And so we're racist

Since the tragic incident of the Ethiopian Airline plane that crashed last Monday just after take-off, the ET409, which was leaving Beirut towards Addis Ababa, carried 90 passengers of several nationalities, mostly Lebanese (51), Ethiopians (31 - whom 8 were crew), two British, one Canadian, one French (the French Ambassador's wife in Beirut), one Iraqi, one Russian, one Syrian, and one Turkish, whom all are now presumed deceased.

After 7 days almost, around 30 bodies have been recovered, and the others are still in the deep Mediterranean sea.

In addition to how sad this incident is, how tragic and shocking its impact was on the families of these passengers, and how touched people in Lebanon and Ethiopia felt because of their country's involvement, there was an emotion that existed which I personally was very bothered when I read about it, and it was racism.

Lebanese have been accused as racist especially because many Lebanese hires domestic workers from several Asian and African countries including Ethiopia, and because some of those Lebanese mistreat their domestic workers. The persons who were from the Ethiopian nationality who were on that flight, were all domestic workers. Some of which have just finished their 3 years contact and are going back home.

Patrick Galey mentioned in his article here that Lebanon's racism was exposed due to this incident.  

A normally well-respected broadcaster conducted a live piece to camera outside a hospital with their Beirut correspondent on Monday night.
An Ethiopian, wracked with grief, unwittingly wondered into shot only to be literally hauled out of view by the Lebanese crew. Had she been Lebanese, it is unthinkable she would have been treated like this.

Moreover, in Simba Rousseau's blog "Witnessing Life", she humanly shed the light in her article here on an Ethiopian lady who migrated to Lebanon to work who rushed into the airport to see if she knows anyone who was on that plane:

According to Mebrat, when she other women arrived to the airport they saw Lebanese who had lost loved ones yelling at the Ethiopian women who were also mourning the deaths of their friends.

But what bothered some people the most, is when Elias Murr, the Lebanese Defence Minister, said:

A traffic control recording shows that the tower told the pilot to turn to avoid the storm, but the plane went in the opposite direction,

 He continued: 

We do not know what happened or whether it was beyond the pilot's control.

I personally thought it was premature for him to say something like that, he's usually more careful with his statements, but after a long day and the media hassling them on telling them the reason behind this crash, which basically is still not 100% known until now, because the black box is not recovered yet.

Hani Baal in his post that took part of Kolena Leila initiative that took place on the Arabic blogosphere in the last week of December 2009, he wrote about several Leilas, who are domestic workers in Lebanon and getting abused by their employers. The statistics say, one Leila (domestic worker in Lebanon) commits suicide per week. Shocking number.

The purpose of this post is not to deny the Lebanese racism, and not to defend it, it's just here to lay facts, possibly the reasons, and hopefully the possibility to end it.

The reasons why Lebanese are racist? I am no sociologist, but I think the war really messed us up. And yes, we should snap out of it and get over it already.

At first when I read some articles manifesting the Lebanese as racist, I was really upset with those writers, but deep inside I knew they were right. I don't know the exact number or percentage, but many Lebanese are racist, there are many degrees to it.

• Some people in Lebanon think they're better than others, and when it comes to race, black are inferior to us (some people think).

• Some people still call a black person a "slave", in Arabic "3abed". Need I say that slavery centuries ago was not exclusive to black people?

• Some people in Lebanon still think that domestic workers are nothing but "maids" and "cleaners", and that they're not human beings, have no feelings, brains or emotions.

• Some people in Lebanon do not give a day off to these domestic workers, make them work from dawn till after midnight.

But the ray of hope is that there are some Lebanese people who made an organization to defend those who don't have a voice, and lay down some better rules and law of labor for them.
 
As for the media? They did not do any worse than any other media that in any disaster focuses on their own sons and daughters.


For what it's worth, I'm sorry for what happened. Moreover, I truly am sad for those who were returning home to Ethiopia after years of work in Lebanon, whom some were abused, and some in prison, instead they left this world in a horrid way. I offer my condolences to the families of the victims of ET409 (whatever the nationality, Syrian, Iraqi, Canadian, French, Russion, Turkish, Ethiopian and Lebanese).

In the face of disaster, there is no nationality, there is simply a human being.


Sources: Wikipedia.org, simbarusseau.wordpress.com, huffingtonpost.com, hanibaael.wordpress.com, timesonline.co.uk

Ethiopian plane leaving Beirut Airport crashes

Around 2:30 am the morning of 25 January, an Ethiopian plane that just left Beirut Airport, crashed in the sea close to the southern Lebanese shore, the plane carried 90 passengers of which 53 were Lebanese.

Some eye witnesses say the cause of this plane crash is because a lightning hit the plane which led it to be on fire and fall into the sea.

The Lebanese navy and the UNIFIL are searching but the weather conditions are making it hard on them. Until now there is no word of survivors. Some bodies have been found.

Very sad news this morning, hope some survivors are found.

Prime minister Hariri just declared today as an national day of mourning.

For minute by minute follow-up, check www.lebanonfiles.com, www.nowlebanon.com and www.tayyar.org

Source of picture: NowLebanon.com

Update:  

• The parties involved in the rescue mission are the Lebanese army, navy and forces, the civil defense, UNIFIL (which includes several countries) and an American fleet which should arrive soon.

• The number of deceased people (total of bodies that arrived to the national hospital) is 20.

• The rescue mission continues at night, the total time for the rescue to take place will be for 72 hours. 

• There was a problem identifying the bodies, which led them to rely on DNA tests, asking parents of the ET409 passengers to go to the hospital and do the DNA tests.

• A special hotline was put for the parents of the deceased / missing so far, and it is: 03-737475

• The reason behind the crash is still unknown, knowing that last known plane crash due to lightning was in 1967. The Ethiopian airlines is known to be of the best airlines in Africa. Terrorism or sabotage is unlikely. For now, the pilot has been sort of blamed, saying he had the full freedom to halt this flight.

• I personally think it's too soon to speculate anything. Hope for survivors is dim, but look at Haiti as Minister of Defense Elias El Murr pointed, some survivors have been found after 11 days.

Condolences to the families in Lebanon and Ethiopia for the passengers who were on ET409.

Its Snowing! Sun's Shining! People are Smiling

Faraya Mzaar just declared that the ski slopes will open next Saturday 23rd January according to www.skileb.com

After a long awaited snow in Lebanon, the Mzaar ski slopes will finally open the ski lifts next Saturday, January 23rd, one month later than normally expected. Most ski lifts in Wardeh domain and some in Jonction will be operational, while the remaining get prepared.

The snow is there, but as there is another storm coming this weekend, it's postponed till next weekend.

And yes, usually its snows by the end of December and slopes open then, this is unconventional from what we used to have in Lebanon. Faraya Mzaar is one of the two most popular ski resorts in Lebanon, in addition to the Cedars. The cedars are higher, and have had snow since a while now.

So for all ski lovers out there, the winter season is finally here! Now! And not like many billboards on the streets said since a month now, some even mentioned that prices are dropping as temperature is dropping. My reaction: "Temperature is still in its 20s! Does this mean there's no sale?"

Picture taken today in Faraya Mzaar (source - skileb.com) - Thursday Jan 21 - 2010

Haiti

Last Tuesday an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit Haiti (source Yahoo! News), leaving tens of thousands of people either dead (source BBC News), missing, severely injured and homeless.

I am sad to express this though following this unfortunate disaster, yet when something like that happens, I am happy to see many ordinary yet extraordinary people who leave everything, pack light, get on the first plane and go to the region that was damaged by such a disaster to offer their aid, you can read here (source BBC News) the diary of some aid workers during their stay in Haiti.

So this post is to send our prayers and hopes for a better tomorrow for those who are still alive in Haiti, and to send our thanks and amazing appreciation for those people who went to Haiti to help find the missing, create volatile hospitals, medicate the injured and offer food and shelter to the homeless who lost everything.

One final wish is to see Lebanon do something about it. Maybe they did and I am not aware of, if they did please let me know, if not, let's hope they do something soon.

Click here for ways to send relief to Haiti.

Nokia's new comparative AD with Blackberry

Even though fellow blogger Rami already blogged about this AD circulating our mailboxes lately on his blog Plus961.com, I want to still shed the light on this AD, because I think this is probably the first comparative adverstising we see in Lebanon, and I want to enjoy this moment in Lebanon's advertising history. If there was any other comparative AD in Lebanon before, please do enlighten me (I'm no expert here).

Here you go!

Hope to see more of these comparative ads in Lebanon!

Park your own car, avoid giving it to a Valet

To be honest, for the last year I have been trying to park my own car and avoid giving it to a Valet. It's a bit silly giving your car to a Valet parking when you're going to an ordinary restaurant and even a coffee shop, moreover that place having a lot of parking spaces near it. I could understand if it's raining too much, or the region doesn't have parking spaces any place near, or it's a fancy shmancy club or restaurant, however and I've noticed, many restaurants and ordinary diners now take over these parking spaces, which are on the road, and which legally are not theirs and is for the public. I am hating this kind of dictatorship.

Last Sunday I went to Aunty Rosa, first time and last time! I saw a place near Seapros (the yachts shop), it was Sunday so it was closed, and I parked in front of it. At the end when I was leaving, the Aunty Rosa Valet, comes to ask for money! Can you believe this none sense? I parked my own car, near the street (it wasn't even a parking) and the dude came to take money.

My wish is, avoid giving your car to Valet Parking dudes, let's teach them a lesson. And avoid Aunty Rosa, in addition to having a thief as Valet Parking, their service sucked big time.

I shall bash every restaurant that does not have the same food quality and service and waiter behavior such as Roadster's and Il Siciliano.

No snow yet in Lebanon

By now, all ski resorts should be open, and ski lovers should be skiing, snowboarding, skidooing, any snow activity you can think of, they should be doing, and even have fashion shows and competitions . Yet, there is barely some snow in Arz (Cedars) and Sannine and a couple of other high mountains, of which only their summits is covered.

Faraya ski resort is still not open. Most Faraya residents rely heavily on the winter season to draw their income. Last year was one of the worst years (I even joked that Lebanese will start skiing in Dubai), as there was a bit of snow during January, but at least all major ski resorts were open. However winter 2009-2010 is worse than 2008.

Comparison of Faraya ski resort taken from skileb.com between 9 Jan 2008 and 9 Jan 2009.

Could we be heading to desertification? Climate change experts warned of this some time ago. They warned of many things, but because of our imperialist / capitalist forces out there, the December 2009 Copenhagen negotiations led nowhere.

According to BBC News, many airports in Europe such as UK, France and Dublin's closed because of the icy weather. In other countries such as Sweden, Poland, Germany and others many people have been reported dead due to the very cold weather, they froze to death, most of them are homeless. Crazy traffic jams were caused, bus services decreased and trains halted because snow powder entered under the hood, and some engine oils were frozen.

The current big chill is a result of high pressure over the polar region, which has pushed cold air out of the Arctic towards much of northern Europe, parts of Asia and the US. Winds from the north and north east, rather than the south and south west, have brought freezing temperatures to the UK.

However the temperature degree in some parts of world decreased compared to the last 30 years, others are warmer, such as Alaska, northern Canada and the Mediterranean.

As they say, God Save Us all. We are heading to the worst. And our chances were blown less than a month ago for actually doing something about it.

Obstacle met with persistence driven by ambition

I received this photo by email from a friend. I thought I'd share it with this blog's readers.

ليلى يلّي منعرفها ماشي حالا بالمبدأ، يس في كتير لأ

This post is part of kolenalaila.com.

"We Are All Laila" aims at highlighting women's problems and prompting them to draw real images of their own experiences in order to open a dialogue that can lead to changing the ideas of a whole society.

بدي اكتب بالعربي اللبناني ولو راح تاخد معي الخبرية تلات ساعات.

 ليلى يلّي منعرفها ماشي حالا بالمبدأ، يس في كتير لأ.

في ليلى بعرفها اغتصبها ابن زوج امها، واغتصب امها كمان، البنت كان عمرعها 12 او 13، الام أكيد كانت عارفي بس ساكتة لأنو زوجها كان متوفّي وهي ما معها لا شهادة ولا اموال  تخليا تفلّ وتستقرّ لاحالها.في كتير متلها ومتايل.

ليلى تانية بعرفها راحت خطيفة، وقفت مدرسة وشغل، اجاها ولاد عل سريع، وصارت حياتها كلّها لولادها وكل ثانية بتمرؤ وهي ندمانة ومش مبسوطة.

ليلى القرن الواحد وعشرين، صار مطلوب منّها اكتر بكتير، كان كل شيء لازم تعملو من قبل هوي تطبخ، تهتمّ بالبيت، وتربّي هل الاولاد، هلئ صار عندا "كرّير"، يلي هو شي ضروري لتنمية المرأة من الناحية الفكرية والشخصية. وبعد في رجال بتفكرّ انو المرا لازم تكون محضرتلو العشا وقت يرجع من شغلو، حتى لو هي كمان كانت بالشغل، وبدا تنضف وتحمم الاولاد، وتكويلو القميص، وبدا تكون حلوي كمان، لأنّو الحقّ عليا بالأخير اذا زوجها اتطلّع على واحدة ثانية.

ليلى، في كتير ما بيعرفو قيمتك، وما بيعرفو انت يشو عم تمرئي، ويا حزينة هيدا هوي قدرك.

10 tips to be in the Christmas Spirit

10 tips to be in the Christmas Spirit, in both worlds, virtual and real:

 

1- Write a blog post about it (like this right here)
2- Choose a cheesy (and winy :P) Christmas postcard and tag people in them on facebook, such as Maya Zankoul indicated here
3- Send SMS text messages, there are ready texts out there such as "May Santa Visit you when you're sleeping in your flowery boxer and put a gift on your head!"
4- Send an e-greeting card, make sure they're animated, static cards are so 2001!
5- Set a Christmas ringtone on your mobile (such as "Last Christmas" for George Michael, it is all about Christmas you see!)
6- Set a Christmas background on your mobile, pc and/or laptop
7- Visit a mall during the prior week to Christmas and until Christmas eve at least twice!
8- Get stuck in traffic preferably near a Christmas decoration, if there is no decoration nearby, make sure you tune your radio on, maybe Lady Gaga's new "precious" Christmas song is playing!
9- Throw in a picture or two of Santa's hat here and there (refer to beginning of post), or better yet, buy 4 for 2'000LL and put them on your car seats' head-rests.
10- Last but not least, spend spend spend!!!!!!!!!!!! and spend even more!

Merry Christmas fellow readers, may it bring health and happiness upon you and your loved ones!

 

Hopenhagen Failahapen

Even though the negotiations ended last week, I didn't blog about them immediately, well because I figured there is time and no need to rush anymore to try and save the world because:

Leaders have reached a weak agreement in Copenhagen that fails to set the emissions targets needed to prevent catastrophic global warming.

 There is it, Copenhagen that was Hopenhagen for a while became a Failahapen!

This is how the world functions, and last week a decision was taken, and it was to ruin this earth. We, as people, don't deserve it.

Fun(d) Raising Newest Event: Who does not like cookies?

The Fun(d) raising project is going really well, 2 events occurred so far, the Bowling at Link and the Wordpress tutoring at Rootspace.

The next event will be in Edde Yard - Jbeil on Sunday December 27th, and it is about making cookies yourself, DYI, funnest concept ever, and this is thanks to the famous online tweeple Cooki3man, who well... basically makes & sells cookies, but not in the conventional way! More about him here.

Anyway, meanwhile, with the toys collected from these events and direct door to door (or car to car) toy transfer, and the money made during the events which led us to buy toys, so far these toys have been donated to 2 associations, Mourouj Al Mahabba and ACSAUVEL.

Moreover you can read Global Voices post on Fun(d) Raising here.

Christmas tree in Downtown Beirut

It's one of the new traditions in Lebanon, it is part of Beirut Celebrates series of events. What makes this tree special, is its presence near one of the biggest mosques out there! Now of course we would hope to think sectarianism doesn't exist in Lebanon, but unfortunately a form of it still exists.

Photo courtesy unknown, I received it by email.

2nd Photo courtesy yours truly

الرئيس الحريري يصل اليوم قمة كوبنهاغن

يصل اليوم للمشاركة في فعاليات القمة الرئيس الحريري مصحوبا بوفد رسمي كبير ليشاركوا ولأول مرة بوفد على هذا المستوى من التمثيل السياسي العالي مما يعطي لبنان دفعا قويا على الساحة العالمية. لبنان هشّ جداً أمام تغّير المناخ. الآثار المحتملة لتغيّر المناخ على لبنان تتضمّن زيادة في حرائق الغابات وجفاف وتناقص الناتج الزراعي وتدمير المناطق الساحلية وفي نهاية المطاف تصحّر كامل. "مشاركة لبنان بوفد من المستوى السياسي الذي نراه يعتبر خطوة تقدمية في الموقف اللبنلني، لكن المطلوب من الرئيس الحريري تبني موقف مفصل والخوض بشراسة في عملية المفاوضات"، أضاف حميدان. 

تشارك إندي-أكت في مفاوضات كوبنهاغن بوفد من 43 شخص يضم ناشطين وخبراء وإعلاميين للتأكد من فعالية الموقف العربي والعالمي والمشاركة في تصويب القرار الإقليمي فيما خص تغير المناخ.

Source: www.IndyACT.org

Urgent - Crisis in Copenhagen

With three days to go, the crucial Copenhagen summit is failing.  

Tomorrow, the world's leaders arrive for an unprecedented 60 hours of direct negotiations. Experts agree that without a tidal wave of public pressure for a deal, the summit will not stop catastrophic global warming of 2 degrees.  

Click below to sign the petition for a real deal in Copenhagen -- the campaign already has a staggering 10 million supporters - let's make it the largest petition in history in the next 72 hours! Every single name is actually being read out at the summit -- sign on at the link below and forward this email to everyone!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_copenhagen

Books and Arabic and Signings and Guiness...

Beirut Arab and International Book Fair 53

Another event following Beirut being the world capital of book for 2009, the Beirut Arab and International Book Fair 53 opened on the 11th of December and it will be there until the 24th of December in BIEL - Downtown Beirut.

Biggest Book in the World

I visited the book fair yesterday for about two hours, there are so many exhibitors and publisher houses down there, the exhibition is huge. Speaking of huge, the biggest book that has recently entered the guiness book of records is also available there, it's 3.85m wide and 2.77 m long, weighs 1060kg. It's a photography book, "Beirut's Memory" that compares Beirut before and Beirut now by Ayman Trawi.

Abu Salim's new book
While checking one stand after the other, I saw the famous "Abu Salim" signing his new book Ayyam Min Zakirati (Days of my memory)

Book Bazar
And the story is only beginning, I visited Book Bazar and saw national geographic magazine that were printed in 1960! I bought myself 3 copies, they're 40 years old. We also visited several other book bazar kind of libraries, and some books value is equivalent to gold because they're ancient and they just look like they came out of national treasure movie.

Dar Onboz
I also saw a stand full of extremely creative drawings, comics, books, shapes, photographs, etc... it's called Dar Onboz. You can check their website here www.daronboz.com, the person behind this is Nadine Touma, she is available at the stand. Dar Onboz, simply put, is here to promote the Arabic language using creativity.

Glad to see many artists having more opportunities to showcase their work. Let's hope we'll see a whole exhibition in Lebanon made for artists of all kinds.

Don't forget to visit it, of course Arabic books are ubiquitous, but it's not exclusive to Arabic only, there are many books in many other languages.