa day. It should be enough.
  • Don’t forget to visit Harissa. The area sure is over-urbanized going up there with all those ugly buildings eating the mountain away but isn’t the view majestic? And make sure you drop by Jeita – our current national treasure, obviously robbed for the 7 wonders of nature.
  • On your last night here, you have got to go party. Don’t look at me – I’ve never been to Skybar. But there are plenty of decent (and expensive) places where you’ll dance the night away. Don’t get your hopes up for sex though. Our women are all sex but no sex. If you’re a woman… Good luck. May whoever you believe in be with you.

    • The greatness of a country isn’t in its mountain being proximal to its beaches and in the awesomeness of its cuisine. The touristic greatness of a country is in what unique aspects it can provide its tourists.
    Say what you want about Parisians but their food and city are brilliant. Turkish people may be the most non-hospitable I’ve seen but I was told they have mountains plunging into the sea as well. And they’re a stone’s throw away. Americans may be the big bad devil but they can probably throw better parties than us.

    You want a great touristic season? You need less political hypocrisy, less half-assed security measures, more stability and less pretentiousness when it comes to how valuable touristically Lebanon is.
    Until then, we can keep begging for tourists to come us much as we please. As it stands, we are giving them absolutely no reason to come…. But our ministry of tourism is in touristic Lala land anyway.

    And yet, despite it all, we are still expecting tourists to grace us with their presence in the Great Republic of Lebanon.

    Medicine in Lebanon: The VVVVIP Patients

    The following are bits and pieces of things several of my medical student colleagues and I, at many Lebanese hospitals across the country, have lived over the past few weeks. 

    “What do you mean I have to deliver in third class? I DON’T DELIVER IN THIRD CLASS.”

    Beautiful thing to wake up to in the morning, right? Well, such things are not fiction – they are every day reality in Lebanese hospitals. The woman in question was very very pregnant to say the least. She was also very very angry. Why? Because two emergency C-sections had taken up the first class beds she was promised to welcome her bundle of sunshine into the world.

    “We couldn’t help it,” the nurse pleaded. “Those two women just came here in labor!” The nurse was almost begging as I stood there watching.

    “I don’t give a shit.” The woman shrieked. “I want first class – I am not a person who can deliver a baby in third class. Take them to third class, they already delivered.”

    A few phone calls later, that woman got her way. I guess some vaginas are more precious than others. Literally.

    The separate classes in the Lebanese social hierarchy also reflect in its hospitals. There’s really very few things that hospitals can do. They accommodate what they can given how messed up and archaic our health sector financing is. What is bad, however, is the sense with which some people view medicine in this country: it’s not a human right that should be guaranteed to everyone. It’s a privilege, a luxury that only they should be entitled to.

    “My ovaries hurt.” I was staring at the face of a supposed emergency condition who had just presented to the emergency room. I could see sunscreen all over her body. She was definitely tanning a few minutes earlier.

    “How are your ovaries hurting you exactly?” I had no idea how ovaries could actually hurt a person, not to mention how a person would know where their ovaries actually are. When had the pain started? Well, the pain had happened 6 months ago and had died since but she wanted to know why that pain happened then… now. Bref, there was absolutely nothing urgent with her. But she knew enough people and had enough resources to take away physicians from places where they could be needed and keep them busy for a couple of hours in order to make sure her ovaries are perfect.

    And then there are those patients who are so important they book two first class rooms because, you know, what if they got visitors? Can you imagine hosting them in one first class room? They are the patients who are so revered their treating physicians would drag themselves out of bed at times they shouldn’t be at the hospital just to do an exam that I, as a medical student, should be doing – just because it’s that particular patient. Those are the patients who are even treated differently in operating rooms just because they can enforce such levels of fear: “be careful with her… she’s important.” They are the patients on whom we don’t learn simply because they would get “too annoyed” to have that many students in their room. So no one enter please.” That vagina glows of gold, I was told.

    Those are the super duper very very important patients that come to Lebanese hospitals: patients whose medical cases are nothing more than mundane, simple and even boring… patients who can turn those cases into a matter of national security. And there’s nothing you can do but smile and the most professional individual that you can be be while you secretly hate on the system that hammers hospitals and medical education alike.

    Nadim Gemayel, Yalli Khallaf… Meit

    I grew up hearing about Bachir el Gemayel – the man of hope for many people – a hope in a country they wish they had. Many of the people I know still look upon his memory and get an undeniable feel of nostalgia on the days when they really believed in the potential of the place they call their land.

    I never got the hype. I always thought it’s better to live in the “now” than in the memories of days long past that will not nor can they ever return. For many though, the hope of Bachir lived on with his son Nadim. Today, however, I have to tell those same people who look upon Nadim Gemayel and say “Yalli khallaf ma meit,” hoping he’ll be the man his father was, that on the contrary, yalli khallaf mesh bass meit… Meit w sar trab kamen.

    I’m not sure if it’s Nadim turning a show of force from his bodyguards as a personal attack against his sanctity. I’m not sure if it’s Lebanon’s security forces dragging the activists with whom the altercations happened to investigation today, arresting many of them in the process. I’m not sure if it’s the absolute naivety with which he handled the event at hand and expected to get away with it with his reputation unscathed. I’m not sure if it’s his apparent need to be in some form of spotlight… And what better spotlight than a presumed “assassination” attempt by the people opposing the unjust extension of our parliament’s mandate. But Nadim Gemayel has fulfilled what I always thought he would do.

    This is the son of a man who supposedly called for democracy and safety.
    This is the son of a man who called for the rights of his people, for them not to live in terror, for them not to fear those who think are “higher” than them, for them not to be constantly fearful and paranoid. Yes, yalli khallaf meit.

    This man who belongs to our age group, who should understand the struggles of the youth, who has lived his fair share of struggles against long-standing regimes and who was victim of such practices isn’t only doing them onto the people who look up to him but actively trying to turn them into his own brand of Hollywood fiction. But here’s a news flash to Nadim Gemayel: this isn’t a Stanley Kubrick movie.

    If Nadim Gemayel were the politician he thinks he is, he wouldn’t have just called away his bodyguards but fired them as well. If he were the politician he thinks he is, he would have resigned from parliament and been there chanting with those same activists for his and their rights as Lebanese citizens, for elections that would keep democracy in this country alive and for parliament members who don’t need to hire henchmen in order to feel safe – who only need a sovereign state empty of militias in order to move around the country and have unannounced dinners here and there.

    Nadim Gemayel will get elected again, there’s no denying this. Whoever say otherwise are deluding themselves. This event will only put a fixable dent in the armor of the son of Bachir el Gemayel as he basks in the glow of his father’s memory, not daring to move away from it. What Nadim el Gemayel doesn’t know is that he is killing his father’s legacy with his practices. What he doesn’t know is that his father would have wanted him to build his own legacy that is very very different from the man Nadim Gemayel has become today.

    Yalli khallaf meit. It takes more than just chromosomes and a similar face to fit into the legacy of the man that made you. And there’s no person more disappointed today than the man who made Nadim.