Things have been calm in Tripoli lately. There have been no mass shootings for Lebanese media not to report. Ramadan had been a more or less safe month on the city and Lebanon as a whole despite some irregularities here and there.

Yet there was something rising to the surface during those days that has apparently become so redundant that the people of that city had become used to: individual shootings.

Two people had a fight or a quarrel in the street? Their natural reaction was to draw weapons at each other. In case weapons were not available on them, their verbal threat to shoot the other person sufficed.

Meanwhile, passerby just passed by.

It’s easy to dismiss Tripoli as something out there in the North which many of you don’t care about.

This “I will shoot you” mentality, however, is not exclusive to there. It’s present in areas and settings where you’d expect such threats never to be issued, let alone possibly carried out.

It is probably my luck for Eid to fall on the day I had chosen to do my hospital duties. As I awaited the X-ray results of a patient with some breathing difficulties, the phone next to me rang. It was almost midnight so I answered out of courtesy as no one was around.

“Are you serving on the obstetrics floor?” The man asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Can you tell the man who just showed up on your floor to come move his car? It’s blocking the hospital’s entrance.”
“Yeah, no problem.” I hung up.

How problematic could such a request be, I figured. Guess again.

I knocked on their room door, got in, introduced myself and relayed to the husband what the security personnel asked of me.
“Can you call them back and tell them to fuck off?” He replied.
“Excuse me?” I said, not quite hearing what he was saying.
“Yeah, call them back and tell them this car belongs to the president.”
“What president?” I asked with a tone of obvious sarcasm in my voice.
“Tell them I’m not moving my car and if they ask again, I’m going downstairs to shoot them all.”
He had a gun on his waist and a Kataeb wallpaper on his iPhone. I simply looked at him sideways, rolled my eyes and left.

I will shoot you has apparently become the go-to threat for a Lebanese who doesn’t like what he’s being asked or getting exposed to. Nothing can justify this man’s outburst. I’ve seen countless women in labor pain. I’ve seen countless men who are standing by their wives supportably, obviously worried but holding it together.
This was a man, a sample of many others in this country, who are armed, brainless, moronic and ready to act out on it. And yes, we are all used to it.

Next time a psychologist wants to give you some tutorship on how to deal with shooting threats, tell them as Lebanese, we simply walk away and shrug our shoulders.

It can’t all be all seriousness all the time, right?

I haven’t had a full-blown burger meal in a long time. After all, the 30+ kilos I lost since January need to be maintained somehow.

But I figured I’d let myself some leeway for only one day and try out the new burger at Roadster Diner, introduced for their 15th anniversary.

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to understand meat textures, composition, cooking levels and other culinary details I won’t bother looking up to sound sophisticated.

The new Roadster burger comes with their regular coleslaw salad, which I used to normally switch out for Ceasar salad. It also has a side of crunchy fries with a dip that make the meal worth it from the get-go if you feel like splurging on the calories. I really hope they include this upgrade with other burgers later on or introduce it as an addition to the menu.

The burger itself is very different taste-wise from Roadster’s other burgers of which I am a fan. This diner serves my favorite burgers in the country so far. I’m not sure if you hear this often but the Fit ‘N Burger is, in my opinion, one of their best and, at 485 calories, suits those who are on a calories-restricted diet.

With 250g of meat, this is their biggest paddy. It comes with onion, cheddar, the burger sauce and lettuce. The taste is very similar to the burger at Frosty’s palace, if you’ve tried it, except this one is lighter on the pocket. You may find the mixture odd at first but you’ll get used to it from the second bite, be hooked by the third and thoroughly enjoy your meal.

The entire meal is priced at 24,750LL ($16.5). Adding a soft drink to it would bring your bill up to about $20. The meal big enough to satisfy you for a long time (or this could be my diet-used self only).

The waiter and the manager were both very keen to know what I thought of the burger though they had no idea about the dietary composition of it, not that you’d care that much if you’re having it.

If you’re a burger fan, I recommend you give it a try at least once.

P.S.: Prophylactically, you’re welcome.

A little more than 12 hours after the release of the music video for her song “Te3ebt Mennak,” the source material behind Elissa’s new music video has been revealed.

The director is Salim el Turk, the man who gave Elissa her previous music video around which similar accusations were made.

The copying is obviously not Elissa’s fault. No one expects her to be familiar with such things. Her director, on the other hand, seems to like getting “inspired” quite often. Or is it the Samsung effect?

Of course, he also gave the world “My Last Valentine in Beirut.” Enough said? That movie is horrible.

This is Elissa’s new music video of a song that I actually like for a change:

And this is the scene that was copied almost to the frame, from an Italian miniseries that aired in 2005 called Dalida:

I think we can safely say this is more than close ideas.

Here’s an interesting fact for you: if a medical case qualifies as untransferable, a hospital cannot refuse to admit it. A woman in labor is one of those cases.

It so happened to be my luck that I had night duty on a day that a woman came in labor. Of course, this is not out of the ordinary for any healthcare establishment and the hospital I was at was more than equipped. This woman, however, had already delivered the baby whose color was slowly turning blue, asphyxiating as the placenta remained inside his mother’s womb.

The Red Cross personnel rushed her in. They had already been refused entry at a previous hospital despite their pleading. They carried her over to our floor. She had no known physician. She said she was married but neither her husband nor any family member for that matter were anywhere to be found. She didn’t know her due date. She didn’t know she was pregnant until very recently. She had no idea what the baby’s gender was going to be. She had no idea what her blood type was. Asking questions was deemed futile.

We cut off the baby’s umbilical cord, effectively severing his connection to his mother. A midwife took care of bringing the baby’s vitals up to par while the obstetrical team handled the mother. They delivered the placenta, stitched whatever needed stitching and made sure her risk of any postpartum bleeding was minimal, while double checking everything they needed to check to avert complications.

Bureaucracy started next. We managed to get a phone number to call. It was her father. Let’s say he wasn’t very pleased to be told he had become a grandfather. We asked about her husband again, now that there was nothing wrong with her and her baby was safe and sound. She dodged the question. It was getting late so the medical team figured they’d call it a day while the logistics section of the hospital staff panicked over what to do with this patient. It wasn’t every day that you’d get such cases.

It was discovered the following day that this woman was not married. So here’s another interesting fact for you: most Lebanese hospitals have a rule not to allow unmarried and pregnant women to deliver. The exception is when they cannot refuse them, as in this case.

The story then got better. This was a woman who was molested by her father when she was fourteen. She worked as a prostitute. She also didn’t want the baby.

As I learned of this while looking over her baby in the nursery, I felt sad for the little premature-born boy in front of me. His mother didn’t want him. He had no family that would take him in. His only hope was the convent to which he would be given.

I asked around to see what would happen to that kid. No one knew. They also didn’t care. I guess it comes with the territory of maybe seeing such things often when you’ve been doing your job for as long as they have.  Someone told me he would actually be registered as a “bastard” child in the country’s registry books. But with his mother not wanting him, who would register him? With no proof that the father is Lebanese, since we don’t know who he is, how will this baby be nationalized? How will he build a life for himself?

Pregnancy out of wedlock in Lebanon is not as rare as many want to believe. I’ve seen many women come, wanting to keep everything hush-hush, in order to see what they can do with the fetus growing inside them. As a country, we’re still not willing to discuss this. For many, those women are whores and those children don’t deserve to live. But those women are not. And those children deserve life if their mothers want to carry on with the pregnancy. Not everyone lives in the narrow moral code that many people have set forth for themselves and expect everyone to abide by. Lebanese regulations, however, don’t think like me.

What happens to the bastard children of Lebanon? I saw how bleak that little boy’s future would be as the elevator doors closed on his mother’s non-caring face.

Politics is everything around this place. Politicians, for us, are a love-hate relationship. Many of us say we don’t support one over the other but deep down, we always do. Most of us want to believe those politicians are where they are because we give them power but we also know, deep down, that this isn’t true.

If you happen to be against someone politically, you begin to hate everything that person does: the way they walk, talk, behave, gesticulate. You begin to see the flaws in everything they do. Their struggles make you happy. Their personal failures become your personal triumphs.

And the only thing you know of them is what you have been primed for years to believe, thinking it was all your personal decision, totally separate from your parents and your environment growing up. That politician you openly “criticize” but secretly adore is put on a pedestal. You create arguments to justify everything he does and despite it not making sense, you still force some sense on it. And you believe it’s all normal.

The lives of our politicians then become a matter of public property. Hate them or love them, whatever they do is yours for the taking, the discussion, the gossiping.

The latest news, published by Lebanese tabloid newspaper Al Akhbar is of a separation between LF leader Samir Geagea and his wife Sethrida. The couple has been married since 1991. The article is nauseating. I am not a journalist but in what world is it news reporting when an article holds more of a journalist’s obviously biased opinion than the supposed facts from which his article is starting from?

Of course, I read such news with an air of skepticism. This is Al Akhbar after all, a newspaper that turned Turkish soldiers leaving the UNIFIL into Lebanon triumphing over the Ottoman empire. I also read these divorce rumors while feeling sorry for Geagea’s family troubles. Like him or hate him, I cannot shamelessly parade my absolute happiness with him having troubles with his wife.

That, however, is apparently something we do.

Why are some people happy with Samir Geagea’s divorce? Because they are so blinded by hate that they cannot, for even a fraction of a second, see that these politicians are also people who go through trouble as well and who don’t need their laundry paraded in front of everyone just because they deal with public matters. Because some people cannot look into a mirror and extrapolate such situations on them personally to see how they’d feel being turned into a joke.

I guess not much can be expected from people who think May Chidiac hasn’t died because “Allah ma biti2a.”

Mabrouk former deputee Gebran Tawk, even if a little early. I’m crossing my fingers you’d become a jeddo soon – if you’re not already one. Sorry, I’m not that well-versed in the Tawk family tree.  But I’m willing to learn.

I get you. I really, really do. You love your son. I love your son too - we are all brothers and sisters of this one fine mighty (maybe not) nation. Ok, Cliche season is over now. If it were me, I’d want my precious offspring to have the most kick ass Lebanese wedding that many won’t be invited to, a wedding that would befit their stature and mine (if I had any).

I heard you’ve invited about 3000 people to the wedding in question. You know what they say, go all out or go home. The festivities will last three days as well. Now isn’t that just beautiful. Speaking of which, I’m still waiting on my invite, fellow Northener and all. I want to be part of the fun too.

Your son’s wedding is so important, I heard, that it has triumphed over our national symbol. I jokingly said a few times that we only have one Cedar tree left, the one on our flag. Well, you’ve out-rooted that one as well. Who needs those pesky trees anyway? They don’t serve any function. They don’t hold fruits or anything eatable. Their ecological impact, given their rarity in this country, is minimal. They are just old. We hate old – we want new and new comes with fancy weddings to make head spins.

I want you to extend my gratitude to the Maronite church as well. I have been so busy trying to keep up with their constant rambling about the need to preserve the land, our presence, Christ in our heart, the Lord in our beings w heik that it totally slipped my mind that even someone in your grandeur would require some approval – in this case theirs – to turn part of our Cedar Forest into your son’s marital complex.

I also really hope this marital complex becomes available for future wedding celebrations. You can call it Cedars Wedding Club. A little tacky, sure. But can you imagine the amount of money it would bring in? Is that way the municipality of Bcharreh is allowing this? I would if I were them.

Quick question before I go, will you hold the fireworks show inside the main forest? I heard the reflection off those trees serves as a magnificent backdrop to your son’s first kiss.

- – - – - – -

The area adjacent to the main Cedar Forest in Bcharreh, part of the reforestation efforts that have been ongoing for years now,  is being allegedly leveled off by former MP Gebran Tawk in order to create a space for his son’s wedding, end of August.

The forest in question is on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites. According to this article, Lebanon, the country of the Cedars, has about 2000 hectares of trees left. Turkey has 400,000. I guess we couldn’t care less.

I’m guessing the silence of Sethrida Geagea and Elie Kairouz, the region’s current MPs, is because they are invited to the wedding too.

Pictures courtesy of LBC and L’orient le Jour:

Update: The government has stopped all works. 

Q: How do you know a person’s political/sectarian/whatever affiliation?

A: Just look at the news they read/watch/get exposed to.

With near 12 hour shifts at the hospital, I’m having less and less time to be exposed to all different news sources in order to get the gist of what’s happening in this country. For a while, this didn’t bother me. I figured the less I know about current politics, the better. My parents were also happy I wasn’t going to get myself in trouble.

The sentiment didn’t last long. You just can’t logically remain disconnected from what’s happening here. Many Lebanese people are in the same boat: they don’t have time to read different sources and settle for one.

It was either I settle for the rhetoric that I enjoyed the most and made me sleep better at night, like a lot of people out there, or I simply don’t. I chose the latter. So I subscribed to a bunch of news services that sent me daily bulletins. Some send these bulletins several times per day as an agglomeration of articles from different sources. It eventually became a habit of mine to click on the flashy headlines, read the first few sentences and try to guess the source. I have an accuracy rate north of 95%. Move over Layla Abdul Latif. Is that how it’s supposed to be?

The other day, a friend of mine sent me something he figured I should write about: a former MP cutting down parts of the Cedar forest for his son’s wedding. I scanned through the article and then checked the source. It was Al-Akhbar, a newspaper that had that very same day turned a “scoop” they got of Samir and Sethrida Geagea allegedly divorcing into one of the worst articles I have ever read.  I immediately dismissed the news. I wasn’t going to touch that with a ten foot pole. The following day, the news turned out to be true because it was reported with pictures by several other sources.

Our news services rehash news in different ways when it’s a slow day and they’re bored. On August 4th, MTV reported on a “quarrel” in Tripoli during a public iftar at Al-Nour roundabout using the same material they used in a report from March 12th of that same year.

When it comes to  Tripoli, our news reporting was as horrible as it goes as well. When the fights were new, they were all over them. Then they got bored – and they figured everyone else should be bored as well. So they stopped reporting. Despite nights during which 1000s of mortar shells were dropped on the city, our media remained silent.  My friends had thought the worst thing happening in the country at that time was the electoral law debate. And, in the off-chance that they actually report something, they make it sound like the city is the Lebanese brand of Kandahar, in its own mood of civil war.

On April 1st, MTV ran with some news that was their take on April Fools. Other news services in the country didn’t bother double-checking and simply jumped on the story. As their attempt to save face later on, they said they contacted several entities in order to double check and whatnot. Odds are they didn’t. But who cares? There’s no accountability when it comes to our news anyway.

How does MTV report oil prices going up? “Gebran Bassil has raised oil prices.” How do they report them going down? “Oil prices have gone down.”

How does OTV report the same thing? “Oil prices have gone up; Gebran Bassil has brought oil prices down.”

How does Future TV refer the Syrian regime? “Shabbi7at el Assad.“

How does Al-Manar address the Free Syrian Army? They are eaters of hearts, brains and other body parts.

How does a newspaper like Al-Diyar still exist? I don’t know.

How can I get the news without doubting every single sentence that I read? How can I get the non-editorialized and sensationalized version of all the pieces that should inform me about what’s happening in this country? How can I get news intros that are not written in an Arabic language whose words hold twenty five different meanings in each letter?

I can’t.

A friend of mine just sent my way the trailer for an upcoming Lebanese movie called Ghadi, written by Lebanese comedian George Khabbaz:

I found the trailer to be interesting and it looks like this movie will be different from other Lebanese movies we’ve had to endure. Of course, many of us say this about every Lebanese movie so here’s hoping our eternal optimism doesn’t turn out foolish this time around.

However, this is already awesome for being shot in Batroun. I’m biased like that.

The movie, according to their Facebook page, is a social comedy about the struggles of a Lebanese family. George Khabbaz’s previous works in such a theme were very witty. The movie is directed by Amin Dora. It will be out in theaters on September 26th.

I was watching a movie today.

What a mundane and worthless sentence to start anything with. But I was watching a movie today.

It was a quiet afternoon. I had seen a dear friend whom I hadn’t seen in a while. We spoke about our lives. We didn’t talk about politics. I drank minted lemonade. She drank coffee. The time passed.

But yes, I was watching a movie today. And it was a theatre full of people who were watching the movie with me. And less than five minutes from where the movie was taking place, part of my country was getting blown up to pieces, people were getting blown up to bits.

And there I was, watching a movie.

The theatre doors closed behind us as we made our way out of the complex. Look, an explosion happened nearby, my friend told me. Make sure you make your way out calmly. I looked around and people had no other care in the world. Those who were shopping were still going about their chores meticulously. The people hoarding the escalators were still doing so extravagantly.

And there I was, pissed beyond fury, trying to see if my other friend was home and if anything had happened to her.

She is 23. In statistical terms, her life is well ahead of her. In real terms, she is terrified by a window slamming, fireworks going off or anything that reminds her of the bombs she has endured for years. I was relieved to know she hadn’t gone home today. I was glad she was okay. What a fucked up country, I told her. Yes, she replied. Is there anything more redundant to say?

I checked the news on my way to my car. Many were dead. Many more were injured. No officials were targeted. It was an attack simply against people like me who decided to spend their afternoon off, courtesy of the Virgin Mary’s ascension, to shop with their kids, with their mothers, with their families or friends, just like me.

The drive home was uneventful. People were still going around their afternoon business like it was nobody’s business. Life was sluggishly going on. It was bound to pick up its pace tomorrow. I was sure all would be forgotten by next week. This is our span. I guess that’s how it rolls.

As I neared residential areas of my country’s torn capital, I could hear the news blasting off balconies as people huddled next to their TV sets. Tripoli was joining the game as well because that city doesn’t like to be left out of the big celebrations. Politicians were salivating over their upcoming TV opportunities to express their condemnation while secretly insinuating that this party’s interference here and there led to this or that other party’s condemnation of some party’s actions has led to this, while people’s flesh still burns on the asphalt and cement. But don’t you be mistaken, sympathy supersedes policy.

The people were expressing sympathy. There was a tinge of unity as so happens in the face of true national tragedies. I figure it would only be a matter of time before someone parades this. Those who wanted to express sympathy figured stating their sect at the start of their sentence would give it some credibility. Others were more worried about the potential day off tomorrow. It was, after all, a day of national mourning. Aren’t those getting way too many and springing up way too often? But what would a day do to the mother who will mourn all her life?

It’s just a bomb. We tell it to ourselves like it’s nothing. A bomb. An explosion. Destruction, rubble, death. We’re getting way too used to it. We’re getting too comfortable with the way we live around it. We’re getting too subdued in the way we just take it, brush it off and long for the day when we forget. It’s just a bomb.

I guess it must be completely natural for religious people to go to Harissa. Even I feel like going there sometimes. There’s just something about the serenity of that place.

I also guess it must be completely natural for religious people to bring their political zeal with them to churches and mosques. Checking such stuff at home is way too mainstream lately.

It must be completely normal also to bring sharpies, permanent markers and express such political ideologies on the walls of religious establishments because a support for a politician cannot be sufficient except when it’s coupled with graffiti.

The following was spotted at Harissa:

Picture via @JessyGeagea

And to think those prayers were the worst thing being written on the walls of Harissa.

The Guardian has  published a list of the top 10 Arab movies and they featured Zeina Daccache’s Twelve Angry Lebanese on the list, with nine other Egyptian movies of which I haven’t heard.

The list’s author justified their choice for choosing the movie in it being deeply moving and full of humanity. I have to wonder why that movie hasn’t made a splash in Lebanon:

I was on the jury when this won the top documentary award at Dubai in 2009. The director is a young Lebanese drama-therapist who put on a production of 12 Angry Men inside Lebanon’s most notorious prison and filmed the long protracted process. The film was partly an attempt to reform the country’s criminal and penal laws and improve prison living conditions. It also enabled Daccache to extend her drama-therapy work to prisons across Lebanon, and she had started working in Syria shortly before the current conflict began. It is deeply moving and full of humanity, particularly in the way it describes the process of lifting men from a profound states of despair into a renewed desire to live and build a different future for themselves.

As a follow-up to that list, The Huffington Post wouldn’t take it. As such, they published their own list of 6 movies they believe The Guardian missed and included Ziad Doueiri’s The Attack and Nadine Labaki’s Caramel.

On the latter, the author wrote:

Labaki’s film was my in. I’m a relative newcomer to the magical world of cinema from MENA, having been brought up on a mixture of Woody Allen, the works of Fellini and Visconti, all sprinkled with a bit of Lina Wertmüller, and Caramel got me hooked from the first frame. It’s sensual, full of life and each time I watch it, it makes me proud to be a woman. It’s also the reason I yearned to travel to Beirut, and once I got there, I could see Labaki’s lushly constructed characters at every turn. I may be a romantic, but it’s a must watch for anyone who has yet to discover the beauty of Lebanese cinema. And its people. Labaki’s follow up, Where Do We Go Now? is also a greatly entertaining lesson in peace.

On The Attack:

Showcased at the Dubai Film Festival last December, Doueiri’s film is currently screening across the U.S.. The tragic story, of a Palestinian surgeon who discovers his marriage may not have been what it seemed, was what engulfed emotionally, at first. But then the absurd politics that enveloped the project really drove its profound meaning home for me. Lebanon banned the film because Doueiri had “snuck” into Israel to film his project, which of course was indispensable to the truthfulness of the story. A Gulf film organization distanced itself from The Attack though it had partly financed it in development. Of course, Doueiri is now having the last laugh, because his film has been winning prizes and hearts around the world, but The Attack remains a great example of why watching a film is almost always better than watching the news.

Lebanese filmmakers seem to be doing a rather fine job at having their works make a dent abroad.  It’s great to see Lebanese cinema getting such recognition abroad, especially with movies that are not what we’ve come to believe our filmmakers only know how to make.

It is sad that a movie such as The Attack will not be screened here for the most absurd reasons. I had the chance to watch the movie while on a trip to Paris and while I wasn’t as engrossed by it as the French with whom I shared the theatre or other Lebanese who found it highly engaging, I could appreciate the need for such a movie especially given the intense discussion it spurred with the Lebanese who watched the movie with me.

I believe that’s what cinema should do: spring up debate and discussion, especially in this country and specifically when it comes to topics that are still considered so taboo that discussing them can have “treason” plastered all over you. It seems those foreigners appreciate our movies more than we do.

The Lebanese people are proud to be resilient in the face of adversity. Tripoli may be all up in flames but Hamra would still be partying the night away like nobody cared. Dahye might be mourning its bombing victims but concerts and movies would still be underway in the same city. Achrafieh’s buildings and people may be bruised but nearby Gemmayze would still be visited by its goers to drink their woes away.

Then life goes on. The following day, people make it their business to prove that they are above those bombs, the destruction and death. They make it their duty to show they don’t care about those cowards unleashing their hate and wrath here and there. Life goes on, yes. But it goes on exactly as it had the day before the bomb. Is that resiliency or ignorance?

A few days after the Dahye bomb, a couple made it to national headlines, not that it’s difficult to do so, by getting married where the bomb hit. Their ceremony quickly became a sensational topic of discussion: look at the life springing up amid the rubble, look at how gorgeous they look, behold how many ways the Arabic language can describe a wedding.

As I looked at the happily married couple standing defiantly in the midst of the location of a national tragedy, I couldn’t help but wonder: is that act of marriage, innocent as it may be, truly the best thing we could be doing at that point, only a few days after the death of 30 people by an act of terror?

That act of marriage – a mark of resiliency as we like to call it – is telling the politicians that are fast bringing our country to where it is today that what they’re doing is okay. That couple is telling Hezbollah that its current policies are acceptable no matter what happens. That couple is telling everyone they don’t really care why the bomb happened. They’re saying we don’t care if our national policies are weakening the country so much for Israel to be able to infiltrate Hezbollah’s stronghold. They’re saying we don’t care if the bomb is planted by some Syrian group responding to Hezbollah’s increasing involvement in the Syrian war. They’re saying we don’t care about all of that as long as we make it known that we are here and that life goes on and that we are here to stay.

Is it acceptable to give blind support even in the face of such adversity, to ask no questions and pretend nothing happened?

Today, regular folk trying to access their homes in Beirut’s Southern suburb are met with long waits due to the increased security measures to enter the area. I found this out through some acquaintances who figured ending their monologue about spending two hours in their car with “labbayka Nasrallah” would make it all better. They don’t care that they are wasting two hours of their day, every day, before going home simply because they believe it’s a mark of support for their politician of choice.

And it’s not just the people of Lebanon’s Southern suburb. Across the country, people are asking less and less questions and becoming more subdued by how things are, believing this is how it ought to be, finding solace in what they find familiar: whoever politician they had chosen to follow.

This is not the time to question, you’d hear people saying. But I have to wonder, if this is not the time then when is it?

When is the time for us to tell our politicians that them leading the country while taking all our lives for granted is not acceptable? When is the time to tell all our politicians that this sheer recklessness and utter disregard to the entire well being of the nation is not acceptable?

When it is the time to truly ask if that person we are apparently wired to follow is leading us off a cliff? When is the time for each and every one of us to say that no, my life and my time are not “fida” anyone?

I’d like to think the sense of resiliency when used politically involves some form of learning. A whole civil war (or two), several dozens bombings and assassinations later, what have we, as the Lebanese population, learned? I guess this isn’t the time to draw conclusions.

It’s been one week since our news broadcasts last cut out regular useless programming to let us know that a part of our country was burning to the ground following an explosion, that people were dying, that terrorism had struck yet again.

It’s been one week since innocent people lost their lives just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Last week, those people were shopping. This week, those same people were praying. How many more wrong places and wrong times are we supposed to accept as a justification to the absolute hell we are living through?

What is the current situation in Lebanon? I don’t really know. There’s no diagnostic criteria to follow to really ascertain how deep this goes. There’s simply a sense of “if no one I knew died then it’s sad but forgettable” that’s roaming around. Till when are we supposed to be happy that someone we know didn’t die just because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time?

Till when will our media worry first and foremost about the explosion being in the proximity of a politician’s house, one that he barely uses, then after making sure that politician was okay turn around to examine the possibility of other irrelevant casualties like you and me and then parade their burnt corpses for sheer shock value left and right – except those pictures don’t even shock us anymore?

What is this country in which you are forced to worry about doing the most mundane of things just because you might die doing them? What is this cause that needs to target people who are praying? What is this cause that needs to target people who were shopping?

Why are these causes and wars entering our country through open wide doors? Why is my country always getting screwed, always in a state of violence?

What is this need for people to start throwing blame on those who satisfy their rhetoric of choice just moments after an explosion, while the wounded are still bleeding and the victims have still to be found?

What is this life in which our mothers waste all their tears away, worrying for our sakes, while the only thing that we might have done is drive past a street that ended up becoming ground zero a few minutes later? Till when will our fathers regret not leaving and establishing our families in countries where they don’t have to worry about their sons and daughters meeting their demise on the blown up tarmac, resting on blown up concrete?

How further can our cities handle being ripped apart this way? How much more can the people of Tripoli take in a city that has not only been destroyed by gun violence but now has an affinity for explosions as well?

What is this life in which a strange car on your home street can cause you insomnia? What is this life when your own home doesn’t feel safe anymore?

How is this any different from the times they want us to believe are long gone, “tenzeker w ma ten3ad?” How further down the abyss will every single one of our politicians take us now that they have yet another opportunity to get their rhetoric to sink further, to let their anger seep to surface even more, to let people hate each other more than they already do?

All the words resonate emptily. All of our mothers’ tears fall down on useless surfaces. All of our worry won’t change a thing. All our anger won’t make a dent. All of the victims will soon be forgotten. All of the explosions are to be replaced by the next explosion which takes center stage. All of the people are to mourn in days that are becoming way too many. Nineteen have died in Tripoli today as a first estimate. Nineteen men and women and children died just because they felt like being closer to the entity they worship on a day of worshipping. If there’s really a God, He must have left this land a long, long time ago.

It’s just a bomb, again? Should we be “resilient” again? Lebanon, screw this.

Day one post two blasts that killed 45 of its sons and daughters, this is Tripoli.

This morning, these young men and women are not pointing fingers and expressing blame. They are not sinking to the sectarian rhetoric that many people believe will change how this country is going. They are mourning their city in the way they know best: by cleaning up the rubble and the destruction so they can at least have part of the place they call home back.

For many Lebanese, Tripoli is a city that exists way up there, beyond that army checkpoint, that we don’t need to visit. For many Lebanese, Tripoli exists only as a city that is ravaged by Islamists and militants and violence and destruction. But this city, which currently sits in a near-comatose situation, is – thanks to the efforts of those young men and women – trying to get its spirit back, fully knowing that it may not be for long in a country that has become nothing more than the playground of the struggles of others.

Today, I will not bore you with political extrapolations about what might have been and what could be. I won’t state of the obvious and remind everyone how bad the situation is, something all of us know and live. Today, I salute those young men and women of Tripoli who, in that simple act of sweeping the rubble off the streets of their city or visiting the wounded of yesterday’s acts of cowardice, are trying their best to achieve some form of normalcy. And isn’t normalcy what we all long for nowadays?

The above pictures have been obtained through this Facebook page.

I keep hearing about security plans for this country, especially for the places where security has been non-existent. My idea of a security plan, despite me not being an expert whatsoever, involves – at the very least – a sense of involvement from the police seeing as we are asked nowadays to report any suspicious behavior because you never know if that behavior might lead to us getting blown up.

For instance, one of the two bombers in Tripoli apparently parked double parked the car in broad daylight and simply walked away. People called after him and I’m sure someone might have tried to call 112. What would 112 have done in that setting?

I present to you a transcript of a phone call of a man from Tripoli, the city that was victim of two explosions on Friday, with the police in his city. I’m not sure if this is funny or harrowing.

Police: Alo, police.

Man: Alo, I want to report a person who set up a checkpoint while carrying a weapon.

Police: Where?

Man: Next to the Ayyoubi store for paint products.

Police: Where? Bab el Ramel?

Man: At Muharram, yeah. He’s standing there, asking people where they’re coming and going.

Police: There are 5000 armed men in Tripoli, okay, habibi.

Man: But he’s setting up a checkpoint!

Police: There are 5000 armed men in Tripoli doing like him.

Man: Do I shoot him then?

Police: I don’t know. You can do whatever you want.

Man: Seriously? Are you the state or not?

Police: It’s fine, may God give you strength.

(hangs up).

I especially liked the fact that the policeman told the civilian to do whatever he wants when the latter suggested to shoot the gunmen. Is this what they’re expecting of people nowadays? Self-security because our police are too nonchalant and passive?

What’s next if every region or sect sects up its own brand of self-security? What’s the point then of having a state from which we need protection?

Check out the video here.

The above sheikh was hosted on NewTV earlier tonight to talk on behalf of the people of Tripoli. I guess that city ran out of spokespeople over the past few days so the TV station in question figured digging this creature up from the depth of whatever abyss he was in was a good idea. Ratings are proportional to beards.

Note that this sheikh is said not to even be from Tripoli and has not been residing there all his life to get to talk on the city’s behalf.

This man spoke about the need for self-security for himself and his fellow Sunnis of Tripoli. Did the TV station in question even bother to target this rhetoric? Of course they didn’t. This is the rhetoric they want being spewed around their airwaves lately. This is what gets people talking. This is what gets people to tune in. Of course, this is precisely the rhetoric that also gets people killed and further explosions taking place and extremism rising. But who cares about that, right?

In the process of his TV moment of fame, this creature also asked for the help and support of Al Qaeda in protecting the people of Tripoli. I’ll leave that notion hanging.

There’s a responsibility for Lebanese media to kill off such eccentrics in times when such extremism is not only unhealthy but detrimental to the well-being of everything around us. Does hate exist? Sure it does. Do people who mean harm for others just because they think differently exist? Sure they do. But it doesn’t mean we should give them air time to poison minds. You only needed to tune into FutureTV on Saturday with Paula Yaacoubian or MTV hosting Khaled el Daher as well, for the nth time, yesterday for your prime examples.

Our TV stations are still searching for the next big scoop instead of being mature and responsible in handling what seems to be an impeding civil war.

PS: If you think my blog titles have a lot of “screw” lately, it’s because we’re in a general state of screwing.

Some officials in this country don’t seem to live in the same place as people who are worried about going by everyday, about explosions and impeding wars.

Instead, they are more worried about how their reputation plays out through a play that doesn’t even target them in a documentary way. A play about censorship was censored by Lebanon’s bureau of censorship. Why?

1) Because the bureau couldn’t grasp the fact that this is satire.
2) Because the man in question doesn’t require his subordinates to stomp their foot in salutation and was offended the play suggested he does.
3) Because our censorship bureau got offended that a play is making fun of them.
4) Because the play in question was, according to the bureau, “not a work of art but a work of shame.”
5) Because even though there’s no law to dictate we can’t criticize the censorship bureau, they can – according to this article – “forbid whatever [they] want and [they] will forbid it.”

A play is not something that our censorship bureau can cut into little pieces for the audience to watch. They either take it whole or not take it at all. Our bureau has decided not to take any parts of it.
A play is also not something that we can get access to through modern technological means. It’s not the art that has gone digital to become accessible. Instead, our censorship bureau has decided that its sense of moral well-being is best served by stopping every single Lebanese from getting access.

In this act of censorship, this bureau in question has made a bigger fool out of themselves than this play would ever do. They showed us that what we get exposed to is dictated by something that can’t even take a joke.

I’m not one to usually follow the rhetoric of “there are worse things happening to care about this,” but when the country is on the brink of war, this is what is decided to be censored: a play meant to make people smile in these troubling times, instead of all the crap of sectarianism and violence instigation that we are bombarded with everyday by our media. I guess that’s what our bureau likes. Such a shame.

This is the play’s trailer:

Even though 4G has launched in Lebanon back in May, Lebanon must get a stamp of approval from Apple in order for users to be able to use 4G on their iPhone 5.

With very few phones available in the market able to use 4G, the need to get the iPhone on board seems like a pressing matter to get the service to truly take off with customers. For instance, the Galaxy S4 doesn’t support 4G even though it was released recently.

Several months after the launch of 4G, where is Lebanon from getting its networks approved by Apple?

Well, according to an interview with Alfa CEO Marwan Hayek in the latest issue of Cloud961, our ministry of telecommunication and our telecom operators tried to get in touch with Apple who were less than responsive, telling Lebanon’s concerned sides that Lebanon “doesn’t exist on [their] map.”

As for Apple, and in order for the 4G LTE service to run on their devices, they have to certify you as a mobile operator and acknowledge Lebanon as a mobile market on their map. We had been in contact with them for that purpose and even the Ministry of Telecom did contact them, but they were very slow to reply to us. We have recently signed an NDA with them which should enable the ball to start rolling.

Until only few weeks ago, they didn’t see Lebanon as a serious market and they tell us “you don’t exist on our map”. 

How better would life be if some Lebanese can grasp the concept that Apple introduced regarding our telecom market and extrapolate it, rightfully so, over the many other facets in our country? Maybe then we’d be able to get out of this constant mess we’re in. 

It’s funny how many people are suddenly against foreign interference in Syria. I’ve been wondering for the past week, as news of a possible American strike against Damascus surfaced, where all those people who cared about the sovereignty of Syria were for the past two years?

Arabs are interesting people. You only need to say America once in order to get them rallying behind their one common secondary enemy. The United States is the world’s biggest terrorist organization, some of them would say. You can sit back and laugh. The problem is that they firmly believe that the problem is actually the United States.

Media and people have rallied against any possible American strike, against the “imperialistic” regime that has targeted the countries of the Middle East for a long, long time. They started recalling Afghanistan and Iraq. They reminded people of the thousands who are dead because of this American greed for oil and power, although they failed to mention that Syria isn’t on the oil map. How dare they think they can use our airspace to fight our neighbors? How dare they think they can do whatever they please and not find repercussions? What right does the United States have to attack Syria?

Or so say the people whose brand of interference is not satisfied by America. Say no to foreign interference in Syria. Except foreign is only that when it’s non-Arab, no? Because somehow Arabs get to interfere in each other’s business as much as they want but it’s more than acceptable because they’re all one big happy family, raised on accepting each other’s boundaries and liberties.

For the past two years, every single Middle Eastern country has made it its bread and butter to interfere in Syrian affairs daily. But no one had a problem with that, right? Everyone is against foreign interference in Syria – except when said interference is at the hands of Hezbollah and Iran? Why? Because they’re helping the region keep one of the last remaining regimes against Israel’s zionist plans?

How exactly is the Assad regime resisting Israel? When was the last time that regime attempted to liberate the Golan Heights? How many bullets has Assad fired at the Israeli army in the past twenty years? What did Assad do when his country was bombed by Israel a few months ago?

How does anything that Assad did regarding Israel actually qualify as being a “resistance” regime? Does threatening Israel through Hezbollah in case the United States does anything to his country actually count?

The way I see it, the only country getting screwed in that non-sensical logic is Lebanon, as always. How long are we supposed to be the playground for that Syrian regime whenever it feels like it? How long are we supposed to be an extension of the war in Syria just because some parties in our country can’t mind their own business? How many more explosions that are caused, whether directly or indirectly by said parties, are we supposed to withstand just because they decided to go rescue their best friend next door? How many more independent war and peace decisions are we supposed to swallow just because they can do whatever they please? How is anything those parties are doing remotely acceptable to the entire well-being of this supposed nation that we want to call home?

Or is it because the Syrian regime is in bed with Iran and is therefore, by association, fighting Israel? And is “Israel” the only factor that is relevant enough to help us shape whatever policy or opinion we want to have? Is this “resistance” axis, whose only activity is that restricted to empty words, enough reason for us as Lebanese to let our country be screwed every single day?

Or are Arabs really afraid that those Western countries they despise actually have a form of accountability to their politicians that might see them removed from office that their countries would never, ever have? Because they’ll never see their parliaments vote against strikes? Because they’ll never see their presidents defer such decisions to legislative bodies? Because they’ll never see their leaders lose elections due to their political choices such as the ones that come to matters of war?

I also keep wondering how many people have actually forgotten what the Syrian regime is actually capable of when it comes to atrocities. Somehow, the discussion has become to let the regime stay because those rebels are worse. We’re fighting with the regime because we don’t want those “takfir” people to reach power. How abused has that word become lately? And how scared have people become of it without knowing that those who are supposedly fighting those “takfiryyin” are no different? This isn’t a matter of choosing the lesser evil. This isn’t a matter of bad versus worse. This is a matter of worst versus worst.

Do you not remember the years of human rights abuse that the Syrian regime has committed against Lebanese? Are you not familiar with the different types of experimentations that the regime has done on Lebanese people just because they defied it somehow? Do you not remember the children in Houla who were murdered ruthlessly last year by regime forces? How is this better than those “animals” who eat hearts and behead Christians? Are Christian lives more valuable just because they’re minorities? Can we stop using such useless arguments just because they allow you to have some form of cover for you coming out in support of a regime that is as horrible as the rebels you despise just because they don’t fit in your political mold of choice?

And then there are those who suddenly woke up from their two year coma and noticed there are human rights violation in Syria. Chemical weapons are a no-no – that is the red line that must not be crossed. Never mind the countless red lines that have already been crossed in Syria over the past two years as the entire world stood by watching. Human lives are not really worthy when their nationality is not of the decent kind. Those people have, therefore, decided that it makes sense for the United States to finally interfere in a “limited” strike whose effects might be anything but “limited.” Because human rights are somehow best perserved by increasing violence in a country that is already torn apart by violence? Because there’s no other solution to Syria except the easiest solution that involves sending missiles gifted from Washington, London and Paris to Damascus with love?

I don’t know who used sarin gas in Syria. Arguments can go both ways. Proof, be it fabricated or not, can also go both ways. Rebels or regime. Terrorists or the terrorist fighting those terrorists. But does it even matter who used sarin? The ship of common sense questions regarding Syria has sailed a long, long time ago. And by the looks of it, that ship won’t be coming back anytime soon because if there’s anything that life in the Middle East has taught us, it’s that the people of the region tend to think with their emotions when it comes to the matters of the head. But when it comes to politics, emotions have no role.

You’ve probably heard a lot recently about how the Lebanese Psychology and Psychiatry associations have “come out” in the scientific favor of homosexual behavior in Lebanon.

For those of you who don’t know, the main reference for psychologists and psychiatrists, the DSM, has declassified homosexuality as an illness 40 years ago. So why is it now that Lebanon’s psychologists and psychiatrists are saying it isn’t so to the Lebanese public?

Well, I’m lucky enough to be passing through a psychiatry rotation at the country’s leading psychiatric facilities, under the auspices of one of the psychiatrists who was cited in the many press events that have taken place around the issue at hand. So I asked the question that has been going through my head for a long time now: why now, 40 years later, since the DSM update on the matter happened in 1973?

It seems the main reason behind the associations in question is because “the time is right.” What time is that?
Apparently, following the closure of Ghost in Dekwaneh, some TV stations hosted “psychologists” who proclaimed homosexuality as a disease precipitated by some forms of child abuse. This statement has absolutely no basis in reality so the Lebanese Psychology Association and the Lebanese Psychiatric Society decided that such erroneous information were not to be allowed to be propagated and that they were going to counter them.

The psychiatrist whom I asked for information on the matter was adamant to note that, contrary to the increasingly popular belief that such statements aim to get the law changed, it is not in fact their aim because “legislation doesn’t concern [Lebanon's psychiatrists].” They are simply trying to raise awareness on the issue due to the way Lebanese media has been portraying it.

Do they hope the law gets changed one day? The psychiatrist in question said he’s personally in favor of changing the law. But it is not their job, nor is it part of their agenda. It is worth noting though, that even though Lebanon is technically “40 years late,” it’s still the “first country in the region to have such stances made public.”

Either way, based on my observations in psychiatry for the past few weeks, Lebanon has a long, long way to go regarding much of that domain.