Archive for January 20th, 2009
Greece and Hungary
I returned to Lebanon via Abidjan. I applied to different teaching positions but was denied a job, even in high schools. My cousin Jihad connected me with Nasri, a lawyer, who needed someone with “industrial” background to join him for a trip to Greece; the brother of Nasri, working in Saudi Arabia, wanted to evaluate the financial viability of a manufacture of juice that was for sale in the Peloponaise. We visited the installation and we met with a Lebanese agent representing the Saudi owner and who came from Switzerland for that purpose. I quickly discovered that I was “an add on” to impress in the negotiation because I was denied any fact sheets on equipments or sales. Thus, I spent a week in Greece and a few days in Athens, but I was not impressed. I was very naïve; when we returned to Lebanon I immediately returned the one thousand dollars cash in fees to Nasri because I felt that I was of no use and did not contribute much in the transaction. Nasri later became the coordinator of the Syria-Lebanon High Committee for economic resolutions.
It was during that period that I joined a school friend Charles for a two weeks vacation tour in Hungary, during the Soviet hegemony. It was a good trip and I was impressed with Budapest; I was even more impressed by the scheming embezzlement skills. I once was approached by a scoundrel to change dollars to the national currency. We were under the impression that we receive higher value from currency changers than formal banks. I offered to change one hundred dollar-bill and the scoundrel bilked me bad; he inserted small bills at the end and made me feel scared that a police is coming and he fled; I realized that I was not the only sucker in the touring group. I bought a heavy black coat for $75 and the seller wanted dollars exclusively. I befriended an elegant lady named Mona during the trip and the company considered us as boyfriend-girlfriend; we kept in touch and met a couple of times till I returned to the USA. I once took Mona to a day tour of the Metn and Kesrouan districts because she never set foot in Christian areas.
Are you poor? Raise your hand!
Posted on: January 20, 2009
Are you poor? Raise your hand! (January 20, 2009)
If you are in a situation that prevents you to participate in social life then raise your hand: you are considered materially and morally poor. It follows that you are poor if you are stuck in your “home” because you cannot mingle with people, in a society that expects standards in elegance, in frequency of eating out, of taking vacations, and of transportation means. In a culture of “fitting in” you are poor if you were raised not to incur debt that your hard earned job cannot cover. You are the poorer if the standard of living in your country is expensive and the facilities of support are not suitable in times of emergencies, for health coverage, for children well being, for continuing education, and for opportunities to work.
If you feel ashamed to invite “friends” home because it is in shamble, the furniture and appliances outdated, or the walls needing another layer of paints then you are poor in such a society. If you feel inclined to cancel invitations to weddings because you cannot afford a decent gift for the married couple then you are poor in such a society. If you are unable to enroll your kids in private schools because public schools are considered not equipped for the education “performance” standards then you are poor in such a society. You got the gist of my definition; except in situations of basic survival necessities, then the concept of being poor is specific to the culture and tradition of a society.
There are many definitions of belonging to a “poor status”; it ranges from daily nutritional quality, to the minimum hourly labor rate, to the minimum amount for renting, and leading an independent living; to the bare subsistence for survival such is the condition of over two billion people around the world.
The European Union has come up with a statistical limit for being classified as poor. The office of statistics in the EU (Eurostat) adopted the median income for a State (the dividing amount of income that splits two equal number of earners) and then categorizes the poor whose income is within the 60% of the lower median income range. Thus, it does not matter how the State’s economy improved, or the standard of living improved, or your income improved there will always be 30% of the population considered as poor (for example, 60% *50% = 30%). Consequently, an EU State member has to allocate budget and plan to support 30% of the needy population.
The EU definition for being considered poor is an operational categorization for a consumer economy. If your income or the financial facility structure in your society prevents you to fit in a consumer society, to purchase an outfit that is the fashion of the year, to participate in the cultural and artistic activities, to visit a bar once a month, to go out and see the latest movie, or to buy tickets for festivities and sport events then you are not promoting the internal market economy and you are poor and need serious support to fit in as a citizen.
The life of the hermit in a remote location is certainly hard; the life of a forced hermit in towns and cities is by far much harsher. The hermit in cities has to construct his own model or philosophy to life and death; he has to build his specific character to survive the harsh facts within his society. I have this theory: a poor State economy combined with poor financial credit facilities and high consumer standards the higher the odds for frequent civil wars.
