Tosbe7oon 3ala watan

So anyway, all up in arms about sexuality around these places.  sek-sho-ality?  What on earth!  Yes, the divine concept that has brought us forth into existence to begin with. Thank you.

Ahmar bil khat el 3areed (Thick Red Line)- funny once translated- a controversial Lebanese talk show that makes our mothers (and fathers) squirm in horror, for its courageous topics, and even more courageous, but very sober faced, talk show host, malek maktabi.   This week's theme was targeting teenagers and those younger souls that have no more innocence left in them, according to the latest polls in Lebanon.  Sex apparently has begun at the tender age of 8.  No details provided. Several warnings and threats later, the show was broadcast and I was very amused. 

And horrified.  Not because it's a subject no one should ever discuss, ha! but because there were parents who insisted that their teenage kids should not know, would not care (that's the funniest), and WILL be FORBIDDEN from knowing the story of the birds and the bees up until they are knocking on marriage's door.  Mama, take this gun from me, I really (want to but) can not use it anymore. Dot dot dot.

Maktabi dealt with a lot of hell before the episode was broadcast, and right now he's probably dealing with a little more, the poor bespectacled soul.

I was full of mixed feelings while watching.  There were the awesome inquisitive kids, boys and girls, some awesome parents, some deeply moronic parents, a not very humorous Gynecologist, and a twelve year old girl (or was she eleven?  Or nine? I can't remember now) who was supposed to get married soon. Religion be damned.  She was very "well informed" says her spooky but proud father of five girls.   Not sure what to make of his rather discomforting persistence upon knowledge but I'd rather not think about it one bit. His daughter is a child for hell's sake!

What I want to inquire about, very politely indeed is, WHAT'S THE BIG FAT DEAL?  About sexuality I mean. I'm not trying to flaunt my (geographically unacceptable) liberal thoughts in anyone's face, but come on, for how long are we going to keep our heads stuck in the desert sands?   The world is moving at such a speed and to such elevated levels (not always but sometimes), that we cannot keep thinking we're all high and mighty with our "values" and our "morals" and our "proprieties" and our "gender roles" and our sanctimonious battles in the name of what's "holy" and "scared" and "untouchable."

She's eleven for crap's sake.  Well, as long as she can wash dishes and set the table straight, right?  I am green with nausea.

The problem that was very clear throughout the episode was that those who were against the "enlightenment" feared that this sort of knowledge will promote, instead of put the breaks on, the said activity.  What they cannot see  (which baffles me because weren't these large children, teenagers at one point in their sorry lives?), what they cannot fathom is that sticking a candle in the face of their confused but very hormone-driven adolescent might actually have the desired effect of abstinence and/or responsibility! Just mention private parts falling off due to contracted disease and voila!  a job well done.

ok, I joke.  But seriously, for how long will this sort of stupidity last in our "holier-than-thou" mentality? Things like ignorance is bliss, or what you don't know cannot hurt you ladee da cannot apply here, can it?   When you don't know about TV and you're a woman or a house cat in the 1950's, yes ignorance might be bliss.  You just don't know what you're missing.  No genitals will fall off from this gap in information.  When you don't know your girlfriend is cheating on you, some might say ignorance is bliss, but I beg to differ. Not for loyalty or honesty or any of that nonsense.  It's for what's hygienic that the poor boyfriend might want to know.  On a completely non-sentimental level. So no, ignorance is not bliss, not in this day and age, where the internet is a raging flow of images and false learning.

Sexuality aside, what about perspectives?   Finally, the frowning Gyno decided to utter a word or two about that towards the end of the episode, highlighting the idea that not only is sex education a MUST, regardless of religion and morality, there's the notion of how the man views the woman and vice versa, on a different level, when the mind and the heart might want to play a role or two.

How does the man view the woman?   We all know. And guess what? The woman views him the same way.  OMG.  She has desires?  No way!!  ok, enough melodrama.  If we don't know how to view each other beyond the physical, how do we expect to move beyond the physical in everything we do?  Something about the spirit and the mind.  hmmmm... the spirit and the mind.  Minus metaphysical dogma PLEASE.  Maybe that's not relevant in some communities.  A child!  What would a child know about respecting her body and mind and spirit if all she's been born to do in her wretched little life is grow up, get her period and then get hitched to some idiot who's either too young, like her, to know any better, and will with time and further misogyny, bring home a myriad of STD's  or too old and silly to know any better too, and will, with more time and even further silliness, bring home a myriad of STD's, or some domestic violence while he's at it. 

Perhaps I'm being offensive. Perhaps I don't care that I'm being offensive.

So you want to be like the West?!  is the sharp response of course.  No.  I don't want to be like anybody.  I just want to be the best version of myself.  Imagine I am a society.  As a society, I would like to gather around the camp fire, think about what I've collected from all the exposure I've gotten over the years, wars, travels, and the Mediterranean, and put it all under a heavy magnifying glass and try to improve upon it. Not throw it over the cliff if it feels mildly unfamiliar, and be all "Eastern cliche" and categorical about it.

Thank goodness for souls like Marcel Khalife and Nadine Labaki who try to find the diamond in the rubbish.  Once they find it, they try to brush it clean.  Our problem is that we want to either throw the rubbish, diamond and all, or expose only the rubbish, loud and clear, without looking for the jewels. 

Malek Maktabi was trying to shed some light, not only on our physical being-ness, but also on the roles we play in each others' lives and the lives of our children, who are raised in a completely different time and space, whether we like it or not.  Okay, I'm 33, I'm not that old.  If the mother won't teach her son to respect his body, mind and spirit, and that of his partner, I see little hope for anything in this sad little place of broken electricity and minefields.  

This eleven-year old will probably raise men and women of the same caliber of progressiveness. Clap clap clap.  Much, muchhh, to look forward to. 

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Totes

I'm stuck in Beirut with a tissue box up my nose. Up my left nostril to be exact.  Not a whole tissue box but it might as well be.  I'm not supposed to be here.  I'm supposed to be back where my "real" life takes place.  This, here, is a figment.  Of someone else' real life.

Not mine, no.  I don't even get the red, white and green idea anymore.  I remember in fourth grade we were told, during Art class, that the white represented the snow that falls upon the majestic mountains of Lebanon, the red signifies the blood of the martyrs sprayed upon the white, and the green, oh the green was none other than the magnificent cedar tree of course.  Which usually lived high up on the mountains, and FOR WHICH the blood of the "martyrs" was spilled.

I look around me later, yes it's been a while since fourth grade, so many years later I look around me and find that the whole damn thing was pointless. The mountains are quickly becoming barren, there's hardly any snow in winter, there are a couple of cedars left, and the blood continues.

But I'm stuck here with a tissue box up my nostril because I'm ill and I shouldn't fly.  You know who else is ill?  Every single body.

Yes.  Everyone.  I don't want to complain about the people who live here, how rude, or obnoxious, or corrupt they are.  Minus my friends and loved ones of course. That's getting old.  I'll just complain about our parents.  Yes, our parents if I may.

May I?

I don't get them.  I've been sitting around with a few pairs of parents lately, you see, I didn't have much to do but sit around and listen to adults talk about, well, here it comes: politics.  That's what happens when you're sick and stuck at home.  You also drink a lot of caffeine and then take panadol night (cold and flu) and sleep the hell out of it all.

So anyway, parents.  Those awesome individuals who gave so much of their time, energy, finances and youth to raise us ungrateful personalities.  We won't get into that right now.  The point is, they've given up so much so that we follow (or lead) a better life path, right?  Yet!  Yet, they sit around and follow up on so and so's annual memorial for the millionth year, and watch it on television, and talk about it, and stick their heads out the balcony so as not to miss a single tear drop.  They pick out the faces they recognize in the crowds gathered to give their "condolences," they check out the tailleur and the hair do, the daughter and the son.  And they give excuses for the offspring who is/are unable to take over the leadership.  The poor thing is still young.  The poor thing lived outside all his life, he doesn't know better.  The poor thing is not as involved in politics as was his father.

The poor thing is soooo not a poor thing, first of all, is what I want to say.  Second of all, if the "poor" thing can't handle it, get out.  and frankly the "poor" thing doesn't need to be around to take over anything to begin with.  There are other individuals in the nation.

Nation?  Who said anything about a nation?

So when everyone is done crying over spilled milk, and I laugh a little, everyone looks at me very very disapprovingly.  So you're with the other party huh? Their expressions are hard and accusing.

umm, no?  I'm not with anybody.

A brief moment of relief arrives before they find something else to scratch at.  So why aren't you with them? You just want to oppose!

umm, no?  I'm just not impressed with the lack of initiative, I say.  I say the dead guy might have had a good idea for about five minutes but he's been dead for so long I can't even remember, over 20 years! and since then, what has anyone done for the nation?

That n-word again.

Oh a lot, a lot.  We wouldn't be here if it weren't for them. We would be extinct.

Like the species that we are.  Extinct.  And I think about all the other things that are extinct because of people like them in power.

Many parents don't see that so many are living abroad because of what's extinct, because of people like those still in power.  I want to complain about the parents who still don't see it.  Who get offended if we crack a joke about Catholics and pedophilia.  How dare you say all Catholics are pedophiles?!

umm,  I didn't!

And what the eff is up with those Longchamp totes?  Seriously what is up!  EVERYWHERE.  You can't be Lebanese without one it seems. It's hysterical!   And very very VERY boring.  If you're reading this, and your Longchamp is snuggled by your side, well I guess I should apologize a little.

But really?

And just like the Longchamp totes spreading like a virus, making everyone sick with imitation, and dis-originality, our parents are sick with their own distorted memory of what happened in the last 30 years, hanging on to what's widely (i.e. neighborly and socially)  acceptable, and "in."

They can't seem to find a better bag.  They just don't want to find another brand.

Birthdays and Ordinary Ones

(July/Aug. 2011)

I left my favorite song playing in the car when I left. 

Mistake?

The time has come for the dancing girls to begin their fasting.  Here, things take too long to happen.

God: a weary obstacle.

The time has come for the drinking boys to begin.

Here, things take too long to happen.  I close my curtains and cook a heavy lunch.  The gardener outside my window, a disappearing image.  I boil more coffee for breakfast.

London burns and Libya burns and Egypt is thrown behind bars.   And the same old man wakes up in the morning like nothing ever happens and wears a suit and tie.  The same suit and tie.  The same morning.  His beaten wife asleep in the next room. 

Mistake?

Jesus was thirty three when everything began.  And the bleeding continues since then. 

Sometimes, she said to me, you find yourself married to the same man you left behind, in the car where your favorite song was playing.  All over again.

The two have nothing to do with each other, except the rising between their legs. Always the rising.

And the beaten wife gives birth to children.

Eventually the children, no longer children.  Some of them have some of their own.  Always the rising between their legs.

The man gets up and wears his suit and tie. A country on his mind. 

Sometimes a city.

And I leave

the song playing in the car.  No children to claim.

None to ruin.

Leysen and registration

 (not) an imaginary setting.  (not) an imaginary experience.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Leysen bleez."

You hand over the license.  The driver's license.  You want to pay the traffic tickets.  You need to go back to the OTHER CITY, to finally get the registration done.  But they force you to come back.  Somehow there are tickets that MUST be paid here before the other violations are paid.  So you're back to where you began.

You don't have enough cash on you.  So you go home, get the cash, come back.  Beaming.  You pay. 

Then you go to the OTHER CITY a couple of hours away, and you are ready to get the registration done.

"No, you cannot do it here, before you pay the violation found on your driver leysen."

So you react-naturally- with, "ARE you kidding me?!  So what do you suggest I do now?  Can I pay the violation found on my driver's leysen here and now and move right along?"

"No, you cannot pay it here because this was found to have been charged in the OTHER CITY."

So.  You drive to the other city.  The one you were at 2 days back.  You march right in.  The money is ready.

The lady at counter 5 says, "There doesn't seem to be a problem here.  Are you sure you have a violation on your leysen?"

"Ummm, YES.  The OTHER CITY insisted I come back here and do this here.  PLEASE kindly check again."

You are slowly fuming by now. 

"What's your leysen number?"

"It's on the card. That's in your hand."  You are now grinding your teeth.

Some more fumbling.  Some further inquiries.  She disappears somewhere.  Comes back.  Slowly tap tap tap on the keyboard.  Really deep focus.

"Ah, yes.  Here it is.  Yes you owe this much.  Please go to counter 8 to pay it."

"Umm.. okay. Can you please check if I have to pay any other violations? I really don't want to keep driving back and forth for the same thing, if I could only do this once and for all, and you know the OTHER CITY is not so close as you know."

"I cannot help you with the OTHER CITY.  I only show the ONE CITY."

You walk over to counter 8.  The dude is talking on the phone.  He closes reluctantly but not quickly enough.  The money is shamelessly dangling from your fingers. Please let this be it.  Please please please.  You still have to drive again to the OTHER CITY and do the registration.

"I cannot help you with this.  You have to pay this in the other building, not here."

You want to scream and tear your hair out.  You want to run around the building.  You can't believe this.  So what do you do when this happens? 

You smile.

And then you ask a question.  THE question.  "So... is the building open right now? Can I go now?"

And the answer of course. "No, it's closed now.  Come tomorrow at 8."

His phone rings, he picks up, and turns away.   The lady at counter 5 is yawning.

Beirut vs Dubai (or the country vs the other country)

Leb 1- You must not write a text message or bbm while driving, unless you are, in a way, wanting to commit quick suicide

Dubai 1- You most certainly CAN write a whole essay while driving, especially if you're on the right-ish lane and there's no police mister in sight

Leb 2- You must not talk about religion, sex and/or politics with a bunch of people who disagree with you

Leb 2.5- unless you're ready to be very angry, or to make someone very angry, and you must bear the consequence of either

Dubai 2- You must not talk about religion, sex and/or politics with a bunch of people. Full stop.

Dubai 2.5- unless your bag is packed and at the door.

Leb 3- You must not smoke while on AUB campus grounds

Dubai 3- You must not smoke while on AUB campus grounds, because there are no AUB campus grounds.

Dubai 3.5- and yes, this whole point was unnecessary to mention.

Leb 4- Picture this: the designated parking space is empty next to the CAFE, you can choose any spot, but NO, there's a bored man called the valet who simply MUST take your car and park it himself

Leb 4.5- and make you wait till you get your keys back when you want to leave, and then you pay for all this unnecessary situation.

Dubai 4- You find a space, you park, you pay at the machine.

Dubai 4.5- unless you're fancy, then you give the keys away because you can't be bothered, and you CHOOSE to do so.

Leb 5- You must NOT watch a TV CHANNEL that doesn't politically appeal to those in the same room, regardless of the program.  Even if it's something stupid and unfunny and unpolitical like the program "LOL."

Dubai 5- If you're Lebanese, point Leb 5 applies here too.

Leb 6- You must NOT believe that Lebanon is NOT a healthy society. You have the poor and the not so poor, and the rich, and the disgustingly rich, and somehow you're supposed to think that this is real and healthy because you naively believe that you're "exposed" to all of these. 

Dubai 6- You must NOT believe that the UAE is NOT a bubble society.  You have the poor and the not so poor, and the rich, and the disgustingly rich, and somehow you're supposed to think that this is bubble-like because you are not "exposed" to all of these. 

Dubai 6.5- if you simply look around you a little, trust me, you will be very "exposed." And very heart-broken.

Leb 6.25- I guess what I'm trying to say is that Lebanon is THE bubble society and on so many levels. 

Leb 6.5- Because once there's an old WOMAN who could be anyone's grandmother or old aunt found on the streets begging for money, then there is something very very very unhealthy, and very very very unacceptable, going on.

Leb 6.75- And if that's not a bubble society, then I don't know what is.

CUBICLE THINKING

Try writing a poem
While sitting at your desk,
Headset like a pilot,
No music flows though,
You’re just pretending,

With four guys in the same space,
Gentle guys yet,
You really don’t wanna hear
About what’s her face again,
Or the way she walks in the hallway,
Hips swaying like she means it,
Like she knows they watch:
Hunters by heart, brothers by mind.

Try writing when there’s lunch and gardening and missing
Winters on your mind, stilettos and that Sudanese
Woman, her sobs still pushing against your chest,
Punished with god knows how many slashes, for wearing pants for god’s sake!
Cops ogling like they’re getting off, a microscopic leader
Relentless because this, he says, is religion.

Try writing while surfing the net for jobs because you know
Yours is suddenly temporary, waiting on a king-
Dom’s mood swing or power
Nap. So you surf the net, but instead type
Angelou or Darwish and remember how long it’s been
Since you’ve written anything. So then you try
A poem but you fail, because your love life’s too perfect
A good friend once said, she said, when things are well
Down there it becomes difficult to write,
And she’s right.

Or when you know your co-worker’s mother won’t last,
She has cancer, he said quietly, and shook
His head. Well, not really, but I know he meant to.
When you know he doesn’t believe in god or anything
Beyond what can be felt with the hands what do you say,
In Arabic, about his dying mother?  God is in everything
When your tongue is Arabic.  Insha Allah, God willing, or forbid, or forgive,
May God heal or listen or help or show any sort of illumination.

You wonder about this idea, as old as waiting, and why we need it so much,
And where is it when Libya burns and burns under its own
Sort of god, the right amount of massacres and finger wagging
Qualifying for the title; no white beard necessary for the job.

Where is the merciful, when a mother suffers
Tumors or a nation or a people, he said
His mother is in chemo now, and he doesn’t look you in the eye, he fiddles
With his laptop, so you nod and look serious while your heart
Breaks at the way he tries to work, and by now you
Can almost touch his atheism, hard crystals forming
By the minute.

Try writing when you feel your words are just words, writ and read
For a night of poetry, for a book of poetry, for nods and applause
At this universal nuclear instant- a spiral movement towards loss-
But you’re still in the office,
Looking for words as close to explosive as divinity
And end up with what looks to you
Like god:
A teenage skinhead with pierced tongue, shoulders shrugging,
Legs staggering away.

Link to EDP website

WTF

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."- Jonathan Swift

So there's a law already being drafted by activists and awesome people alike in Lebanon, to protect women from domestic violence but it's still under discussion in parliamentary debates.  I find that hilarious.  That it's still being debabted I mean.  What I don't find hilarious is the heavy offense some are taking over this law.  Specifically Dar el Fatwa.  Read more details here, the Daily Star article.

(Notice how no one decided to comment on the article in the DS.)   At least when I read it.

Motran George Khodr, bless his heart, wrote an article a couple of days ago, in Annahar, criticizing how Lebanon shall soon become a country divided between two parties in conflict, not based on political fronts or confessionalism as we know it, but on those who are WITH progressive domestic and social attitudes and those who are against them.  The former group is, thankfully, made up of all religious sects. Amen to that.

Now I'm no religious freak by any means, and feel a bit awkward discussing this, for the sole purpose of not wanting to offend any "body."  But when I read the article in the DS all courtesy went to the dogs. 

What's unbelievable is that some think that implementing the law would "break the family" or that it's "too western."  TOO WESTERN?!!  How is crying against beating a woman up too WESTERN?  

(In the U.S., the Violence Against Women Act was brought forth as part of the Crime Bill of 1994. Well, they took their time to get there now didn't they!)

What ticks me off even more about this MAJOR issue, is a Lebanese series I began watching (please don't tell anyone)- last night was episode one- called el hob el adeem (old love).  The girl left her husband because apparently he used to beat the crap out of her, out of love of course, and jealousy of course, because he "loved" her so much, and she still "loves" him, and can't forget him but is willing to marry another guy who is actually wonderful to her and not nearly as psychotic, but she can't tell her ex-crazy-husband because the guys are cousins and best friends, NEVERTHELESS, she can't get her ex-husband out of her mind, and he can't either.  Because- and here it comes- they LOVE each other. 

How does that work? Where love is accompanied by violence and humiliation and possessiveness and distrust and misogyny?

What makes me nauseous is not that I actually sat there and shared the plot with you guys, but that the notion of love is being used so loosly and so ignorantly, that we, the Lebanese overly-exposed-to-violence-in-and-out-of-the-home viewer, are supposed to somehow identify or be sympathetic towards the woman who still "loves" her ex-husband.   Hence, the name of the stupid show, el hob el adeem (old love).  Excuse me while I throw up a little.

honestly, wtf.