Tag Archives: Lebanon

Oil Was Discovered in Lebanon Back in 1953

I recently stumbled over this newspaper clip from 1953 that talks about the discovery of an oil field in the Bekaa valley as well as the launching of a digging site to extract the oil present at the field in question. You can see former president Camille Chamoun heading towards the site’s opening:

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I’m sure that place wasn’t the only site where oil was discovered through some geologic research done prior to the civil war. My hometown and neighboring regions in the Batroun caza were also hotspots for oil interest. Or so I’ve been told for years.

I wonder, are we using that research today to search for oil in our soil? Or are we considering it obsolete due to time passing?

Moreover, how is it that the notion of Lebanon potentially being an oil-rich country got erased so drastically from the nation’s collective memory only to resurface in 2009? It can’t all be due to the civil war.

I guess Lebanon wasn’t “allowed” by higher powers to tap into its natural resources back then. Why’s that? Because it would have strengthened the country to a point where those powers wouldn’t have been able to use it for all sorts of regional bargaining, which begets the question: will our current foray into the world of oil and gas be smooth or will hurdles beyond those caused by the country’s sectarian calculations pop up at each bend in the road?

After all, we’re already terribly late (link).

Lebanese Politicians And Their Love For The Handicapped Parking Spot

If Freud were alive, he’d make some twisted psychoanalysis out of this. Lebanese politicians have a natural affinity for the handicapped parking spot at malls and whatnot. I wonder what could be drawing them to that given they are physically competent.

First there was Ghassan Moukhayber at one of Lebanon’s malls with his security personnel threatening the person who took the picture:

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The above picture made the rounds online on Rita Kamel’s blog (link).

Ironically, another politician also got caught parking in a handicapped spot today – minister Adnan Mansour:

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The above picture is taken from Stop Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon’s Facebook page.

Violating laws and overtaking the weak just because they can has now gone literal with our ruling class. Shi bisharref. Next time a person who has a handicap tries to park in one of Lebanon’s parking places, he’ll be asked to leave because a V.V.V.I.P person is 1) too lazy, 2) too self-indulgent and 3) too important to park in a regular place.

What Lebanese Christians Are Not Entitled To

Entitlement. The word thrown around so loosely lately it’s become the go-to term in Lebanese politics, especially when it comes to Christians and their – forgive me, our – rights.

As such, I have decided to make a list of things Lebanese Christians think are entitled to but are not:

  • We are not entitled to vote for our half of parliament all by ourselves.
  • We are not entitled to have laws that govern us and only us.
  • We are not entitled to legislate in ways that only benefit us and pretend it’s for the common good of all.
  • We are not entitled to vote for an MP solely because he Crosses himself when he “prays.”
  • We are not entitled to play victims all the time, at every single turn.
  • We are not entitled to blame the Sunnis and only the Sunnis for our predicament in the country.
  • We are not entitled to pretend as if we live in a country alone because it’s the best way for us to sleep soundly at night
  • We are not entitled to bring Jesus into the petty fights of our politicians in order to prove a point that doesn’t even exist to begin with.

    • I’ve been disappointed by the Lebanese Forces for a very long time now. But if there was a time when I felt they made a “decent” decision, it was them deciding to go for a law that’s not as dim-witted as the Orthodox Law and which might come back to bite them because many Lebanese Christians feel their sense of entitlement has been breached.

    For those who actually think that some politicians are there to protect their “rights” with such electoral laws, humor me and answer the following question: How is moving back and forth between a law that supposedly gives our vote a maximum impact (Orthodox Law) and one that gives it the least impact (Lebanon as one proportional representation district), while saying they are the only two viable options, protecting our rights exactly? How is it ANY different from the political auctioning of our votes and to which many fall victim because of the fixed delusion that our rights are only equal to voting for our kin and our kin alone?

    You know what Lebanese Christians are entitled to? We are entitled to proper representation and proper legislation. But first and foremost, we are also entitled to proper politicians who actually think of their constituents as more than numbers to form a tsunami 2.0, who actually don’t count on the one-sidedness of so many people out there to cash in points here and there and who actually don’t think of our potential in the terms of where we pray only and who actually believe our rights are not summarized by the religion of who we vote for (link).

    Judas is rolling in his grave at using his name in vain these days.

    Lebanese Blogger Gets Assaulted In Beirut’s Downtown… For Taking A Picture

    Habib Batah, a professor at LAU and blogger at The Beirut Report, got physically assaulted today by a bunch of henchmen at Downtown’s soon-to-be-constructed District S… because he dared take a picture of the ancient ruin inside the property which they were busy dismantling.

    After being forced to delete the pictures off his phone, Habib tried to complain to Lebanon’s police who dismissed him with their typical “nothing to see here.” Again, we’re only paying our police so they can have Malek el Tawou2 for lunch or dinner. Protecting us or trying to keep our rights, the simplest of which is us being able to take a damn picture at a construction site of our heritage, is just too mainstream to be included under their umbrella of duties.

    You can read the full story here (link).

    In this occasion, I believe a series of thank yous are in order.

    • Thank you Solidere for your beautiful work in Downtown Beirut. It’s perfectly understandable that ancient ruins aren’t business-centric. The Khalijis sure don’t like them. 
    • Thank you Lebanon’s Ministry of Culture. Your continuous efforts in making sure there’s nothing about this country’s history that  isn’t history are much appreciated.
    • Thank you Lebanon’s Ministry of Interior. You’re just too busy not looking at those self-enforced anti-Syrian curfews and not working on elections for you to get your police to do their job.
    • Thank you Lebanon’s police. I feel safer every single day you tell me to “forget it.”
    • Thank you to every single entity in this God-forsaken country that makes me hopeful and happy and content into what I’m being offered every single freaking day.

    How much more shit are we supposed to take before someone out there decides to do their bloody job? How many more people need to be assaulted because they tried to stand up to their constitutionally-given rights? How many more of our rights are we supposed to forsake because of well-connected people everywhere? How many people need to become victims before someone out there wakes up and realizes that this – all of it – is downright unacceptable?

     

    Why The “Anthony Touma”s of Lebanon Make Us Proud

    When I spent a month in France, back in August of 2012, I was somewhat surprised to find most people there had some gross misconceptions about Lebanon. I had thought that French people out of everyone would at least know slightly more than your average info about this country in the Middle East. But it was the same thing all over again: desert, camels, tents, oil, everyone is rich, etc…

    It was grating at first. Then it became amusing. There was really nothing I could do to change what those people thought of me or my country or everyone who had my passport. It’s not only the French, it’s basically everywhere else as well. And we try to pretend as if the stereotype isn’t there but kidding ourselves is all we do.

    I’ve been pondering for a while over why is it that the Lebanese candidate Anthony Touma on France’s The Voice managed to instill a sense of nationalism among us, one that doesn’t necessarily reflect the same way by the French over the French candidates on the show.

    In more general terms, because Anthony Touma isn’t a lone example, why is it that we cannot not be proud of the Anthony Toumas of Lebanon, no matter how hard we try and knowing that they may not be the absolute best at what they do? Why do we feel wronged when they get wronged? Why do we, as Lebanese, feel involved in what they do and what they accomplish fully knowing that the benefits they reap don’t reflect on us in any way?

    I am not the type of Lebanese people who gush over the Shakiras and Salma Hayeks who never set foot here and yet some people feel obliged to try and get them to identify with us.

    But when I look at Anthony Touma, Amin Maalouf and others, I see people who are like me, who lived my life, who probably went to schools similar to mine, who walked the same streets that I walk everyday and who are doing the best they could with the talent they have.

    The Anthony Toumas of Lebanon are the people who, with each word they write or each note they sing, give a better image of our country than we could ever do. And some might believe we don’t need that. But we do. We terribly do.

    Our sense of nationalism as Lebanese kicks in often because we have something to prove. We want to prove that we can do better, that we can be better. We want to prove that this small nation can give the world great gifts. We want to prove that the confines of the 10452 km2 don’t limit us. We want to prove that war and violence and absurd politics don’t bring us down. We want to prove that we can rise above the terrible hands we are dealt on daily basis. We want to prove that this small Middle Eastern country has something to give and give well.

    For many, those prospects are never self-fulfilled, which is okay. We are not all given the same chances in life. But when we look at Touma, Maalouf, Gebran, Nadine Labaki, etc… We see people who are trying to make it or have made it. And they give us hope. And those people who walk and talk and think like us make us proud.

    There will come a time, hopefully, when we no longer feel we have something to prove to the world. Perhaps our sense of nationalism towards the Anthony Toumas of Lebanon lessens when that time comes. But until then, there’s nothing wrong with feeling proud of our countrymen who represent us despite everything and represent us well.

    Or you can hate on them because feeling proud of someone because they’re Lebanese is just too non-scientific and mainstream.