Archive for June 20th, 2017
The Day I Immigrated: There Are Homes Better Than A Home in Lebanon
Which Is Why Lebanese Expats Are Expats
Posted June 13, 2017
On my last drive to the airport as a Lebanese citizen permanently living in his home country, I was thinking about how sad my mother was next to me, as she prayed her rosary, probably for me to have safe travels and a beaming future in the United States, the country that’s offering me a home.
I was also wondering if, in the upcoming few months, I’ll be one of those Lebanese whose entire purpose in life is to sell the country they’ve left, hiding away all of the flaws that made them leave it.
Then I realized, I’m probably already the target of those videos, such as that Byblos bank ad that went viral about two days ago, titled: There’s No Home Like a Home in Lebanon:
I will miss my grandma’s cooking, but most of all I will miss her and those sweet teary eyes that bid me farewell, in a hospital room this morning, as I said goodbye to my sick grandfather before heading to the airport.
I will miss that man2ousheh, those Sunday lunches with my family, road trips to areas I haven’t yet discovered with friends who mean the most to me.
Yes, this is the country where I was born, where my family and friends live, where I’ve had my first kiss and my first heartbreak, and in whose airport I’m currently writing this post as I look on a whole bunch of other people like me leaving, in planes carrying my national symbol.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tearful and grateful for what I’ve been offered as I write this. But on that last drive to the airport, I realized once more that emotion and reason can’t mix in determining the future that we ought to demand for ourselves, starting with myself.
There comes a time when hummus and man’oushe over sensational music isn’t enough anymore to sell a country, no matter how many times the same disc is spun. I’m sorry to say, that disc is broken – nay, it’s shattered and there’s no coming back from it.
In this past week alone, a 24 year old named Roy Hamouche was killed in cold blood because some guy was angry. Another person was also attacked by a police officer because of road rage.
In this past week, a physician coerced the judicial system into helping him commence the cover up in a possible malpractice lawsuit, and we can’t but sit by and watch.
I’m leaving a country as a 27 year old citizen who was never allowed to vote, (the deputies voted to extend their tenure twice on the lame excuse of security reason) and whose voice has to always be self-censored as to not face the wrath of the multiple sensibilities we have to consider in saying what’s on our mind.
I’m leaving this country as a doctor who has to fight a mammoth of a system entirely geared at making me feel like I’m always a bug up the echelons of my career, no matter how much I try to thrive.
I’m leaving a country whose beaches are dirty, whose sea is toxic, whose forests are being dismantled, whose elderly are being turned down at hospital doors,
Where mothers and their children are being evicted from houses and forced to live in construction sites even in the heart of Beirut, whose garbage can’t be sorted or addressed, and whose people – most of them at least – are still ready to offer their necks to the same politicians who have turned this country into what it is today, as they drool over any video or international article that says their country is a nice vacation site, and whose children are forced to beg in the streets to make ends meet.
A nice holiday destination doesn’t make a good index of quality life.
I’d love to say there’s no home like a home here. But the truth is that is far from the truth. There’s a reason why Lebanon has expats who visit every once in a while and return to countries they’ve chosen to turn into their homes.
It’s because in the republic of wasta (bribes and middlemen), you can only make it as far as your strongest connection. It’s because in the republic of waste, you breathe cancer.
It’s because their children can die for angering the wrong person on the street, because this country ranks among the highest in corruption, the weakest in passport strength, and is on the lower side when it comes to international indices of life.
Remember this when you support sensational bank ads or articles or lists of why this country is the best ever.
Remember that falling to delusions of grandeur will never advance this country, and that being content with what we have will never give us what we need.
Never forget where you’re from, but always remember why you left.
I love it here. Correction: I loved it here. But today, I pack my life in 3 suitcases, and leave all of it behind because here is not where my future lies.
Note: Before 1980, it was good to believe that the USA could be a substitute home. People in places of responsibilities had wide latitude for compassion and facilitating matters without worrying about criticisms and stringent restrictions on their conscience and duties
Adonis Diaries 
Notes and comments on FB and Twitter. Part 43
Posted by: adonis49 on: June 20, 2017
Notes and comments on FB and Twitter. Part 43
Je m’ étais fabriqué un ritual qui isolait dans le temps un espace qui tient, même brinquebalant
Je n’ai pas su être heureux: qui se foutra que j’ai pu etre heureux pour quelques moments épheméres?
“The Americans” of Robert Frank, is the saddest book on earth: Cow-boy hats, jukebox, TV, all the objects of the new prosperity
Cette perseverance nourrie par la hargne et la solitude
On amasse des verres, chaises, bibelots…dans des élans d’optimisme, pour les rendre aussitot vaines. Et on persiste a retenir tout ce bric-a-brac qui ne serve plus qu’a maintenir un optimisme croulant
Maintenance de la vie: essayez quand même de metre de l’ordre dans ce foutoir qu’est le monde
C’est mon amour: je ne vois le monde que lorsequ’elle est a côte de moi
C’est la vie qui est lourde: demandez á une femme enceinte quand le bébé appuie de ses pieds sur son diaphragm.
“Fishman neba say I fish stink” Un pecheur ne dit jamais que le poisson pue.
La seule éternite qui existe est l’univers. Changeant tout le temps, mais toujour lá, á nous de contempler et a subir ses changements imperceptibles
Ada Lovelace (1842) was the first programmer. Alan Turing (1936) and Alonzo Church (1936) invented every kind of computer programing languages
After Russia and China challenged the pre-emptive US and France military attack on Syria in 2013, the US backed ISIS and let it invade Iraq and take Mosul. Hillary said that they created ISIS
Resilience is betting on a range of plausible outcomes in the future. Assuming that you believe that being in the game is what count, and Not “winner-take it all” mind-fix.
There are inner achievements and outer ones. Inner worth and outer ones. Inner love for someone and public ones. This dichotomy is natural to women, especially mothers. Males might comprehend this dichotomy and eventually admit it to himself, but never admit it to others. Lest he is viewed as an unstable person. The worst part in that deal is that the woman abuse male in his confusing feelings.
L’hiver est plus froid durand les guerres. L’ete plus chaud, et la faim plus pénetrante. Que veux-tu? Quand la nature est dévastée et que les mains utiles deviennent stupid aux fronts?
Ce sont les odeurs de la period des guerres, pendant notre enfance, qui surgissent au moment ou on s’y attend le moins.
Avec les livres on transforme la réalite en secret et les rêves en une vie qui progresse
Les régions les plus pauvres de la planéte s’elargissent et augmentent. Elles sombrent continuellement dans les guerres larvées et l’insolvabilitees. Si seulement quelques individus peuvent espérer qu’il y a quelque part une sorte de paradis oubliés.
When a youth in the developed nation is given opportunities, facilities and means to reflect, he grabs what is offered and can redefine what is “Normal in life”. It is much harder, but definitely rewarding, when any phase in life process is overcome.
In communities, a normal life is a ritual. We marry young and procreate easily: The community is tacitly responsible of shouldering a wide range of tasks for raising kids.
In developed nations, the demographics are taking an inverted pyramidal shapes: the top, constituted of retired and elderly people is as large as the bottom kids and youth. If it were Not for immigration, many developed nations would have reverted to community life-style.
Unless you are a mindless Stallion, men wait for the woman to tell them they can do it and proceed to pleasure them
Men have no erotic regions: it is all mental and they get no pleasure in sexual activities. They are meant to pleasure women whom they care for.
The US warned it would withdraw from UN Human Rights if it keeps criticising Israel apartheid policies. Everyone one would be delighted if the US withdraws: For 2 centuries the US was the worst in human rights, inside and outside its borders
Marine Le Pen is the next President of France, given the total disarray of the other political parties
The Maronite clergy and Patriarchate signed a deal and an understanding with Zionists in 1919 to facilitate and support Jewish implantation in Palestine. The clergy of this sect renege on everything except on deals with Israel, and foreign western powers.
Dustin Hoffman: As a Jew, I say humanity ceased to exist by the creation of Israel
“Tout ce que j’essayais d’ écrire était des vers” (Ovide, et puis Dante dans La Comedie Humaine, et Racine
“Mais nous, a qui le monde est patrie, comme aux poisons la mer…” Dante. Doit-on devenir marins si on veut voir le monde?
“La langue vulgaire qui sans régles s’apprend en imitant la nourrice” Dante. Toutes les langues vulgaire furent crées et propagées par les nourrice, les plus pauvres femmes de la communauté
Ce sourir superieur d’ un initié. Le rgard haineux des authentiques croyants qu’ils réservent aux infidels.
Demandez a un fou croyant des preuves et vous le tuez en l’envoyant dans les ténebres du desespoir
La “raison caché”, une clé universelle d’y croire a n’importe quel prix, les puissance obscures… notre siècle est le plus touché depuis l’avenement de l’humanité, malgre les progrés scientifiques et medicinales. Quoi, 7 milliars de damnés contre quelque milliers d’illuminés.
Imaginez le regard de Ruth, de Messaline et de la reine de Saba venant a vous du fond des ages par les yeux d’une enfant
Le kat, consommé au Yemen et L’Afrique de la mere Rouge, abrutit les gens au point qu’ils oublient leurs regards pesants sur vous.
Vous avez la foi dans un ideal? Vous serez capable du pire quand l’opportunité vous est donné d’agir
Les traits du visage de croyant fanatique se durcissent: foi en un Dieu, en une police a l’ échelle cosmique, detenteur de tous les pouvoirs terrestres.
From the hills of west Juarez, you can observe the differences with El Paso, across the river Rio Bravo, bordering the USA. Greeneries everywhere, straight roads, parks and swimming pools…
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