Tag Archives: Lebanon

#JusticeForYves: When Lebanon Is A Jungle, Not A Country

Yves Nawfal was celebrating his 26th birthday at a pub called Powder in Faraya on Friday when he got in an altercation with a guy named Charbel Khalil and his friends over a girl. Normally, as is expected in such a familiar setting at a pub, the fight was supposed to be broken up by the pub’s owner – which he thought he did – and everyone goes home with a bunch of stories about their testosterone-high adventures to tell their friends.

Except that wasn’t the case and Yves Nawfal, who had texted his mother that same evening saying “je suis comblé maman, je t’aime,” is not okay and is dead, because he was unfortunate enough to live where the concepts of justice and accountability are foreign.

What happened was the following:

Charbel Georges Khalil, from the nearby village of Hrajel, who knows his way well in such scenarios, was not satisfied with the resolution the bar owner enforced. Instead, he got his men: Charbel Moussa Khalil and Juliano Saadeh to block the road for Yves and his friends. Soon enough, the road got opened through both groups’ connections, and they went on their way.

Instead of stopping at that level of intimidation, however, Khalil decided to ambush Yves and his friends as they left. He held out his semi-automatic gun and, along with his accomplices, fired at Yves’ convoy of two cars 17 times. Yves and his friends were unarmed. He hit Yves with 4 bullets, severely injuring him, and also injured Yves’ companion Saba Nader, whose father owns Bankers Insurance.

That same evening, calls on social media were up in flames to provide 12 units of O+ blood for Yves Nawfal, for an urgent operation in an attempt to stabilize him and possibly save his life. In medical terms, Yves would have been for anesthesiologists and physicians a class 6 patient whose surgical intervention was the only hope for him to live. Yves did not make it.

His killer, Charbel Khalil, is now nowhere to be found. He has sought refuge with one of Keserwan’s very influential figures, whose name is unknown yet, and who is keeping Mr. Khalil away from the cops that are actively searching for him. Clearly, the only way Charbel Khalil is to be found is by the politician hiding him to give him up.

The following are two pictures of Khalil, whose face is circled in red in one of them, posing with a gun next to some church because that’s how someone like him goes about his days:

 

 

And the following is a video of the assault via LBC:

We live in a jungle where rule of law does not exist, where you can do whatever you want – even kill – and still get away with it through the help of the many Lebanese that are always above the law, on whom there’s no accountability, who never face the consequences of their actions.

Charbel Khalil, who’s only 27, already did a similar thing to another victim last year and was not arrested for it. He was not thrown in jail, in which case Yves would have still been alive and his mother wouldn’t be grieving now, and social media wouldn’t be seething over such a heinous crime taking place just because the murderer is so influential he could get away with murder.

What happened after last year’s assault was probably also something similar to what took place this time: political intervention, silencing of the victim, media blackout, everyone goes about their days normally.

But not this time. How do you get away with murder in Lebanon? You need connections. How else would someone with a criminal past of assault like Khalil still be around to drink at pubs and get into altercations and kill?

The problem here isn’t just Khalil. It’s that there are those Lebanese that are above the law who can get you away with murder, hide you from justice until people forget.

But there comes a time when your face is plastered across every social media platform, news service, and blog that your connections should fail you, they should give you up, and you should face justice for the young life you took, whose entire future you took and whose family you just bereaved.

16 years ago, my family went through something similar. It was also in the news. My uncle was shot by a lunatic in our hometown. We were bereaved. I remember my grandmother weeping, my mother wailing, his children oblivious. The only solace we got back then wasn’t the many people that came to the funeral, the many who wished mercy on his soul and the support the family got. No, it was that my uncle’s killer – also influential, also well connected and also a psychopath – faced his own justice too.

Yves’ family, friends, and loved ones not only need but demand justice. Charbel Khalil has to be given up. The Keserwani influential person protecting him cannot hide him anymore, and shouldn’t be allowed to hide any killers and criminals from justice. It’s high time Mr. Khalil faces retribution for what he did.

Rest in peace Yves. I didn’t know you, but your loved ones have made sure everyone knows that you were very loved.

Pictures of Lebanon from the International Space Station

On Christmas Day, the International Space Station (ISS) wanted to show a different side of the region where Christmas came to be. For a place known to be war-torn, with blood-filled conflicts taking place every day, the astronauts at ISS wanted to show the world exactly how peaceful we looked from up there on a day that is all about peace, a time that is about anything but.

The pictures in question have been around for days now but they haven’t made the round yet. One explanation could be the caption with which they shared the pictures was the following:

Israel – completely clear – on Christmas morning from the International Space Station. Astronaut Barry Wilmore woke up early on Christmas to reflect upon the beauty of the Earth and snap some images to share with the world.

Obviously, that’s a big no-no around these parts. But seeing as how small the region is, a picture of space cannot contain one country alone, and I thought the way Lebanon looked on Christmas day from space, peaceful as it it, is always something nice to look at, which is quite is ironic given the situation and the additional rage we got from hellish traffic during that period.

For those who aren’t familiar with Lebanese geography, in order to find Lebanon just spot the snowy mountains. We are the only country in the region to have them. Those are the Cedar mountains in the North of the country. I’ve said over and over again that our best winter resorts are up there, but Beirutis just don’t believe me. Now you have proof.

Our country is the area around those mountains, with the very crooked coastline, from the Akkar in the North to the Naqoura tip in the South. The Eastern part is tougher to delineate.

You can also see Palestine, the Dead Sea, as well as parts of Syria.

The ISS has made it a habit of sharing wonderful pictures of Earth from space. A few weeks ago, upon a request from a Lebanese Twitter user, the ISS shared with him a picture of Beirut from space:

Beirut from ISS

You can check out pictures of other places on Earth on their Facebook page.

Hijabi Porn and National Anthem Pride: Lebanon’s New Joy, #1 Porn Star Mia Khalifa

Being the Switzerland and Paris of the Middle East, it is our duty to prove that we are open minded and not as wretched as the region we are in. Therefore, it is with blinding enthusiasm that Lebanese have jumped on the enticing bandwagon of having a girl of Lebanese origins named the #1 porn star of the moment by Pornhub.

Pornhub Mia Khalifa

Ironically, the same person that blasted Myriam Klink last year  was quick to chat up Mia on Twitter and try to schedule a “meeting.”

Nemr Bou Nassar, Mia Khalifa

And then there were those spear-heading Mia’s right to do whatever she wants with her body and to the penises of countless men around the Earth. Porn is porn. It is expression. It is freedom. It is our God-given right. Isn’t this the same as Jackie Chamoun last year?

Except it’s not quite the same. Jackie Chamoun wasn’t a porn star. Her career didn’t revolve around how many moans and orgasms she could fake per minute. Her rise to fame was not because she made it with porn, and the aftermath of Jackie Chamoun was one of the more interesting debates in the country of the past year.

When it comes to Mia Khalife, the only thing people are capable of discussing at this point are three things:

  1. How big her breasts are and either that is a turn on or turn off,
  2. How many times they’ve masturbated to videos of her already, shouting “GO LEBANON” with each orgasm,
  3. How awesome it is to see her screw with that Lebanese tattoo on her left arm. You don’t believe me? Here’s a NSFW picture:
Tam tarummmm, tam tarum....

Tam tarummmm, tam tarum….

There’s obviously something to be proud of about someone taking our national anthem all the way to American porn history galore, embodying precisely what the anthem is all about: We are all for country, for heights, for the flag. Oh Mia, oh Mia, oh Mia.

And then there’s of course that bit where Lebanon’s very own pride and joy Mia Khalife decided to do a porn video in a hijab, from “acting” along with a hijabi mother who doesn’t approve of her boyfriend – how cliche – and is worried about how her father – Muslim mentality and all – would react. So exciting. To both mother and daughter blowing the guy in their hijab before proceeding to sleep with him on the couch. Riveting.

There’s obviously something to be proud of about a Lebanese who takes a symbol of one of the country’s leading religions and desecrates it in the way that she did. I’m all for whatever expression people like to give their 21st century neo-liberal ideas nowadays, but being proud of someone who fucked her way to the top in a hijab is something I can’t spin into favorable light. In fact, the reason she’s becoming big now is this hijabi porn video:

Mia Khalifa Hijab Porn

There are many Lebanese to be proud of. I even made a list, just in case. But it is in my opinion that there should be a limit to what someone can do – Lebanese or not – before we turn them into the frontrunners of the fights against Da’esh and censorship. Mia Khalife is doing nothing of the sort.

Mia Khalife may look more Lebanese than a lot of Lebanese girls in Lebanon, but a national hero she is not. Is she free to do whatever she feels like? Of course she is. Should we make into more than it is: a silly porn? No. Whatever you do, however, please don’t strip for her. She already did that plenty for you.

Extremism in Lebanon: Why Are You Shocked The Red Cross Was Banned From A Mosque?

Breaking news out of Lebanon today, because those are very few and scarce, but a Red Cross volunteer had his colleagues banned from entering the mosque where his family was receiving condolences for the passing of his grandmother, just because they were wearing their logo, which happens to be – well – a Cross, albeit having nothing to do with religion.

First with the story was the Facebook page “Stop Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon,” and at thousands of Facebook shares and likes, as well as having the story picked up by various news outlets now, it has definitely gone around, as well as have people in shock and anger.

I’m here to ask the very simple question: why?

To those who are shocked, I wonder if you’ve been so disconnected from life in this country lately that you haven’t noticed the fervent rise of extremism all around you. This isn’t exclusive to a single sect or religion. Of course, some get blamed more than others because it’s more popular to do so, but it is a tangible reality everywhere and in the hearts of many people around you, including people you know.

The time for you to be shocked was years ago. It was when hearing about things such as ISIS was not common place in your news. It was when people didn’t come up with excuses here and excuses there for their religious folks of choice to come off unscathed. It was when people weren’t made to believe that their entire existence in this country depended on the existence of their religious sect. It was when the discussion of an electoral law was not only about a law that allowed people of one sect to vote for that sect’s MPs. It was when I didn’t wake up every morning to the following graffiti outside my building:

Spotted in Achrafieh

Spotted in Achrafieh

The time to be shocked, disappointed, mortified, appalled or whatever you are feeling right now is long behind us. What you can and should do now is hope this is an incident that won’t set precedence, which I think is the case. This was probably the case of a few goons with near subzero IQs and near illiterate education levels deciding to flex their Allah-given muscles, as has become quite customary around this country.

Those people won’t care about explanations that the Cross on the Red Cross’ vest is not actually Christian. They won’t care that women wearing the Hijab can enter Churches whenever they want, albeit to increasing groans, and that people wearing Crosses can enter Mosques whenever they want. No, those are the people whose existence we have loved to dismiss for so long now, toning it down until we made them irrelevant in our minds.

The truth of the matter is that as everything in this country, this too will pass. You will forget about in a couple of days as something more media-grabbing happens. You may be reminded of it by some politician down the road who wants to cash in some political coins, of course.

What I hope this transpires into is more support for the Red Cross, this truly noble organization in the country that has transcended sects and political lines and religions to help people just for the sake of humanity. You want to be mad at those who didn’t let those Red Cross volunteers in at a wake? Go donate.

Ironically, at a time when some Lebanese retards were upset the Red Cross could have entered a Mosque, the Pope was praying at the Blue Mosque in Turkey. Contrast Lebanon with the following picture. As they say, a picture is worth a 1000 words. I’ve probably written something close to that by now, so you get the picture.
Pope Francis is shown the Sultan Ahmet mosque, popularly known as the Blue Mosque, by Mufti of Istanbul, Rahmi Yaran, during his visit to Istanbul

What’s Worse Than Lebanon’s Lawmakers Stealing Our Right To Vote

June 20th, 2017. Save the date, for it will be the time Lebanon’s current parliament extends its mandate for the third time in a row. Some people like the taste of power. Those who like power in Lebanon can’t get enough of it.

Apart from the ramifications of the extension, many of which you will probably be hearing about until elections happen in who-knows-when, here are a few observations about myself amidst this political fuckery:

  • I’m a soon-to-be 25 year old who, according to our laws and regulations, is basically equipped with full legal responsibilities and whatnot, but I’ve never – ever – voted for anything, and by the looks of it will never do.

Contrast this with my American cousins whose ages range from 20 to 26 and who have voted at least twice so far in the past 2 years alone, the last of which was yesterday. Those Americans… they fight ISIS here, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and they still manage to hold elections every other two years. Teach our politicians, why don’t you?

  • By extending its mandate till 2017, Lebanon’s lawmakers have made sure that I, along with a substantial portion of Lebanon’s youth, will never – ever – get to have a say in who becomes a parliament member.

I will immigrate and be out of the country by 2016. Ironically, I will most likely be attending (but sadly not participating) in the American presidential elections that year, but at least I’ll be able to say that the past 6 years, in which I should have witnessed, in theory, a presidential election, two parliamentary elections and municipality elections, haven’t been election-less, although I have witnessed the Syrian presidential elections on my territory; I guess the situation wasn’t bad enough for that not to happen.

Most of the people I know are against parliament’s mandate extension, and so am I. But somehow, after thinking about this for about the fifteen minutes that it deserves amidst this country’s sewage-like level of politics, I realized that the bigger travesty of this parliament’s extension is that our MPs, or all 95 of them who attended, were so full of themselves that they didn’t see anything wrong with extending their mandate for an extra two years and seven months.

The biggest and sadder travesty that occurred today is also the fact that those same parliament members who have failed to ensure quorum since that first round of presidential elections way back when, have found quorum for the sole purpose of ensuring they can fail to gather quorum for the next two years and seven months, while getting fully paid for their lack of services.

The saddest aspect of today is that there are still Lebanese out there who can’t think for themselves and who think that their politicians of choice were correct in voting the way they voted today or in not attending today’s session, as if those voting for the extension did so unpredictably and those who didn’t attend, while being in the government and making sure none of the regulations needed to make sure parliamentary elections take place are passed, have also effectively supported the extension from the get-go and were searching for the best way to go around mass Lebanese (Christians mainly) scrutiny.

Ironically fitting for Mr. Bassil and his party's MPs to "want to fight the power from inside," don't you think?

Ironically fitting for Mr. Bassil and his party’s MPs to “want to fight the power from inside,” don’t you think?

Today has also revealed exactly how silly, stupid, ridiculous and retarded this whole debacle is with the realization that there are Lebanese people who will actually be voting for parliament members in Kuwait on November 7th (this Friday) and in Sydney, Australia on November 9th (this Sunday) because, as of now, we are all still voters who are supposed to vote for parliament soon, pending the publication of today’s decision in the Official Gazette. What will the votes of those Lebanese amount to? The answer is exactly the same as all our votes: toilet paper for our MP’s behinds.

IMG_8187

But I digress. There are, believe it or not, worse things taking place today thanks to those very lawmakers that should be noted, especially today:

1 – Presidential Elections:

Get this: 97 MPs gathered in parliament today, making up more than 2/3 majority required to vote on major bills, in order to extend their mandate. Those MPs voted 95-2 on the bill in question. However, for the past 6 months, those same MPs have not only failed to gather quorum for presidential electives, many of them have actively campaigned against ensuring such a quorum. By ensuring no president is elected, those MPs have made a nice bundled argument for themselves on the necessity of another mandate extension is required to avoid that dreaded void. If you think about it, it’s a nice little Lebanese catch 22. It’s not that they’re too smart; it’s that they’ve become so accustomed at fooling everyone that they make it seem like what they do is for the best of the Lebanese population they’re busy screwing over day in, day out.

It’s okay, though, who needs a president anyway.

2 – Elections Law

When those 128MPs got to power in 2009, they all agreed that a new electoral law was a necessity to be done in those 4 years during which they would serve their country and citizens. The reality was a vacation for the first two years, a wake up call on year 3, a few months of hectic sprints in year 4, jumping from one absurd law to another more absurd law (you do remember the Orthodox proposal, of course, however long ago that seems right now) until they realized that the whole issue was too tiring and decided to postpone for themselves the first time, saying that they will use those extended 18 months to work on a new law.

How many hours have those MPs spent in those 18 months working on a new electoral law? Approximately 0.

In fact, not only is the lack of an electoral law after more than five and a half years a tragedy, but any electoral law that will arise from this parliament in question will be tailor-made to please everyone and, effectively, keep the status quo as is. Do you really think they’d agree to what’s fair if fairness meant they’d be kicked out of Nejmeh Square?

3 – What If Elections Happened On November 16th?

Let’s assume, however, that our parliament decided that the democratic process was, contrary to actuality, important. Let’s assume that they swallowed their overgrown prides and decided to campaign for our votes in about 11 days and try out for the Guinness World Record for shortest election delay ever. Now that’s something we can teach those Americans. Let me give you an example of the broad array of candidates that I could have voted for in Batroun:

2014

2014

 

The names sound familiar? That’s because you know them all. Gebran Bassil (name #2) is THE Gebran Bassil. Boutros Harb (name #4) is my current MP and the minister of telecom. Antoine Zahra (last name) is the LF-go-to-spokesperson for fiery speeches and my other MP.

Now contrast the above list with that of those who were running for elections before parliament underwent its first extension in June 2013:

2013

2013

I would advise a game of “spot the difference,” but it’d be essentially futile as there are basically none. If elections were to happen on November 16th, our tax money would be spent to make sure that those same MPs, across all Lebanese districts, get not a two year and seven months mandate that is illegal, but a four year mandate that is legal. It’s not just because they made sure we vote based on a law that preferred them, but because we are left without a choice and because the bulk of those who vote, as in the people that exist outside of Twitter and Facebook (they exist!), do not vote the same way we do. And, because who the hell are we kidding, many of us as well would vote for the same people again, just because of familiarity.

4 – They’re Working Overtime

So what has our parliament done in the 18 months of its first extension? They worked of course. Overtime. They worked to ensure that a president is not elected (read point #1). They worked to make sure that the workers’ benefits and whatnot are not voted on, that a quorum is never reached. They worked overtime to make sure that Lebanese students who presented their official exams this year never get results and end up with certificates of passing, the tales of which our parents had told us back when they were going through school during the times of the Civil War.

They worked overtime to make sure a proper bill protecting women from domestic abuse isn’t passed. What we got instead was a maimed piece of legislation, aimed to please this religious leader or that, but still managing to keep our women under the thumbs of their husbands or partners.

They worked overtime not to work on an electoral law, not to legislate a stance from the Syrian war, not to basically do anything except get paid for doing no work in overtime.

5 – The Divide Is Christian/Muslim, not M14/M8

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the past several months on the Lebanese scene is the fact that the game has changed from being a March 14 versus a March 8 game, to becoming full blown Christian blocs versus Muslim blocs over the essential issues in the country, at a time when the Christian-Muslim divide, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is at an all time high.

As Ramez Dagher, on his blog Moulahazat, put it:

What is scary here isn’t that Lebanese politicians lie and steal and deceive and postpone elections. That, we already know. What is truly scary here is that 25 years after Taef, we are starting to witness an obvious rapprochement between the Christian parties while a rivalry between the Muslim blocs and the major Christian ones is becoming more apparent by the day. Every time there’s an important law debated in parliament – Such as the electoral law or the extension law – the rift is yet again Christian/Muslim instead of M8/M14: 10 years after the creation of these alliances , it seems that they were more based on an electoral than ideological ground.

If there was one beautiful thing about the March 8 and 14 alliances, it was that they were religiously diverse. And now – with ISIS on our gates and with vacancy and dysfunction everywhere in the political establishment – is literally the worst time to lose that.

Conclusion:

Too long, didn’t read – the summary to you is as follows: Living in Lebanon is living in shit, but at least we have the biggest platter of hummus, fattouch, lemonade cup, biggest burger, longest falafel sandwich and we’ve officially wed George Clooney to one of our daughters. You’re welcome for the realization.