Pen Thoughts

A fish was swimming one day in a cool pond at the high western mountains of Lebanon, happily and peacefully. A frog came along and asks the fish: "Heyy, how is the water". The fish look at the frog surprisingly and blankly, responding: "What's water"! If you live in Lebanon, you don't need wittiness to understand who's the fish and who's the frog might be. Yet it is always surprising how resistant some Lebanese on seeing clearly the true colours of our crisis; thus, are completely blind on who hold the responsibilities. It could be blindness, collusion of interests and/or a mixture of both. In any case, this never stop being a perplexing dilemma for Lebanese citizens who have freed themselves from the slavery of sectarian autocrats, or to whom have never given their knees. Even when it comes to advanced liberal forces who have fought against the tyranny of neighbours, they have fallen, as their pride did, into the cracks of the sectarian sy...

I was born in Lebanon in 1981. until the day I started to gain consciousness about my surrounding social paradigm, I learned two things. Our reactions as a cultural entity highly depend on emotions. We can be stupid and illogical. A lot of things changed during my 38 years of living in this shit hole. but the abovementioned facts never changed. In fact, it got worse. We believe silly lies. We discuss meaningless subjects. We do useless jobs, though we hate it, we never try to change. We say whatever it comes from our one cell brain without owning any responsibility. We are fearless and full of fears at the same time. Utterly sectorial. Full of empathy and careless at the same time. We have to admit firs that our downfall, the current one more precisely, is a direct implication of our destructive mindset, contradictive and irresponsible behavior. Lebanon, this is what we are, own it

"The only tie existing today is compassion and the ethical duty of a handful of persons, but this cannot create a global ethical conscience in a world under the influence of a predatory logic" It is something i red for Oswaldo De Revero way back and still lingering on my yellow papers. in the confusion and the wondering of the movement future طلعت_ريحتكم #بدنا_نحاسب #  that gave us so much hope, i remember the wise words Oswaldo mentioned. it kept me thinking, will we ever be able to succeed in building a republic in Lebanon? As well, the world order doesn't look much promising. it is clearly not going toward an environmental neither economical sustainability, and its failure is unavoidable, without a vital and comprehensive commutation. it is very difficult times we are living!!

 العالم ما حست بالحياة الزبالة يلي عايشيتا بلبنان والوضع المؤريف إلا لما شافت الزبالة عم تقيلا علا الطريق! اي مظبوط، هيدا خرا الي كنا عم نيكلو اي مظبوط هيدي رشوي عم بتدفعا اي مظبوط معظم لي بشتغلو بالقطاع العام فاسدين  اي مظبوط بتسوق متل الاجدب ماكأنو في حدن تاني على الطريق، بلا احترام وبلا اخلاق اي مظبوط انت مستزلم ومتعصب وطائفي وملتوي وازعر اي مظبوط ما بهمك غير نفسك ومن بعد حمارك ما ينبت حشيش اي مظبوط خنوع، ومستسلم  شو بدك نحطلك على الطاريق تنتفض على كل هول كمان يا شاطر ؟؟!!!

Lebanese people have to voice the truth that have been studiously avoided since before the beginning of the civil war in 1975. It is clear that through voicing the truth, we will run the risk of causing deep discomfort and we will definitely injure false patriotic sentiments, which have only served to mask the historic dysfunction of our nation.   But it is a necessary reflection, a vital and essential one in a country that have wasted the entire twentieth century without achieving an identity, a viable economy and a developed regime. The process of development in Lebanon is still elusive in the present global chaos, regional uprising and national parallelisms. This illusion of development has to be replaced by a realistic pact for national survival

Lebanon is condemned, by serving the ruling class best interest, to resolve its problems by the worst fashions, always. techniques proposed to manage our solid waste are outdated, abandoned by the developed countries for being low on cost efficiency, replaced by innovative approaches that save the environment a great deal of strain. Why the ruling class insist on adopting old solid waste treatment industries is a puzzling questions! In fact it is a multimillion perplexing question!

The following Parable is an actual simulation of the Lebanese society layers. Parable of a lioness, a cheetah and an Oryx, who had come together on a long journey, decided one day to confess their sins to each other. As queen of the forest, the lioness was the first.  "she told the others that, once, after she had finished off a big buck, a zebra came by. "it looked so sleek and tender," she said, "I had wantonly dispatched a fellow beast for no purpose," she said regretfully.   The remorseful cheetah reassured her. "why should you, queen of the forest, be remorseful about the skill that has made you the greatest hunter of us all? You are to be forgiven."   Then the cheetah told how, one day, he had spied a fat ewe and her two lambs. Hungrily he had pounced on the nearest lamb, but the mother had begged him to spare the remaining lamb and eat her instead. "I agreed", the cheetah said, "but I was so hungry I the...

اعتدت منذ فترة طويلة على تقليد صباحيّ روتينيّ بسيط غير انه أصبح بغاية الأهمية بالنسبة إليّ. أحضّر قهوتي، أتربّع عرشي وراء المكتب، واتصفح جريدة النهار لثلاثين دقيقة. هذه العادة جعلتني من أشدّ المعجبين بالصحافي راجح الخوري. ثقافته السياسية واسعة وهو قارئ نهم متابع للأخبار العالمية والإقليميّة ويترجم بمنطق حاد مفهومه للأوضاع بشكل حازم ولازع. في جريدة اليوم عدد 25462 في تاريخ 21/8/2014 تحدّث راجح في عموده اليوميّ صفحة 12، عن اللبنانيين الذين أصبحوا حفنة من الاجئين في وطنهم الأم. وقد توجه بهذا المقال بالرد أو بإنتقاد ما جاء على لسان روس ماونتن منسق الأمم المتحدة للشؤون الإنسانية في لبنان، في مقابلة صحافية مع ريتا صفير، زميلة راجح في النهار. وقد اختتم المقال بتلخيص ممتاز للمحتوى وقد جاء فيه: "مستر ماونتن، تقول انكم تعملون بموجب الحياد والإنسانية. ولكن الإنسانية تفرض على الأقل سلوكاً أكثر جديّة ومسؤوليّة وأخلاقيّة حيال بلد يجعل طوفان الاجئين إليه من أهله حفنة من الاجئين والمهاجرين". ولقد لفتني جداً هذا القول. فان افتراض راجح تحرّك الأمم المتحدة تجاه أزمة النزوح مصدره م...

Historically Lebanese people have cultivated a very bad habit of enslaving themselves to something, a war lord, a religious leader, a secular leader, etc. i always argued that this bad habit, this urge, is only a manifestation for the need of belonging, especially in total absence of nationalism and the positive moderate religious life style have permitted Lebanese to seek belonging in other forms than the extreme religious representation, at least most of them. At each time the Lebanese national security is at risk, and there are no other choice than for the Lebanese Army to interfere and take the lead, knowing that an earlier interference would save a lot of troublesome, a campaign of flood blinded support for the Lebanese Army take the shape of silly divinization. i don't mind this at all. as an institution, the Lebanese Army is a focal point that most of the Lebanese trust and consider highly. but i argue that a balance should be settled. and i emphasis that the ...

it is in the nature of the rule of law that it establishes a single standard for all parties. it is in the nature of imperial power (which must possess "unchallenged" might) and another for the ruled (those restricted to "trade and other pursuits of peace") indeed, a double standard is required by any form of rule by force: those who hold the sword prescribe the law but are not under it, whereas those against whom the sword is wielded must obey the law but can have no part in making it

the photo below describe adequately Lebanese people,  don't you think?

منذ حوالي اسبوعين، كتب الصحافي راجح الخوري في جريدة النهار التالي: "يكفي ان نقرأ الإعلان عن تشكيل خلايا وزارية لمعالجة الأزمة و قضايا المخطوفين لكي نعرف ان المشاكل الساخنة لن يحلها الكلام الهراء و السياسات الهراء. فلقد كان كافياً أن يسمع الناس نجيب ميقاتي واقفاً يصطنع ابتسامات بلا معنى وسط حصار الأسئلة و الصحافيين، و لا يتردد لحظة في اعلان افلاسه وافلاس الحكومة والدولة والمؤسسات والشخصيات من خلال وضعه البلاد أمام خيارين أحلاهما مرّ، أي: - إما الأمن بالتراضي - وإما سفك الدماء !! ولكأننا في غابة ليس فيها هيبة و قانون او منطق او رجال يعرفون فعلاً كيف بالإقناع يجعلون من الأمن مطلباً وطنياً إجتماعياً يوقف إنحدار الجميع الى جحيم الحرب الأهلية." لا ادري لماذا دونت هذا المقطع من المقال على ورقة صغيرة، كأن شعرت بأن اليوم الذي سأزتذكر فيه هذه المقولة سيكون قريباً جداً. لا يمكن القول إلا رحمة الله على كل شهيد ورأفته لكل مصاب.