Tag Archives: Egypt

Dear Lebanese, Stop Selling Your Country Short

Lebanon is not a perfect country. It has its obvious and grave flaws. But it exists.

It might be rickety. You might think the foundations are not solid. But the country has pulled through too much: civil war, several occupations, invasions, Israeli wars…
We pride ourselves on being resilient. We describe Beirut by saying it’s a “phoenix”, albeit quite cliche, always rising from the ashes.

But I digress.

What we also do is bash our country left and right, up and down. And every direction in between those anytime something we do not agree with happens.
Let me illustrate this.

The most recent example is the arrest of Zeid Hamdan today, after being accused of libel against the Lebanese president, following a rather useless song.
The moment Zeid was taken into custody, Lebanese twitter and Facebook users were up in protest. The Facebook page dedicated to freeing Zeid gained about 2000 followers in a few hours. All good, right? I mean, the arrest was ridiculous. The law upon which the arrest was based needs to be revised. It’s no longer 1926 when our constitution was “inspired” by the French one at the time. France changed theirs. It’s high time we change ours.
Another side of the Zeid Hamdan arrest was a lot of Lebanese people bashing their country, some calling it a useless place, others calling it a failure of a nation, while some called it a piece of sh*t.

In another example, some people have expressed their desire to change their citizenship and abandon this tragedy of a country. The cause for such feelings? Some beaches in Lebanon only allow couples to be admitted.

Some have called the nation a failure because our phones are not cheap and our internet isn’t fast. The basis for that comparison? A country whose system is a failing monarchy.

Others have expressed that sentiment when they got stuck in traffic. I’m sure those people haven’t heard of the ridiculous traffic that hit L.A. a few days ago, or the traffic that lasted a week in China. But you know, you’re Lebanese. You nag.

Just because our political system is in a perpetually fragile equilibrium doesn’t mean the whole system is a failure. Just because power transfers easily doesn’t mean the country is a failure.

And you know what the most ridiculous thing is, our expectations are so low of anything Lebanon-related that we’re willing to believe any rumor that defames the country as a whole. I’m sure you all remember how NewTV decided to announce that our National Anthem is stolen from some dead quasi-Moroccan kingdom, which named itself “The Kingdom of Peasants.” The news spread like wildfire. Some of the Facebook statuses and tweets at the time: Even our anthem is stolen. We’re such a ridiculous country.
And what do you know, the whole rumor turned out to be false. It turned out that those Moroccan peasants stole our anthem. I wonder, why weren’t the NewTV people arrested for defamatory behavior against the whole country?

This is historically a chronic problem in Lebanon, selling the nation short while idealizing a foreign ideology as it might be the quick fix to our problems. In the 1950’s and 60’s many thought that Nasser’s Arabist ideology would be the great fix for Lebanon. People thought that his brave speeches and anti-West sentiments is what the country needed. Yet I wonder if those people realize that Nasser turned Egypt into a police state, banned political parties and demonstrations, evicted countless minorities, lost at countless wars which bankrupted Egypt, and even used poison gas on people in his war in Yemen. Meanwhile during that time Lebanon was in the midst of a golden age , yet people called for his brand of Arabism thinking it would solve things. And shockingly we have erected a statue to such a bloody dictator right on our own sea front promenade.

We lament our sectarian system and lack of national semblance. Let’s take a closer look at our neighbors that we envy so much. Sudan has recently split into two states. The South finally won its independence after years of bloody civil war, and yes a civil war longer then the Lebanese civil war! Southerners revolted against a forced campaign of Arabism and lack of freedom. In Iraq where Kurds were victims of genocide, they now have their own autonomous zone, and the state acts as a loose federation. Morocco has witnessed a huge rebel movement in its Western Sahara province which now has its own autonomy. Egypt for the last three decades has seen spats of sectarian violence where the Coptic minority still does not have the right to build churches. And one can only begin to imagine how Shiites are treated in the GCC states.

This may come as a shock to many Lebanese but Lebanon is still #1 in the region for media and civil rights. According to pew polls %97 of Lebanese Muslims view Christians favorably while only a dismal %48 of Egyptians do and far ahead of the Arab nations, and for bizarre reasons we say that we aren’t a model of coexistence. Our literacy and education rate is one of the highest in the region and Lebanese universities continue to attract students from across the region. Even Western critics admit that Beirut is the most cosmopolitan city in the region as well as the culinary capital. While many in the Arab world are dying just to ask for presidential term limits, better civil society and free elections, we’ve continued to be on top in those fields for years.

People need to start dwelling on the positives. YOU come from a nation that has produced poets like Khalil Gebran and singers like Fairouz. YOU actually have the freedom to criticize your own state – regardless of what happened today. YOU actually have the freedom to start your own NGO. YOU have the freedom to vote for a political party of your choice. YOU have the freedom to wear what you want. YOU have the freedom to protest for change. YOU have nature reserves. YOU live in the most diverse nation in the region. YOU have banks that weathered the financial meltdown. YOU have cabinet ministers that actually respond. YOU have freedom of press. YOU have the freedom of how you want to identify, i.e. Arab, Phoenician, or whatever.

A few days ago, #BlameTheMuslims was a trending topic on Twitter. People thought it was racist because they missed the point. A Muslim girl started it as a sarcastic approach to how Muslims are portrayed in media. Her initial tweets?
– My battery died. #BlameTheMuslims.
– My shirt got dirty. #BlameTheMulims.
– I’m sleepy. #BlameTheMuslims.
You get the picture.
With some Lebanese, their lifestyle regarding their country is like this.
– My food is cold. #LebanonIsAFailure
– I can’t go to the beach because I don’t have a girlfriend #LebanonIsAFailure
– iPhone is expensive! #LebanonIsAFailure
– It takes me two hours to download a porn video! #LebanonIsAFailure.

So dear Lebanese, when you start selling your country short and whoring your pride around so other people start making fun of you and your heritage, you become a failure. Think about the people that read or hear your words before uttering them. Odds are, if someone non-Lebanese says these things about your country, you’d be all up in a fistfight. So why do you say them?

Look at what others in the Middle East are facing before you start complaining again. Take pride in your nation instead of constantly selling it short, and envying others. If we actually took more pride in our own nation and its unique diversity there would be more national cohesion instead of fragmentation. Let’s appreciate what we do have and work towards a better common future. A lot of what we need for change is right under our own noses. Lebanon is a middle income country, and many of its neighbors are ranked much lower, so stop and think about what they’re going through and what it really means to live in a failed state.

We have a long way to go. And compared to more advanced countries, we fall short in many aspects. But at least be proud of what you have accomplished.

Take this symbolically

PS: Thank you to my awesome friend Boulos for his great input and help in making this post.

Dear Egyptian Woman

Yes, that’s it… sit down on this chair.

Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to hurt you. After all, this is a necessary check-up because this is how low I have decided to sink.

Don’t be nervous. I know it’s not the most normal thing for someone in my position – no pun intended – to do, but after all that happened, this is a must.

Don’t be shy. It’s not like I haven’t seen one before.

Now, here’s what you should do. Spread them. Yes, your legs, spread them. It’s my duty to check if you’re still pure.

Why so? Because I am simply perverted. I don’t want you to accuse me of raping you and somehow in my twisted mind, you not being pure means you were not raped.

Will you be uptight if I try to touch it? Like right there? Does it feel good?

Don’t cry. I don’t want you to cry. This is just a formal procedure.

But damn it, this is seriously turning me on… do you think I could probe in some more?

It won’t be counted as rape, even if you said no. After all, you are not pure – for that is the only measure I can think of.

So what do you say? are you in or out?

Out? Don’t be so rude now. I need this. I need you. I want you. You don’t want me too?

No? Are you serious? Do you really want me to take you on this table like the slut you really are? Yes? You’d like that?

It’s not rape after all.

Sincerely,

Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in Egypt.

Star Academy 8: The Season Of Gossip

I am not watching Star Academy 8 and nor do I want to. I watch the occasional prime on a Friday night but that’s pretty much it. The show is now in its eighth season and has been dragged for far too long. Many of the winners have gone into irrelevance, let alone some of the contestants. The show has become a vehicle for those running it to make too much money out of people “voting” and TV ads that bring in millions.

However, it looks like this latest season of the show has one thing that didn’t happen as much in previous seasons: gossip.

It looks like everyone’s talking about everyone else behind their back. How do I know this? Well, last Friday, I was home with my mom when a woman visited us and started telling us about the Syrian contestant Sarah: great voice apparently and horribly impolite. How so? she literally talks about everyone. Apparently, she hates Lebanese contestants (no idea why), she talks about them behind their backs, whenever she sees an opportunity to spur something up, she goes for it. She loves to make people hate each other while she stays on the side. And no one is safe from her.

And apparently there’s another contestant, the Palestinian Layan, who started rumors about one of the Egyptian guys, Karim Kamel, to be gay. Karim has withdrawn from the show on Friday with rumors that his family is suing the show. Now I don’t care if he’s gay or not, he’s simply horrible and the only reason he survived on the show was his country bringing him back every single time he was nominated for eviction. But don’t you think it’s horrible to start rumors about someone being gay when millions are watching?

Moreover, the show has been seeing such flagrant voting manipulation that it’s absurd. Since when does a Lebanese candidate beat a Saudi in voting? And not just by a small margin but by a considerable few percentage points! The look on the Lebanese girl’s face when she saw the results was priceless even though she ended up losing a few minutes afterwards. How did she end up losing? the students who vote publicly for the student they would like to keep are seated in such a way that those who have not made up their minds would vote to bring forth a tie, ultimately damaging a candidate over the other. The Lebanese contestants were placed first, the girl was given a lead and then crashed out of the show.

So yeah, maybe Star Academy should simply call it quits after this season. I mean seriously, when a singing TV show reverts to gossip and rumors to increase ratings, you know something’s wrong, especially when they have great talents that they need to focus on, including the Syrian girl Sarah. Until then, the Egyptian guy Karim will have those rumors, true or not, chase him till God knows when and viewers who have nothing else to do will still be entertained by a show getting useless by the minute.

The Nakba

Gebran Khalil Gebran wrote in “The Prophet”:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

Imagine this quote being applied to something more concrete than a human soul… imagine this quote being applied to your land.

Your land is not your land. It does not belong to you.

There is nothing harder than having no home – only a transient house, or even a tent, where you sleep the night, worrying what the following day brings.

Some people have been worrying about that issue precisely – where to sleep – for more than sixty years. I am not appealing to any political reason, only humanitarian common sense. There’s a people who has had their land swept away from beneath their feet on the premise that this land does not belong to them, whose homes got ripped to shreds because they were built on a land that was not “theirs” and who are in limbo just because they were the victims of wrong place, wrong time circumstances.

The Palestinian people, and I do not mean its political figures (because those are as rubbish as garbage goes), are a collection of human beings whose lives have been torn apart by years of them being in the middle of a conflict they chose not to be part of.

I shall not go into the history of how they lost their land. After all, the history is well known (Balfour promise, etc…). But the sad thing is how this people is portrayed today: a collection of terrorists voting terrorists to fight those who are good, aka, Israelis.

Sure, the Palestinians have had their share of mistakes. They sought out a country where a country was already built and they have constantly failed to get themselves represented in the best possible way. Arafat? Abbas? Seriously?

But there’s more to the conflict than what ABC, CBS and Fox share with their viewers. There are people who are the victims of massacres against them on daily basis, whose children are used as bullet pillows and whose souls are being hammered with missiles. I firmly believe the holocaust has happened. Whether the number of Jews who died is ten million or one million, it doesn’t mean they were not ruthlessly exterminated at one point. But you’d think going through that ordeal would deter you from wanting to inflict it on another people. Not true, obviously.

I do not advocate equaling the holocaust with what’s happening in Palestine today. But I feel the human life has become of so little value in some areas of the world, it’s sickening.

However, the Arab Nakba (which translates as catastrophe) does not stop with Palestine. Arab countries are infested with dictators who kill their people ruthlessly without caring and who limit freedom, in spite of protests demanding for their basic right to speak.

The Arab Spring, which is also the name analysts have called the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, is slowly turned into another Nakba. Why? Sectarian clashes in Egypt against the Coptic population, just for them wanting to remain Christian in their country. Copts face daily discrimination, having to ask state permission to build churches and must indicate their religious affiliation on their ID cards.  Their schools were nationalized by the government in the 1950’s and over the last several decades they have witnessed terrible massacres. This past weekend witnessed two churches being burned and several dead. And yet, people in the Arab world have turned a blind eye on them and their suffering mean while constantly bemoaning about discrimination against Arabs. Not to mention what has happened to Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq, half of whom have fled for their own safety. And no it was not American troops who drove them out.

Add to that rioting in Tunisia that is knowing no end. The Libyan revolution dying a painful and agonizing death amidst an international silence that knows no limit. A Syrian revolution attempt that is the victim of people simply not caring anymore and a Yemeni revolution that’s the victim of them being so geographically distant that they have become also distant from attention.

It doesn’t help as well that the population in the Gulf suddenly got preoccupied with watching Star Academy and counting their oil millions again.

Yes, the Arab Nakba doesn’t stop with Palestine, although they are the bigger victims in it. It’s the story of a whole region of the world that allows itself to be degraded with time by incompetent rulers, indulgent people and hypocrisy without limit. The next time you protest against Israel ask yourself. Do I believe in equality in my own home? Have I treated one of my own citizens differently based on ethnicity or sect? Are people in my own state suffering because they are religiously or ethnically different? Next time you march or protest ask yourself these questions.

And quoting Gebran Khalil Gebran again,

Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
[…]
Pity the nation divided into into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation.
PS: Thanks to Paul Gadalla for his input in this post.

Some Arabs Need To Get A Grip On Their Egos

I stumbled upon a very interesting article online yesterday, written by Robert Fisk, that discussed mainly how the “Arab Awakening” did not start with Tunisia in December 2010 but with Lebanon in March 2005.

So I shared this article via my twitter page with my friend Ali, whom I knew believed in the idea the article discussed.

Soon enough, I started to receive tweets about how we, as Lebanese, have a false sense of grandeur, how we are “insecure buffoons”, how our pride blinds us, how we claim fake glory, how Lebanon inspires no one, etc…

I wouldn’t naturally reply to such things, but I did reply, only to get even worse tweets about how we, as Lebanese, are basically nothing.

Even some of the comments on some YouTube videos online basically say how ridiculous Lebanon is to run a show like Star Academy while the region is busy running revolutions.

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