Category Archives: Politics

The Reforms in Egypt: Farewell Intercourse Law

Instead of working towards limiting poverty, enhancing literacy and moving towards a more democratic state, some of the men of Egypt’s new Islamist-led parliament are busy securing the well-being and happiness of their genitals. No, I’m not kidding.

Even the articles discrediting this as a rumor had to admit that some MPs discussed the proposals.

An Egyptian MP was seen talking about a proposal for something called farewell intercourse. What is that you ask? Well, if you have a sensitive stomach, I advise you to stop reading now. If not, then proceed.

Farewell intercourse allows a man to have sex with his deceased wife, six hours after her death.

The whole idea for this farewell intercourse started with Moroccan cleric Zamzami Abdul Bari who got to the conclusion that is should be allowed. He also figured that women should be allowed to use water bottles, cucumbers and other types of tools in order to seek sexual gratification. No, I’m not kidding as well. He made it into a fatwa.

The story doesn’t end here.

On top of that law, there’s another ratification that might be proposed by the Salafists, which is to let Egyptian men marry 14 year old girls. You know, because their country isn’t already overly populated and overly impoverished and overly illiterate.

Even if this whole thing turns out to be a rumor, which I pray to God it is, you cannot but wonder how such a thing got a hold and stuck with people. It’s a mere reflection of what people think the Egyptian parliament is capable of doing, which is really sad. And if one of those two proposals passes into law (the second one being more probable than the first one, obviously), how will the women of Egypt react?

Odds are there’s not much they can do.

Spare Us The Samir Geagea Hate

I told a civil war story last year that I made ambiguous on purpose to reach a certain conclusion, which was that everyone’s to blame for the Lebanese civil war if we really want to move the country forward.

However, I recently realized that Lebanese need a scapegoat for them killing each other. Their scapegoat was chosen to be Samir Geagea.

For some, Geagea killed them because they were of a certain religion, region, background, etc. For others, their sense of guilt kicks in and Geagea killed the aforementioned people because of their religion, region or background, as well as some of them who were “strong” enough to defy him.

The murderer! The liar! The assassin! The faithless! The abomination!

For many apparently, Samir Geagea was fighting the air during the Lebanese civil war. He was drawing his weapons against everyone but no one was drawing their weapons against him or his party.

For many it seems, Samir Geagea and his party were busy ruining the country all by themselves during the Lebanese civil war. No one else did anything worthy to be mentioned.

For many, the only war criminal of the Lebanese civil war is Samir Geagea. As if it’s possible for Samir Geagea to lead a whole civil war all by himself.

You defend Samir Geagea? You’re an accomplice to his murders. You complement him? They expected so much more of you. You admire him? You need to learn your history.

Because they know their history very well, I’m sure. Every single Lebanese now has a PhD in Lebanese civil war times and I was out of the loop. It’s sad.

The illusion that some people are innocent because they were legitimate needs to be removed. A bridge needs to be built and people need to get over that idea en masse. The fact that certain parties were violent to certain guests on our land can only be explained by the actions of those guests in a land that’s not theirs. The actions of certain parties cannot be taken out of the context during which they were carried out and treated as stand-alone events. It simply doesn’t make sense, regardless of how hideous those acts may be.

The civil war is an uncivil epoch.

No one in the civil war was a saint. If those involved had been as such, it wouldn’t be called a war and we would have had a very civil era. It’s far from being the case.

So let me put the situation today in the following manner.

If during the war your car was ruined? Blame Geagea. Your house was set on fire? Blame Geagea. You got stopped at a checkpoint? Blame Geagea. Your great-great-great-cousin, 2 degrees removed got killed? Blame Geagea.

Geagea barely escapes death? Blame Geagea. Anyone else barely escapes death? Blame Geagea.

Blame Geagea for everything – because that is the way we move forward.

If you’re one of those people who still consider the civil war in making their political choices today, then I pity you. If you’re one of those people who still need a scapegoat for your own mistakes just so you can please your conscience, I pity you.

Spare us the Geagea hate. Spare us the mindless, useless and retro attitude. If your mind is still in the civil war, perhaps getting it out of there is the first step towards building a country, instead of preaching about the importance of change and reform in moving Lebanon forwards.

Change and reform begin on the inside. Change your mentality. Reform your hate. And then come talk to me.

The ironic thing is that Geagea is the only one among all Lebanese political leaders today that went to jail for some of his supposed actions. Everyone else faced next to negligible consequences.

Tenzeker w ma ten3ad? At this rate, yeah right.

The Killing of NewTV (Al Jadeed) Cameraman Ali Shaaban: Can We Talk about Syria’s Transgressions in Lebanon Now?

Assad’s army fired into Lebanon yesterday, killing NewTV cameraman Ali Shaaban. And even though similar transgressions happened many times before, this is the first time that the public has grasped how bad Syria is breaching Lebanon’s sovereignty by it killing our people without us doing anything.

It happened back in January when the Syrian navy kidnapped three fishermen from Lebanese waters in the North and killing one of them. But we didn’t do anything then. Will our government act now? I don’t think so.

What’s sad is that the death of Ali Shaaban was preceded by many warning signs from the Syrian side via the many transgressions they committed. But we didn’t act. The death of this young reporter could have been averted had our government adopted a stance to begin with regarding the killing of Lebanese people by Assad’s forces. Will they speak out now? I don’t think.

Ali Shaaban's sister, weeping him

And here, I stop to ask the same question I asked when those fishermen were kidnaped: What if it had been Israel?

Can we talk about Syria’s insults to our land, water and people now or is it still a taboo topic? Can we consider the Assad regime as an enemy for killing our people or does Lebanon only have one enemy?

When NewTV is speaking out against Assad’s army, you know it has hit the fan. Rest in peace Ali Shaaban, rest in peace every single Lebanese who was killed by the Assad regime. Here’s hoping there will come a day where that regime answers to killing you.

Tayyar.org: Not Sure If Tabloid or News Site

Tayyar.org is nowhere near my go-to site when it comes to Lebanese news (nor is Lebanese-forces.com for that matter). But you’d expect a self-proclaimed reputable website to at least be respectable enough not to post a picture like this on their Facebook wall:

To make things even more “appealing,” they had this news shared next to the picture calling the whole affair a “masra7iye” – Lebanese for play.

And then I remembered something: their timeline cover picture. So for reference, here it is:

Underneath their title, the words: Precision, Speed & Credibility are typed out. I really have no idea how a mocking picture of the head of one of Lebanon’s main parties can be considered as precise, speedy or credible.

I guess the admins who run that page and those who run the corresponding won’t stray much from the morals set by the leader they follow, nor are the people that follow said leader.

So for all matters and purposes, Tayyar.org is not a news website. It might as well call itself TayyarJaras.org – but wait, that would be degrading to Nidale el Ahmadieh’s tabloid. So let us tweak that a little bit and make it: TayyarJorsa.org – for yes, jorsa is what they are.

Some Lebanese Reactions to the Samir Geagea Assassination Attempt

Some people appall me.

I never for a moment thought people could make fun of a person narrowly escaping death. That is until Samir Geagea escaped an assassination attempt.

You’d think people would be more considerate. After all, I’m pretty sure if any one of those ridiculing the whole thing were in Geagea’s shoes, they probably wouldn’t have died because of the shots they would have dodged, they would have died because of the panic they’d be going through afterwards.

Instead, they’re busy manufacturing their own version of the story to conform with their sick, twisted, demented, useless, silly fantasy.

For some, Samir and Sethrida Geagea are just bored people in their fortress who decided to come up with a scenario to keep themselves entertained. Yes because entertainment can only come in 10 inch bullets and advanced sniper riffles.

For others, Samir Geagea is the new Neo from The Matrix, working his way around bullets as if they were nothing. They even created a meme for it. Some people just have way too much free time. And way too little courtesy.

Simply disrespectful and not even funny

For others, Geagea came up with his own assassination attempt because he’s politically bankrupt, whose followers are “idiots” (I’m quoting) without high-school diplomas. Yes because the argument is so flawless that I can’t fathom addressing the impeccable structure of it, you BS-holder you!

Others are seeing this as a pattern of Geagea’s lies, which started in 1990, wishing the bullet had hit its target. They would know about lies, I’m sure.

I’d like to see what those same people would have done if their leader was subject to Geagea’s assassination attempt. Odds are they wouldn’t be this humorous. But no, their leader would never be subject to an assassination attempt because he knows with whom to strike “protective” alliances.

So seriously, spare us your useless humor, your ridiculous attitude and your flawless logic. At the end of the day, what can you expect from people whose political reference is the Socrates of modern day logic?

And in case they still think it was a play, perhaps their very own minister Marwan Charbel describing the whole thing as a serious affair would be enough. Who am I kidding? It will never be enough.

Ridiculous people will forever be ridiculous. Glad to know the only way an assassination attempt could be considered as such by some people is for an explosion to happen and for the victim to lose a few limbs. But hold on, their leader doesn’t even consider those who went through such an ordeal as worthy of any recognition. And some of them were relieved Geagea hadn’t went down that road – not for humanitarian purposes, but because it would be a nuisance to have to deal with.

There’s a line between being critical and being downright retarded. You are strutting the retarded side magnificently… and to conclude it Lebanese-ly: TFEH!