Tag Archives: Lebanon

Lebanese Cause Du Jour: Rotten Meat

It happens every now and then that a case of mass hysteria spreads around Lebanon following an event that makes headlines. It happened in January when the Achrafieh building collapsed. The cause du jour at the time was our infrastructure. Does anyone remember the Achrafieh building and its victims today? No. Is anyone still concerned with the upheaval of our rent law? No. Is anyone still worried about the state of their building in Beirut? No.

It’s not really a “Lebanese” thing as it is a human thing. We have a short attention span to events and get carried away with hype. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But when it comes to the rotten food situation in Lebanon, I have to ask: why the melodrama?

We are all entitled to worry about our health. If we didn’t, who would? But when it comes to the food incident, we are not the first country where such a thing happened and we won’t be the last. Besides, this wasn’t the first time that rotten food was found in Lebanon and it won’t be the last. Or doesn’t anyone remember when your mother panicked for a day or two about the chicken nuggets she was buying following a Kalem El Nes episode which was repeated a while later for extra emphasis?

The melodrama cannot but be heightened by the way our media handles such incidences. To many people, it seemed that all restaurants were in on it – buying cheap rotten meat and putting it in their burgers. TV shows discussing the incidence not only showed one side of the story: the rotten side, but they completely disregarded the fact that most Lebanese restaurants have high standards when it comes to handling their meat. I am not a journalist but shouldn’t someone who has studied journalism expose both sides of a story and not seek out a story just because of the ratings entailed? It happened before with Tony Khalife and his Lel Nashr show. Simply put: you know you’re overreacting when you go to a place like Roadster’s and are worried about the meat they have.

To put things into perspective, our consumption of meat yearly is about 400,000 tons. The rotten meat confiscated by the authorities was 185 tons. That’s less than half a percent. Maybe the problem is more widespread than just those 185 tons. But it remains that most of the meat we eat is not rotten. Most of the restaurants we go to are not filthy.

Perhaps the more interesting question to ask in the case of this rotten meat debacle is how this meat got detoured from Israel to Lebanon and who’s truly responsible, instead of putting all the blame on restaurants whose only fault was not to open a butcher shop in their premises to procure their meat.

Happy Palm Sunday

My very first Palm Sunday. Had a death in the family so my parents couldn't take me.

I remember when I was a little boy and my parents used to take me, along with my brothers, to go buy new clothes for Palm Sunday. I used to hate it. My parents used to love it. Any opportunity to have their kids compare to others, right?

My dad loved to dress my brothers and I in some funky stuff. I remember them taking us to church wearing unmatched socks once – one red and the other yellow along with sticky things that they glued on our ears. Needless to say, many people in my hometown were not particularly happy. But my dad has always been the “eccentric” one. You should hear the stories I’m told about him in his younger days.

And don’t get me started on the candle. Every single year, we buy a new candle to carry and every single year it turns out to be the most useless thing. You try to lit it, the wind blows it off immediately. You try to walk with it but it’s heavy. And more often than not, twenty minutes into the proceedings, it breaks in half.

But you know what, as my 22 year old self types this and misses out on the proceedings, I cannot help but feel notsalgic to the times when I really was excited about Palm Sunday rolling around. I’ve recently noticed as well that most of our photographed memories are taken on Palm Sunday. As you go through albums, you can see as your whole generation grew up year after year. Until you all stopped going bit by bit and a newer generation took over.

Easter in Lebanon is apparently among the best in the world. Palm Sunday is just the beginning.

Here’s to us becoming parents in the future and spoiling our kids on Palm Sunday. Have a blessed day everyone.

 

 

Lady Gaga Coming to Lebanon for Byblos 2012 Festival Concert?

The newest rumor circulating around is that Lady Gaga has decided to take the whole “Lebanon” references of her songs to the next level and actually show up in the country for a concert at the Byblos 2012 Festival, as part of The Born This Way Ball.

I can already hear the shrieks of the little monster echoing all the way to New York (or wherever she may be).

The Byblos 2012 Festival has hosted many internationally recognized artists like Scorpions and 30 Seconds to Mars. But perhaps the most “in” artist it will host, if this turns out true, is Lady Gaga.

Will the arena be big enough for all the people who want to go? I don’t think so. Prepare for some serious black market prices if you cannot snatch your tickets early.

Will you be going? Or are you, like me, not tempted by the whole thing?

Earth Hour in Lebanon

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Observing Earth Hour in Lebanon begs the question: what’s the point?
And if you think about it, there isn’t any. How so?

Well for starters, half of the country will forcibly go dark at Earth Hour. Yes, electricity shortages will hit. It defeats the purpose of voluntarily switching off your lights for an hour when you’re involuntarily going through the process every day. And not just for one hour.

We also have a gas prices crisis so you know people aren’t going around like they used to. It’s just so expensive to go that kilometer by car nowadays. So we walk instead. It’s greener, healthier and we get to enjoy the beauty of our urbanized mountains.

Moreover, we’ve had the rotten meat fiasco lately. So many people have drastically decreased their intake of the substance, thereby going greener – literally. And you know “green” food is more eco-friendly than cows and goats.

So for all matters and purposes, our carbon footprint has been rendered so meaningless that it would register as a statistical error in studies. Everyday in Lebanon is Earth Day. We should receive a medal for it.
I, for one, am not turning off my lights for the hour of grid-connection I get. I have them turned off for the other 23.

Lebanon: A State of Sectarianophobia

Two Lebanese go out together to have dinner. They had never met before. They know nothing about each other.
The first looks at the second and asks: “what’s your name?”
The second glares and replies: “why do you want to know? You want to know my sect, don’t you?”
The first is perplexed. Wasn’t someone’s name part of the natural process of knowing that someone? Or asking about their hometown?
How can you know someone if you don’t know a minimum of their basic information?
Well for many Lebanese, if you ask these questions then you’re automatically labeled as sectarian filth.

Our society has gotten so afraid of the idea of sects that we tend to see sects everywhere and cower away from them. No, when someone asks you their name, they don’t always seek out to know know your sect. When someone asks you where you come from, their intention is not to always know your sect. Get over yourself.

Our fear from sects doesn’t stop at that. We also have our stereotypes that we associate with every person, depending on their answer to the previously mentioned questions. A Maroun from Mount Lebanon? He must be one of those people who think France should have stayed here. A Hussein from the South? Hezbollah galore right there. A Omar from Tripoli? Saad, Saad, Saad, Saad, Saad.

We ask ourselves not to be limited by our sects and yet, when it comes to it, we limit each other immediately based on our preconceptions. Have you ever tried to have a heated political debate with a Lebanese who drastically disagrees with you and somehow they ended up blaming your sect for your opinion? It has actually happened to me more than once. Somehow, for many people, the idea of thoughts and a mind independent of your sect does not exist. How could it, right? Sects are to blame for everything in the country.

There’s traffic? Blame the sectarian system. There’s electricity outages? Blame the sectarian system. There’s water shortage? The sects must be overly drinking. We are so hell-bent on finding a scapegoat to blame for everything that we have managed to turn sects into monsters hurting our society like nothing else has.

Perhaps our main problem as a society is that we are so afraid of the idea of sects that we see it a monstrous thing that needs to be abolished.
At the end of the day, if me asking for your name makes me sectarian, then yes I am.
If me asking for your last name makes me sectarian, then yes I am.
If me asking for your hometown makes me sectarian, then yes I am.
If me not thinking sects are monsters makes me sectarian, then yes I am.
If having political ideas that fit with your sectarian stereotype makes me sectarian, then yes I am.
If me not panicking about the mere mention of sects makes me sectarian, then yes I am.
If my ideology being too extreme for you makes me sectarian, then yes I am.

Yes, I am sectarian. But I’ve got news for you… so are you.