Go west, east, north, and south young Lebanese
I still tell the foreign investor to invest in Lebanon because I know it’s a good bet for them. We are a small country so our laws are geared to attracting foreigners and their money, convincing them to stay and spend. Our land mass is small so investment in real estate is a safe bet because there will never be enough land. Demand will remain strong, especially from the nostalgic (misguided) Diaspora who still believe owning a concrete, steal, and cinder block home is a good investment for their future and their children’s future. We have a well developed banking control structure, local banks are prudent and very conservative on risk, the interest paid on deposits is far better than neighboring Europe, and we still have banking secrecy, although how long this archaic and outdated concept will manage to hobble along amid an ever more hostile international financial climate that is demanding ever greater openness and transparency, is anyone’s guess.
As for the wide-eyed, hopeful youth of this country, I have one message and one piece of heartfelt advice: If you want comfort, good quality of life, if you want to learn new skills and expand your existing skill sets, if you want to earn more money but above all earn the respect of your bosses, coworkers, peers, and the community at large, and be recognized as adding value to society, leave Lebanon as soon as you can.
Going abroad to work means you will be a significant income generator for yourself and your family back home which will depend on your monthly cash transfers to buy the luxuries of life, like electricity, food that doesn’t give you food poisoning, weekly trips to the hairdresser, and clothing and fashion accessories and electronics so one may ‘keep up with the joneses’. And, don’t forget, the deposits of the Diaspora in our banking system are the backbone of our national State finances. Your hard earned Dirhams, Dinars, Riyals, Euros, and dollars are lent out to our government by our local banks who make a tidy profit out of it all. So, by joining our economic exiles you will be contributing to our national remittance economy. I think they should make a special medal for such services to the state, call it the national economic service abroad medal.
So, young man or woman, go west, east, north, and south, plant your flag with pride wherever you go, leave rubber skid marks on foreign roads, teach the world how to dress, eat, drink, and have a good time, and don’t look back. Tear out the nostalgia center in your brain and raise the music up really loud so that everyone in the neighborhood knows ‘a Lebanese lives here.’
Come home for the ski season, that’s the best time of the year. Forget the beach, just getting to the beach in summer traffic is hell. If you want to go to your village in the mountains, take a helicopter from the airport and another one back when you’re done. Be more practical about life and less emotional and angry. Believe me I have tried angry it leaves you with a bleeding ulcer and a seething hatred for all the fools you meet along the way in life. Unload all that baggage and have a nice vacation this summer, preferably anywhere else where you can actually relax.
And to those in the Diaspora who act like they do us a favor by coming to our backward country and spending their money here I say: Don’t bother. Just yesterday we had 20,000 Syrian tourists cross the border in a single day!
Our borders are open, people of all kinds come and go freely, shells and bullets of all calibers too! If you are a fan of sauna, great, Beirut is the place for you, come and sweat under the Phoenician sun. Ride a communal taxi were sweaty body is jammed up against sweaty body and no one knows (or will tell) who let one loose, but everyone looks at everyone else. Yes, we are quite the tourist haven!
The defenders of our defenders
A lot has been said about the three officers involved in the checkpoint shooting incident in the village of Kuwaykhat in which a Sunni cleric was killed. One side sees the officers were justified, the other sees them as guilty of an unforgivable crime, neither side are qualified investigators, prosecutors, or judges.
The first mistake the government did was allowing the Military Tribunal to investigate the matter on its own. That is not conducive of transparency, especially in view of the necessary veil of secrecy that often shrouds military establishments and their procedures. The incident, regardless of who is guilty and who is not, touched on that delicate issue of civil and sectarian harmony in the country. Whatever the intentions of the officers may have been, the outcome of their actions was deeply upsetting to a large proportion of our people.
The government should have set up a special investigative committee headed by the minister of justice with prosecutors and judges drawn from all sects as members. The committee should have been set up to report directly to the prime minister’s office which in turn issues regular news releases to the public about the progress of the investigation that would have been the transparent thing to do. None of that happened.
To the community affected by the tragic shooting, it appeared like the government was allowing the army to sweep the matter under the proverbial rug. To the pro-army folk the re-arrest of the officers, referring the matter to the Judicial Council, and the launch of a new in-depth investigation, was an injustice done not only to the officers involved and their families, but to the army establishment and to all the men and women in uniform. In fact, both sides are right, the government acted foolishly.
The matter should never have been referred to the Judicial Council, as former interior minister Ziad Barood said on a recent TV talk show. He quotes the law and said that such a referral places not only the officers concerned in the dock, but the military establishment as well, since the Judicial Council investigates crimes and offenses against the state, and by taking such action the government is accusing the army of such an offense.
But, I still believe that the officers’ fate should never have been decided by the military establishment, but that the investigation should have been handled by an objective external body. And by openly publishing the findings of the investigation once the investigation is complete it would have shown all the skeptics that the government is serious about getting at the truth and about sharing it with the people. This is the only way to show that the military and the government have nothing to hide.
As for the wide-eyed, hopeful youth of this country, I have one message and one piece of heartfelt advice: If you want comfort, good quality of life, if you want to learn new skills and expand your existing skill sets, if you want to earn more money but above all earn the respect of your bosses, coworkers, peers, and the community at large, and be recognized as adding value to society, leave Lebanon as soon as you can.
Going abroad to work means you will be a significant income generator for yourself and your family back home which will depend on your monthly cash transfers to buy the luxuries of life, like electricity, food that doesn’t give you food poisoning, weekly trips to the hairdresser, and clothing and fashion accessories and electronics so one may ‘keep up with the joneses’. And, don’t forget, the deposits of the Diaspora in our banking system are the backbone of our national State finances. Your hard earned Dirhams, Dinars, Riyals, Euros, and dollars are lent out to our government by our local banks who make a tidy profit out of it all. So, by joining our economic exiles you will be contributing to our national remittance economy. I think they should make a special medal for such services to the state, call it the national economic service abroad medal.
So, young man or woman, go west, east, north, and south, plant your flag with pride wherever you go, leave rubber skid marks on foreign roads, teach the world how to dress, eat, drink, and have a good time, and don’t look back. Tear out the nostalgia center in your brain and raise the music up really loud so that everyone in the neighborhood knows ‘a Lebanese lives here.’
Come home for the ski season, that’s the best time of the year. Forget the beach, just getting to the beach in summer traffic is hell. If you want to go to your village in the mountains, take a helicopter from the airport and another one back when you’re done. Be more practical about life and less emotional and angry. Believe me I have tried angry it leaves you with a bleeding ulcer and a seething hatred for all the fools you meet along the way in life. Unload all that baggage and have a nice vacation this summer, preferably anywhere else where you can actually relax.
And to those in the Diaspora who act like they do us a favor by coming to our backward country and spending their money here I say: Don’t bother. Just yesterday we had 20,000 Syrian tourists cross the border in a single day!
Our borders are open, people of all kinds come and go freely, shells and bullets of all calibers too! If you are a fan of sauna, great, Beirut is the place for you, come and sweat under the Phoenician sun. Ride a communal taxi were sweaty body is jammed up against sweaty body and no one knows (or will tell) who let one loose, but everyone looks at everyone else. Yes, we are quite the tourist haven!
The defenders of our defenders
A lot has been said about the three officers involved in the checkpoint shooting incident in the village of Kuwaykhat in which a Sunni cleric was killed. One side sees the officers were justified, the other sees them as guilty of an unforgivable crime, neither side are qualified investigators, prosecutors, or judges.
The first mistake the government did was allowing the Military Tribunal to investigate the matter on its own. That is not conducive of transparency, especially in view of the necessary veil of secrecy that often shrouds military establishments and their procedures. The incident, regardless of who is guilty and who is not, touched on that delicate issue of civil and sectarian harmony in the country. Whatever the intentions of the officers may have been, the outcome of their actions was deeply upsetting to a large proportion of our people.
The government should have set up a special investigative committee headed by the minister of justice with prosecutors and judges drawn from all sects as members. The committee should have been set up to report directly to the prime minister’s office which in turn issues regular news releases to the public about the progress of the investigation that would have been the transparent thing to do. None of that happened.
To the community affected by the tragic shooting, it appeared like the government was allowing the army to sweep the matter under the proverbial rug. To the pro-army folk the re-arrest of the officers, referring the matter to the Judicial Council, and the launch of a new in-depth investigation, was an injustice done not only to the officers involved and their families, but to the army establishment and to all the men and women in uniform. In fact, both sides are right, the government acted foolishly.
The matter should never have been referred to the Judicial Council, as former interior minister Ziad Barood said on a recent TV talk show. He quotes the law and said that such a referral places not only the officers concerned in the dock, but the military establishment as well, since the Judicial Council investigates crimes and offenses against the state, and by taking such action the government is accusing the army of such an offense.
But, I still believe that the officers’ fate should never have been decided by the military establishment, but that the investigation should have been handled by an objective external body. And by openly publishing the findings of the investigation once the investigation is complete it would have shown all the skeptics that the government is serious about getting at the truth and about sharing it with the people. This is the only way to show that the military and the government have nothing to hide.
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