Tag Archives: Government

Lebanese Are Forbidden From Accessing Nejmeh Square in Downtown Beirut, But Foreigners Can

Nejmeh Square No lebanese

Picture this.

Downtown Beirut, home of the city’s flashiest and most expensive, the place housing essentially all forms of worthwhile Lebanese governance, which also happens to be the heart of the Lebanese capital, is a Lebanese non-grata region: we are not allowed entry to the area’s most important area, Nejmeh Square.

Even prior to the YouStink protests, the area had been a nuisance to enter: you had to be interrogated by army personnel, get your IDs checked out and sometimes even searched before they let you through the barricades. And people wonder sometimes why some parts of Downtown Beirut are empty.

Soon enough, entering Nejmeh Square was no longer a procedure, but an impossibility. The clocked-square housing our country’s parliament became off limits when the people giving that same parliament every ounce of legitimacy it has, or doesn’t, were forbidden from entering. Why? Because we posed a threat to a building that is, for the better part of any given week, month or year, without any official or parliament member not doing their job in its halls.

And yet, the security concern does not apply to everyone it seems because foreigners, regardless of their nationality, only need to flash their better-than-ours passports to enter and enjoy the sight of heartless emptiness behind the barricades, in the heart of Beirut.

Earlier today, a Facebook post circulated, by a man from Tripoli called Rashed Merhabi who was visiting Downtown Beirut when he decided to try his luck and enter Nejmeh Square.

I spoke to Rashed extensively to get the whole story, and here’s how it went down:

Rashed approached the security personnel manning the barricades on the main entrance to Nejmeh Square and he was denied entry, being told that “a decision had been taken to make the public square non-public.” When Rashed insisted that it was his right as a Lebanese to enter the place especially given that there was no parliament meeting taking place, he was rebuffed once more.

So he carefully made his way to the other side of the square where he was told that entry is only possible at the main entrance, which is basically the place he had just come from. So he returned there where that same security officer told him: “What part of you are not allowed entry don’t you get?”

It was then that same security officer allowed two foreigners entry while a family of four from the UAE were leaving. When Rashed asked for an explanation to what he had just seen, the security officer replied: “Yes, foreigners are allowed entry but you’re not. Now get the hell out of here.”

Rashed then tried to reason with the security officer who decided to use the following glowing argument: “Do I have the right to enter your house whenever I please?” Upon being told that his argument didn’t make sense and that they wanted to go to the Starbucks beyond the barricade, they were told: “Those running this particular Starbucks told us not to allow anyone except the ten Starbucks employees entry.”

Seeing that Rashed and his friend weren’t going away easily, another security officer in civilian clothes joins in and says: “we are Parliament security and we’ve taken over this Square. Only foreigners are allowed, now leave.”

The following day, Rashed tried to call Beirut’s Municipality which told him he had to take up his issue with Parliament which then transferred him to the ISF, which ended up being a dead end.

So yes my fellow Lebanese, not only is our nationality detrimental to our potential in any place around the world, but it’s also a hurdle coming in our way in the middle of the place we are forced to call home. Live love Lebanon indeed.

This saga isn’t exclusive to Nejmeh Square. Almost every single orifice in Downtown Beirut that might lead in one way or another to a governmental building, big or small, is blocked off from every single Lebanese that might wander there.

Remember the Roman Baths we used to take tourists to once upon a time? Blocked. Remember the Wadi Bou Jamil area where Beirut and Lebanon’s only synagogue is present? Blocked.

Every single one of us is a subclass citizens in our own country, at the mercy of politicians who think of us as nothing more than bugs infesting “their” spaces, encroaching on the things they hold dear, as we face their henchmen who marvel in the power they are bestowed by the fact that they wear a uniform.

I wonder what kind of government has the audacity to forbid its own people from accessing their own city. It’s the kind of government that is too terrified for its own existence that it becomes paranoid from the reason it should exist in the first place. And they call themselves as servants of the people.

This Is North Lebanon That Our Governments Don’t Give A Shit About

A couple days ago, MTV Lebanon posted a controversial Christian-arousing report about how Lebanon’s Christian areas do not get funds for public works that its Muslim areas get, especially its Shiite ones. They threw around numbers for Baalbak and Hermel and compared them with the total of Batroun and Bsharre, called it a day and did what MTV does best: be more melodramatic about Christians in Lebanon than the Pope and the Patriarch will ever be combined.

Keep that report in mind (link).

Yesterday, Lebanon’s Ministry of Tourismreleased a beautiful video to promote tourism in the country called “Rise Above Lebanon” filmed using a drone over several Lebanese territories. I sat there through those 5 minutes, marveling at the perfect-angled footage of the place we call home.

And then the video was over before showing almost any footage of the place I call home, the North of the country.

What you got instead was a scene where some kid was playing happily in Nejmeh Square when people are NOT even allowed to Nejmeh Square anymore. A good part of the drone footage was also reserved for Zaitunay Bay. Because why not? #LiveLoveBeirutiCapitalism.

I enjoyed the video. Some of the footage shown is beautiful, diluting away the little big things that drive us mad about this country. Still, I didn’t know if it was my I-love-to-nag gene kicking, so I decided to test out the waters by voicing my thoughts about the North’s omission publicly. Many agreed. I was not being a paranoid northern regionalist holding out a pitchfork fighting for the land beyond the Madfoun.

It was then that I decided to go back and look at the data presented by MTV’s article to try and come to a different conclusion than the sectarian one they reached: what if you took those numbers and just added them up by mohafazat? What picture would it show then about how our government likes to spend our tax money?

These are the numbers grouped by Mohafazat. Amounts are in billion lira:

North:

  • Tripoli: 1.1
  • Bsharre: 0.1.
  • Batroun: 1.6.
  • Zgharta: 2.2.
  • Koura: 1.2.
  • Akkar: 3.3.
  • Menieh + Denniyeh: 2.4.

Total: 11.9. Per caza: 1.7.

South:

  • Sour: 5.
  • Jezzine: 0.35.
  • Saida: 5.

Total: 10.35. Per caza: 3.45.

Nabatiyeh:

  • Marjeaayoun: 4.2.
  • Bent Jbeil: 4.9.
  • Nabatiyeh: 7.1.
  • Hasbaya: 0.2.

Total: 16.4. Per caza: 4.1.

Mt. Lebanon:

  • Jbeil: 2.6
  • Baabda: 2.2.
  • Metn: 3.5.
  • Keserwen: 3.
  • Aley: 3.4.
  • Chouf: 3.7.

Total: 18.4. Per caza: 3.07.

Beqaa:

  • Baalbak: 12.8.
  • West beqaa: 3.4.
  • Rashaya: 1.5.
  • Zahleh: 5.4.
  • Hermel: 3.9.

Total: 27. Per caza: 5.4.

If you merge Nabatiyeh and the South mohafazats together, becoming an area that is more similar to North Lebanon when it comes to surface area and population, North Lebanon becomes the area receiving the least amount of investment from our governments, and it still applies when you adjust the amount per capita or per surface area.

Bsharre, the land that gave us the Cedars and Gebran and is the heart of Christianity in Lebanon for our Christian zealots, got less money in 2015 than what Issam Fares paid for his daughter’s wedding, or what our politicians spend on their lavish vacations in Mykonos or elsewhere.

And, clearly, we can’t make it for more than 20 seconds in a video to promote tourism in the country. I guess our governments think there’s nothing there to offer and there’s no point to put any effort. Is that way they wanted to turn Akkar into Beirut and Mount Lebanon’s garbage dump?

People in other areas nag about their infrastructure being subpar. Some areas in the North don’t have infrastructure to begin with. Some areas in Akkar don’t have road access yet and have only received electricity from our government recently. Do you know how they were going to sell Akkar’s garbage dump to the Akkaris? By giving them a highway.

Poverty rates in Tripoli and Akkar are among the country’s highest at around 50%. That’s basically half of the population in two of the country’s most populous areas living in conditions that everyone else in the country cannot even remotely begin to imagine. It’s not like extremism and poverty are linked in any way. It’s not like poverty can be tackled by investing in those people’s future. I guess they don’t deserve a second glance either.

This reality extends to the rest of the North. It seems the poorest Mohafaza in the country doesn’t need the attention. People in North Lebanon are embarking to Europe on boats, similarly to the Syrian refugees, to escape their horrid reality back home. Ponder on that thought for a moment.

There’s not much I can do to get our governments to care about our country’s areas that need it the most. It feels like beating a dead horse every time the topic is brought up. But know that every time you perpetuate the media they diffuse that ignores those areas, you’re also helping in maintaining the status quo, even if in a simple tourism video.

But I can show you what you’re missing on.

 

Lebanon’s Government Is Destroying A Phoenician Beach In Adloun To Build A Port

  
About 15 minutes south of Saida is a small coastal Lebanese town in the South called Adloun. Most of us hadn’t heard of it before, but it’s actually one of the longest inhabited areas in our country with evidence pointing to human activity there around 70,000BC; it’s a little town filled with prehistoric caves and Phoenician ruins.

And those are not even what make it special.

Being a coastal town, Adloun has one of the few remaining beaches in the area that have not been privatized yet, and is now being actively destroyed by Lebanon’s government.

According to this study, the governmental project will affect the following areas of the beach:

  • The location of the prehistoric caves,
  • The location of an ancient Phoenician port,
  • The location of ancient Phoenician ruins and ornaments.

And, because that is not enough, our government will also do a little of land reclamation, effectively killing off one of the last remaining habitats for sea turtles in Lebanon, as well as affecting the ecology of the entire area with its diverse plants.

What is this governmental project that our government has been hell-bent for years to do, and are currently doing as you can see by the following pictures?

They are building a port that is bigger than that of Saida and Sour, in a town that houses far less people, none of whom are fishermen who operate boats in the first place.

So what will the purpose of that port be? It’s going to be turned into a “touristic” yacht docking site for those who can afford yachts in the first place and who want to come to the area for visits. The town’s mayor says that is not the case. What is true, however, is that the port is officially named after “Nabih Berri.” Maybe our speaker of parliament wants a place closer to home to dock his boat?

As it is with Lebanon, the project is also riddled with corruption. The bidding process for the project was canceled once because the initial prices were deemed unacceptable before finally hiring Khoury Contracting at a fee around 1.66 million dollars higher than the one they offered in the initial bidding. I guess the ministry in question felt generous?

On January 15th, 2016, Khoury Contracting sent its bulldozers to the beach and started work without prior notification. They’re currently establishing access to the beach by digging up a road for more bulldozers to come and finish what’s already started.

Who Cares About Sea Turtles And Phoenician Stuff Anyway?

Good job Lebanon’s government. Those sea turtles can always find another country to go and become unwanted pests in. Those plants? Who needs them. It’s not like ecology or the environment matter anyway. Phoenicia? Do we really want some Lebanese to further cling to that unwanted part of our history?

Keeping a free beach for the people of the area to visit? Who’d want that as well, bring in the money!

Let them destroy the beach. Let them destroy everything as they’ve done to the country for years now. They’ve actively destroyed countless similar sites before, why not this one too? It’s not like anything is relevant when you have the prospects of a port named after a politician!

Let them destroy the beach. It’s better for that beach and for that heritage not to see how abysmal the country our ancestors called home has become à la famous saying: عين لا ترى، قلب لا يوجع.

For a government that has shown repeatedly how apt it is at failing, it should come as no wonder that they’d not only do such a thing but also make sure that it passes by unnoticed. 

For a government and people that went up in a fit about the destruction of heritage at the hands of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, how is this any difference? Or does our own history not matter enough because it’s not called Palmyra?

There has been no back to back coverage for Adloun’s heritage. Is it not juicy enough for Lebanon’s media because it cannot be spun into attractive بالصور and بالفيديو headlines?

Among the many travesties taking place in the country today, this is a massacre of heritage and environment. The sad part is? It’s too late to do anything now.

Say bye to the turtles; say bye to that ancient site. They were present in a country that didn’t deserve them anyway. 

 

Everything You Need To Know About The “New” Lebanese Passport Rules

  
4 days prior to a deadline that was suddenly imposed on every single Lebanese, it turns out that the passports we paid hundreds of thousands of Lebanese liras to renew recently are turning obsolete.

The Why:

Our passports are ancient. They lack biometric data that have become standard all around the world. Moreover, renewal with handwritten notes is also against international regulations.

Over the past year, Lebanon’s General Security stopped renewing passports and started issuing new ones instead. Of course, unless you knew someone doing a passport within the last year, there would have been no way for you to know of such regulation.

The How:

Starting January 10th, no Lebanese will be allowed to travel out of the country using a passport with handwritten renewal dates. That is to say if you paid 60,000 last year for renewal or 300,000 for a 5 year extension, you are out of luck: you will be stopped at the airport, your passport confiscated and you will be sent back home to get a new passport.

If you’re abroad and coming to Lebanon, your passport will be confiscated the moment you arrive at the airport and then your Lebanese stay will become a bureaucratic mess of you trying to get a new passport in time.

The Details:

If you’re Lebanese in Lebanon, just go and apply for a new passport. The money you paid for a renewal will be lost, as would happen when you try to renew and the officer at the General Security thinks your picture is too young or too different.

If you’re a Lebanese coming from abroad, get your family here to ready passport papers for you at the nearest Mokhtar in order to have an easy path. You will need new passport sized pictures and a recent ID card.

If your ID card is not new (it still has your childhood picture), you will need an Ekhraj Eid in order to get the passport procedure rolling. Yay!

If you are one of those lucky people with long duration visas, your old passport will be attached to your current one meaning the visas will remain functional. 

It Will Get Worse:

The passport you’ll be getting is the same as the one you currently have, except it doesn’t have handwritten notes. In a few years, when they start using passports with biometric chips and data, they’ll force you to give up your old passport and pay another fee for a new one, a fee that promises to be higher than the exorbitant one we already pay. 

Why This Is Unacceptable:

It’s not my fault as a Lebanese citizen that my government is so inadequate that they couldn’t even properly inform its citizens of such regulations until 4 days prior to the deadline.

They said that they issued statements before. But those statements have not been picked up by media outlets and as such we had no way to know and were also issued on Christmas. Maybe we should have asked for new passports for Christmas instead?

You’d think an institution that makes sure to bombard you with their birthday propaganda or with any form of self-indulgent material would actually bother informing you about such an important event. But no, as it stands: the average Lebanese citizen is getting the short end of the stick, as usual.

Why do I have to pay again for a passport that I already paid for when it’s not even my fault that my passport is useless to begin with?

Till when do we, as Lebanese people, have to constantly be screwed by our government just because they have no idea what they’re doing?

Mabrouk people. In case you have travel plans, start panicking about actually being allowed to leave the country because your perfectly decent passports will become obsolete in 4 days. 

Beirut’s Newest Tourist Attraction: A Wall of Shame To “Protect” Our Politicians

Picture via @SalmanOnline.

Picture via @SalmanOnline.

When you think Lebanon’s politicians couldn’t sink lower, they utterly and irrevocably surprise you.

Two days ago, when we peacefully protested to defend our right to have a country where their corruption doesn’t reign supreme, our politicians surprised us by orchestrating a military response that not only echoed that of Arab countries where suppression is a way of life, but paralleled it to the letter.

We were beaten. We were hosed. We were shot at. We were tear gassed.

Yesterday, our politicians sank to a newer low when they orchestrated another type of response to the YouStink protests as they sent their goons to infiltrate the ranks of peaceful protesters and make sure they wreck havoc.

The protestors had nothing on them; the insurgents had lasers, molotov cocktails and various other weapons. The protestors were chanting for their rights; the insurgents were chanting for their sect. The protest turned from shouting “revolution” to shouting their sect name in no time.

I don’t have proof of which politician ordered the infiltration, but his name is known. He’s been fastened to the same leather chair, stronger than super glue, since 1992.

Today, our politicians are so afraid of what could be from the Beirut Uprising that they’ve gone the extra-mile to make sure the psychological and military barrier that separated them from the people is re-inforced by yet another kind.

Today, in Downtown Beirut, across Riyad el Solh square, a concrete wall has been erected to separate our governmental seat from the people.

They had absolutely no idea what they were doing that they built it around a utility pole:

Lebanon Government Wall Downtown Beirut

Picture via @Mich_h.

As soon as it was built however, the youth of the country used the wall as a space to get our government to see what it’s worth every single time its members pass by the area to infuse the country with more corruption.

To bring the message of the wall home, each tile is now decorated by a figure representing every political party in the country:

This wall is a sad entity but it’s been turned to something beautiful.

Lebanon has now joined the very exclusive list of countries in the world where people are separated from each other by physical barriers existing solely for political reason, only this time the only entity separating itself from the people is the country’s political establishment.

The Lebanese system keeps digging itself in a hole. The more a system is disconnected from the people that make it, the more it’s afraid from those same people. This is why that same system fired at us on Saturday. This is why that same system tried to tarnish the protests yesterday. This is why that same system is barricading itself behind a wall today.

The Serail is not for a PM or a minister, it’s for the people. Nejmeh Square does not belong to the Speaker of Parliament or his MPs, but to the people. They can build as many walls as they want, but that doesn’t make our claims of wanting to live in dignity any less just, and their need to stay in power any less barbaric.

The Lebanese government is protecting itself from us by a wall. What they fail to realize is that their main problem isn’t the physicality of a protest. Their stench rises above the wall. Their failures rise above the wall. Their corruption is sinking an entire country, including their new wall.

Today, Downtown Beirut has a new attraction to add to the list of things that make it an obscene place to visit, a place that is not only non-Lebanese, but irrevocably hostile as well. Thank you Lebanon’s government for making sure I feel, with each passing day, more of a stranger in my own home.

If only they know, though, that any wall that goes up must eventually go down, not necessarily by force. There are some words that have the effect of wrecking balls.

Update: the wall is being brought down. This will go down in history as the shortest living separation wall ever.