WHY?

“Why” is the first question we start asking and keep asking all the time. And the worst thing is probably to receive no answer to it.

I’m asking to myself a lot of questions:

Why is the world split between poor and rich?

North and south? Occident and orient?

Why is there one god, but many religions telling different stories about Him?

Why people are killing each other even when living in the same country?

Why, after a whole bunch of wars and genocides, the world still hasn’t understood anything?

Why are political leaders doing the exact same errors than in the past?

Why haven’t they learnt anything yet?

Why, on the 21st Century, are so many many people used to live in a war? …

 

I’ve got no answer. And no one has it.

Sometimes, I even feel guilty. Guilty about the fact that I had a normal childhood, and even didn’t know what was happening elsewhere in the world. Guilty for being aware that every seconds in this world, people are dying without having an answer to their questions. I don’t feel guilty for not having the answers to those millions of questions, but I feel angry about that, and about the fact that a lot of people in the world are not even asking themselves those questions!

Lebanese people have to wake up, start looking at the past, ask themselves questions, and try not to make the past repeat itself. Why Lebanon has almost never known how to live without war? Why is there 3 times more Lebanese living outside of Lebanon than in it? Why are Lebanese still relying on other countries to help them? Lebanon has to ask itself the right questions, because no one is gonna answer it…

Always please the Madam

Very interesting post from a special guest, a Franco-Lebanese friend of mine:

Twenty-three year old Manal made a promise to her family in Lebanon: she would earn enough cash working as a house maid or a nanny to build a house back home. She left her three sons and husband thousands of miles away and moved to ProsperLand. Her recruiting agent in Lebanon told her that 2 years will be enough to gather enough funds and that she will be protected from any abuse. Things went not as expected. Upon her arrival, her passport was confiscated by her employer. She wasn’t authorised to leave home or to call her family. Her employer refused to pay her any wage. She worked 17h a day and had no holidays. She slept in the laundry room (or what her employer call a maid room) and had no privacy whatsoever. Two years later, time has come for Manal come back home! But her employer, who would pay additional agency fees to recruit a new maid, refused to let her go and threatened not to pay the 2 years wage!

Does this story seem familiar to you? I suggest you replace Lebanon by Sri Lanka and ProsperLand by Lebanon and read it again!


The Offer: “Always Please the Madame”
Each year, 10 000 Sri Lankan women leave their country to work in Lebanon as domestic workers with the intention of working hard to make better lives for themselves and their families. In most cases, these women earn more than they could in their home country, but it is estimated by the Migrant Services Center, one of the largest NGOs in Sri Lanka serving domestic migrants, that 40 percent of them return to Sri Lanka no better off than they were when they left.

The Lebanese labour law, which is supposed to protect employees, is not applicable to such migrant workers opening doors to all sorts of abuses. A report from Human Right Watch (HRW) lists the following common abuses:

a. Unpaid and Underpaid Wages
b. Physical and Psychological Abuse
c. Sexual Abuse
d. Heavy Workload and Excessively Long Work Hours without Rest
e. Food Deprivation and Inadequate Living Conditions
f. Confiscation of Passports, Forced Confinement, and Restricted Communication
g. Prohibitions on Returning Home
h. Forced Labor
i. Exploitative Practices by Labor Agents in the Countries of Employment

This migration trend is not solely restricted to Lebanon. Migrant workers from many places in Asia and Africa come to countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Lebanon. However, statistics from Sri Lanka Foreign Bureau of Employment (SLFBE) show slightly higher rates of reported maltreatment in Lebanon than elsewhere! In pre-migration training offered by the SLFBE, Sri Lankans women, who are moving to Lebanon, are taught to “work hard to always please the Madam”. Let’s have a look on why the Lebanese Madam wants to be pleased!


The Demand: The Madam has a maid!
Lebanon is a small country! Lebanese population living in Lebanon should not surpass three million if deducting Palestinians refugees and other minorities such as Syrians. Assuming that females compose half of the 3m-population and that 1/3 of females are married, using simple math, we end-up with 500k married females in Lebanon. On the other hand, it’s estimated that 150k home maid migrant workers live in Lebanon. Therefore, exactly 30 percent of married Lebanese females (let’s call them the Madam) employ a migrant worker! (Actually, the figure is slightly lower since some of them employ more than one maid!)

Many reasons force the Madam to hire a Sri Lankan maid. Although, she might not work (as in many Arabic societies, women in Lebanon dedicate their lives to their families – but more recently and especially due to hard economical conditions things are changing), the Madam has kids. She also has a husband, who can be very demanding sometimes. But most importantly, she is under pressure by society. In fact, having a foreign maid is considered a social success for Madams. It’s crucial to go out shopping at ABC, a chic shopping mall in Beirut, and to show to everyone that the Madam has a maid!

You know you’re Lebanese when…

Here is a list of Lebanese characteristics which I picked from various sources. Some items might be exaggerating but it is also so true sometimes!!

– You use your forehead and eyebrows to point something out.
– You get plastic surgery at least once in your lifetime.
– You are so “class” while everyone else is “nawar” (meaning rude).
– You won’t drive anything that’s not a Mercedes, BMW, or Hummer.
– You could always use another pair of sunglasses.
– You constantly mix Arabic, French, and English when speaking.
– You think you are better than everyone just because you are Lebanese.
– You say you hate all Khaleejis but you’ll probably go work in Saudi Arabia or Dubai.
– Syrians are the butt of all jokes.
– Your family “owns” at least one Sri Lankan servant.
– You have about 40 cousins.
– You have at least one relative named George,Ali, Elie,Ahmad, Tony, or Hussein.
– All your aunts want to hook you up with a guy/girl they know.
– You are constantly talking about the latest Hayfa Wehbe news.
– You bought your driver’s license.
– You don’t have a job but you upgrade your cell phone every month.
– You only buy something if it is expensive enough, because the higher the price the better the quality, right?
– You dress like you’re going clubbing all day every day, probably because you do.
– Your aunt is always asking when she can belly dance at your wedding.
– When you arrive at an airport you find like 20 relatives waiting to greet you.
– You always curse Lebanese people when you are in Lebanon, but when you live abroad you only make Lebanese friends.
– The men always fight over who pays the dinner bill.
– You have to keep explaining to Westerns that Beirut is not just a drinking game.
– Your extended family is over your house all the time, discussing the latest family drama.
– There is no such thing as quiet time.
– At least one conversation a day is about being Lebanese.
– You use your mobile phone only to make missed calls or to receive missed call.
– You judge artists and singers based on their political view only.
– You hug and kiss relatives you have never seen before in your life.
– You are very outgoing and open to other cultures.
– At parties there’s always enough food for an entire army and you have to taste everything and finish your plate or your mom will say ” harram”!
-You are always late.
– “Yalla” is part of your everyday vocabulary.
– You are always right!-You believe that you are not only perfect …you are Lebanese too!

Have you recognized yourself?

Lost in translation

In Lebanon, people often speak very well both French and English in addition to Arabic and Lebanese dialect. What a great thing to speak so many languages, I wish I could have know as much when I was young!
But, are the Lebanese lost with all those languages, or do they want to use it all when they speak?? This kind of language-mixed sentence is so common: “Okay merci kteer”, “yallah bye!”, “Hi kifak ca va”. Translation: “Okay thank you very much”, “Come on, bye”, “Hi how you’re doing”.
Isn’t funny? Well… yes, as long as everybody understand at each other, which I do at this point!

Then, the Internet and SMS brought another kind of language, and unfortunately I’m unable to understand it! It is basically Lebanese, but written with Latin letters and containing numbers, which role is to replace Arabic letters that can’t be translated by a Latin letter. And of course they still mix some French and English words in it!
Does anyone have a dictionary for this new language? I’m lost in translation here…

Social networking, a natural Lebanese skill

In Lebanon, everybody live in community. Everything you’re doing have to be known, by your friends, your family, your neighbors… it is show-off all the time:
Who’s gonna make the biggest dinner, who have the biggest house, who’s woman have the most makeup on her face and the latest fashion clothes, who have the biggest and most luxurious car (even if you can’t afford it)… whose life is most successful?? If others think you are successful, beautiful or whatever, then you get the feeling of being Happy. That’s Lebanon, the country where the way you look is the most important in life.

It isn’t surprising then that so much Lebanese, particularly the young ones, have a minimum of 1 profile in a social networking website such as Facebook. As a user myself and having some Lebanese in my “friends” (Facebook’s contacts), I observed how they behave on a web-based social network. I think it is the same behavior as in their real life, but it is also an opportunity to exaggerate everything more and more and to show it to a larger scale of people.

I would be delighted to have real statistics from Facebook or other social networks. Since I don’t have it, I made mine from what I observed in my Lebanese friends on Facebook:
– Average number of friends: 128
– Average pictures of themselves: 42
– Average number of groups they belong to, which subject is related to Lebanon, politics or religion: 8
The main objective for Lebanese people to use social networks is to show them off, which is not a bad thing basically. Unfortunately, a large part of Lebanese do not realize how far they’re going.

When I see groups called: “We’re not Arabs” (1,500+ members), “I Will Leave lebanon if michel Aoun is president” (900 members) / vs. “I will leave lebanon if SAMIR GEAGEA is the next president” (700+ members) , “FaceBook Should delete “lebanon & israel friendship” ” (700+ members)… and those one are quite soft, there’s a lot worst as political or religious extremism that I don’t even want to mention here.

I don’t care about what people think, what their political views are, but I care when they create a group against other people, other religion, other countries… It isn’t anymore for show-off only, it is extremism accessible to everybody.
The social networks are enabling people to express themselves to the world, some Lebanese are going too far in this way.

Demographic comparison Lebanon vs. France

Here are some interesting numbers:

Can we really compare Lebanon to France? Probably not, but these are still interesting numbers…

Amazing Lebanon!

Lebanon is probably one of the most amazing countries in the world. Everything is in there:
– Beaches and mountains
– Sun, rain and snow
– 18 religious groups, including Maronite, Islam (Sunni and Shiite), Druze, Orthodox, Buddhist, Jewish…
-Language spoken: Arabic, Lebanese, French, English, Armenian, Indian…

In a so diversified country, contradictions are common and everyone is trying to show how much different he is from his neighbor. So, people differentiate themselves by their religion, the language they know apart from Lebanese (it is usual to hear Lebanese speaking French or English, even if they speak to Lebanese), the region / town where they live, or their level in the society. All this “show-off” for everything in their lives makes the contradictions more remarkable.

Those photos are good illustration for some remarkable contradictions:

The syndrome of expatriates

I am not a doctor, but I might have discovered a disease that applies to each person leaving its home country. To explain it, I’ll take the example of Lebanese leaving Lebanon to live in France, but this would apply to any expatriate in the world. Here is a chronological list of the symptoms experienced from the first time moving from the home country:

1st: Arriving in France, the patient is shocked and feels very uncomfortable, wondering why he decided to move to France.
2nd: The patient doesn’t like anymore Lebanon and believe that France is the best place ever.
3rd: The patient hate France, the French people and everything linked to France; and believe that Lebanon was the best place ever!
4th: The patient feels the need to be more integrated in France, and consequently try to forget its origins.
5th: The patient realizes that he should not have forgotten where he come from, and decides to spend longer holidays in Lebanon. But, here is a second shock!! He realizes that he is no longer a real Lebanese, but something like half French / half Lebanese. The problem is that he can no longer stand some aspects of Lebanese culture.
6th: Then, the sixth symptom is experienced by the patient for the rest of his life (until some researcher will find a cure…). The patient feels that he belong to both countries, but loves and hates both at the same time. Actually, not exactly at the same time: when he lives in France he hate it and thinks he’d better go back to Lebanon, and when he comes back to Lebanon he hate it and the only thing he want is France!!

What an awful disease! The final drawback is that the patient doesn’t feel any more comfortable in any country in the world. But the final reward is to become a more interesting person, that have faced challenges in life, discovered new cultures and who knows how to reassess itself.

The frog footprint in Lebanon

 As a French, you’ll never really feel as a foreigner in Lebanon. When I arrived for the first time in Beirut I discovered a totally new culture; but somehow, I could feel that France has come here…
My first contact in the airport was the customs officer. I went to the customs to buy a visa, the officer talked to me in French with a large smile on his face, he welcomed me warmly in his country and gave me the visa for free with a nice explanation: “France is our friend, it is free for you!”
On our way from the airport to home, a large part of shops’ names were written in French; I could listen to Nostalgie or NRJ radios (French radios) in the car; finally most of the people I met spoke in French with me and were happy to do so.
So many examples making me understand that France and Lebanon are definitely linked to each other!

Diaspora

The diversity of Lebanese people not only comes from their origins, but also because of the huge Diaspora that the country has known since… ever! There is actually much more Lebanese living all over the world than in Lebanon (only 4 million Lebanese are living in Lebanon).

Check this out: