How I see the solution to the problems of Democracy

Post by Salim Zwein

Here is a vision of a solution to our way of governance. I imagined it 15 years ago, and I still believe it would be a good “next step” in our evolution as humans.

The idea started trotting in my mind when the 1975 war in Lebanon was over – around 1990. My country was under Syrian occupation and I was so frustrated with the way we as Lebanese dealt with that issue.

Two examples struck me, one, my dad: he took up arms in 1975 to defend what he believed is a just cause putting his own life at risk and sacrificing his professional and financial future. Today, many people owe him and his fellow fighters their life in a sense. The other was us, youngsters: my friends and I manifested against the Syrian occupation with all the risks we incurred (up to being imprisoned and tortured for some). And yet, when all the dust settles, the election system equalizes between citizens who sacrificed a lot and others who did nothing when they were needed. That injustice deeply frustrated me.

Moreover, I was wondering why my friends, who finished their education, could not find jobs decent enough to make a comfortable living in Lebanon and had to travel and endure the hardship, if not the xenophobia, of some foreign country in order to survive, and that prompted me to thinking: What have we become ?? A people adrift!

After more thorough thinking, I came up with this crazy idea of remaking a nation; an artificial island where everything would be built from scratch and I imagined the system to run it. While the island idea may seem crazy or selfish (since I was thinking of the Lebanese issue only), the system that I elaborated is valid for any already existing nation or in the case of my friend Michel Eleftarides’s project, Nowheristan.

So, I was thinking: Who are the people who would be on this island/nation? Well, if I think simple economics and efficiency, that nation should be made of people who can advance it with their skills.

And what are these skills that make any economy flourish? They are inherent qualities of the human beings that no machine (In case we are automating all the production processes.) or animal can have, and can be broken down to 2 or 3:

- Creativity: whether

Scientific (New engineering projects, inventions, new technology, etc…)

Artistic (Because they are the emotional source of other kind of creativity)

- Altruism: In that regards, I see any man or woman who feels that their existence is nothing compared to the existence of the group or community. I see people who readily sacrifice their lives to protect others (Soldiers, firefighters, and rescuers.) or people who hold dear a humanitarian cause (ending up hunger, educating people, environmentalists etc…). I group all that under the philosophical definition of the “warrior”.

These are the kind of people sought after to build a nation; the ones that should be promoted. Citizenship should be given to people with such qualities. This does not mean that an engineer will not be doing manual labor when need arises, but one has to have that human “added value”.

Citizenship:

I always felt that the choices people make regarding the choice of their leaders in a democracy had nothing to do with leaders needed skills (leadership or knowledge); rather votes were given to the person who talks (lies) best, who distributes money (rich) and the one who goes to every funeral in town and shows fake sympathy. Yet people would still vote for such individuals! Why? Because people do not know how to choose! A conviction that was always there and was scientifically proven recently by the works of David Dunning (Psychologist at Cornell University) and Justin Kruger (New York University) in their research on how people judge and or chose their leaders in. Their conclusion was simple: People aren’t smart enough for democracy to flourish! (link)

Citizenship should be earned instead of being a birthright! (Sounds fascist?) Now, do not go jumping into conclusions. You might think that if someone cannot earn his/her citizenship he/she has no right to exist. On the contrary! Every human being (citizen or not) should be given his minimum rights and I name them: the right to free healthcare, free education, free meals and a bunk bed if he/she cannot find work. (Sounds communist?)

Citizenship should have many levels based on the skills someone shows in his/her knowledge or achievements in a given domain. By achievements, I do not mean financial achievements because these come from luck and inheritance much more than real skills. In fact, financial achievements should NOT be a measure of human value.

Let’s take a walk through example:

To obtain level 1 citizenship you should complete the following:

Your secondary schooling successfully (I will detail that later on)

Your military service (If are not ready to die for your community why should you give your opinion in the first place?)

Your education service (Also detailed further on)

At level 1 citizenship, you will have the right to vote for (but not to run for) the municipal council.

Should you finish some university graduation diploma in any scientific or artistic or military domain, you attain the level 2 citizenship. At this level, you can run for municipal elections and vote for legislative elections.

To run for legislative elections, you should attain a level 3 citizenship: Have either obtained a PHD (or specialized studies) in your domain or done some important achievements in your field (Details could be discussed).

For the executive power level in the nation, I prefer to have a small council of 15 to 20 people all specialized in their domain. For example, the minister of public works should be a civil engineer (With a track record of an extraordinary career path and achievements) and that minister would be only elected by civil engineers, because, precisely, they are the best people to judge his skills.

The council member debates matters and chooses the best course of action to govern.

This method ensures that only the best people are handling the public offices. To take things further, council members, although given resources to govern correctly, should be deprived of any kind of ownership and succession rights in order to protect the government from the corruption that wealth drives to. (An idea borrowed from Michel Elefteriades)

Education

As you may have noticed, for this system to be truly fair, it should give equal opportunities to everyone regardless of wealth. In that sense, all education should be public and free. Now, how to make it so?

Well, simple enough: given all the developments in technology I had this idea (which is currently being implemented now bit by bit around the world and is not exclusively mine: check khanacademy.com) to make all courses like an interactive Discovery Channel documentary (Yes, that good!) administered by the best teachers in the country over a super virtual platform. One teacher (the best) educating 1 million kids!!

Adult supervision and help for the kids will still be needed and that is where the education service, which every citizen of the nation has to make, comes in. The combination of both these ideas makes the cost of education really cheap AND provides the best education for the kids.

A similar interactive approach to the universities can also be used, thus making higher education accessible for all giving researchers more time to focus on the much needed research projects.

There are more social ideas that I drafted as well, but for now this is more relevant to what needs to be done.

What do you think?

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SEX

Farah Alhashim, filmmaker, shares her thoughts:

SEX…

I think I snapped your attention right out of your eyeballs. And made it mine. Just because I wrote three simple letters… S. E. X.

I have no idea what the hell is going on in Beirut and some Arab countries. This continuous obsession into trying to imitate the west and become like their culture or what ever… has gone far!!!
Wake up Arabs. Even America and Europe got over this and stopped slutting up!! I mean, I know rappers who are cleaning up their lyrics, movies that are winning Oscars and they are not about sex… I’m just dropping names here but “Julie and Julia”. “J Edgar”. “Avatar” … and many more //// does it ring a bell?
So winning an academy award, and winning the attention of critics does not revolve about sexy anymore like in 60’s or 70’s where sex was a new hot topic and not a taboo, but I guess we are so late that sex just hit us here and some still think it is a hot topic…
I’m not going to generalize, but I will speak from my own knowledge and tell you one thing. This sexual expression that you dear Arabs is experiencing is passed due. Because it has been already experienced back in 1969… When New York and Every part of the world were in the freedom movement and in a peaceful community that shared everything together, even “semen”… But now things are different and slutting up became a “cliché” except in Beirut Where theater plays, movie makers, TV series writers, party animals, bar owners, graphic designers are competing against each other on which can give the most sluttiest poster or outrageous play that speaks about sex.
A woman who gets naked on her blog is courageous.
A sex cover on a local magazine is considered an artistic revolution.
A song about intercourse and how a guy can knock his girlfriend’s boots out is considered poetry!!
And so on… the list goes on starting from theater plays to movies.
I won’t mention names…
Maybe I’m clueless, but I thought being a great artist lies in the potential of creating something unusual and beautiful that makes people think and wonder and probably change from within…

Why don’t we become the change we want to see in the world!
If those people are trying to be the change they want in the world, then they are probably “Wanna be Whores”. Excuse my French!
What is happening people? What is so special about slutting up, having sex scenes on screen?
I mean why would you wana waste production money, and spend thousands of dollars on a Red Camera or a shoot your film with 35mm, wasting thousands of rolls on failed attempts to create a sex scene!

Dear current director, if you want to arouse the audience and make yourself a “famous” director, just grab your “MiniDV” and light some florescent light, and your good to go…

Don’t pretend it is “art” or it is your “inspiration”. Sex was discovered many years ago… it just like food and water. But I don’t see people talking about water and food and sleeping the same way they talk about sex.

Speaking of “BEIRUT HOTEL”, any clueless person who thinks Beirut, Lebanon is an area in Israel or behind an oasis and bunch of camels running around will probably think that all girls are like this jazzy night singer and our nights are red as her sex night.

And if you try to criticize this type of films, you will be subjected to several criticisms and you will be called; a conservative uncultured and under civilized dumb ass who don’t appreciate art and your backwardness will destroy us like there is no tomorrow.

2 weeks ago, I returned to Beirut. I stayed in my favorite city for an entire 2 weeks, and honestly my first impression toward it was exactly like a husband who just came back from war and his wife was pregnant from another man thinking her husband is dead…

I mean what happened to you dear Beirut?
If I want to use metaphors here, I will probably imagine Beirut, a beautiful woman with a beautiful dark long hair, attractive lips and eyes, sitting in the corner of a deserted old house smelling like cigarettes and holding a vodka bottle in her hand laughing hysterically with a cynical look in her eyes… and looking at me!! : (Oh you are here Farah, I did not expect you would see me like this…)

I don’t even know where to begin dear Beirut, should I start with Hamra Street: Filled with pubs. To me, those pubs are like open coffins… dead zombies sitting and hanging around in the corners of that famous street lighting up their cigarette and finishing their glass. They are emotionless and fearless and carless.
Or should I start with the people who changed drastically? I don’t even know how to begin to describe the amount of shock I had when I exchanged my first words with very close friends of mine… as if they were … stuffed or mummified.

Nothing has changed since the first time I met them, and believe me that’s not a good thing… you come back after months and years and you see them just where you left off… sitting there talking about the same subjects they were talking about 1 or 2 years ago ago… I don’t blame them… but…

Now, the political situation is arising more than ever, depression is within everybody… people are starting their days and ending it… like machines or books stacked in their positions, and doing their part of work then returning home…

It is like they got used to it or they got stoned.
And on top of that, movies and magazine covers, nightclubs’s main theme is sex… as if the hidden message is “Lets have sex and get drunk, We are going to die anyway.”

I don’t care anymore… Do what ever you like, I just said what I think and I’m scared… i’m reallllly really truly extremely scared. Beirut is literally going away from us. And war is not the killer here… it is us.

Have we become so numb?

Parking vs Park Meter

A letter from Joy:

“To Whom it may concern,

The picture attached to this text shows exactly the way I’m feeling. Call it rage call it whatever you want to call it. I reached to a stage where I had enough of this country’s sarcasm towards its inhabitants. If 99% of the population are blind, and use the traditional Lebanese sentence “ Haida Baladna Shou Badna Naamel “ Well, I’m here to talk about the remaining 1% that face a million and one thing per day and are trying to live with pride in their own country.

I live in Ashrafieh, and specifically at Mar Mkhael street. As we all know, this street has been booming for the past two years with pubs, clubs, restaurants, and so on. Therefore, when your laying down in your bed to rest you’re just partying with the rest of the crowd down there at the venues.

Three years ago, they installed something called the “Park Meter” the meter works from 9.am and until 4.pm; trying to become civilized like other countries maybe, I don’t know. But here comes the logic, they installed it underneath our homes!!!

Whether you come home at 12pm, 4pm, or even midnight its either you don’t find a spot to park because of the huge rush of pubs in the area and valet parking’s that park everywhere and I mean everywhere! Or when you wake up in the morning there’s a good morning message on your front window that says “ Good morning here’s a 10,000LL fine to brighten your day” Should I wake up everyday at 7 or 8 go down in my pajamas’ to put a paper on my car and then go back to sleep?

Tell me what do I do? If there was a possibility I could take my car with me home, trust me I wouldn’t do other wise!!! And on the other hand, if you find a spot to park there’s this shop that puts chairs outside to reserve his own spot in case someone comes in, and another and another and another….

This is enough!!!! I will do what it takes to stop it. Park meters are known to be put in business or industrial areas worldwide not in a Residential Region!!!! I have a range of 5 or 6 tickets per month! And if I had a choice I wouldn’t be posting this issue on online and yes, I want to reach the media! There isn’t any parking’s’ in the area, the buildings are old with no underground space for us to park and the streets are now taken to the ones that have the supreme power!

Oh and should I mention, the company that owns the park meters in Lebanon isn’t for the government? It’s a private company or whatever you want to call it and the government takes a percentage. If anyone reading this post finds normal actually logical, then state your opinion!

Day after day, this country is becoming more chaotic! I don’t give a damn whether we have 3G or a higher Internet speed, or whether we win the best award for the greatest nightlife in the middle east! I want to live with pride I want my voice to be heard.

I’m hoping this post will eventually; reach someone that may help us. I may be one person writing but I’m pretty sure there is a 1000 citizens suffering from the same issue. Enough is enough!

Indeed; in what logic are park meters stationed under homes who were built with no parking spaces? It doesn’t make any sense for people who live in those buildings nor their visitors. Why do righteous people have to bleed for the outlaws? And when it comes to talking to the park meter people who issue the tickets, they laugh and raise their shoulders. “Ana makhassneh” they say. Until when does Joy and the rest of the citizens who are suffering from the same insanity have to endure this? A discussion should be taken over the municipality and the company itself.

Whether should inhabitants have a card that states that they live in the area and thus their cars should be spared from parking tickets or whether these park meters should be moved to where it makes more sense, a solution needs to be implemented as soon as possible… This is simply INSANE!

Park Meter Lebanon has a website.

Sources:

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The aftermath of a rape in Lebanon

This is a follow up on a previous post: “Let’s talk about rape“.

A girl shares her story:

“We’ll see what we can do.” This is what the police said when I voiced out the names of the men who raped and beat me. But it was not enough. I had to repeat the story including every single detail a myriad of times in the police station, in front of different police officers and a friend who was also acting as my translator. I felt humiliated, dirty, hopeless, and defenseless and every other “less”.

“We’ll see what we can do.” sounded more like “Sorry, there is nothing we can do.”

If my Lebanese host had not believed what happened to me, no one would have. He was the one who fought for me every day against all of those who treated me as a liar and who kept saying that I was a slut who deserved what happened.

Fortunately, my friend connected me to an amazing Lebanese girl who helped me a lot and both of them made me feel strong and ready to fight for my rights.

I also met another local woman who told me that if I wanted to do anything with this case I had to find “connections” and use them. The concept was alien to me. In Europe, rape cases are treated delicately, people are directed towards psychologists or doctors, not “connections”. Here, I had to go further… much further. She connected me to an investigator who found the offenders in less than an hour. They were arrested and taken to jail.

But it was not over. This was just the beginning.

First, I had to go to recognize the rapists. Policemen were nice to me, now they had the rapists in custody; they believed me. But, to my disappointment, my number was given to the families of the offenders. They had my friend’s number as well. They kept calling us and harassing us to let the case down and give up my rights. They were pressuring us not to “ruin their good sons’ lives”. Little did they care that it was MY life that “their good sons’’ ruined: They showed me no mercy when they were beating the hell out of me and I was begging them to stop. They did not bother think that I may find myself with an unwanted pregnancy next month either.

How dare they even talk to me asking me to forgive and forget? I was torn apart in my own flesh and blood! What made even more reluctant is that one of them works with children for a living.

Everywhere else, it is improper if not a crime or corruption to give the phone number of the victim to the family of the accused. I am not looking for revenge. I just want my humanity and my rights back; I want to feel as a human and a woman again.

In Lebanon, you have to recognize your aggressors by standing in front of them in the same room and looking them in the eyes. (Not from another room behind a thick one-way protective glass.) They seemed sorry that they got caught and may have to face time in prison. It seemed that they really believed that they would get away with it.

Today, I’m trying to keep myself together. At the beginning, I couldn’t sleep at all, now I wake up to every sound. I cry a lot. I hate my body. I don’t feel it’s mine anymore; it’s disgusting, it’s dirty. I’m afraid to stay alone although I have lived alone all my life as an independent person. I’m afraid of my own thoughts. I can’t focus. When I try to think of something else, flashback images come back to me.

My best friends have always been men. Sadly, I came to notice that many people do not believe in friendship between men and women in Lebanon. Yet my host is a Lebanese man. He never touched me, never tried to kiss me or attempted anything weird. He’s my friend.

I’m not trying to tarnish the image of Lebanon, rape happens anywhere. I’m neither the first nor the last person to whom it happened. I’m just concerned with the laws and procedures since the misadventure happened to me here. I can’t help myself thinking about the Lebanese, to whom the same thing happened, who were unable to do anything about it, and who had to swallow their shame while their rapists were still out there, running free because they had no “connections”.

Lebanon is a beautiful country with fantastic landscape and cuisine. I encourage everyone to visit it. I just hope that in the near future the laws will change to be able to protect everyone. I hope there will be a clear procedure for these cases and that no one will need “connections” to bring offenders to justice. I think that people deserve better laws and better treatment.

If that was the case of a local person, can you imagine what would have happened? Would she even go to the police station? All the family would be put in the loop, blame the person for bringing shame on them etc? How do you think they would react?

Is it normal to have to repeat the facts a million times? Is it normal to have to face offenders in the same room? Is it normal to be harassed over the phone in order to drop the case? Is it normal to proceed with such cases like this?

Some argued that they seldom hear about rape stories. That’s because no one talks about them nor reports them. Who would under the current circumstances and the way victims are left to their own despair? If you got raped, what would YOU do?

We urgently need new laws!

Sources have requested anonymity for very good reasons. I respect this choice. Thank you for understanding.

Ode à une certaine…

Poème de Marwan

A celle qui pénétra dans ma vie
Une balle de revolver au coup de minuit.
A celle qui dans mon cœur élu foyer
Cette antre si vaste au lit si douillet.

A celle qui éplucha mes plus solides carapaces
Comme un fruit exotique, délicieux et vivace.
A celle pour qui mon vaillant et invaincu bouclier
Ne fait pas plus d’effet qu’une muraille de papier.

A celle qui est devenue mon centre de gravité
Ma boussole, ma raison d’être, de vivre, ma fierté.
A celle qui un jour deviendra l’Isis et l’ Athéna,
Pour une descendance qui sera à la fois, elle et moi.