Posts Tagged ‘Jackie Chamoun’
All Time top posts
Posted on: December 12, 2014
All Time top posts
I selected the posts that registered over 2,000 hits since Sept 18, 2008. Since then, I posted so far 4,900 articles.
Note that my articles on Sex and Nude are rare, but these key words draw the most browsing.
December 12, 2014,
All Time
Hot posts this week (Feb. 14/2014)
- List of Tortures Approved and currently used by CIA
- All Lebanese are athletes: “Sports” Minister is the exception. And Champions participating in Sochi without body guards?
- Addiction must be dissociated from the notion of Habit
- Baby Animals in pictures: Why are they cuter than mankind babies?
- Viva in the nude ski Lebanon. Jackie Chamoun photo shoot: Before heading to Sochi Olympics
- Naming and Shaming: Should it be a custom in doing politics?
- Sexual Abuses? About Time to define the variations in abuses Operationally
- Woody Allen Speaks Out: On the molestation of one of his daughters
- Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters: An open letter to Scarlett Johanson. What Equal Rights have the Palestinian workers?
- In: biographies/books | death/ terminally ill/ massacres, genocide | education methods/programs | Essays | Events/Cultural/Educational/Arts | Lebanon/Middle East/Near East/Levant | political Artical | religion/history | sex/ love/seduction | social articles | Time for Outrage | women
- Leave a Comment
Man’s Lebanon? Gino can’t cool off
Yesterday, and for the third consecutive week, a third young mother was beaten to death by her husband.
I posted one of Gino’s angry articles last week as the “Sports” minister promised to “investigate” the 3-year old semi-nude photo-shoot of Olympics Champion Jackie Chamoun on a Lebanese ski resort https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/lebanon-we-are-all-jackie-chamoun-chirine-rasha-kahil/.
“While sitting in the smartly decorated, adorable apartment of Dounia in the Upper West Side of Mahattan, I sigh with relief that I’m not in Lebanon.
Yet I cannot but let my thoughts drift away to that hellish tiny piece of 10452 km2 divided land, even as I gaze up at the skyscrapers I called home last year and hope to call home permanently some day soon” wrote Gino.
It’s a Man’s Lebanon
GINO posted this Feb. 17, 2014
I grew up in a family where my sister and I were never treated differently.
My mom is a top-notch executive at a multinational, and my sister does psychology work in places That even I would think twice before visiting.
My relationships were never the stereotypical man and woman, even though some old-fashioned gentlemanly gestures like opening the door for my date still survive. (Good custom Gino)
Many of my mentors are strong, brilliant women, like Joumana Haddad.
What I’m trying to say is that the machismo so characteristic of Lebanese men (in relation to other men? Lambs when confronted with women)), was never an issue for me, and the problems associated with it seem incomprehensible most of the time.
During the past few years, I’ve campaigned with NGOs like KAFA for women’s rights (Enough is enough) constantly. From protests, to lobby groups, to naming and shaming the MPs responsible and the legal headache that comes along with that, I saw how what all the amazing people on board had worked so hard for get sabotaged and gutted by dirty MPs and disgusting religious men.
With only minor victories, like eradicating the barbaric “honor crimes” section of the penal code, it’s frustrating and depressing that women in Lebanon are so lacking in terms of human and civil rights in 2014.
Unchecked Domestic Violence
In the past two weeks, 2 women have been beaten to death by barbaric husbands, and a third committed suicide because of the hardships her spouse put her through.
Add those 3 to 24 other innocent women killed by domestic violence and rape in Lebanon since 2010. What do you get?
An acquittal of one murdered woman’s husband, who never even stood before a judge before being let off the hook and allowed to be the guardian of her 3 beautiful children.
What happened? Nothing.
The pro-women’s rights movement in Lebanon is always dismissed by the macho as “a reason for a woman to get her husband into trouble by lying about being abused.”
You’d think that absurd excuse would be rare, but I’ve heard it myself from several people, including women, on more occasions than I’d care to admit.
No Citizenship
A Lebanese mother cannot pass down her nationality to her kids.
This archaic law was put in place to allay the fears some Lebanese had that Palestinians would seek to “normalize” their presence in Lebanon by marrying Lebanese women. As if a Palestinian woman marrying a Lebanese man is any different. Disgusting, sexist and misogynistic law derived from a morbidly xenophobic mentality.
Blatant Racism
As if the citizenship “provision” wasn’t bad enough, migrant workers in Lebanon get their fare share of abuse and oppression.
Whilst 27 Lebanese women have been killed in the past 4 years, one domestic worker is killed or commits suicide in Lebanon ever single week. That’s over 200 innocent domestic workers in the same amount of time.
If it’s not physical assault and rape, it’s modern-day slavery-style labor, with passports withheld and doors locked on them when the employers leave home.
And if not that, visitors from countries perceived as “domestic workers” by Lebanese, such as Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines and Ethiopia, are treated like second-class citizens and human beings. Like denied entry to venues, racial slurs and governmental harassment by police and at the customs control area in the airport, gives a horribly racist and backwards image of Lebanon.
Zero Empowerment
Government cabinets usually have no women. Our parliament is only 3% female.
The only reason women were incorporated into the police force is to help them search women wearing hijab (Head and face cover).
Paperwork in many companies and most governmental institutions need the husband’s oversight or signature. The list goes on and on.
The idea is, women aren’t as empowered as men when it comes to elected office and high-profile careers or even startups.
Hyper-sexualized but Sex is Taboo
Fake boobs, fake lips, fake ass cheeks, fake heels, fake brands, fake eyelashes and nails.
Women are expected to dress provocatively, with cleavage on the verge of bursting and heels more fitting for a corner hooker, you’d think these girls are getting some action.
If they do though, they become “damaged material” to other guys and girls, “ruining the honor” of her family.
Heck, even posing topless like Jackie Chamoun can get you in a ton of trouble. So, in a hyper-sexually suggestive society, being promiscuous if you’re female is still very much frowned upon. Or not even promiscuous, just sexually active, is something many women would rather keep secret.
Women should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies. They aren’t the property of their dads or brothers, they’re their own people, and in Lebanon, many men, and a sizable amount of women still refuse to accept that.
I Wouldn’t Wan’t My Daughter or Wife in Lebanon
I’ve dated a Korean girl, and an Indian girl in my life.
I would tell them stories about Beirut and Lebanon. How epic it was.
How fun life there can be. But deep down, I knew, but never told them, that I couldn’t invite them over to Lebanon.
Imagine going to a posh club and being denied entry because a half-wit baboon bouncer thought they were my “maid”.
Imagine a bunch of drunk kids making fun of us while walking down a street. The humiliation would be unbearable. Not the humiliation of dating someone from another race. That’s something to be proud of, proof you love someone for who they are, not what backwards society thinks they should be.
But the humiliation of being Lebanese, of fellow countrymen treating the women I date with such racist, supremacist, all-out stupid attitudes. I want them to keep the good idea of Lebanon and the Lebanese I hopefully portrayed to them, not the one it really is.
I’d never want my daughter born in Lebanon.
Imagine she dates a douche-bag and becomes a social outcast after he tells everyone they slept together (which should be normal for any consenting young adult).
Imagine she marries a sick bastard who beats and rapes her, but the priest or sheikh won’t allow her to divorce him, and the state sits and watches idly as she gets murdered by a testosterone-crazed macho man.
Imagine my grand-kids being denied a Lebanese citizenship if my daughter marries a foreigner. Imagine the humiliation of being a Lebanese father.
I’d never want my daughter born in Lebanon.
Not as long as we have presidents, prime ministers, speakers of parliament, ministers and religious men like the ones we have now.
Not as long as some cabdrivers pay a migrant worker 5,000 LBP (less than $3) after raping her. Not when people still differentiate between a man’s rights and a woman’s rights.
Not when many women accept that as their fate and do nothing to help the movement for their civil and human rights.
What Can Be Done?
- Mandatory Civil Marriage (because the people who do it willingly don’t need it as much as those forced into religious marriages)
- Abolishing religious personal status laws (so we level the playing field)
- Severe punishment of men who rape or abuse women (serious jail time)
- Draft laws that sanctify a woman as equal, not complimentary to men (this isn’t Kandahar/Saudi/Iran)
- The right to pass down citizenship (Cut out racism and genders differences in our laws)
- Focus on these issues instead of the ideological wars everyone is so preoccupied with.
How?
Force our MPs to vote for it. Name and shame every abuser of women’s rights.
Eject religious authorities from the bedroom and club.
So
Lebanon is a man’s world, and it is one of the many reasons why I utterly hate it at the moment, and feel the need for change more than ever.
Note: Read more on that topic of racism behavior https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/racism-behavior-on-many-levels-in-lebanon-high-and-middle-classes-communities/
Topless skier: Not during the Olympics. And Jackie Chamoun is the least of Lebanon’s problems
Posted on: February 15, 2014
Topless skier Jackie Chamoun: the least of Lebanon’s problems?
Name: Jackie Chamoun.
Age: 22.
Appearance: Cold.
Who is Jackie Chamoun? She’s a Lebanese Olympic skier.
Lebanon has a ski team? Lebanon is a mountainous country with many ski resorts and a history of skiing dating to 1913. But no, not really. They are just two of them.
So why’s she cold then? Does she not have the right gear?
Several photos have emerged showing Chamoun nearly naked in the snow, apart from mittens, goggles and ski poles.
I’m not familiar with that event. The pictures are from a 3-year-old calendar shoot, but they still caused consternation in Lebanon.
For fear that Jackie would catch her death? No.
The minister for sports and youth, Faisal Karami, ordered the country’s Olympic committee to investigate, and to “take the required steps so that Lebanon’s reputation is not harmed”.
An “I Am Not Naked” campaigner on Facebook. Photograph: Facebook
Their reputation for what? Dressing appropriately for the weather?
His criticism is a bit rich, especially in a country where most athletes have to sponsor themselves because the government’s sports budget is miniscule.
I expect there was some sort of backlash. There was.
The minister’s comment was labelled “backward” and “patriarchal”, and dozens of Lebanese people posted topless photos of themselves on Twitter in sympathy, using the hashtag #stripforJackie.
Literally dozens? Well, more than a dozen.
But many more were upset that the minister was seeking to stir up a scandal while the country’s very real problems went unaddressed. In light of a recent spate of bombings, the government was accused of focusing on “boobs not bombs”.
I follow you. But then others accused the campaigners of being frivolous and immodest. “#StripforJackie is just an excuse to get naked on social media,” tweeted one objector. “This is getting very disgusting!”
How does Chamoun feel about spearheading such a strange campaign? She’s not really part of it.
She immediately apologised for the leaked pictures on Facebook. “I know that Lebanon is a conservative country and this is not the image that reflects our culture,” she wrote.
Do say: “It’s all got a bit complicated. Why don’t we put the controversy behind us, and allow Jackie to concentrate on her skiing?”
Don’t say: “The secret is lots of layers.”
We are all Olympic Champions Jackie Chamoun, Chirine, Rasha Kahil… and Lebanon
Posted on: February 14, 2014
We are all Olympic Champions: Jackie Chamoun, Chirine, Rasha Kahil… Lebanon
The Lebanese government has just ordered an inquiry into Olympian Jackie Chamoun for posing in semi-nude photographs 3 years ago, claiming her actions have shamed Lebanon.
Their outrage proves one thing: our government believes that the bodies of women are public property — despite not doing anything to protect them.
Drop this stupid “investigation”: Photo shoot of sky champion Jackie Chamoun
“Some women are beaten or killed, others are raped, and the media shifts their attention to a confident talented beautiful woman who represents her country at the Olympic games.
This is about telling our “peers” to set their priorities straight.
This is to fight censorship. This is for freedom.”
Redirect government resources to bring justice to the families of domestic violence victims.
It’s unbelievable that a minister was able to mobilise resources and react on the very same day to this non-event when the lives of thousands of other Lebanese women are at risk thanks to the lack of movement on violence against women legislation.
Just last week a teacher was beaten to death by her husband right in front of her two children and in a crowded building, and the internal security officers (darak) declined to show up on the ground that they don’t meddle in family affairs.
Avaaz.org has also prepared a petition to sign.
Many Lebanese are very upset, and Gino has promised to leave Lebanon.
GINO posted this Feb. 11, 2014
Disgusting: Horribly Backwards Reactions to Olympian’s Photos
I don’t even know where to start with this.
It’s too similar to the Rasha Kahil incident a few weeks ago, and I still cannot comprehend the horribly degrading reaction of people to something so natural, so normal as a pair of bare breasts shot tastefully for a calendar.
To Everyone Upset at Jackie and Chirine
Who the fuck are you to get upset? Is it the first pair of boobs you see?
The horribly backwards reaction to the surfacing of these old photos, makes you all look like savage brutes living in some theocracy in the mountains between Pakistan or Afghanistan, or in Iran, or Saudi.
You are in fucking Beirut, the city that placed ads in Playboy Magazine in the 60s, and had its own red light district back in the day.
In 2014, you want to turn it into some religious theocracy that’s afraid of sex and hates women unless they’re 72 virgins you get for blowing your stupid self up?
Or a savage tribe that still believes women are property and carry “the honor” of the family or whatever it is you call what you congregate yourself in?
Are you such a sexually frustrated bunch of hypocrites with nothing better to talk about as you wait on the doorways of your politicians to ask for a favor you’ve already paid for with your taxes.
Or waiting at the doors of the churches and the mosques that ban you from getting married under civil laws, and sanctify a man’s right to kill and rape his wife, as God intended it in their twisted, old, wretched minds.
To Feminists Worried About “Objectifying a Woman’s Body”
Oh, because bashing two young women for posing whichever way they want, for whatever reason they want, fits in perfectly with the feminist rhetoric, right?
If you really are for gender equality, and no differentiation between men and women, then you shouldn’t go out guns blazing against a woman who showed some skin.
Just like no one ever bashes a male model or athlete that poses topless or in provocative poses. This is hypocrisy, and whether you like it or not, sex sells and drawing attention to causes, brands, charitable causes, etc. using a bare human body, will always happen, and you should celebrate the fact people have a choice to do that, and honor their choices.
To the Minister of Sports and Government
How Dare you “investigate” Jackie?
After the horrible support our Olympians always get from the government, who didn’t even bother telling Chirine she isn’t participating this year?
The same corrupt, rotten, filthy government that sent only 2 athletes, with 7 “organizers”, just like our mysteriously large UN General Assembly “organizers” who are in the several dozen, when China’s entire delegation was a fraction of ours.
Amidst this massive corruption scandal, and laughable handling of your ministry to the Olympics case, how do you have the nerves to investigate one of our Olympians?
It’s no thanks to you that Jackie is there, and we can live with that, but suggesting actions might be taken against her for disobeying some Lebanese’s conservative absurdities, is plain rude and unacceptable.
To Jackie and Chirine
We love you, don’t let people’s trash talk faze you.
We are proud for representing Lebanon, in Sochi and in Vancouver, and I’m proud of you for having the guts to be topless on camera, on the slopes of Faraya in public.
Takes a lot of courage and self-esteem to be so secure with your body image.
Thank you for standing up for the liberals in this country, the ones living in 2014, not 1200s.
Also, don’t ever apologize for participating in that calendar, we’re proud two Lebanese skiers were featured, and might I say favorites on that calendar that grouped female skiers from around the world.
To Lebanese Liberals
Don’t shy away from defending these two brave women.
Don’t sit idly by when your supposed “patriotic” fellow citizens joke about bombings and parts of Lebanon becoming a theocracy.
Lebanon is liberal, it always was.
We can’t let the recent trend in extremism change that.
They call on us to “subdue” our women when they do this, when just the other week a savage brute beat his beautiful wife to death, and they thought it was ok…
Those very same people and authorities outraged at showing Jackie’s boobs, have no problem with a man beating his wife to a bloody pulp, but GOD FORBID BOOBS!
Glad I’m Leaving
I need a break from this disgusting place festering with corruption, extreme religious bigotry and hypocrisy that is at The Onion levels.
Tfeh (the sound of disgust) on each and every low-life who insulted these two fine young women, representing Lebanon in one the most prestigious of sporting events.
Tfeh for making us look like stupid, backwards baboons who go ape-shit if our gorgeous athletes show off what they got. I am proud of Jackie, immensely proud, and for once, I like someone representing Lebanon.
And I’d much rather have her representing my country, someone comfortable in their skin and open-minded, not tied down by the crippling cultural and religious norms that teach us to hate women, to subdue them, to oppress them. Shame on all of you.
I have no words to describe how disgusted I am by the backwardness, childishness and lack of patriotism you have shown. Oh, and t3eesho w tfoo2o you dumbasses, we’ve known about this calendar since December. Sub-par journalists, with sub-par IQed viewers. Tfeh.
Final Advice
Always, before judging and bashing and “investigating” someone for something they did willingly, always, always, always repeat to yourself: “Who. The. Fuck. Am. I?”
Trust me, you’ll be all set!
All Lebanese are athletes: “Sports” Minister is the exception. And Champions participating in Sochi without body guards?
Posted on: February 13, 2014
All Lebanese are athletes: “Sports” Minister is the exception. And Champions participating in Sochi without body guards?
Yesterday I published a post on Olympic champion Jackie Chamoun that “went viral” (Viva in the nude ski Lebanon)
Just a couple pictures of the photo shoot, taken 3 years ago.
Let’s cool it down a bit and enjoy this short “Olympic History” of Lebanon, and the wonderful champions who participated without any support from any successive goverments.
For most casual sports fans, associating Alpine skiing with a country like Lebanon would seem far-fetched.
While Lebanon might not appear to be fertile ground for ski racers, the country has a long-standing Winter Olympic tradition.
It made its first appearance at the Games in St. Moritz in 1948, where Ibrahim Geagea and Munir Itani competed in Alpine skiing.
In 1980, the country sent its first female Olympic athlete skier Farida Rahmed to Lake Placid. Chirine Njeim got the Lebanese women back to the Games in 2002 and the country has had female representation ever since.
Growing up in Beirut, the Winter Olympics were the farthest thing from Jackie Chamoun’s mind.
Joe Battaglia posted on NBCOlympics.com this Jan. 30, 2014
Alpine skier Jackie Chamoun defies odds to make it from Beirut to big time
But for the second time in her career, Chamoun has defied the odds by coming out of a non-traditional winter sports nation to compete on the grandest stage.
She will be the lone female skier for Lebanon and one of only two on the team, joining men’s skier Alex Mohbat.
RELATED: Chamoun can grin after bearing it
“It is very nice to represent our country,” Chamoun said. “People are surprised to see us there because they don’t expect Lebanon in the Winter Olympic Games.
But we are really glad to have this chance to be a part of the Olympics and be able to exchange with people from other nationalities and talk about our culture and discover other cultures.”
Skiing is definitely not on the list of things that usually come to mind when one tries to imagine life in Lebanon, the small Arab country on the Mediterranean. Images of the decades-long civil war tend to dominate Western perception of the nation more so than skiers racing down one of its six ski resorts.
“In Lebanon skiing is not as important as it is in Europe,” Chamoun said. “It is not the national sport. People prefer to watch basketball or football. Of course, when the Olympics come and someone is qualified for the Olympics all of the newspapers write about it, people talk about it. But the sport does not have the same place in a country of the Middle East as in Europe.”
Chirine Njeim and Jackie Chamoun of the Lebanese alpine ski team finished 43rd and 54th in the women’s slalom event at the Vancouver Games, joyously crossing the finish line and embodying the Olympic spirit.
THE ATHLETES
“I admired what she did because I learned that you have to be really, really strong and really motivated in order to follow your dreams,” Chamoun said. “Chirine gave everything and started doing international competitions. We all admired her in Lebanon and looked at her like we one day wanted to be like her.”
RELATED: Chirine Njeim has gone from pioneer to pariah
For Chamoun, that road began when she was three years old. On weekends, her father Gabriel would take the family skiing at Faraya-Mzaar, the mountain about one hour northeast of Beirut which is home to the largest ski resort in the Middle East.
“My dad taught me how to ski at first and then I skied with the father of my cousins,” Chamoun said. “He has a ski school and I started skiing there every weekend. Then I started with a club, Faraya Mzaar. Once I started training there, I never stopped.”
Chamoun soon learned the difficulties of trying to progress as a ski racer in the Middle East.
Unlike in other countries in the region, Chamoun said she never encountered obstacles as a female athlete – “Lebanon is more open-minded,” she said. But the country’s geography and tradition make for a variety of other challenges.
First, the season is incredibly short – three to four months at the longest – meaning domestic training opportunities are limited. And although some slopes are situated at elevations as high as 6,600-feet, the slopes are short and the snow is soft, making it difficult to adequately prepare for the longer, harder race courses in Europe.
“There are many slopes that are longer and steeper on which we could train but it’s forbidden for us because these slopes are private and people who pay to ski like to come and ski on these slopes,” Chamoun said.
Financially, Chamoun said none of the skiers in Lebanon have sponsors so it is up to each individual to pay for their own travel expenses incurred for off-season training camps – she does one per year – and competitions, as well as equipment. Chamoun said she is fortunate to receive Salomon skis from a local ski shop, eliminating one large expense.
“I am lucky enough to have parents who always supported me and my skiing so finances weren’t a big problem for me,” Chamoun said.
She added that the cultural focus is less on sports and more on more academic pursuits. In recent years, only Njeim, who left for France and the United States, has been able to travel abroad for skiing.
“When I was young, I told my parents that I wanted to stop school in Beirut and wanted to go away to ski,” Chamoun said. “If I could, I would have left Lebanon at the age of 12 or 13 to go and ski in Europe or in U.S. to follow my dream. But it’s difficult because in Lebanon we think more of education and studies and less about sport careers. Also, we don’t have the facilities or the conditions to compete at an international level.”
After her parents refused to let her leave as a 12-year-old, Chamoun continued her limited training in Lebanon. A year later, she competed internationally for the first time, traveling to FIS races in Topolino and Pinocchio, Italy. It was there that she confronted a stark reality: Lebanese skiers could not compete with the best of the world under current conditions.
“When we went there, we realized that it was not really possible to compete with the best,” she said. “To go to international competitions, you have to be first in Lebanon so the competition is tough but really nice between us. But when we are somewhere else, we can think only to do our best compared to our level. We don’t think about doing better than the best because it is not possible with our training.”
Chamoun left Lebanon when she was 17 to begin her university studies at the Glion Institute of Higher Learning in Switzerland, which afforded her the opportunity to also continue skiing. She qualified for the Vancouver Olympics as Lebanon’s second skier, and finished 54th in the slalom.
“The most incredible thing for us is just to be there and to realize there is a crowd cheering and people encouraging us up at the start,” she said. “It was a great feeling. I had nothing to lose so I went to do these runs and enjoy it as much as possible.”
After Vancouver, Chamoun stopped competing for two years to focus on finishing her degree in sports event management. Afterward, she returned home to Lebanon. With no full-time job and the Sochi Olympics on the horizon, she rededicated herself to the sport in December of 2012. By the end of 2013, she had done enough to earn a second Olympic bid, and the opportunity to further the sport’s popularity at home.
“When you see our past results, it’s not really encouraging,” she said. “In the future I would like to have plans for sports in Lebanon and for skiing and to try to put in place facilities to encourage young people and to have the funds to influence authorities to invest themselves in the sport. We can do a lot to improve the level.”
That improvement is likely decades from coming to fruition. Last April, she took a job back in Geneva. While circumstances certainly pointed to it being a good time begin a new chapter in her life, the Olympic experience has left her incapable of turning her back on skiing.
“When I finished the first Olympics it was so incredible and so magical I immediately wanted to go to Sochi,” she said. “It’s important to keep on dreaming and to have goals. If you are not dreaming about something you are never going to get there.”
– See more at: http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/alpine-skier-jackie-chamoun-defies-odds-make-it-beirut-big-time#sthash.bDtH6xbw.dpuf
Viva in the nude ski Lebanon. Jackie Chamoun photo shoot: Before heading to Sochi Olympics
Posted on: February 12, 2014
Viva ski Lebanon. Jackie Chamoun photos: Before heading to Sochi Olympics
Lebanon is very excited and exciting these days: Olympic ski champion Jackie Chamoun claimed that her photo shoot 3 years ago were not meant to be published.
Mind you that the Olympic Lebanese did it on their own: Effort, dedication, finances… The government didn’t give a hoot: Just “investigating” the semi-nude photo shoot.
(I copied these semi-nude photos from http://www.mulhak.com mulhak.com)
There is far more support for Jackie than this stupid government. Posters are being mounted saying: “We are worried about Bombs, Not Boobs”
patrickgaley posted this February 11, 2014
Jackie Chamoun photos: Lebanon outdumbs itself
Two things:
1. Lebanon’s Ministry of Tourism has repeatedly produced promotional videos essentially centred on the bodies of Lebanese women. I’ve covered this before, too.
As I wrote a few years back:
There is an argument to say there is little wrong with a country using its natural assets (Lebanon is still poor in resources, and will remain so until the government can agree on what to do with natural gas and oil reserves in the east Mediterranean) to boost its economic draw.
As long as the women in the commercial are consensual, what is wrong with flashing their flesh to promote Lebanon? After all, plenty of countries flaunt their female beauty stocks in a bid to draw beach-dwelling binocular users to their shores.
Not plenty of countries, however, display the same level of hypocrisy by encouraging grabby men to come and ogle their women while denying those same women basic rights enjoyed by men.
Here’s one of those videos for your perusal:
Lebanon has even before taken to the pages of Playboy to flog its women.
It’s transparently hypocritical to promote women as physical specimens while simultaneously denying them equal treatment in every facet of professional and familial society, just as people without boobs shouldn’t get to tell people with boobs what to do with them.
2. I urge everyone to read this report about the Lebanese ski team and how it has had to overcome unimaginable managerial incompetence, corruption and fecklessness to even make it to the Olympics. Any Olympics.
One might think the media might be, I dunno, proud of a young professional who – like many, many citizens of Lebanon – has had to struggle and fight in the face of downright ineptitude and obstructiveness to achieve their ambition. But as you know by now, that’s not how Lebanon – least of all the politicised media – does things.
It’s waspish, petty, self-righteous and stupid. Put that in a tourism video.
Adonis Diaries 