Musings on Lebanon and its people


 I have a keen observational mind that seems to wander into disciplines that I have but a passing acquaintance with. Looking at a financial disaster from the inside is completely different from looking at it from outside. First, you are a victim of the disaster and not a mere observer; second, you have a unique perspective but one invariably colored by your own daily struggle to secure an income stream not decimated by local currency depreciation. I wonder is there a Roman term that fits what has befallen our currency? Decimate, to remove a tenth of, seems inadequate. But, I suppose what I add to the body of written works on our Lebanese catastrophe is an observation of the people and their response to our daily unfolding disasters. Denial I suppose comes first, coupled with extreme predictions of woe and gnashing of teeth. It is as if by predicting the worst imaginable we aim to trick fate into making the unfolding catastrophe less painful on us. Foolish little mind games we play with one another seem to show a wicked playful bent to the Lebanese personality: we love to scare each other. Then we come to anger, the stage of grief mastered by the Lebanese. It’s easy for us to froth at the mouth, whiten out knuckles, put on a scowl and lend the eye a terrible aspect then unleash our lungs with ever rising volume. We March with anger and furry raising banners and burning banks. At the end of our exhausting calisthenics, we imagine we achieved something. We feel deflated again when the world has puzzlingly not altered one iota following the release of our anger. We determine that this must be a global conspiracy to prevent the Lebanese from having their shisha and smoking it too…! Of course, we eventually settle into torpid languid acceptance and we March on heads bowed bellies empty each to our particular salt mines to labor for pennies on the dollar and just accept our suffering. We are a simple childlike people, raised with conservative peasant values that served us well until now. We are not bolsheviks heaven forbid! Well, I don’t know how else to say this, but our peasant values are destroying us and if we, each of us, do not get off our collective asses, we are going to reach an point where none of us will be able to feed ourselves and our families… anger is good, but only as a motivation for sound deliberate transparent action in the right direction!

What are peasant values?

Well, chiefly they include:

1. Piety, mostly fear of divine punishment

2. Obedience to the ruler, doesn’t matter who rules, a good wise person or a murderous asshole, you obey

3. Acceptance, that is accepting your lowly position in life and not looking to better it, that is seen as overstepping your caste

We all have residual elements of these values. For example, while we pay lip service to “changing the regime” we are protective of our constitutional systems, even though they were created to fit the whims and bargaining position of warning factions in Lebanon, the Taif accords. We are still deeply sectarian, turning difference between our compatriots into reasons for separation.

So while the average cigar smoking coffeehouse braggadocio does not see himself as a peasant, we all carry elements of those values and they are holding 

So conclusion of my point: I couldn’t care less about the political maneuverings of the ancien regime and it’s political stalwarts. In fact, I would rather they don’t come to an agreement and elect a president! I bet you’re shocked 😳 Well, I was too when I first thought the idea, but I’m right. If they come together like Saudi  Arabia and Iran came together, and reach a new power sharing agreement, nothing in this country will change, corruption will find a way to hide from the IMF and the eyes of the world and continue to flourish in a country who’s governing system is defined by corruption! Depositors will not get their money back because no fund established by this sad excuse for a regime can create the transparent mechanisms to establish a fund that will actually do what it claims to do, retune depositors hard earned savings to them! The glacial pace at which we are creeping along right now will persist and any agreement will only be reached if it preserves the wealth and privileges of members of the ancien regime. So, I really hope they don’t elect a president, I really hope the whole system collapses on to itself and I hope we can rebuild from scratch afterwards on a clean surface, a new system that governs for the people, is presided over by true people’s representatives and achieves their welfare above all and not welfare of the top one percent!

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