Category Archives: Lebanon

Touch’s Network Not Working & No Fix In Sight

You’d be kidding yourself if you said you could live without your phone nowadays. Now imagine that you had full reception and thought there was nothing wrong with your phone… except people had been trying to call you for hours and all they got was a busy signal or line blocked notification.

I’m not a Touch user. But a friend of mine is one of the many Touch users affected. And her story is one that needs to be told, hopefully someone out there decides to expedite attempts to fix the problem, if any attempts are actually underway.

Here is the story.

2 months ago, several people tried to call my friend’s phone only to get a signal that her line was off. However, she wasn’t notified of any calls even though her phone was active, 3G and all. It wasn’t a constant problem, it would appear sporadically and she didn’t know about it until the people that tried calling her met up with her in person.

She then called Touch’s support center. The employee decided that it was a problem with her brand new iPhone 5. I guess blaming the phone is the way to go. So in order to make sure it wasn’t a sim-card issue, she went ahead and replaced it with a nano sim straight out of Touch, hoping it was cutting the sim part that posed the problem. The employee there said it will definitely solve her problem.

Things were working for a while. It could have been the nano sim or that no one reported problems trying to contact her. The trouble-free duration lasted for a week. So when she started having trouble again, she decided to visit the Touch center again and went through several supervisors, the last of which told her the following:

  • It was a problem they’ve been having for the past 3 months and they didn’t know about it if it weren’t for the huge amount of complaints they received.
  • It doesn’t affect all Touch customers (she gave a 40% figure) and is device independent, meaning the iPhone 5 is not to blame.
  • The supervisor automatically assumed my friend is jobless and told her that other people with jobs have it worse. Because your phone matters are only important if you have a job.
  • When asked what my friend can do to fix it, the supervisor suggested to try calling someone every two hours in order to keep her line “registered” on the network. Then keep doing as such every two hours.
  • When asked if Alfa is having such issues, the supervisor said she doesn’t know. What she knows is that her network is affected.
  • When asked when the issue will be fixed, she said: we don’t know.

    • How is it acceptable for such a problem to be taking place for over 3 months with no fix in sight on Lebanon’s biggest network, I don’t know.

    The Conclusion of Dahye’s Missiles: Tripoli Is Not a Lebanese City

    2 missiles fell in Beirut today, targeting Hezbollah’s stronghold Dahyeh. Nobody knows why the missiles were fired.
    They could be to serve as further proof for the need to extend parliament’s mandate. They could be to show that Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is not inhumane but very needed.
    They could have a multitude of reasons. But I don’t really care.

    Minutes after Dahyeh was hit with the two missiles, the level of panic rose to enormous levels. Lebanese media was all over it with live coverage from the sites of the missile launch, conspiracy theories along the lines of المؤامرة على سوريا were being thrown around, to name a few.

    Our minister of interior Marwan Charbel was the first Lebanese official to visit the site in question. More will soon follow because can you imagine them not visiting an area that was just targeted with two missiles?

    Guess again.

    Over the past week, the capital of North Lebanon was hit with thousands of missiles and mortars, 1200 of which fell in one single night.

    How many official visits happened to the city? Zero.

    How extensive was the media coverage for the battles? Let me quote a friend of mine who has been following the news very closely: “I was honestly convinced the electoral law was the most important thing taking place today.”

    Did you know that snipers are still shooting aplenty across the city?

    Even the politicians of Tripoli were quicker to condemn the missiles of Beirut than the missiles of their own city.

    Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the realization we’ve all been pondering over for a long time now. It may be within the confines of our beloved and much-spoke about 10452km2 but the Northern city of Tripoli might not be effectively part of this country at all. And we never had such temporally close examples to back that claim up.

    We complain about some media’s hypocrisy in the way they talk of the region’s conflicts. And yet we do it, and we keep doing it. The missiles that hit Tripoli are not as important. The latest toll of 31 dead which fell in the recent battles is not important. The reasons why Tripoli is being victim for repeated battles are never spoken about. The citizens of the city who live in terror for days and nights are never really cared about. They are as irrelevant as the city they call home.

    What is this Lebanon you speak to me about? Hold on while I push the snooze button on Dahye’s missiles and the 3 injured Syrians who are on their way to rehabilitation.

    On Lebanon’s Liberation Day

    Liberation day makes me proud.

    It makes me proud as a Lebanese because it brought glory to my country.
    It makes me proud as a Northerner who had never set foot in his country’s South until this past December that it gave me back my country’s other side.
    It makes me proud as a human being because all those people, many of whom are my dear friends, became part of a country again, regardless of how fragmented that country may be. It makes me proud because the sacrifices of those same people for years and years under the tyranny of a foreign army and Lebanese mercenaries came to a triumphant end.

    Liberation day makes me sad as well.

    It makes me sad because another side of the country’s similar struggles will never be looked upon the same way.
    It makes me sad because its meaning is being ridiculed by people out of sheer political gerrymandering.
    It makes me sad because the same people that made it are now ruining it with every single drop of Lebanese blood falling in Al Qusayr.

    Liberation day makes me pitiful too.

    It makes me pity those who are so politically blind today that they cannot be proud of the day’s meaning.
    It makes me pity those who are so hateful on sectarian lines that those liberated are not of us and will never be us.
    It makes me pity those who were liberated and still think, thirteen years later, that their liberation entitles them to so much more than others.
    It makes me pity the people that fought for this liberation and who are destroying its meaning with their massive brainwashing.

    I remember being a 10 year old whose mother told him that his South is now liberated. I remember feeling concerned back then. I still feel concerned today. Happy liberation day to those who still care.

    How Tripoli Didn’t Sleep Last Night

    What happens in Tripoli stays in Tripoli – at least that’s what Lebanese media and politicians want.

    The battles currently taking place in the city aren’t registering except with those who are affected. It could be because Tripoli’s politicians are the masterminds behind them. It could be because Lebanese media knows it will never spillover outside the city’s confines.

    What is certain, however, is that the following video illustrates the worst night in Tripoli since the civil war whereby the city was shelled with over 1200 mortars.

    This is Lebanon too. I was starting to doubt anything existed beyond Madfoun.

    Untold Stories of Rape in Lebanon

    I didn’t know prior to yesterday that many people thought stories of rape couldn’t possibly go undetected for years. I didn’t know prior to yesterday that somehow I lived in my own version of Lebanese reality where I’m exposed to little tidbits of everything that most of us hear about in theory, in realms of fiction we never think would happen to people who are close to us in any way.

    News of rape attempts surfaced frequently over the past few days. Some were verified (link), others are still just stories and may have been made up, causing a disservice to every single person out there in this country still feeling the sting of the pain but going through their days anyway.

    Because there’s this notion that rape in Lebanon, and possibly other countries, surfaces quickly and cannot go unnoticed for a long period of time, I will be going up close and personal with the stories of two people I know personally very well. Only those few people who are deeply familiar with their story will know who they are. But the following stories are 100% accurate and have happened here, around every single one of us.

    Story #1:

    She was sitting in Deir l Salib with her psychiatrist facing her, asking her all the questions she never thought she’d have to answer. When did it start? 1997. How did it start? He was her employer. What did he do? So many things.
    She remembered the first time he forced himself on her. How he threatened her he’d hunt down her family members with his influence if she ever dared speak. She remembered how she’d come to the office and see him naked on the couch, his semen all over the carpet. He had just had a prostitute over. She remembered as he forced her to clean the mess. She remembered as he peed on the carpet as she cleaned. She remembered holding back the tears.
    She remembered all the weddings she didn’t go through. She remembered feeling excited about those invitation cards, doing her hair and painting her nails only to get a phone call prohibiting her from attending… Or else. She’d fight with her family in order to get them not to want to take her with them anymore. There was nothing else she could do.
    She remembered all the possible marriages that passed by her over the year. She remembered the physician who lived in Canada and found her to be of exquisite beauty. She remembered turning him down because he wouldn’t let her go.
    1997 was when it started. 2009 was when she cracked. 12 years has turned her in into a different woman, a different person. She wouldn’t be the same ever again.

    Story #2:

    He was a seven year old student at one of the country’s many primary schools. He was anything but calm, constantly finding himself in trouble. He raised his hand and asked his teacher for permission to use the restroom. She dismissed him. He hopped his way to the bathroom, entered the cubicle and stood there as a middle aged man faced him with a menacing look on his face.
    The little boy tried to escape him but couldn’t. The man grabbed the boy, cupped his mouth so he wouldn’t scream and unzipped his pants.
    The boy couldn’t remember anything of what happened afterwards. The man threatened him in order to keep quiet. He returned to class with pee all over his pants. He tried to hide it but couldn’t. His class made fun of him and he sat there crying because there was nothing else he could do.
    When he got home, he snuck past his mother and spilled water on his pants to hide the stain. He then threw it in with the laundry. She would never know. And he didn’t tell anyone what happened with him that day. He didn’t know if they’d understand. He didn’t know if they’d believe him. He didn’t know if they’d help.
    He held his story in and didn’t tell it to anyone until he turned 23.

    That woman and that boy know they can’t get their past back in order to have a different version of their future and present. And here we are telling them that we live in a place where we really can’t do anything for them, where they’ll just have to make do with the hand they’re dealt. Because that’s how things simply are.