Tag Archives: Lebanon

Dear Fu*ked Up Arab Countries

This is going to be short and straight to the point.

Some Arab countries, notably those who happen to float on oil, have decided to throw expulsion threats at the Lebanese living there if anything happens to their nationals in Lebanon.

It started with Qatar and now Kuwait seems to be following suit. Some Khalijis were even using a hashtag on Twitter recently to get the Lebanese out of their island. They make us feel so loved. “Let the Lebanese out of our countries – they abuse our riches and don’t give anything back in return” was some of what was said.

As if they can manage to run a country to begin with. But that’s another issue altogether.

These countries seem to forget that when their lovely nationals were busy terrorizing it up over at Nahr el Bared, killing our people and army, we didn’t throw threats at them. Sure, you could say we don’t have that leverage. But I’m fairly certain that even if the Lebanese state had the means to buy a national football team, build climatized football stadium and have an income average of more than $100,000, we wouldn’t be as narrow minded, stupid and downright xenophobic as to throw such threats around.

A French national was also kidnapped recently in Lebanon. You don’t see the French state crying like a 5 year old girl over it. On the contrary, they keep their calm together and work towards a diplomatic solution. Simply put, they don’t turn into a PMSing mess.

Why’s that? Because they know that one person doesn’t sum up the whole nation. I’m not sure you’re familiar with that concept though. I’m not also sure you’re familiar with the economic repercussions of the threats you’re throwing around. You think the Lebanese people will suffer for getting expelled out of your country? Perhaps for a short while. But they will manage to find jobs elsewhere – they always do. On the other hand, when your companies become short on workers, will your overly-indulgent nationals accept to work extra hours?

I hardly think so.

Will this be read and reach its respective audience? Obviously not. But sometimes, one has to vent and let it out against those silly countries that some Lebanese want us to love. A place that doesn’t welcome me when the going gets tough is not a place I’d want to be – not one bit.

Conclusion of the recent days: Those Arab countries can only flex their muscles against the countries that they deem lesser than them. When it comes to biceps flexing for the “greater” causes, you see them cower away like the irrelevance that they truly are. I salute you for your riches.

PS: Oil doesn’t last forever.

Lebanon’s Twisted Perception of Beauty

When a journalist wrote an article in the Huffington Post about Lebanon’s babes and botox in its capital, many Lebanese stood against the article in uproar.

This is not us. These are not our women. This is not our city.

Do they have a point? Sure they do. After all, not all our women boast plastic faces as they strut their heels and behinds on the tables of Beirut’s rooftops. But what people seem to fail to realize is that the side of Lebanon portrayed by the Huffington Post is the one we want to get across to the world.

Check out this video from 2011. I have written about it before (check it here).

I disagree with the content of the video. I dislike the categorization of Lebanese joie de vivre as something only related to partying the night away. But when the only face even your ministry of tourism is giving of your country is that of rooftops, nightclubs and night life, what could you expect from a journalist who’s coming to your country to see the supposed highlights your country has to offer?

When you tell someone to come visit specific places in a country and they judge a country based on the places you recommended, you can’t but blame yourself for that.

Even I am guilty of that. Whenever a French person decides to inform me he thinks my country is full of Islamists where women are forced to wear the veil in order to go out of their homes, I go on and on about our nightlife, among other things. And I’m not even a fan of nightlife to begin with.

What David Constable has noticed is a phenomenon that runs deeper than should be acceptable in Lebanese society. Have you ever seen a woman your grandmother’s age with her face so plasticized that she looks downright disgusting? I have seen way too many of those, the last one of them as I boarded my flight to France. Have you seen girls your age who decide the moment they finish high school to start injecting their lips and cheeks? Well, I know some girls like that.

And the list goes on.

No, I’m not saying everyone does it. I’m not saying all our women are plastic. I’m not saying all our women can be summed up with boobs and botox. What I’m saying is that we have a lot of them and what is “odd” is usually the thing that sticks out the most. Simplest example? We don’t notice the calm days we get throughout the year but when all hell breaks loose for a few days or weeks, we judge the entire year accordingly. And we get judged as an “unsafe” country by everyone else according to those days as well.

It’s the same premise when it comes to boobs, babes, botox and Beirut.

A friend of mine, whom I met abroad, has a Lebanese mother and a non-Lebanese father. She has a typical European face: blond, a little nose and green eyes. When she visited her mother’s homeland a while back, she got interrogated by random people on the streets who wanted to know the surgeon who fixed her nose – because no one can have a nose like that – and the place where she got her contact lenses – because no one can have eyes that green.

We have many people who want those little inconspicuous noses that don’t require them to choose a specific side every time them want to change their Facebook profile picture. We have many people who want bigger breasts and asses. We have many people who want to have chest implants to go off all macho. We have many people who want to change their faces, look younger and have bigger lips in the process.

Are those “many” people the entirety of the Lebanese population? No. Are those “many” also present in other societies? Perhaps. But if you look closely, you will find many even among your close friends who have at least had something done – the fact that we can get loans as well to do so isn’t helping. On the other hand, in a one month stay in Europe, I have failed to see as many botoxed babes here or women who dress up for a wedding every day before going to work.

Many in our societies in Lebanon like to show off. Be it through their phones, cars, clothes or even through plastic surgery. And those are the people we like to show the world because they are the ones who help us change the stereotypes others have of us. But with the baggage of the bling-bling crowds comes something else entirely, which is another stereotype: we are a country of fake people.

Are we fake? Absolutely not. Beirut has much more to offer than just that. Lebanon has way more to offer than rooftops and night clubs. But that idea won’t change anytime soon. Especially when the only thing we want people to see in Lebanon when they come here is Gemmayze, Skybar, Downtown and Zaitunay Bay. Demand of  our ministry of tourism to change tactics and to change the way it promotes the country  and then we get to be in uproar over an article turning our entire society plastic.

Lebanon’s Colored Shades of Racism

Wel lebneneh? El lebneneh 3onsore. El lebnene 7mar. El lebnene sheyef 7alo.

Those were some of the answers some Lebanese decided to come up with to the question asked by the Cheyef 7alak video above.

People are failing to realize that the video is not of real students in a real classroom situation and is an exaggerated representation of Lebanese society.

Therefore, the entire country is judged accordingly.

Is Lebanon a racist country? Sure, we have racism. But is everyone a racist? No. The correct designation for Lebanon would be: a country which has many racists. And this description applies to every single country on this planet – all 200 of them, with slight variations in the description.

I’m currently in France for a neurology clerkship at one of their country’s and europe’s leading facilities in the field. I see patients on daily basis who are losing their mind, therefore many of their social inhibitions, and who say whatever they feel like saying. I’ve also met enough French people to last me a lifetime and I’ve discussed with those French people politics on more than one occasion. And one thing has come very clear to me.

They are racist too.

“Est-ce que tu as voté, madame?” was something a physician asked a woman who thinks she’s still in then 1900s when Mitterand was running for elections. She shook her head. The physician asked her why. She replied: “Les memes personnes gagnent toujours… les Arabes, les Noirs, les Chinois….”

The physicians and interns, some of whom were Arab, took it with humor as they do everything in this country apparently.

But I knew better.

One of the many discussions French people seem comfortable to have with me as a Lebanese Christian is about Islam. And if you heard the things I heard, you’d be offended as I was – yes, even as a Lebanese Christian. Note that the discussion happened with Holland-voting people who should be more “tolerant” to the “others” in their country than right-wing voters.

So France is a racist country. Typical flawless Lebanese logic. Right?

No. Why? Because even in France, you will find people who do not think that way and who are open to other people around them. Just as it is in Lebanon. I would even argue that there are as many people who are worried about Islam in France as there are people in Lebanon who don’t like black people.

Racism is not a Lebanese problem and we might as well stop making it seem that way. Racism is a problem that derives from the basic human fear of difference – we are automatically inclined to like those that are different from us less. Those differences might be the color of their skin, their religion, their political views, etc….

The French, however, would say we are the retarded society because we can’t accept those who are different from us skin-wise. They fail to see that they are not accepting those who are different from them religiously. Even the French atheists have no problem with the Christians but have problems with taking in the French Muslim population.

And by the looks of it, it’s the same across Europe. It’s the same in the United States as well where you being from the Middle East comes with a baggage of stereotypes. The only difference between all those other “better” countries and us is that they don’t see it as a bad thing to have in their society. On the contrary, it is a constant matter for political debate that benefits different parties in their quest for political power.

In Lebanon, on the other hand, we absolutely love to bring down the Lebanese. Houwe sha3b bhim, sha3b 7mar, sha3b bajam…. And the list goes on. Sure, there are many things that we need to work on as a society, including racism and looking down on people from different nationalities. But we need to know that not everyone thinks this way and the majority might not be this ignorant. And if there’s anything that I’ve come to realize with me being away is that the good in us is absolutely great.

And if there’s anything that still makes me proud about my country it’s all the good that we, as people, have achieved again and again.

Our political problems? Sure they bring you down. They make you lose hope. They make you lose pride. They make you want to leave. They make you want to give up. Sometimes you try to change your community and sometimes your community breaks you down. Sometimes you stick around. And sometimes you just leave.

And it is when you leave that you see exactly how great the Lebanese really is – when they are in a country where they have to live by law and regulations and where their ambition isn’t limited by wasta. You randomly encounter a middle aged man who hears you talking Lebanese and see his eyes light with pride only to find out you should be proud of him being the head of neurosurgery at the hospital you’re working at.

You see other Lebanese who have managed to become interns at one of France’s most competitive medical programs. You find other Lebanese who have fought adversity and tough conditions to get into a Masters program in France.

You find other Lebanese who are heads of banks and enterprises. And you also realize that when the French talk of you as a Lebanese they don’t put you in with those “others” that they dislike. Why? because you as a Lebanese are their boss in more than one field.

Does it make me proud that the French don’t think that low of me? Honestly, I don’t care. Does it make me proud that my people are excelling in their country? Yes. Does it make me proud that my friends can actually apply to scholarships and not worry about getting rejected just because they don’t know someone? Yes. Does it make me proud to see my people reaching places despite their hopeless, country-less country? Yes.

Does it make me proud to see the achievements of my countrymen in spite of all those other countries that have turned their land into their playground? Yes.

El Lebnehe sheyef 7alo. Beddkon l sara7a? Bi7e2ello. 

Alfa Introduces New Plans: “Midline” – With a Hilarious Ad!

After a rather successful introduction of U-chat to the Lebanese market, Alfa has come up with two new bundles for its customers, this time for postpaid users. And they have called the new lines “Midline.”

The two bundles consist of the following:

Midline $60:

Midline $35:

 

If you’re a postpaid (sebet) user and you want to switch to midline, you call 111 and you’ll be done. If you’re not a postpaid user, you have to go down to an alfa office where you have to sign a contract and pay $50 as a connection fee.

Honestly, I have no idea how useful these plans would be with such dismal SMS quantities. 25 or 55 SMS for a whole month without a data plan? Really?

So before subscribing to them, make sure you mentally add at least $20 for the 500MB internet bundle, which makes the whole “midline” business very topline.

Either way, similarly to their funny U-chat ad, Alfa have an ad for Midline as well. And it is hilarious as well. Check it out:

Welcome to the Republic of Anarchy

Welcome to Lebanon.

Those were the words I thought I would be very keen to hear halfway through my stay in France. I’m almost two weeks in. And the last thing I want to do is go back.

As I sat in my French apartment, looking over a car stopping at a red light at 4 am in the morning, I started to wonder… what am I going back to in a couple of weeks?

And after the political unraveling of the last few days, that question’s broken disk kept spinning. I am not a Lebanese who has been so overly seduced by life in those “better” Western countries that the thought of life in Lebanon has become intolerable. I am perfectly able to live there as I’ve done for the entirety of my 22 years so far. In fact, the only thing I’ve done these past two weeks in France – apart from hospital duties – is to tell everyone about all the good that my country has to offer, slowly working on changing their stereotypes.

The ironic part is that just yesterday at noon some French person asked me about the situation in my country and I answered: there’s nothing really happening except in few select areas that you wouldn’t really go to.

How gullible of me? Yes, I know.

Once you’ve tasted the forbidden fruit of everything that those “better” countries have to offer and once you’ve dipped your toes into the waters of safety that are spread around all their land, you can’t but wonder: how are we living exactly?

Where am I going back in a few weeks?

To a place where we enjoy a security kept together by fragile forces enjoying an exquisite 69. To a place where “pilgrims” getting kidnapped is solved by some family’s army wing kidnapping people in retaliation. To a place where families have army wings. To a place where some families are called clans. To a place where these clans stick together. To a place where these clans threaten to make things worse.

Go back where you ask?

To a place where these clans decide to take things into their hands. To a place where clans actually have the option to take things into their own hands. To a place where you – irrelevant, clan-less, arms-less – are close to a bug, ready to be squashed. All for the greater good.

Go back to what?

To a place where any irrelevant person finding any irrelevant TV station can get the whole country to boil. To a place where people believe they have principles but are so brainwashed that they think they reached their opinions freely. To a place where saying your opinion can get you threats. To a place where freedom of speech is slowly becoming a myth. To a place where some people would much rather have you silenced than to defend your right to say your opinion. To a place where you would much rather stay silent because talking has become expensive.

Go back where?

To a place where we accept doing a war for a few prisoners in some country and eleven in an another but talking about those other prisoners who have been as such for decades is considered treason. To a place where some people’s only fault is not to be born into this family or that because that’s the way to get things done. To a place where each house has an arsenal of arms tucked away with winter’s carpets, ready to be unloaded at any second. To a place where the range of self-control is as expanded as the emotional range of a spoon.

Go back where?

To a place where the way people look at you is determined by your nationality, by the color of your skin or the religious symbol you wear around your neck. It might be the same in other countries, true, but I’m certain there are no other countries where workers of certain nationalities are threatened not to roam certain towns after a specific hour.

Go back where again?

To a place where some people have minds so messed up that they think messing up the whole country serves their best interests only when, in fact, the only interests being served are those of countries that we love to hate. And they do so willingly, lovingly, exquisitely and proudly.

Go back where?

To a place where we pride ourselves of being triumphant in non-sensical wars when, in fact, we are losing the more important battles of science, research, advancement, economy. To a place where we pride ourselves on the importance of resiliency – only when it comes to certain very specific things. Everything else? Well, the hell with that.

Go back where?

To a checkpoint that gives you digital rectal exams if you don’t have all the papers you’ve ever been given in the country, a checkpoint that turns you into a national threat while others kidnap citizens of other nationalities left and right and are left to go on with their business as if they are doing absolutely nothing wrong.

Go back where?

To a place whose airport road is closed 300 days out of 365 by those same irrelevant people who think they are so relevant. To a place where burning tires has become a meme we laugh at. To a place where the concept of a peaceful demonstration does not exist.

Go back where?

To a place where my MacBook charger gives me headache because the electricity we get sporadically is not only non-existent most of the times but of such a low quality that our electronics suffer in return. To a place where a smoker is always right. To a place where a woman is wrong most of the times. To a place where a woman driving a bus is deemed “mestarjle.”

Go back where?

To a place where you are ripped off for the bare necessities every single day. And you can’t do anything about it. To a place where you have to beg for any little thing you want to get. To a place where phone companies are screwing you daily. To a place where consuming tap water gives you diarrhea. To a place where breathing gives you pneumonia. To a place where walking on sidewalks means maneuvering your way around cars, dog feces and drunkards. To a place where a public transportation system is non-existent and where going from point A to point B, despite them being within the same city, gets you to panic.

Go back where?

Somewhere whose capital is a concrete jungle, becoming uglier with each building getting torn down and a high-rise replacing it. Whose capital has very few select spots that we love to show to tourists because that’s really the only thing we’ve got to show. Whose capital is clinically dead in every possible way – except partying the night away in a pride element of “joie de vivre.” Whose capital dances so wildly on the tip of a yo-yo that you can’t really tell which road you have to take in the morning to get to work safely.

Go back where?

To a place whose regions are so close together and yet so segregated that telling people where you’re from comes with a baggage of stereotypes that you have to tolerate your whole life. To a place where those regions are always – always – unicolor.

Go back where?

To some place where shit hits the fan so frequently that you end up having no idea what kind of place you’d be going back to. And it’d be raining shit all the time. To a place where all the components for the situation to get messed up are in place. All the time. And somehow we always end up utterly shocked when it happens. It’s what was getting brewed when we were partying the night away at Skybar last night. Cheers by the way.

Go back where?

To a place whose “activists” are neo-socialists who want to advance their own agenda under an umbrella of independence. Where the only slogan those activists raise is beautiful rhetoric of a better tomorrow. Someone has watched that “Annie” movie often. Where those activists have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. But don’t tell them I told you that.

Go back to what?

To a place whose expats berate you for writing something similar to what you’re reading right now – because somehow that place is an awesome place, much better than the places they decided to immigrate to. And yet they are there – not here. Whose expats are so blinded by homesickness that they can’t really see how sick their home really is.

Go back where?

To some place whose national pride comes in the form of the following: Cedars, mountain close to the sea, skiing and swimming in the spring, Christians having an “active” presence, Jeita Grotto, whatever green we have left, Skybar, White, Gemmayzé, Byblos, the politician you think is next to God, the history you are not even familiar with, the fact that this place is so much better than those places around it, the resiliency, the “joie de vivre.”

And the list is limited to that.

At this point though, I don’t care about the few Cedar trees that we have left. I don’t care that the white in our flag is that of the snowy mountains we adore so much. I don’t care about a cave you have to pay a shitload to get access to. I don’t care that the president of the country always has to be Christian – something you somehow find yourself always saying to ignorant foreigners who think your country is a haven for Islamists. I don’t give a shit about Lebanese joie de vivre: let’s dance the night away tonight and not care about what’ll happen tomorrow. I don’t care about comparing Lebanon to lesser neighboring countries just because it makes us feel better about ourselves.

What I do care about is having a decent country to return to. A place I can be proud to call my land, my home. Where my rights as a human being, first and foremost, are respected beyond any other measure. Where I don’t feel a stranger in a land that is supposedly mine. Where I know that the safety I feel today will still be there tomorrow. Where a girl walking down the street in Gemmayzé knows that if she saw someone being involved in lude acts, that someone will end up in prison. Where I don’t have to be eternally grateful for any asshole for doing their job. Where I don’t have to kiss up to assholes for them to do their job.

What will this lead to? Absolutely nothing. It’s the way things are. And it’s the way things will remain. Thousands will read this. Some will love it. Some will have a sense of national pride miraculously kick in and decide than I’m not worth it. Others will get stuck at the fact that I alluded to that country that shall not be named and decide that I’m an ignorant traitor of a history they apparently know very well.

Others will say I should stop criticizing and come up with a solution. But what’s the point, really? It’s not like any solution you can come up with can get illiterate growers of hashish to decide they want to integrate in a country where you don’t even have anything to integrate in. A solution to what? Bring forth national unity?

Go back where again?

To a place that has literally (check this) remained the same for the past 142 years when it comes to the basic fabrics of its society. To a place where Sunnis hate the Shiites who hate the Druze who hate the Maronites who hate the Orthodox who hate the Catholics who hate the Jews who hate the Shiites who also hate the Sunnis who in turn hate the Maronites and what you’re left with is a clusterfuck of sects hating each other. And you can’t begin to dream to change that because if there’s anything that our meaningless history has taught us it’s that diversity is beyond overrated.

There was a week back in July where I lost hope in Lebanon (check here) ever becoming a country I would love to be in at least in the foreseeable future. But I retained my pride to be Lebanese. There’s a love/hate relationship with this land that you can’t escape from.
But today, as I’m typing these words on a subway taking me to the hospital where I’m gladly working 10 hours a day, I’m even considering if this national pride is enough anymore. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn’t. But when it’s gone, the only thing I’ll be left with is me caring.

Some French people here, as well as people from other nationalities, commend me for being overly patriotic. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s a good thing. I’m beginning to wonder if my pride that should be non-existent in a country that can’t begin to dream to function is stopping to me as an individual from moving on and becoming something.

If there’s anything I noticed from my stay in Europe is that no matter what you do and how well you integrate, you will always be looked at as the intruder to their culture. You will always be looked at as the outsider, the person who was not there when it all began and the person who will always be looked down upon.

Then you look at your “culture” back home and, despite having people who share your thoughts and dreams and aspirations, you are faced with the realization that you are a minority. You are not where your country is heading. The culture currently sinking its teeth into the land you hold dear is not that of liberties and freedom but that of fear and hate and disgust and lack of law.

Welcome to Lebanon. I thought I would be dying to see that sign two weeks into my stay in France. Two weeks in, the only sign I can see looming above my country’s airport is: welcome to the republic of anarchy.

And do I really want to go back there?