Fragmentation
The recent political and social situation in Lebanon is becoming more alarming day after day, Lebanon that was supposed to be a message about tolerance and common living is surfacing as a solid message about what to avoid and what to not become. We’ve grown to become a vertically fragmented society where communities have nothing in common other than the bad luck of existing together on the same piece of land. We ended up with xenophobic religious communities who elect and support xenophobic religious and political leaders who are in constant conflict over the share of power they can have, in order to control and loot whatever can be looted out of that ghost of state that is Lebanon.
The Lebanese society has proven in the last decade that it comprises a majority of zealots whose daily struggle in this country is about oppressing, controlling, and humiliating each other.
This situation is alarming because not only it’s killing the prospects of prosperity and growth in this country, it is dragging us down to levels that threaten the life and existence of the Lebanese people, it is suffocating them, but they stupidly continue their circus of bigotry and carelessness driven by a serious lack of ethics while judging things, and by brainwashed heads that cannot think outside the religious/ideological frame in which their minds are boxed since their infancy.
The whole recent wages problem is a direct result of this situation; we’re in a dilemma where without a wage increase even middle class people cannot meet their needs and a wage increase will force the companies employing them to go out of business. This is a direct result of a political class acting as a mafia that uses politics to serve its special and personal interests. Those politicians control the major economic sectors in the country and they run them in a way to serve their particular interests and to stay in control, and in parallel to that, they fight over how much each of them can control. And all that is happening while we are in a dire need for sound politics that build and develop the country and look into solving its flagrant structural problems that are all a threat to our national security.
I’ll give the example of the energy sector which should be at the top of the list, when a plant or a commercial company has a nano-gain margin because it pays an energy bill that is 4-5 times higher than the one paid by its competitors it’ll definitely go out of business if you force it to increase wages. And the problems in other types of basic infrastructure have similar effects, but where are we in politics from all these issues? We’re light years behind, no one is seriously working to solve them while we’re sitting on a serious threat that will grow exponentially out of control. With economic hardship comes increased misery, increased corruption and increased crime which all shoot back on the whole situation dragging it down furthermore, less growth, less attractiveness, less investments, and less jobs. Add to it lower quality of life, of education, of services etc.
My wish for the upcoming year is to see more fellow Lebanese getting out of the bigotry circle and expressing their refusal against this political class, starting by the ones they support before the ones they passionately hate, I wish to see a Lebanese youth feeling the urgency of the situation and working towards a healthy change, towards solutions for a brighter future on a national level and for a tolerant society that holds us together because the destiny of this country joins us together and the only other alternative is a black, dark one.
Happy holidays.
The Lebanese society has proven in the last decade that it comprises a majority of zealots whose daily struggle in this country is about oppressing, controlling, and humiliating each other.
This situation is alarming because not only it’s killing the prospects of prosperity and growth in this country, it is dragging us down to levels that threaten the life and existence of the Lebanese people, it is suffocating them, but they stupidly continue their circus of bigotry and carelessness driven by a serious lack of ethics while judging things, and by brainwashed heads that cannot think outside the religious/ideological frame in which their minds are boxed since their infancy.
The whole recent wages problem is a direct result of this situation; we’re in a dilemma where without a wage increase even middle class people cannot meet their needs and a wage increase will force the companies employing them to go out of business. This is a direct result of a political class acting as a mafia that uses politics to serve its special and personal interests. Those politicians control the major economic sectors in the country and they run them in a way to serve their particular interests and to stay in control, and in parallel to that, they fight over how much each of them can control. And all that is happening while we are in a dire need for sound politics that build and develop the country and look into solving its flagrant structural problems that are all a threat to our national security.
I’ll give the example of the energy sector which should be at the top of the list, when a plant or a commercial company has a nano-gain margin because it pays an energy bill that is 4-5 times higher than the one paid by its competitors it’ll definitely go out of business if you force it to increase wages. And the problems in other types of basic infrastructure have similar effects, but where are we in politics from all these issues? We’re light years behind, no one is seriously working to solve them while we’re sitting on a serious threat that will grow exponentially out of control. With economic hardship comes increased misery, increased corruption and increased crime which all shoot back on the whole situation dragging it down furthermore, less growth, less attractiveness, less investments, and less jobs. Add to it lower quality of life, of education, of services etc.
My wish for the upcoming year is to see more fellow Lebanese getting out of the bigotry circle and expressing their refusal against this political class, starting by the ones they support before the ones they passionately hate, I wish to see a Lebanese youth feeling the urgency of the situation and working towards a healthy change, towards solutions for a brighter future on a national level and for a tolerant society that holds us together because the destiny of this country joins us together and the only other alternative is a black, dark one.
Happy holidays.
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