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Channel: A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares
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Byblos Festival Cancels Mashrou3 Leila’s Concert

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There you have it folks, the Byblos Festival has succumbed to the pressure from Christian extremist bigots and canceled the concert of Lebanon’s top band Mashrou3 Leila, in a statement issued today.

I have no words for how terrible this is for Lebanese freedoms, for Lebanese youth, music and our well being as a nation. As the lines of sensibilities of these different groups keep getting drawn around what makes them comfortable, we are all forced into a tighter and tighter space that is slowly becoming suffocating.

Shame on the Maronite Church for not being confident enough in its teaching to withstand a song.

Shame on those who call themselves Christian, who never turn the left cheek and who think that Jesus would want them to go full Crusader mode in 2019.

Shame on the faith of those who call themselves Christian that is so shaken by a lyric, by a band, by music.

Shame on those who are more mad about a lyric than about living in a country that is crumbling apart around them, with dying economies, absence of the rule of law, weapons and thugs roaming freely.

Shame on our judicial system that did not stand up for its own values, that still applies Ottoman era censorship laws, and that cares more about the emotions of a bunch of religious airheads than about civil liberties.

Shame on artists and media personalities in this country who proved, once and once again, that they are as backward minded as we always thought they are. I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised, but there you go. From Fares Karam, to Zein El Omr (a very proud Christian who changed his name from Tony so the Arabs would like him), to Carla Haddad. Shame on all of you.

Every single Lebanese with an ounce of nationalism should be angry at this today. We should all be mad at how they keep walking all over our liberties in the name of their religions, their gods, their politics, and we have no other way but to blog about it, tweet about it or just be vocally mad.

With each passing day, we are shown that this country is not for us. It’s for those who really love living in the dark ages, at a time where every single freedom they’ve earned can be taken away from them, maybe they can be happy then.

With every passing day, Lebanon is no longer a beacon of freedom for the Middle East, but just another one of those countries we once thought were not as good as us. We are now a beacon of ignorance, repression and oppression.

Mabrouk. Jesus must be very proud.


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