History Repeating

My father passed away when I was 12 years old, and he was only 42. He succumbed to a brain stroke. He was having an afternoon nap. I was alone at home with him.

40 years later to the year, my mother almost died of the very same illness and in the same circumstances. I was alone at home with her, and she was sleeping. This time, I noticed and managed to call an ambulance on time and save her life. My Red Cross days training helped diagnose the symptoms and act swiftly.

She spent 12 days in hospital and ultimately recovered. God offered me a closure.

How?
Three miracles happened in less than 20 minutes:
One, I was sleeping at her place, something I very rarely do.
Two, I woke at 06:00am, with no apparent reason. She had the stroke at 06:15am
Three, she fell next to her bed and I noticed. Had she had the stroke in bed, I would have not noticed at all and she would have died in one hour.

Everyone tells you that the day you become a parent, is the day when you realize the importance of parenthood, and understand why your own parents behaved the way they did with you.

I disagree.

You only realize the importance of parents the moment you loose one of them, or come too close to do so. Age does not matter, you might be 12 or 50, the feeling is the same, the trauma is the same, the fear is the same.

I know we all love and cherish our folks, but moms and dads are far more than people to love and cherish. When you think that you say the same thing about your dog or favorite pair of shoes, you understand how meaningless and clichés the words love and cherish are.

When I lost my father, I was a little too young to grasp the breadth of the damage. Life continued. I missed him and still do, but life continued.

Today is different. Today is about maturity and the way we look at our parents. Today is about looking at yourself in the mirror.

Today is about understanding the true meaning of a mother and father. Today I understood that it is not about need or protection, feeding or clothing, schooling or safety.

Today is simply about the tremendous amount of emotions and feelings behind the fact that you can still say a simple word: Mom… Without having to ask anything after you say it.

This post is dedicated to the moms and dads with children as old as I, where all can live in the simple bliss of calling each other “Mom”, “Dad”, “Son” and “daughter” without having to say anything else.

I WOULD LOVE TO SEE A POLITICIAN RAPED, THEN, LET’S TALK RAPE LAWS!

Few days ago, U.S legislators amended the understanding of rape in North America to cover male abuse. They also redefined rape as basically any kind of sexual abuse.
In Lebanon, if there is no “real” penetration, it is not rape. Hum… Now I understand how politicians get away with raping the entire population…
Rape law? In Lebanon? For God’s sake!
What law? You steal a loaf of bread and you go to jail. AND laws are very clear about that and other stupid misdemeanors.
And we are still debating a law against rape?
Go debate how to preserve, no, “create” our independence.
Go debate how to sentence politicians who disgrace themselves on national television.
Go debate how to punish politicians who sell a whole country for individual purposes.
Go debate why electricity is still the slave of a few while the many bask in darkness.
But for heaven’s sake, stop debating rape!
Is rape now a peg in your political chess game?
We live in jungle where women are afraid of reporting rape, where women have to endure fear twice. Twice. Once by getting violated and then by living with it, alone.
How can politicians and legislators speak about preserving our interests? When they cannot even preserve our dignity?
What country is that where we still debate whether sexual abuse should be sanctioned and how?
But you know? I am not surprised in a country where spy agents of the enemy are let free.

After raping a whole nation, who would care about a couple of women? Right?
It is a sad day when the rulers of a country fail to protect their Maters, and forget that the womb being raped, is the same one that brought them to life…

I WOULD LOVE TO SEE A POLITICIAN RAPED, THEN, LET’S TALK RAPE LAWS! by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at ilahoud.wordpress.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://ilahoud.wordpress.com/.

© 2012 Ibrahim Lahoud

All I Want for Christmas – The Last Post of 2011

For this Christmas, I want the driver of that modified Subaru Evolution with a loud exhaust as wide as his empty brain cavity, to beat him till he begs for mercy.

I want the driver of the tinted-glass Picanto, to humiliate him till he decides to spend the rest of his days walking, and I want his car to set on fire.

I want that woman in the black Range Rover with a four digits plate number, to tie her hands behind the wheel, put a brick on the accelerator and watch her fly and hit a wall, and I want her cell phone to dial a long distance number and leave it on for a week, and her lipstick to… you know what!

I want that policeman playing G.I Joe on the intersection under my office with a finger up his nostril and a beer belly down his pants, to glue him in the middle of the road, hands shackled behind his back, and watch him scream like a baby girl watching the Subaru Evolution guy rushing straight at him.

I want the electric generator guy to teach him manners, the hard way and make him understand that his generator has more power that all his neurons combined.

I want the bank teller… To tell him who the client really is, hold him by the necktie and hang him from the top of his ego.

I want a gum-chewing clothing shop saleswoman to be sentenced to chew the same gum for a year while smiling and saying “how can I help you”.

I want that disgusting ugly castrated macho with mustaches like a floor mop to stick his lit shisha up his… you pick a hole!

I want the owner of the double parked Mercedes in the hospital parking to stand on the white line divider of the parking lanes, take the space of two cars, and get a first-row show of the insults he usually gets but doesn’t hear.

I want that Neanderthal bastard who pushes through the line at the ticketing counter of the movie theater to be squeezed between two gays till he feels something hurting his throat!

I want that bunch of botox-filled women talking loudly in the restaurant to have their ears stuffed with hearing aids with the volume pumped to the max till violent noises and squeaks melt what’s left of their brain.

I want the group of nouveau-riches, talking politics, drinking expensive Scotch and smoking fake cigars they never knew they are fake, to put each and every theory of theirs to work, and make “only” them live through it.

I want every Facebook user who presses the “Like” button on a group to swear they really like it. I want them to prove to me that their 1432 friends are really friends.

I want a restaurant owner to eat from his own restaurant kitchen.

I want a Muslim to read the Holy Quran and a Christian to read the Holy Bible, and then dare to talk about true tolerance.

I want an illiterate politician, any politician, to make him listen for a whole day to his own speeches on loud speakers.

I want every “Patriotic” Lebanese who lives in abroad to come back to Lebanon, stay there, and then tell me they’re patriotic.

But I’m easy… So I will just settle for a pair of ear-plugs, and one of those blindfolds they provide for free on long flights. That’ll do.

Happy Holidays!

p.s. I don’t really hate this country. I just hate it’s geographical coordinates, and the fact that unlike a zoo, the animals are on the loose and the visitors in the cage.

All I want for Christmas, the last post of 2011 by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at ilahoud.wordpress.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://ilahoud.wordpress.com/.

©2011 – Ibrahim Lahoud

Shame…

Shame on the country where religion is politics and politics are religion.

Shame on the country that doesn’t protect those who protect it.

Shame on the country that doesn’t advertise from what it creates.

Shame on the country that doesn’t say what “it” thinks.

Shame on the country that doesn’t believe in what it preaches.

Shame on the country that doesn’t respect what it forces others to respect.

Shame on the country that doesn’t aim as high as those who carry it far up.

Shame on the country that doesn’t breed from within.

Shame on the country that doesn’t put rights above privileges.

Shame on the country that doesn’t punish those who punish for the fun of it.

Shame on the country that doesn’t force respect instead of respecting force.

Shame on the country that doesn’t dare look me in the eyes when speaking to me.

Shame on the country that exports what it should retain and retains what it should expel.

Shame on the country that brags about it’s grottos instead of its flag.

Shame on the country that puts civil servants above their employers.

Shame on the country that uses the illiterate to educate its intelligentsia.

Shame on the country that uses inertia as its way forward.

Shame on the country that buys its dignity instead of earning it.

Shame on the country that yields to threats and cheers its oppressors.

Shame on the country where I am me on if I am someone else.

Shame on the country where politicians are hired, creeds are slogans and “I” is “Him”.

Shame on the country where you’re as important as your plate number says you are.

Shame on the country that still debates the rights of women to full equality.

Shame on the country where civil marriage is a political bargaining tool.

Shame on the country where schooling fees are a hundred fold the salary of teachers.

Shame on the country where criminals are free and the free are criminals.

Shame on the country where your opinion is owned… but not by you…

Shame by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at ilahoud.wordpress.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://ilahoud.wordpress.com/.

© 2011 Ibrahim Lahoud

ARAB S“T”ING

“You suck!”
“No, you suck!”
“No no, no, You suck!”
“No, it’s you who sucks! And your family, and neighborhood, and whole damn town!”

This was a political debate between two Arabs in the know, brought to you courtesy of Arab Spring TV.

Now, here are the options:
1- Either one of the two sucks, and that’s 50% of the population.
2- Both suck, and that’s 100% of the population.

In either case, we’re screwed.

We are a race driven by pure emotions. This renders us inapt to judge, be objective, and consequently, speak about politics. We either do what we’re told, or act upon our own emotional judgement. And both scenarios are scary. Yet, we proudly claim how patriotic we are.

PRIDE
Or is it? It’s amazing how branding can create a revolution. It is amazing how much momentum an embryonic idea can gather when it gets a face and a voice.

Ask the Soviets!

Revolutions are the brainchild of basic emotions. No “real” revolution was erected upon a rational idea. Although rooted in rational beliefs, “revolutional” triggers are ignited by an emotional fuse, one that rallies the deprived, the oppressed, the change-makers, and of course the mentally blind followers, around a basic “feeling”.

Indeed, ask the Soviets. Their legacy of propaganda is still praised today as more art than politics. Yet, how rational was it?

I ask: Whether you live life, or love it in colors, what have you done about it?

A message remains embryonic until, just like in a fetus’ cells, it starts multiplying itself, creating clones of its own DNA, until an entity is born. And that’s what happened all over the Arab world. Having said that, not all newborns are healthy… or alive…

I love the coined term “Arab Spring”. Another branding slash media tour de force.

No, really, spring? What spring? Let alone “Arab”…

Poland had a spring. Arabs have nothing. They never will, and for a simple reason; they can’t agree on a real unified brand positioning for their “Arab” or “Spring”, let alone the 2 combined words.

We’re Arabs when need be, and we’re not when need be. Egypt’s spring shifted from bringing down a corrupt regime to a Christian-Muslim conflict. How cheesy is it to get married in Tahrir square among your “brothers” from the opposite religion at noon, and go get a mosque or a church burned down to rubble at sunset?

It is indeed about priorities. The question is “who’s” priorities.

I’m not defending those regimes, as a matter of fact I’m quite thrilled they vanished, but I am starting to get the feeling that they represent more our inner fears and psychological complexities, than they do the physical nation’s situation.

Why did the Syrians have to wait for 3 revolutions to trigger theirs? Oh yeah, they where learning the ropes… Did it take Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to wake them up? Or was it another case of everyone’s partying, let’s party too?

Spring? What Spring? It really sounds more like Fall…

Everyone is jubilant, but let me tell you this, we Arabs, were never, and still are not ready, to rule ourselves. Comes to me? We never will! We’re still just novices, mediocre apprentices. We’re like that tail of the class student that loves to brag about his or achievements only because mom and dad said so… A pure exemplification of a famous Arab proverb (A monkey is a deer in his mother’s eyes)

We call for help, we wait for it, and when it comes, we shoot everywhere, mostly in the air to express joy, and end up performing the weird ritual of walking on or burning leaders’ effigies and posters.

Oh come on! How childish is that?! Please.

- If the intelligentsia runs revolutions, intelligentsia does not stampede posters.

- If the illiterate mass is running the revolution, what revolution would it be?

- If the intelligentsia runs the revolution using the illiterate mass, they’re not intelligentsia anymore, they’re freakin’ Machiavellian dictators in the making.

Do you have any other scenario for Arab Springs?

You want a real Arab Spring? I’ll give you one:

Nations are made of humans. Not educated, poor, illiterate, rich, Christians, Muslims, blue, red, green, or yellow…. Humans; full stop. Classification is the first ingredient of division, and division will never make a revolution… Look at Lebanon…

Get the humans to revolt. Get the emotions to speak. Be subjective, be real, be you. Only then, Mr. PhD will accept to mingle with Mr. delivery boy, Peter and Mohammed will meet, not for a photo-op, but meet, really meet.

Tyrants and dictator are afraid of unity, nothing else. Divide and conquer was not a ballad title. It works. And we’re so idiotically stupid to listen to politicians manipulating us like Kermits and Miss Piggys.

THE PEOPLE:

 

 

 

THE POLITICIAN

 

 

You tell me…

Arab S”T”ing by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at ilahoud.wordpress.com.
© 2011 Ibrahim Lahoud