Bullying in Lebanese Schools

When I was in my early teens, I was constantly bullied at school. It used to bother me at first. Those words hit a spot at first. And then that spot hardened.

And I just didn’t care anymore. The insults kept coming as I grew older. And I didn’t care even more. They eventually stopped when those “friends” decided they had better things to do. But I was lucky because some people never decide they have better things to do.

That’s what’s happening to someone I really care about now in his last year of school. The words keep coming and those classmates, with their better than thou attitude, keep going unpunished. And it has been going on for a few years now.

How long should we tolerate until our schools step their foot down in the face of bullying? Why is it that the person I care about has to consider changing schools to escape the toxic environment spread by two assholes while the easiest thing would be to expel those two bastards?

Why is it that the victim of bullying in Lebanon has to be turned into submission even by the school? Why is it that our schools, with their “we are such a good environment for you kid” attitude, don’t actually care about being a good environment for the kid and turn a blind eye to what’s happening in the heart of classrooms with their beyond docile measures if faced by the kid’s parents?

The thing people tell a bullying victim is that it gets better. You tell them that those kids will always be kids. You tell them they’ll soon change. You’ll tell them that they will find people who will see them for what they are: awesome people. And they won’t believe you. And they’ll think you’re just lying to make things better.

But it really does.

My uncle was a victim of bullying. He’s now a top shot doctor in the United States, making more money than his entire class combined.

I was a victim of bullying and I now write one of the most read blogs in Lebanon in between my studies at medical school. I can’t say the same for most of those “friends.”

My late uncle was bullied because an accident when he was younger led to him losing an eye. And despite him being a brilliant student at school – they even got him to skip one class – he had to drop out because he couldn’t take it anymore. And still he managed to do well with the little time he had by making a family and starting a business that is booming today.

I have a friend who faced the same bullying because of a medical condition during middle school. And things didn’t let down until he found a bunch of friends mature enough to understand what he was going through. He’s now a top notch architect.

And the person I care about? He’ll soon go to a university that those assholes would never dream of entering and he’ll become a success in the field that he chooses.

And we’ll all go back to our school reunions and tell those suckers: Fuck you. With emphasis on every single letter. Because, well, fuck them and their demented brainless heads.

And fuck those schools that never empower the victim for fear of losing the tuition of other students. Because that’s how you build a country: by letting the weak ones be weak forever and letting the “strong” ones feel strong. Always.

Congratulations Lebanese education, you teach people three languages and a shitload of math they won’t need. But you don’t teach them compassion or tolerance or anything that they would benefit from later on. I salute you and your teachers.

Sticks and stones can break my bones but names never hurt? Yes, it’s always easy to preach. But my advice to those being bullied is the following: don’t always turn a blind eye and deaf ear as you hurt inside.

Begin Again (Lyrics) – Taylor Swift

As part of the promotion leading up to the release of her new album RED, Taylor Swift will be releasing a new song weekly to iTunes. This is the first of them and it’s called “Begin Again.”

It’s about the first date you go to after a messy break up.

Took a deep breath in the mirror
He didn’t like it when I wore high heels, but I do
Turned the lock and put my headphones on
He always said he didn’t get this song but I do, I do

Walked in expecting you’d be late
But you got here early
And you stand and wave
And I walk to you
You pulled my chair out and helped me
And you don’t know how nice that is
But I do

And you throw your head back laughing like a little kid
I think it’s strange that you think I’m funny ‘cause he never did
I’ve been spending the last 8 months thinking all love ever does
Is break and burn and end
But on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again

You said you never met one girl
Who has as many James Taylor records as you
But I do
We tell stories and you don’t know why I’m coming off a little shy
But I do

But you throw your head back laughing like a little kid
I think it’s strange that you think I’m funny ‘cause he never did
I’ve been spending the last 8 months thinking all love ever does
Is break and burn and end
But on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again

And we walk down the block to my car
And I almost brought him up
But you start to talk about the movies
That your family watches every single Christmas
And I wanna talk about that
For the first time, what’s past is past

‘Cause you throw your head back laughing like a little kid
I think it’s strange that you think I’m funny ‘cause he never did
I’ve been spending the last 8 months thinking all love ever does
Is break and burn and end
Then on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again
Then on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again

3askar 3a Min?

The above picture is not in Syria. It is not in Libya. It’s not in Egypt. It’s not in Bahrain. It’s in our own backyard. Or front yard in this case – in Downtown Beirut.

The men you see on the ground are not terrorists. They are a group of seven people that were protesting to ask parliament to pass a bill for civil personal status. The men you see on the ground were not holding guns, they were not burning tires, they were not kidnapping people.

They were holding one banner. They were acting out a wedding between people of different faiths in front of our useless parliament. You know, the parliament that’s always in deadlock and doesn’t pass any law whatsoever except when it is to give those in parliament and those in government more money. And they were beaten up by our awesomely protective security forces. One of the security forces even thought it would be cool to rape a guy with his riffle.

You know those security forces. You know them well. Their testosterone kicks in when students protest for a history book (click here) or when students chant at some university or when a couple decides to kiss in public.

Yes, we sure have macho security forces, staying up every night for our safety. Making Lebanon feel more secure with each passing moment one of them staying awake, fighting all those criminals…. Oh wait.

No, those same security forces cower away when brainless people decide to cut off roads with burning tires. They stand there and threaten you if you take pictures of the protestors while they chat them up and smoke cigarettes together. BFFs I tell you!

Those same security forces are the ones who want you to put them on a pedestal, to honor them, to pay them off – literally – whenever you want to do something. And they want you to do so happily.

Those same security forces are the ones who want you to think you are protected and yet they advise you not to walk around certain areas after certain hours. They also advise you not to walk around certain areas at all.

Those same security forces are the ones who shrug their shoulders whenever they receive news of someone getting kidnapped and continue doing what they do best: eating their Malek l Tawou2 sandwiches.

This is not a country. This is an anarchy. And it’s hopeless. And these convictions are reinforced daily.

3askar 3a min? 3a yalli ma fi bidahro 7ada kbir.

What We Know So Far About J.K. Rowling’s “The Casual Vacancy”

This year’s most anticipated book release drops this Thursday. The project has been under tight wraps from the moment it was announced, reminiscent of the supreme amount of secrecy surrounding J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter releases. Don’t you miss those?

The Casual Vacancy is 512 pages thick. The idea of it was conceived on a plane where Rowling thought “local elections” and the idea wrote itself out. She says it was the sort of idea that hits you and you know it will work. It was the same with Harry Potter.

The title was initially “Responsible.” But when Rowling stumbled on a newspaper with the words “casual vacancy” in it, she immediately knew that it fit her story better. She has been writing the book since Harry Potter was done and considered publishing it under a pseudonym but she figured it would be much braver if she published it under her own name.

And it is her name alone that’s causing this book to be a success even before it is released.

The Casual Vacancy opens with the death of a parish councillor in the village of Pagford. Barry, the councillor, had grown up on the Fields, a nearby estate that’s drenched in poverty, with which other citizens of Pagford, notably the middle class, have lost patience. If they can fill Barry’s seat with one more councillor sympathetic to their disgust, they’ll secure a majority vote to relinquish responsibility for the Fields and hand it over to a neighboring council.

The battle for the seat starts. And it’s not a simple election as one can conceive, it is the story of a town at war. Pupils at war with their teachers, sons and daughters with their parents, the rich with the poor…. It is the battle of different classes. The chairman assumes the seat will go to his son, against whom are a cold GP and a deputy headmaster with ambivalence towards his son, a self-possessed adolescent whose subversion takes the form of telling the truth.

The Fields’ most notorious family is the Weedons.

Terri Weedon is a prostitute, junkie and a victim of abuse. She is struggling to stay clean to stop social services from taking her three-year-old son away from her. But it is her daughter, Krystal, who will take up the mantle of being the mother. But the death of Barry, the only adult whom Krystal considered as a friend, leaves her alone and struggling in the poverty that she lives in.

Anonymous messages will then start appearing on the parish’s website, exposing the laundry of the people living there and the town sinks into paranoia and tragedy.

The novel is written from multiple perspectives. So it invites the reader to delve into the head of different characters. Some journalists who were offered the chance to read the book said that this differing perspective made them think the book was closer to a comedy until it really sank in and they were hit by the severity and tragedy of it all as they delved into the Weedon’s minds.

The book is about the middle class of Britain. It is a representation of what J.K. Rowling says a “phenomenally snobby society.” And she has laid it bare. It is the story of heroin addiction, teen sexuality and economical problems. So it is as an adult book as it can get without it being Fifty Shades of Grey. The book is so unlike Harry Potter, in fact, that even the language used is one that would definitely shock any Rowling fan.

Some quotes from the book are as follows:

  • “The leathery skin of her upper cleavage radiated little cracks that no longer vanished when decompressed.”
  • [A lustful boy sits on a bus] “with an ache in his heart and in his balls.”
  • And there’s a reference to a girl’s “miraculously unguarded vagina.”

The Casual Vacancy has already sold more than one million copies in pre-orders and will be the year’s top selling new release. I will review it as soon as I finish reading it upon its release this Thursday. But I have high expectations.

(Sources: 1 and 2)

Michel Aoun’s Assassination Attempt. Fiction or Reality?

Color me confused but I have absolutely no idea what to make of it.

News of an assassination attempt, his fourth in total, against Michel Aoun, the head of FPM, surfaced yesterday evening. It was followed by news denying it happened for security reasons apparently. Then Aoun confirmed to a crowd in Batroun that it did during an FPM dinner. Then this morning LBC denied it happened: there was no convoy passing and no shooting. And now the minister of interior affairs is saying that the assassination attempt happened. And it seems that the car that was shot hasn’t been given in to the authorities for examination yet as it is on a mission. Why would a car that was shot be on a mission?

So which is it? Was the head of FPM targeted or not?

I think Michel Aoun was targeted. Why? Because any attack against any of Lebanon’s top Christian leaders (Aoun and Geagea) would be enough to send the country into chaos and that is what many want to do. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the people targeting him were the same people who targeted previous people in the country. Of course Aoun wants you to think it’s the bad Sunnis because that would play well with his base who will eat it up.

Geagea was targeted back in April (click here).

Either way, I hope Michel Aoun, regardless of whether I like him or not, is safe and I also hope he won’t milk this attempt into electoral gains as it has become customary. But it seems to have already started. I also hope people don’t start doing what Aoun’s supporters did when Geagea was targeted and start making funny comics out of it (click here).

One thing has to be said though, the Lebanese Forces website is sure handling this way more professionally than Tayyar.org did when Geagea was targeted (click here).