Hi everyone.
Iām on my work computer on the perennially terrible Lebanese internet, in a relatively safe town. Iām talking about some stupid client KPIs in a meeting with a bunch of people around the world. An āimportantā meeting. The clients assume Iām in Dubai or somewhere like that, and I donāt correct them.
Iāll get asked āHow are things in Lebanon?ā by some coworker in Dubai or Europe after the call and Iāll say the classic āAlhamdulillah, my family and I are okay.ā And weāre safe, we havenāt been bombed, not personally. I am lucky to work with decent people, but how could they understand. Will HR give me shit if they learn how much time Iāve spent out and about helping move essentials to shelters in the ādangerous outside worldā instead of just burying myself at home āuntil itās overā? Maybe I can get fired for putting myself in danger. Or maybe they give me leeway as a relatively senior person with the best English in my team who they get to pay less than everyone else because I donāt have a French passport - what a steal! (They pay me okay, and quite well compared to others around me, but we all know what this arrangement really is)
But corporate work, in normal times, rots the soul from the inside out. This is worse. I have to stare at the bad screen for hours while the EMTs dig people from under their homes. I have a duty to at least try to help my people, but I canāt. If I quit my job, my family loses this home and this security, and we have no place to go now that our original town is being bombed. I donāt come from money. I canāt just move or buy a house abroad or even a plane ticket (Lebanese people with no other nationality canāt go many places without a long visa process). I canāt ājust move to Europe broā, I canāt ājust move to Dubai broā. I have responsibilities. Iād love to move, but I canāt. Maybe I should.
Naturally, even nice coworkers cannot comprehend this. Besides, they need my input on the KPIs. This client is very important and number must go up after all. I hear another thud in the distance, through the crickets, I feel it in the pit of my stomach. Not close enough to threaten my life, but close enough to understand I might be next and that no area is truly safe.
This isnāt a woe is me post and I donāt want people in the comments feeling too sorry for my situation yeah. I still have my family, four limbs and two eyes, my home, a source of income in actual usable currency. Save your real sorrow for the people who have lost more both here and in the occupied territories. It could have been me in Gaza, it could have been you.
Please donate to the Lebanese Red Cross if you have the ability. Our people in the orange jumpsuits are our pride and they need everything they can get, especially now that theyāre being hit as well. Relatively transparent and reputable org with boots on the ground and a functional donation platform, please consider helping.
Lebanon has been spiraling for some time, but I wouldnāt say itās a dystopia. Or a utopia, of course. But itās genuine. People donāt kick their kids out on the street at 18 like they apparently do in the US, kids donāt get shot in school either. People donāt get stabbed or mugged, sometimes harassed by beggars but thereās usually not violent crime. More positively, thereās a lot to do that isnāt centered around making you pay for experiences. I feel like that might not be the case everywhere. At least when weāre not being terrorized, Lebanon isā¦ very chill. Chill with a side of feudalism, but thatās not todayās topic.
Most of us pull together, we have relatively tough social bonds from years of facing difficulties together. On paper everything is fucked: currency is worthless, terrible infrastructure, literal terrorist state looking to Lebensraum us with impunity, mob-run essential services. But I donāt know how to leave this behind. I know how to live on 8 hours of electricity per day, I know how to ration bathing water and fuel. I donāt know how to deal with the more complex shit I see people dealing with elsewhere online.
Like a ton of people move to Canada. Sure, I speak both English and French decently well. But isnāt a house anywhere worth living prohibitively expensive? Our Canadian-Palestinian friends have been discriminated against for the past twenty years, am I going to have to live as a second class citizen? etc etc. Sure as a Lebanese Christian I think Iād get a pass where others wonāt, but I donāt want a pass, I want a safe place to home. All I write here is from a place of relative privilege though. I donāt deal with extra shit for being poor or from a religion whose followers tend to be poor, Iām not LGBT, I donāt come from a border town, I wasnāt born into a town or family that has tribalish skirmishes. Itās easy for me to sit and wonder about immigration at my leisure.
Thereās also analysis paralysis, right. I can theoretically move to many countries. In practice, every place has pros and cons, and it looks like the cons keep piling up pretty much everywhere while the pros drop one by one. Although that applies to Lebanon as well. If Iām going to be struggling, where better to struggle than among friends and family, in the land I call home?
the people i descend from have been native to this country for thousands of years; but they need permission from the american government to live here. second class citizen is right; but if youāre willful enough, you can pretend itās not true, like all of our politicians.
it sounds silly; but thatās literally whatās happening in this country with trump gaining ground on all minority voters until kamala entered the race.
and i think; for myself; itās telling that i was incensed by your first paragraph going over american stereotypes until i saw your third paragraph where you at least admit lebanon shits on their own minorities as much as this country does; or would do if lebanon were richer.
Oh I was just going off of my first impressions of different places that Iāll have to pick from sooner or later.
The getting kicked out of the house thing is mainly an American stereotype but itās there in many western countries I think. I remember a podcast where an American journalist who was in Iraq during the past decade talked about how the Iraqis didnāt understand where all the homeless Americans come from. Like donāt they have families? Communities? Do people just kick out the mentally ill instead of keeping them safe? Etc. Itās about the structure of society and peopleās bonds together, not just the economics.
Kids getting murdered at school is 100% an America only stereotype
Stabbing and robbing we associate a bit more with Europe.
Quite a few people here (waning majority I think) also think of the west as an unlivable hotbed of sexual decadence and LGBT ādelinquencyā but we both know thatās not in the bad column.
I wasnāt trying to bash the US in particular. I feel like Iād like to live there someday. Itās more of the dilemma of finding a place to go. The real dream is for things to work here but thatās not happening anytime soon and sadly we have more incentive to leave and save our skin than to stay and build for the future.
And oh boy do we shit on each other here. Itās not even minority vs majority, itās pluralities with localized minorities, itās retaliatory violence echoing centuries of small conflicts. You have to pay mobs for basic services. And no, doesnāt need to be richer, discrimination is alive and well in even the poorest areas. And of course, the militia that protects your town one year can shake it down the next (but thatās on us to deal with, not on the western armchair generals online). Itās not as simple as good guy bad guy. In many ways, probably almost every way, we are a failed society. But on good days, itās chill. When things line up, Lebanon just works, even if itās just for a short time.
I donāt envy your current election situation and wonāt comment on it.