Tag: Corruption

Against all odds

They are too strong, tool powerful for us mere mortals. They pledged allegiance to gods too vile, to masters too dark.

They have taken our jobs, our homes, our families, our dreams, and trashed them on the altar of Filth.

Photo by Jo Kassis

They have branded us with the shameful iron of the corrupt and we have thus become slaves to their corruption.

They have shattered us around the universe in a diaspora spanning 150 years and 5 continents.

They have driven us to wars we should not have fought, to endeavors we should have blushed with shame to even consider.

They?

You know them. Some are people indeed. But some, most, are daemons lurking in our souls, deep within. The worm is in the fruit sometimes. Many times. All the time.

All is not lost however, dear knights, for as long as you can find a spark of light in you to outgrow the darkness within, we stand a chance. A spark, that’s all it takes. Your loved ones. Childhood memories. Summers. A long-forgotten dream. Whatever brings a smile to your face, some tears to your eyes.

And we will prevail. We must prevail.

Against all odds.

Let the board sound

And don’t forget to vote

Rabih

Plaidoyer perdu d’avance

Votre honneur,

Je ne sais comment débuter cette plaidoirie, d’une part car je ne sais jamais comment en débuter une, d’autre part car le sujet que je souhaite plaider a été tellement rabâché que ça en est devenu le cliché le plus éculé de l’histoire moderne. Je tiens pourtant à rajouter sans prétention ma pierre à cet édifice auquel maints théoriciens de la chose publique et de la politique, tous bien plus éminents que moi, ont déjà contribué. Permettez-moi donc de m’adresser aux prévenus.

Prévenus. J’aborde ce sujet avec tellement de candeur, et je m’en rends compte, que je suis à deux doigts de lâcher ma plume par crainte du ridicule de ma position. Ou de la vôtre. Cela étant, c’est peut-être justement cette candeur qu’il vous faut, puisque vos interlocuteurs habituels et autres contradicteurs de circonstance sont tous sans exception des sherpas de la politique alambiquée et tordue de ce coin du monde. Expertise que je suis loin d’avoir, Dieu merci.

Allez. Candeur. Je me lance donc avec une première question plutôt candide vous en conviendrez:

Quand donc avez-vous fini par verser dans la prostitution?

Photo by Vadim Kaipov

Avant d’avoir vendu vos idéaux au plus offrant? Après les avoir perdus?

Avant de vous autoproclamer champions du socialisme et du progrès? Ou après, une fois que votre système féodal ait étouffé ce qui restait d’idéal chez vos ouailles?

A moins que ce ne soit avant d’avoir trahi la cause des déshérités? Après les avoir asservis à votre clientélisme, cette drogue dont dépendent aujourd’hui les enfants et petits-enfants de ceux qui n’avaient déjà rien? “Mais à celui qui n’a rien, cela même qu’il a lui sera ôté“. Je ne vous croyais pas si pratiquants, si pénétrés de la parole du Seigneur…

Quand donc avez-vous vendu votre vertu? Avant d’avoir renié le serment qui vous reliait à votre patrie? Après? Avant d’avoir vendu vos frères d’armes, ceux-là mêmes auprès de qui vous aviez juré de protéger le sol de votre partie, ceux-là mêmes dont votre serment vous rendait responsable? Ou après avoir baisé la main du maître de ce monde, le fauteuil du pouvoir?

Avant d’avoir pris les armes? Après avoir abandonné vos études, vos vocations? Au cours de vos luttes fratricides qui ont laissé sur le carreau tant de vos frères, de vos alliés? A partir de quel assassinat l’innocence de votre âme à-t’elle péri?

Au bout de combien de sesterces avez-vous réussi à changer d’allégeance? Combien d’expropriés, combien de pauvres hères conduits à la banqueroute aura-t-il fallu pour anesthésier votre conscience? Combien de fois avez-vous dû courber l’échine, combien de mains, de pieds avez-vous dû baiser pour toucher les piécettes qui vous sont aujourd’hui refusées ?

Quand donc avez-vous décidé d’oublier la piété de vos parents, les préceptes de votre prophète, le dieu de vos maîtres spirituels, celui que vous aviez juré de prier, de servir, pour vous tourner vers d’autres idoles, celles du pouvoir armé, celles de la corruption du pauvre peuple, celles des alliances opportunes et opportunistes?

N’êtes-vous pas revenus à la raison quand le destin vous a éprouvés dans votre chair? N’avez-vous pas ressenti l’urgence de vous racheter quand vos pères, vos frères ont été assassinés par une main sans honneur et sans nom? Quand vos fils ont péri sous les balles? Quand vous avez été bannis, quand vous avez connu la flétrissure de l’exil, de la fuite, la damnation de la prison, le poison de la calomnie? Quand la maladie vous a rongés?

Il fut un temps où vous aviez sans doute d’autres ambitions, d’autres valeurs que celles qui vous font tourner aujourd’hui. Vous étiez nés dans des familles humbles, dans des villages montagneux, des banlieues populaires. Rappelez-vous de cette époque. Puis les premières compromissions, avec vous-mêmes d’abord, petit coup de canif à vos idéaux d’alors, puis, de coup d’épée en coup de sabre, vous êtes devenus les apôtres sans vergogne de démons immémoriaux: la guerre, le pouvoir. La corruption.

Vous êtes trop puissants pour le commun des mortels, on ne peut plus vous atteindre. Vous avez le monopole des armes, du pouvoir, de l’argent. Et surtout la capacité, que dis-je, la malédiction d’accaparer les âmes des pauvres gens qui voient en vous la seule lueur d’espoir et qui sont nombreux à se damner pour consolider votre emprise sur ce qui reste de ce pays, de ce peuple. Vous servez des dieux trop vils, des maîtres trop sombres.

Vous pouvez toujours inverser le cours des choses et éviter de finir dans les poubelles de l’histoire. Faites-le pour la mémoire de vos pères. Faites-le pour laisser autre chose que des dettes infamantes, un héritage qui jette un peu moins l’opprobre sur votre nom. Et si cela ne vous parle pas, faites-le pour faire la Une des journaux. Pour vous refaire une virginité. Pour pouvoir vous regarder dans une glace sans vous cracher dessus, que sais-je! Mais faites-le vite car bientôt, il ne restera plus grand monde pour chanter vos louanges en ce bas monde. Et ne comptez pas trop sur l’au-delà pour vous couvrir de lauriers…

Je n’ai rien à rajouter à cette plaidoirie votre honneur.

Let the board sound

Rabih

Cet article est également publié dans les colonnes de L’Orient-Le Jour.

On becoming comfortably numb

1:00 AM, somewhere in France.

Pink Floyd playing in the background, and I, wrapping up my previous post before publishing it. Comfortably Numb. Or Confortablement engourdi since we are somewhere in France. A masterpiece of progressive rock if you ask me. And by the time David Gilmour was kicking his haunting second guitar solo, hell was breaking loose in a sunny Levantine country which until then thought it had struck a golden deal with time… The post was nearing the end. You probably read it a couple of days ago.

“We ended up believing that judgment day would never come…”

Fools…

Photo by Nancy O’Connor

Hell broke loose on a Tuesday evening at 6:07 PM local time, when 2750 metric tons of unaccounted for and ill-stored Ammonium Nitrate went off in the port of Beirut in what would be later described as one of the largest artificial non-nuclear blasts in history, obliterating significant parts of the capital and causing 218 deaths, more than 7000 injuries and making thousands of people homeless.

I will not dwell on the causes. There is rant all over the place on the criminal carelessness of Lebanese officials or the endemic corruption undermining the country, including in some of my previous posts.

However, I cannot help but notice that the story leading to the disaster had been unfolding in broad daylight in the previous years, in general indifference. You know, the story on how 2750 tons of an explosive substance made it to a warehouse in the port of Beirut from an odd ship which would later sink in the port itself without anyone taking notice. “A ship? What ship?“

Weirdly enough, you can find hundreds of documented stories, news and articles on the port of Beirut and its tales over the past 7 or 8 years, from stories on customs seizing anything between 3.6 million Captagon pills and 20 smuggled iPhones to information on the port revenue, year in, year out. You can even find articles on the customs fight against corruption. Ha ha.

But not a hint about the elephant in the room: A 284 feet long cargo ship, the Rhosus MV.

Stranded there since 2013, abandoned by its Russian or Cypriot owners who allegedly went bankrupt, owning the port of Beirut more that 100 000 US dollars in accruing unpaid fees, with 2750 tons of a potentially explosive substance on board, and which ended up SINKING in the port, on its own, in February 2018, out of lack of maintenance, after its load had been confiscated by the Lebanese authorities and stored in one of the port warehouses a few years earlier.

And nothing either on the six warnings formally issued by customs and port officials to the (not so) competent authorities about the danger presented by the substance stored at the port, in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. It unraveled too late, a couple of days after the disaster…

OK. For the sake of argument, let us put aside the warnings, the explosive substance in the ship or out of it, the Russian owner and those behind him. And maybe even the port administration and customs, or especially those actually, and the hidden hand behind. Maybe these factors and actors were not so obvious. Maybe they were out of reach because we were too busy finding a place in the sun. Or surviving. Or not in the details of an opaque administration, and its corrupting volutes let us say. Or too afraid, standing to loose too much. Too exposed.

Or maybe they were out of reach because of our acute intellectual laziness, and God knows how much of that we have to spare.

But a ship sinking in plain sight in the port of Beirut?

How did we manage to overlook that?

How could have we become so numb?

So comfortably numb?

Hello? Is there anybody in there?

Let the board sound

Rabih

On revolution

Dear Revolutionary

Wherever you are, you would be glad to know that Revolution today is a word on everyone’s lips in a small country on the verge of oblivion in the middle east.

Photo by Joe Kassis

According to your fellow Lebanese revolutionaries, revolution is the only way forward, the last chance for their homeland. I can hear that. For many of those, “religion and religious affiliation are the mothers of all disasters happening to this country”. Not a very surprising point of view for a country where 18 sects representing a little north of 4 million people are trying to cohabit for better or worse, without too much bloodshed.

For many others, “we need to burn everything at the stake and rebuild the country from scratch”. 

So what’s the plan? How will you pull it off? With what would you rebuild it? With revolutionary ideals or whatever that is you had been daydreaming about in your long and boring calculus classes back when a US dollar was still worth 1507 Lebanese liras, and which you think you can put to action now that the country is ready for them? 

No my friend, you need resources to rebuild a country. Dollars that is.  And fresh. Don’t go burning these…

You also need people on your side and guess what, most people in Lebanon still define themselves by the religion or sect to which they are affiliated, and this reality cannot just be canceled by slogans like “religion is evil”. Besides, regardless of your own opinion, dismissing religious affiliation in the political arena and the people who hold on to it is a complete disregard to a majority of Lebanese who, like you and me, want the best for their kids, their families, their communities and yes, their country, believe it or not. They just have not read Marx yet, or whoever got you and me on the revolution track in the first place, and probably never will. Irreconcilable differences you could say, except divorce is not an option if you want to rebuild the country. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that building a country on the premise of religious affiliation is probably not a good idea but disposing of a country because it is built on such premises sounds a bit over the edge. Yes, some things must go, but some things are good enough to stay. And some just cannot go, because people are not ready to let them go, or because it would be too high a price to pay.

So how about finding common ground, a common project for the Lebanese and their country which transcends religion affiliation? I am sure that if we brainstorm for 15 minutes, we can come up with a couple of ideas worth starting with. They can be around Lebanese international influence through the expatriates network. Imagine what could lie behind such an idea with regards to the current sclerotic citizenship law, the expatriates voting rights and the Lebanese diplomacy in general. They can be around the environment and becoming an energy independent country. We have sun, we have water, we have brains. They can be around becoming an education and research regional hub once again. Or about becoming a health regional hub again. More than a regional hub actually, and why not. Any or all of these. Ideas which have nothing to do with pointing fingers and finding scapegoats. Stuff around which people can gather.

We need new blood to uphold these ideas of course, not the old guard currently in place and in this sense, I cannot agree more to a revolution. However,

Dear Revolutionary

One last thing, before the board sounds. I can hear frustration in you. I can hear it in me. I might even hear hate. And there is but a tiny step between frustration and hating your country and many of your fellow Lebanese which you hold responsible for the great collapse. It is easy to blame those you deem to be bigots or extremists or immoral vicious scum or whatever you want to call them when the real enemy is lurking behind. You know it, you’ve known it all your life. It transcends race, sex and religion, bigots, extremists and scum. 

Dear Revolutionary

Corruption is the opium of the people. Corruption is the enemy.

Fight corruption. 

Heal people.

Let the board sound

Rabih