Category Archives: Life

Blackout Beirut: The Recent Electricity Crisis in Lebanon

I felt like I was in a war zone this past weekend when the power in Beirut kept circulating between three hours of grid connection and three hours of grid disconnection. Perhaps the “highlight” of my day was trying to shower using a lit candle as your only source of light.

I am used to electricity outages. I am from a village in Northern Lebanon where more than 12 hours of coverage per day is seen by many as some form of the second coming of Christ. But in my village in North Lebanon, I have a “moteur” subscription which fills in the many blanks left by the electricity we should get from our dear state. In my Achrafieh neighborhood, however, you don’t have “moteur” providers because you never needed them before. Add to that grandparents who have been through weeks and weeks of no-electricity during the civil war and it makes the three hours tolerable for a power-needing person like me.

But no matter, as Beirut cycled between Beirut-on and Beirut-off in three hour turns, even the iPhone app to track the outages didn’t work anymore. And I had no idea what was happening until I watched the news and saw that workers from South Lebanon had apparently decided to strike at the Zahrani Power Plant. A little delving into this and a political nature of the strike is also revealed. Nearby municipalities supported the decision of the plant’s “workers” for strike. The “apparent” cause? Electricite du Liban (EDL) decided to move a 40 MVA transformer from the Plant to the nearby city of Saida.

Part of the news report I watched has Southerners complain about them being “left out,” about them being “targeted” by the Lebanese state with only few hours of coverage per day. My initial reaction was: are they [insert obscene word] kidding me?

Let’s get  a few things straight.

1) The Southerners are not the only people who have suffered in Lebanon. It’s 2011. The Israelis left 11 years ago. The July 2006 war happened, well, in 2006. We all stood by them through all of their Israel-related misery. We harbored them in our schools, gave them food from our homes and did what any proper citizen would do. They can stop accusing the whole country of targeting them whenever something doesn’t go their way.

2) I get as much coverage as they do in my village in North Lebanon and yet you don’t find me storming power plants and cutting power for those who have it. This is NOT the way you solve things.

3) Apparently our beloved minister Gebran Bassil (whom we, in my caza, voted against a bunch of times and yet always found in power) couldn’t even get the political parties behind the “workers” to get them to stop their “strike.” This begs the question: if the minister of energy, who’s also a proud ally of those political parties, can’t reign them in, then who can? This also raises doubt on exactly how far Aoun can control Hezbollah. Mr. Aoun was always proud of being Hezbollah’s main ally in the country, believing that Hezbollah did whatever Aoun wanted. Well, not always, is it?

4) Now that our prime minister Miqati has apparently sorted things out, the question asks itself: what if Hezbollah decides to act out again? what’s there to stop them? If their own allies can’t do anything against them then who can? What’s to stop this whole “I can do whatever I want and you can’t do anything about it” mentality that they have?

As I came back to my Achrafieh neighborhood at 6 pm today, I was struck by how dark it was. Few were the buildings that had lights in them. The streets were dark. The people were gloomy. I couldn’t wait to go back home to North Lebanon where there was actually light and mind you, my house in Achrafieh is exactly halfway between St. George’s and Geitawi hospitals – you’d think an area where two hospitals were located would get some preferential treatment. But no matter. A friend in Jal El Dib had 8 minutes of electricity all day today. A friend in Mansourieh a little more than 8 minutes but also a dismal amount. And yet, you don’t find us storming roads, burning tires, calling for strikes in power plants in our regions. It’s not that we couldn’t do that. The easiest thing to do is spur violence. What’s not easy, however, is to suck it up and work on fixing the electricity situation, which has been coexistent with our life as far as I can remember, with a radical solution, not ruin whatever few megawatts other people get.

And this is one of the reasons, dear Hezbollah, I can never – ever – support you.

But you know what’s interesting? Out of all the governments that have been ruling the country since 2005, this is probably the most dysfunctional one. What’s sad? It’s one-sided and made up mostly of those who want to change and reform. Well, here’s how it goes: over promise, under-give, the system blows up, blame others.

Lebanese Law on Rape & Virginity: The Hymen Criteria

As many of you know, I am currently pursuing a medical degree. And as part of our medical education, we get numerous anatomy lectures that cover every human body part in its dull details.

On Tuesday, we were being given a lecture about the female pelvis and perineum. Being a morning lecture, most of the class was asleep – that is until the discussion about hymens started.

For those of you who don’t know, the hymen is a thin epithelial perforated layer that serves as a “curtain” to the vagina. For many, it is considered as a sign of “virginity” although it isn’t a highly credible criteria: the hymen being as thin as it is can be broken off in many ways that do not include intercourse and can also be repaired through a procedure called hymenoplasty.

But in our parts of the world, this 2 cm layer of skin is the honor of a man, not knowing that true honor comes by not caring about such minute details in the first place. After all, men in our region are considered as “men” if they have had premarital sex and those same men condemn the women who do as if they’d be having sex alone.

But I digress. This is not a post to discuss our region’s sociological ways.

During that same lecture, the doctor giving the lecture opened up a discussion about one criteria of rape in Lebanese law. I know our law when it comes to rape is overly messed up. There’s nothing that works in it. But this part of it, which most people are often clueless about, is simply mind-blowlingly stupid.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of that law where if someone commits suicide and they happen to fall on your car then it’s automatically your fault? Well this its vagina-equivalence.

What’s the law? If a girl said she were raped but her hymen had not been torn off to the walls of the vagina, then it’s not considered rape.

Meaning, if it’s obvious the girl had intercourse but the intercourse had not caused her hymen to be torn off completely, then the examining physician cannot say she was raped.

In a part of our laws that is so absurd, this often goes unnoticed that even the doctor giving us the lecture was outraged at the number of times he had to dismiss women who were obviously violated just because Lebanese law does not allow him to say so.

 

Dear Patriarch Raï, Enough… from a Lebanese Maronite.

I won’t lie and tell you I wasn’t happy when Beshara Al Raï was elected as the successor Maronite Patriarch to Nasrallah Sfeir, a man I believe is truly one of the greatest Lebanon has ever had.

Nasrallah Sfeir was berated, ridiculed, attacked, mocked and bashed for having very staunch views regarding the political situation of the region, his congregation and country. He never wavered. He was never afraid of speaking his mind, regardless of the repercussions. With Nasrallah Sfeir, I, as a Maronite, was proud of my Church. I was proud of the liberty walk the Maronite Church was pioneering across Lebanon.

It was the Maronite Church that called for Syrian troops withdrawal in 2000. It was the Maronite Church that was the staunchest anti-Syrian entity in the country when every single politician inside Lebanon was busy playing house with Bashar Assad’s men. It was the Maronite Church that ignited the first spark for the Cedar Revolution in 2005. And it was all because of one man: Nasrallah Sfeir.

Many Aounists do not like Sfeir. They’re the ones who ridicule, attack, mock and berate him, calling him senile, demented, etc…. And one of the main reasons I cannot take Aounists seriously is because when Sfeir supported their electoral campaign in 2005, whilst their leader Michel Aoun had not gone the deep bend yet, they loved Sfeir. He was one of the main reasons they got high number of votes in crucial Christian areas. But when Michel Aoun changed his views and started making love to Hezbollah, Sfeir remained firm. Aounists flipped with their leader and Sfeir became their focus of hatred. Excuse me for not taking you seriously.

But I digress. This is not a post to speak about the qualities of Nasrallah Sfeir. This is a post to talk about the shortcomings of his successor: Beshara Al Raï.

This will not be a post of me bashing the Maronite Patriarch. I try not to be a hypocrite and as such, I will try to avoid falling to hypocrisy over here. I hated when the Aounists cursed Sfeir and I’d hate myself for cursing Raï.

But Mr. Raï, you really need to be careful about what you say.

First, you support the oppressive regime in Syria, a regime that you personally fought against while it was ruling you in Lebanon. You adopted the mentality that many Christians in Lebanon and the region have: protection comes through an alliance of minorities. Well, I think this is simply cowardly. Have you forgotten Mr. Raï what that Syrian regime did in Lebanon in the years that it ruled the country? In case you forgot, here’s an extensive reminder. Have you forgotten the people that lost their lives at the hand of that regime? Have you forgotten the Maronite priests who were murdered or kidnapped by that regime? How can you fathom asking your congregation to accept allying themselves with the killer who tore at their souls for over fifteen years? Being afraid is not the solution Mr. Raï. Assuming responsibility, fighting for human rights and democracy is. 

Second, you support Hezbollah’s arms. I understand your motto for your patriarchal campaign was “love and partnership.” The notion of partnership, Mr. Raï, invokes equality. And there’s no way that an armed militia, terrorizing those that do not support it, is in a partnership with the rest of the country. And there’s no way supporting its arms and giving it extra Christian-support can be a sign of seeking partnership. It’s also hard for me to believe someone like you, who actively championed against these weapons before you became patriarch, can so easily change his mind. It’s not a switch of a button Mr. Patriarch.

Third, calling for love and partnership does not warrant you asking Christian convents and churches not to hire any non-Christian foreign workers, soon after the murder of Myriam Achkar. Her murder, Mr. Raï, was not sectarian. It was a sick, twisted man killing an innocent woman. If your message had been for churches and convents not to hire any foreign workers, it would have been greatly more understandable. Even if you had asked them to hire only Christian Lebanese, it would have been somewhat understandable. But not at the moment. Sometimes saying things just because the situation is still boiling, just to score a few points, is not the best strategy for someone in your position. As the head of the Maronite Church, your job at times like these is to get people to cool down, not fuel their hatred. Perhaps in a month or two you could have issued a private decree to Maronite convents with this particular order. Just not today. Besides, what’s the fault of the many Lebanese Muslim families already employed at convents and churches? Is their fault someone they share a sect with turned out to be a raging psychopath? Why are they the ones who have to assume responsibility for something they didn’t do?

I’m pretty sure Mr. Raï that if the tables had been turned and a Maronite had killed someone named Fatme Achkar and the Shiite/Sunni clergy asked their mosques to fear Christians the way you are asking now, you would have been throwing a fit.

Ever since you became patriarch, Mr Raï, the amount of paranoia and fear among Maronites has been exponentially increasing. It’s not us against our fellow countrymen. It’s all of us together against the foreign entities that want to mess with our country. It’s not Maronite VS Sunnis, it’s not Maronite VS Shiites. It’s Maronites and Shiites and Sunnis together to build a country. I understand the fear of having land owned by Christian be spread around. Perhaps asking Christians not to sell their land now is understandable – at least until this tricky phase the region is going through subsides. But in a country where economical woes are spreading, why don’t you help these Christians keep their land, Mr. Raï? Doesn’t the Maronite church have enough money? Can’t it hire those Lebanese in need to work in the many, many, many hectares it owns?

I’m proud of my heritage as a Lebanese Maronite and the sacrifices my Church has gone through over the years to build the country I live in. It saddens me, however, to see the person representing my church go to this extent against the natural current that has helped build this church. It saddens me to see the Maronite Church losing its sense of nationalism and its sense of patriotism.

Some might say it’s not my place to write this. At the end of the day, I did not vote for Mr. Raï nor could I have voted for him. So unlike a politician whom you can hold accountable, the Maronite Patriarch is someone out of your reach somehow because his time as patriarch only ends with him resigning or passing away. I do not wish any of those on Mr. Raï. What I hope to accomplish is perhaps, by having a voice of his congregation voice concern, I wouldn’t seem like an “outsider” intruding. It would be like a group within a big family debating. And when the faults the patriarch is committing are all across the news, a harmless blog post doesn’t seem such a disgrace, I guess. At the end of the day, I feel obliged as a Maronite to express my concerns about anyone who says they represent me, whether they truly do or not.

Christmas is coming up soon. Perhaps Mr. Raï you should consider this time of prayer to look at all that you’ve done in your first few months in the patriarchal office. Hopefully your gift to us will be a back to basis.

Myriam Achkar’s Murder: What It is, What It Isn’t And The Need for Foreign Workers Regulation in Lebanon

R.I.P Myriam

Myriam Achkar’s murder earlier this week was truly a horrific crime, the tragedy of which can only be grasped by her family and those who knew her. Earlier in the week, she was a regular 27 year old woman, going about her life normally. She prayed, she partied, she lived her life abundantly.

And then her life was taken away from her by a racist psychopath who happened to be working at the Convent she went to pray at. Very few people can understand losing someone so young so suddenly. But perhaps I can shed a light on that. After losing my uncle to a murder as horrific as this back in 1999, I’ve seen how hard it is for your family to come to grasp with the reality of their loved ones finding this horrible untimely ending, for them to see their body maimed and mutilated almost beyond recognition. Sometimes with death, you find closure in seeing a person’s body be serene and somehow smiling as they pass on. But to know that your daughter’s body has been violated and that her death was not peaceful is something that will haunt Myriam Achkar’s mother and family until the day they join her. And at the end of the day, no condolences can ever be enough.

No, this is not a post to only mourn a person we didn’t know. This is a post by a Christian, who was at times called an angry Christian blogger, to say that Myriam Achkar’s murder was not an act by an anti-Christian Syrian against a Lebanese Christian. Myriam was not killed because she was carrying a rosary and a bible and going to pray. She was murdered because she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, falling to the hands of a sick predator.

I’ve seen Lebanese media go on and on again about how Myriam Achkar is a new martyr on the altars of Christianity. And while the idea does seem pleasing for many, it will only spring up hate and more sectarian divisions in the lines of a country that has as fragile a unity as it can be. Myriam’s death was that of a woman who fell to the pangs of a rapist. Our media tends to overblow things out of proportion by looking at the background baggage that everyone has.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to lessen her murder. If there’s anything we can take out of this death, it’s not that of a Christian martyr, it’s that of a girl whose life must be a lesson to everyone that our borders, our regulations, our laws cannot be as “open” as they are.

First, why is it that this particular convent in Sahel Alma chose to hire a Syrian to be its keeper of the grounds. Couldn’t they have found a needy Lebanese family that would have gladly taken the job? To say that many Lebanese find it beneath them is, based on many observations, a myth. I’m from small-town Lebanon. I’ve seen small-town Lebanon and it is not as high-class as people think all of the Lebanese are. There are Lebanese women who want to work in houses to clean. There are Lebanese men whom you can hire to work in your land. The difference between those Lebanese and the Syrians? We tend to overlook the Lebanese because they are ask for more expensive fees and because the Syrians are more numerous. But should a Maronite convent even care about finances? I, as a Maronite, would be appalled by my Church if it didn’t help out needy Lebanese families, at the very least, to get a job. Couldn’t they have found someone in the neighboring villages of Keserwein to work as the janitor in the Monastery?

Second, why is it that Syrian workers can come to the country as they please, do what they please and then leave? Why is it that many working visas are rejected for so many applicants from so many different countries and yet Syrians can come to Lebanon, unchecked and start working? Why is it that many foreign friends of mine have to struggle to get their work papers in order while Syrians have to do nothing while Lebanese workers who go to Syria have to go through as much red tape as other foreign workers?

Third, why is it that parts of our government are more readily willing to kill off CIA members than to seek out Syrian intelligence filth that are spread all around our nation, causing us more harm by killing our women and men that the CIA has ever caused?
Why is it that the value of Lebanese youth’s life is so lessend by certain political parties in Lebanon that they’d rather smuggle the Syrian who killed Myriam out of Lebanon than to get him to face his crime?

I do not approve of what the people in Ketermaya did to the Egyptian who killed off a whole family last year, by killing him in front of the whole town to see. I do not approve of civilians taking justice in their own hands, as many are asking regarding Myriam Achkar’s murder. But it’s so hard not to ask for that and say they do have a point when the Syrian Intelligence killer was attempted to be smuggled out of the country. It is very difficult to think that this murderer will get preferential treatment, that the life of Myriam Achkar is useless, that her murderer will never face justice – just because you have people INSIDE Lebanon who care more about the feelings of Bashar Assad’s men than about the lives of their fellow countrymen.

Myriam Achkar is a martyr for Lebanon. She is not just a martyr for women around the region. She is a martyr for every Lebanese and a cautionary tale that we really need to stop giving preferential treatment for certain nationalities just because we are neighboring countries while nationals of that country have caused us so much harm. No, it’s not racism. I’m not calling to ban all foreign workers from coming to the country and taking them out of their houses like the municipalities of Burj Hammoud did. I’m calling for limitations, for reservations and for regulations.

Until then, rest in peace Myriam Achkar. That is all we can say to her. As for everyone else, hopefully some new dawn for Lebanon will be one where the struggles of everyone are seen equally. 

Lebanon’s Independence Day

Most countries around the world celebrate their “Independence Day” with ecstatic joy. To all of those countries, it is a reminder of their struggle to break free from superpowers that were using their land, their people, their resources…

In Lebanon, November 22nd has become a national mourning day of some sorts. What are the people mourning? The French citizenship that could have been.

What is the notion of Independence and why do many Lebanese find it easy to ridicule the independence of their country? Contrary to popular belief, I feel proud on November 22nd, just as I feel proud about Lebanon any day. My country has grave flaws but regardless of those flaws, it exists.

The reason it’s so hard for many Lebanese to see their country as independent is because the notion of independence is grossly overestimated. No country in the whole world is truly independent from other countries. Example? The USA has a national debt of over $14 trillion, a big chunk of which is to China. Why do you think the US is struggling to fix its national budget nowadays? To fix the economy? Partly yes. But mostly to lessen this national debt and its dependence on other countries, such as China.

The difference between people in the US and Lebanon is that they have national pride that does not waver while we have a national pride as firm as water. The difference between us and them is that, even though they do have poverty and even though some of their States have horrible internet and even though the 3G provided by many of their carriers is not good, they feel proud to call themselves American. How many of us feel proud to call ourselves Lebanese?

You do know that the problems in countries such as the US, France, Switzerland, etc… are very similar to our problems? You have villages in the United States whose only source of livelihood is the production of crystal meth. You have places in France, like Lebanon, where it’s so corrupt that the police doesn’t dare enter. And then you have Switzerland, a country that, despite the great diversity of its people, managed to find a way to get them to coexist.

The problem in Lebanon? Our problems are magnified because of our country’s small size.

Some of us blame our politicians. We say they got us into this predicament. But simply put, our politicians arise from our society – they are inherently part of us. We voted for them and got them where they are today. But our “Independence” day is not our politicians’ to take. It is for all of us as a nation to celebrate: the sacrifices of our forefathers against the French Mandate to establish the Republic of Lebanon.

Others still call for a French (or any other “decent” country) mandate, wishing we were still under one. You know, if our forefathers found the situation under the French to be absolutely peachy and happy, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have fought to get Lebanon out of the mandate. Perhaps you should contemplate what all these superpowers are secretly doing in African countries where their influence is much more penetrating, where they still control national resources and lead the people of those countries to kill each other?

At the end of the day, it is hard for many to see Lebanon as independent because we live in a very, very difficult region. I look around and see Syria where Bashar Assad is killing his people left and right. I look to the South and see Israel/Palestine, both of which want a piece of my land as well and both of whom tried to get it as some point. And then I consider all those Arab countries and see that for a small country like mine, I’m sure of utter importance to them. Why is that? Why is it that many countries around the world can’t wait to get their hands on something related to my country? No, it’s not overwhelming pride. It’s an observation. Perhaps because they know that, as divided as we are, it makes it much easier for them to put their hands on our resources, our people and our land?

Our Independence is wasted by none-other than us: the people who let other countries wage their wars on our land. And amid everything that’s happening in the region around us today, perhaps we should be less critical and more vigilant against all of these countries with messed up systems that are ready to move their fights inside our borders.

You don’t want to call it independence, fine. Call it Lebanon’s National Day. But regardless of terminology, you should at least feel a stinge of pride that you have a country and, despite all its problems and the problems thrust upon it, it exists.