Samir Geagea For President!

OMG. Can you believe Samir Geagea’s running for president?

The horror. The disgrace. The shame. Let us go turn in our passports (worthless as they are) right here, right now.

Samir Geagea’s nomination for president was met with an onslaught of histrionics that the Lebanese political scene hadn’t seen in a very long time.

We had photoshopped Israeli posters.

People acting like Civil War know-it-alls when they, in fact, know nothing at all. Granted, this happens all the time but it always finds its way to surface whenever Geagea does something. As a future medical doctor, I shall dub it Geageatis.

Twitter hashtags with every combination imaginable to attack Geagea’s judicial records.

Newspaper editors freaking out like pregnant teenager girls who hail from the Bible Belt.

And so and so forth.

You know what’s in common between all of the aforementioned reactions? They reflect the well-rooted hypocrisy of people who have perfected double standards. And isn’t that what Lebanon is all about?

Samir Geagea is a war criminal. Samir Geagea has a tarnished history. Samir Geagea went to jail. Samir Geagea is sectarian. Samir Geagea is this and that.

But the fact of the matter is that those same people digging up Geagea’s past also turn the blindest of eyes to the past of their favorite politician and warlord and person who hasn’t even gotten a brevet degree yet but is practicing politics anyway.

They are the same people who chant their politician’s name off rooftops whenever he has an aired speech. They are the people who empty riffles to celebrate such speeches, regardless of the passerby who might get hit by their stray bullet.

They are the same people who defend war criminals whenever those war criminals serve their purpose. They are the people who have been defending Bashar el Assad for the past three years as he worked his way through a six digit body count.

They are also the same people who would put forth anything championed by Lebanese parties like Hezbollah who, lately, have only been dabbling in the war mindset that we supposedly don’t want for our country through people like Geagea. Or is war in the eye in the beholder?

They are the same people who proclaim secularism as a headline to sound cool and modern but fall back to their old sectarian habits whenever push comes to shove.

Can you envision a Lebanese future where someone like Samir Geagea is president? Can you even fathom how dissociative that is from the reality of today’s Lebanon? You know, the Lebanon where Tripoli was in a state of war up until last week but no one cared; the Lebanon where everyone is getting armed again; the Lebanon where a government took a year to be formed and is basically stillborn even now; the Lebanon where there’s no economy, no hope and no prospects for a future; the Lebanon that is still talking about Samir Geagea and the other warlords he played with way back when even today.

Yes, in such a Lebanon, someone like Samir Geagea and every single other politician being proclaimed as the next president wouldn’t make the natural selection for the presidency.

No, I don’t think Samir Geagea is the best possible candidate to become the next Lebanese president.

No, I don’t think him getting nominated for that position, however trivial such a thing actually is in Lebanese politics, was the right move.

I don’t even get why everyone is entering our own version of Game of Thrones for the Baabda Chair when they all agree that it’s borderline worthless. Perhaps it’s comfortable for gluteal muscles?

I don’t have a say in who becomes president anyway and neither does anyone else including those who have been throwing bitch fits over the past few days, but I have to say it has been quite entertaining to see the borderline mania that has overtaken those people. Who knew Lebanese politics can elicit this much excitement still?

The reasons I don’t think Geagea should be president is simply because he is part of the current perpetuation of a status quo that I cannot I agree with. It’s because him as president will perpetuate this status quo for six years to come and I don’t think our country can handle such a thing anymore. It’s because I think it’s high time other people take up a position of power to challenge the current system, be it within their own sects or within the broader framework of Lebanese politics.

The same reasons why I don’t think Geagea should be president also follow to Aoun, Frangieh and Gemayel, which are being called around as the Maronite Four. Perhaps you should use your future as an argument instead of digging up pasts no one wants uncovered and instead of bashing the part of the civil war class you don’t agree with while secretly swooning over the part you do agree with.

I’ll give you this, though, the craziness is comical.

Lebanon’s Parliament Fails Lebanon’s Women

71 Lebanese MPs signed the petition by KAFA to include amendments to the proposed Domestic Abuse bill in the actual law that would pass in parliament.

2 minutes was all it took for the law to pass.

0 is the number of MPs who argued for the amendments. 0 is also the number of amendments that made it to the actual bill.

Is the law in its current form bad? Yes it is even if it’s a step forward somehow. It’s greatly lacking in so many ways, of which is the fact that Lebanese Parliament has (unknowingly?) legalized marital rape by failing to omit the term “spousal privileges” from the draft that has become official today.

Under the new law which parliament passed today, marital rights for intercourse were enshrined for the first time in text in civil law. What a victory for civility in 2014.

The law also has other shortcomings, which you can check out in this Arabic document.

I wonder, has any of the MPs that approved this law actually read it or did they just go with the decision of their political bloc? Did the female MPs that voted for this law also give it a second look beyond the fancy title that is not even exclusive to their gender? Is two minutes all the time our MPs believed is enough for such a vital law to be discussed?

There’s a line where MPs who cared should have drawn a limit. That line is when the lives and sanctity of people is as stake.

Yet again, should we really be surprised?

The shortcomings of the law are nothing more and nothing less than a simple manifestation of the status quo in Lebanese law: one that is enshrined in religious text that dictate everything about our daily lives, legally. The bill in question has been maimed into a stillborn proposition by MPs who were too afraid for their religiosity that they can’t view any cause as worthy outside of that frame.

It will always be the case until we view our worth as Lebanese citizens as something that transcends the sect we were born in, where us being governed is not contingent upon the laws that are bestowed upon us due to our birth being in this town or in that region.

Perhaps we were too hopeful that parliament would pass a decent law for us to be proud of. But the joke’s on us for being foolishly optimistic. It is, after all, April Fools.

#NoLawNoVote: Get Lebanon’s Parliament To Do Something Decent For Once

As a taxi drove me back home yesterday night, it reached a point in Downtown Beirut where the road was blocked. In typical Lebanese cab-driver fashion, he proceeded to curse at whatever was causing him to go through a detour in order to deposit yours truly who was, obviously, underpaying him for his services.

The road that was blocked is one of the many that could lead up to parliament. Because why wouldn’t our government invest in resources and man power and cause insurmountable traffic so men in tuxedos whose term has expired it’s been almost a year now could convene and do what they’ve been doing for five years: nothing?

Except our parliament is, for the first time in who knows when, actually discussing something worthwhile in a few hours from now, something that could potentially change the lives of many people around this country who have previously not had a voice in our beloved patriarchal society.

#NoLawNoVote is a campaign I am definitely participating in. It doesn’t matter if you can’t make it to downtown Beirut tomorrow in the early hours of the morning to stand there and shout your heart out at those deaf ears that often choose not to listen. It doesn’t even matter that those parliament members gathering tomorrow have yet to even remotely consider an electoral law for us to vote on. What matters is that the outcome of tomorrow’s session should be a very important factor in determining whatever happens to those MPs whenever it actually happens.

I am currently represented in parliament by Boutros Harb, who is also minister of telecommunications, and Antoine Zahra. And I hereby declare to whoever’s reading that if they do not approve the domestic abuse law, which will be up for a vote tomorrow, that the ballot they’ll get come election day is one that does not contain either of their names.

This is not about politics. It’s not about parties, religion, electoral gambling and other narrow-minded calculations that some might want you to fall for. This is about your mother and sister and aunt and future daughter who might get stuck in this country, unable to escape its prawns. This is to every single Lebanese women who was hit by her spouse. This is to every single Lebanese women who is not here today to tell her story.

Lebanon needs accountability. We’ve had very few opportunities for us to hold those we’ve entrusted to govern our country accountable to anything they’ve caused. We nag about the state they’ve led us to and vote for them all over again. Tomorrow is possibly one of the very few chances we’re getting to show those in charge that we can actually stick to what we believe in and reprimand them for their horrible voting-track record.

Your political party of choice saving face is not as important as your mother’s actual face. #NoLawNoVote is how it should always be.

Check out the event for tomorrow’s protest as well as some pictures from Kafa’s Facebook page:

Is The iPhone Really Getting 4G From Alfa?

A couple of weeks ago, when Apple released its 7.1 update for iOS, it also brought with it an update that enabled Lebanese iPhones to access the country’s newly launched 4G network.

I brought the fact that the iPhone wouldn’t work on the country’s 4G network way back when it launched last year due to Apple’s approval of the network being a requirement. Our carriers then scrambled to work with Apple for that purpose. Now, more than a year later, the iPhone will be launched officially by our carriers here and Lebanon is on the list of countries that can get iOS features that were unavailable to us before, such as iCloud Keychain.

However, there is a discrepancy in the rollout of the service between Lebanon’s two carriers that I believe has to be outlined for transparency’s sake and it is the following.

If you own an iPhone 5S on Touch’s network you’ll notice the following switch to enable or disable LTE.

iPhone 5S LTE Touch MTC Lebanon

If you own an iPhone on Alfa’s network you’ll notice the following button to enable or disable 4G.

Both buttons are not exactly the same because in Apple’s standards, 4G is not exactly LTE. How so? Well, back in 2011 when the iPhone 4S was released, the 4G toggle was enabled for that phone fully knowing that it is not actually a 4G device. The move was criticized by many for being false-advertising. But the iPhone 4S in the United States, on AT&T’s network, clearly showed connectivity to a 4G network which wasn’t an actual 4G network, just a faster version of 3G, which was supported by the iPhone 4S at the time with speeds that can go up to 42Mbps.

Are Lebanese customers also the victim of false advertising?

I doubt a company like Apple would give preferential treatment to a Lebanese network and give it a special “enable 4G” button when that same toggle has been “enable LTE” for every single other carrier around the world, including Lebanon’s other network.

To support the argument is a collection of speedtest results that show a discrepancy between the speed of the service offered by MTC and that of Alfa.

This might as well be considered as unimportant given everything the country is going through. Varying speeds of fast internet are not a priority. But the question still begets itself: why is there such a discrepancy between the country’s two carriers if they are supposedly offering the same service?

All in all, my experience with 4G so far has been subpar but those speeds, regardless of whether they’re actually 4G or not, are desperately needed for DSL. Someone out there take note and make it happen.

A Proud Lebanese

When I get asked how it is to live in a country on the precipice of collapse, I often answer that I wouldn’t know. I guess I have to reconsider as the places I once called home are making me increasingly claustrophobic. I don’t fit. I don’t even know if I belong. And with each passing day, I fit and belong even less.

People in Tripoli couldn’t sleep last night due to the fights taking place there. I thought I was being made fun of as names such as “Allouki” and “Abou l Jamejem” were mentioned in front of me, but those were real people with real power and they were keeping an entire city on edge. Why? Who knows. We share the country with Alloukis and we can’t do anything but sit and watch as they do what they please in defense of their twisted ideology.

What was happening in Tripoli yesterday had been taking place for more than a year now for those keeping track. Schools have been closed, their students stranded. Businesses are closing. People are narrowly escaping sniper fire. This morning, for whatever reason, fights in Beirut broke out too. Let’s not even forget about the fire coming in from the Syrian side, one that we don’t condemn, one that we deem friendly. Where exactly is the line that delineates a country at war actually drawn?

We call ourselves a country of diversity, of 18 different sects that blend together to form a mesh of beauty – or whatever formulation we are spoon-fed. Never mind that it’s religion that’s the basis of the mess we’re in to begin with, but what’s there to be proud of when it comes to having 18 different sects of which we have next to no idea about? We pretend it’s nice to have them. We are born in regions that are so uniform that us getting exposed to those who are different is entirely contingent upon us branching out. Many prefer not to. Diversity isn’t only a headline, it’s a practice. And it’s non-existent.

I’ve seen people who hate others just because they were belong to a certain sect, wishing them death. Those people, as far as I know, were not as numerous and vocal a few years ago. I never thought I’d have to worry that someone would hate me just because they don’t agree with practices I didn’t even choose. How despicable is it for people to wish you death just because you happened to be born in a random area to a random family who sporadically happened to pray either at a church or at a mosque, believes in resurrection and is either waiting for the Mahdi or not?

Governance isn’t better. We’re in a country that took 10 months to form a governmentwhich then almost collapsed because it couldn’t agree on semantics that have no bearing to begin with. People, resistance, army. Who cares?

How could we hope for any form of governance when we can’t even agree on what we want to govern? Walk around Achrafieh and you’ll find graffitis encouraging Christians to wake up and smell the Federalism coffee. Go to the South and you’ll see countless posters of dead people who sacrificed their life for this cause or that. Christians don’t view those causes as worthy. The Southerners view Federalism as an imperialistic attempt to dismantle the country, while the Sunnis scramble to find a leader that would keep them in check and as such, Tripoli has become Rifiville. Behold our identity crisis. Our demarcation lines are apparently political but inherently sectual. Don’t be fooled. So long for our state of apparent fictive unity.

Our MPs care less about legislating than about proving religious points in parliament. That building is where our MPs compete to show God (and their followers) who loves him (and wants popularity) more. Meanwhile, the rest of MPs who aren’t busy yawning their day away are playing Candy Crush, reading a book on their iPad, complaining about fasting, a religious choice that they willingly took, taking pictures inside parliament to share on their instagram account.

We also have presidential elections coming up soon, as people scurry to secure as much support as possible to their theoretical bid. I’ve received text messages to go and vote in online polls for whom I want as my next president. It’s not desperation, per se, that pushes parties to such acts. It’s them flexing their muscles, doing what they’ve been doing for a long time: getting stuck at the superficialities of Lebanese politics, never getting knee-deep in the swarm that desperately needs cleansing.

Our job prospects are not good either. I keep hearing from people how, in a couple of years, I’ll start ripping them off with consults, in typical Lebanese-doctor stereotypes. What those people don’t know, however, is that when I graduate with an MD degree next year, I’ll start with a $700 salary. And while my example is probably skewed and well below the average, I have to wonder: what is the actual average of Lebanese salaries? And how does it compare to the rising prices all across the country that many people can’t even afford anymore? What hope of a decent lifestyle can we aspire to without resorting to our parents whenever the need arises?

Even our liberties are being compromised. This blogpost might get me in jail because who knows who will end up reading into it and getting offended. A publication wonders where a sizable amount of public funds went and they get sued by the minister who’s responsible for the funds. A blogger criticizes a minister’s henchmen and he is summoned by our bureau of cybercrime for investigation. A teenager kisses a statue of the Virgin Mary four years ago and some news service digs out his Facebook profile, diffuses the picture and gets him in jail. A twitter user uses the most vile of languages to address the Lebanese president and the next thing you know, he’s facing a possible jail sentence. Ladies and gentlemen, our country’s entire security and well-being rests upon the transgressions of those people.

I watched “Waltz With Bashir” recently and found it to be utterly fascinating. I also found it depressing, not only because the history it portrayed was sad and that we, as a nation, will not recognize anything of that era anytime soon. It was sad because we, as Lebanese, will never be permitted to tackle such issues in the way that they do. It’s not only a manifestation of artistic license and whatnot. It’s a manifestation of opinion within the legal framework of our country – the line runs very thin around treason. Who would dare?

I’ve been wondering if living in lala land is what we all require at this point. But that’s not the type of life I can lead, nor is it the type of life I think we should lead. It’s not okay to be disassociated from everything taking place and pretend all’s okay when nothing is. It’s not okay to be blindly proud of the homeland just because it’s our homeland. This is the homeland that is, today, pulling you back just because you exist in it. Should I be proud? Should I be thankful? Should I be content? Should I be passive and take it?

I feel powerless and useless and that is not something I’m used to feel. I’m lost for words when friends reach out, exasperated at how things turn out. I’m lost for words when foreigners ask me what’s happening in the place I call home. I’m also not used to being lost for words. I don’t even defend my country the way I used to do when someone would dare confront me about it. What’s there to defend anymore?

I’m tired of the superiority we exhibit towards other countries and nationalities who probably have it better than we do. Where does this whole “I’m better than you” attitude even stem from? What do we even have to show for ourselves? Gebran Khalil Gebran does not count.

Today, I look at around all the familiarity that once comforted me and all I see is desolation that diverges from everything I believe in. I’m one of those people who are trying to remember why they were proud to be Lebanese once upon a time. My friends are leaving. Those who are here are preparing to leave. Those who are not preparing to leave are not people with whom I can establish rapport. We go about our daily lives like zombies whose only purpose is to exist. We live on the ruins of glory days that have long gone, days that have been buried and whose graves have been ransacked time and time again. I try to find reasons to belong and, apart from family, I can find none.

Lately, when someone tells me how proud they are of being Lebanese and how beautiful this country is, I just shrug as my mind goes: get real. This is not a reality to let anyone be proud.