Food in Lebanon












Aspects of Capitalism’s waste

Saifi2The disparity between the general care given to Beirut’s “Saifi village” in comparison to certain areas of Lebanon is outrageous. This picture show a man dusting the sidewalk pole of one of the main street of Saifi, downtown Beirut, otherwise known as Solidere land.

Annahar on electricity in Dahyeh

Check this article in Annahar that starts up with a horribly suspicious title: “electricity in the southern suburbs: a cause with valid demands, or a facade for undisclosed political goals?”, and then ends up re-iterating the obvious that in effect these guys do get way less electricity from other regions, some of individuals do steal by hanging cables (just like everywhere else in Lebanon).
So the author doing ‘a policing round’ of a neighborhood in the suburbs (Hay Selloum)and ask if people are paying electricity. He ends up getting some yeses and some noes. Great what a discovery. Nothing is said of hidden political agendas. And then he concludes that in any case, one should not have shot at these protesters, cause basically it is not cool to shoot at human beings protesting about standards of living.
So let’s summarize, this guy, arouse suspicion with a stupid title, then ends up playing cops and bandits in an area of the city trying to get some ‘juicy’ statements, then goes back to a general ethical claim, realizing that at the end of the day hanging a wire here or there, people do pay bills, don’t get much electricity, and are smashed by the increases in prices so they protest. In the process, he crystallizes the idea that the southern suburbs has “something fishy going on” by the mere fact of posing the problem of non-payment of bills as worthy of being investigated there. Long live investigative journalism. (Thanks Moussa)

Myths and realities of the electricity sector in Lebanon

(there are two updates at the end of this post)

Al Akhbar ran a front page article responding to Sanyura’s claim (yesterday) that the responsible for the electricity crisis in Lebanon are “those who hang wires on the public network, put pressure on the power reserves that eventually explodes, which cuts the current, and then they take it to the streets, and they say that electricity has been cut, and thus they accuses the government of something they caused”.

As the article note, Sanyura is obviously referring to the inhabitants of Dahyeh, thereby crystallizing a long-time myth shared by most of the Lebanese that do not belong to that category, that ‘the Shi’a a.k.a Hizbullah are not paying electricity’.

How many times have I heard this by people of all creed! Now thanks to Al Akhbar who I am sure is the only newspaper who reacted to these immature and dangerous statements, some basic facts were thrown in the face of the “Lebanese citizen”:

1- Electricity theft is equally happening in all Lebanese regions such as “Akkar, Iklim al Kharoub, the south, West Bekaa, Zghorta, and Bsharreh”. As you can see some of these regions have produced the politicians in power aligned with Sanyura. Dahyeh makes up 31 percent of this theft, due to its population size relative to other region which is proportional to the population in all of these regions. In brief, electricity theft are ad-hoc individual initiatives regardless of creed, confession, political affiliation or what have you of Lebanese differences.

2- The causes of the electricity debacle is not really related to theft of people but to irresponsible policy spanning on years and years of ministerial abuses of prerogatives, irresponsible policies, keeping the infrastructure primitive and obsolete. Since 1991, 11 Billion dollars have been spent on unaccomplished projects. But more to the point to today’s argument, is that it is the very public sector that is stealing from EDL! Ministries, municipalities, and other public institutions have billions of LPs owed to EDL (the state-owned electricity company). How come all these electricity consumers are not paying?

There is much more to be said about this sector but let me tell you an anecdote told to me by a friend who lived in Dahyeh and who just moved recently out of it after his house was erased from the map by Israeli bombers. See this guy (who has been paying electricity ever since he was able to do the math) received an electricity bill one year after the war (or something like that) asking him to pay for months of electricity consumption when his house literally did not exist anymore. The guy paid, thinking that it is better to be on the side of the state/law, whatever that means. Many people in Dahyeh who happen to have lost their homes got these bills. At the end understandably enough, political protest mounted and Sanyura had to back off and ask for the cancellation of these payments.

So my friend goes to the Ministry of Finance to get reimbursed. After waiting for hours going round and round between all the different confessionally allocated functionaries, he ended having a signature to get his money back. Once he got to the cashier, the guy hands him the money minus 10 or 5 % of the original sum he paid on a non-existent house. My friend asks why is this so, and the cashier answers that they take a VAT back on any sum that is paid by the ministry. My friend ended up having to pay a VAT tax on something he should not have paid in the first place. That’s how fucked up this country is.

: Dear reader, so sorry but my friend’s anecdote is actually about phone bills not electricity bills… But you get the idea!

Update 2: Al Manar TV had an article on Michel Moawad’s (son of Minister of “Social Affairs” Nayla Moawad) unpaid electricity bills! The article stated that instead of falsely accusing people, prime minister Fouad Siniora should “look at his left among his ministers”. The article also quotes Michel Moawad having the guts to say that “I know that the cost of electricity is high but I also know that the majority of the people that takes it to the streets to close it down, don’t pay their bills”. According to this article Michel Moawad and his sister did not pay any bills from 1995 till 2001 which amounts to 92 million Lebanese Pounds.

Happy new year!

Lebanese spent 50,000,000$ during New Year’s eve. In certain places, tickets sold shot up to 800$, which is practically 4 times the minimum wage for the average worker who in any case can’t find a job. In Phoenicia hotel for example, one glass of wine was for a mere 100$ and, accordingly, 250,000$ were spent between 11h and 3h… Check the article for details on price differences between these class-based events. What interest me the most here is not just the huge wealth difference between Lebanese by how these sums amount relatively to the size of the public debt.

Some cultural considerations behind the exploitation of the Lebanese

Just a quick recap for those who still can’t add things up or are too overwhelmed by the prevailing symbolic and power struggle between two newly-formed factions of the numerous Lebanese turfs. Today, and for a decade or so, we, as in the “Lebanese people”, have been paying for the extravaganza of business-minded policymakers. Today without a president, and with the country in shambles, the Minister of Finance made sure that debt obligations to the local Lebanese banks were paid on time. It does not matter if the State does not pay for the supply of electricity, social security, etc, the most important thing being comforting the banks that they will get their ‘investments’ placed in the Lebanese state back intact and with interest.

Here I want to point out certain cultural implications of this economic and political status-quo. Lebanese are really One People when they are exploited, when they pay taxes that goes to serve the interest of a few bunch who sit calmly and cash in interest hiding behind the idea that the economy will collapse if we don’t do so. In addition to that, Lebanese banks have really very small investments and loans in the Lebanese real economy. But people do put all their money in deposit and savings account. The Lebanese are doubly exploited: Through the money they put in Banks, and through the money they pay to the State none of which goes to pay for the provision of public goods or fueling the economy.

But how come this is so? How does this double-theft process happen? Because the Lebanese do not have a working self-empowering concept of what the Public is. The State can mistreat this notion at will through its daily practices but nobody will lift a finger because in practice there is not really a State, and no public policy per se. In practice, there are factions confessional-tribal-cartelized groups of interests themselves locked in their projected differences.

But the concept of “Lebanese” is only invoked when it is time to pay. In effect, the confessional system is the primary mover of this schizophrenic attitude, it calls upon you to pay your obligations to your State (taxes etc.), while at the same time escapes from providing you with not even a modicum of social security, stability. In this case, you’re used to go to your lord (some confessional/tribal/feudal instance). And if you don’t have one, then you feel inexplicably miserable. You don’t know why it is the case, how come you are so oppressed and you don’t know where oppression comes. Because we took away from you the concept needed to join the right pieces of the puzzle, or simply, it was never developed, nurtured in practice. This concept revolves around some sort of social justice coupled with non-sectarian mobilization. Even if you understand certain things such as how the politicians are corrupt and are exploiting you etc, it does not mean you can act upon it and change the status quo. Does this make you feel any closer to the ‘other Lebanese’. Of course not something lacks here. Something you never lived. Some thing called Public culture. In the meantime you rejoice yourself with fake revolutions (like the one dubbed the cedar appropriately enough, another empty concept) that are actually hate tracts instigated by your ever-shifting elite.

When it comes to make the State function for the provision of the public good, the “Lebanese” frame unfortunately breaks down, in your social encounters you are a Christian, a Muslim. Or a rich Christian, or a rich Muslim or a poor Christian begging rich Christians etc, this is how you get your social security. In this case, you never ask yourself why am I not “Lebanese”.

The confessional system exacerbates economic exploitation because it breaks down any possibility to conceptualize a genuine collective expression, except in the negative sense. So you are left off with paying, hating (the other, the Syrian for example, or simply the other “Lebanese”) and blaming those who do not respect your projected ideal of “nationhood” when you can’t even apply it to yourself.

Lebanese diary (2)

I don’t want to post often but this is necessary because it touches on our “sovereignty” and our “liberty”:

We need to do something about the horrendous rates we pay for virtually everything! We need to break all of the monopolistic practices that plague our economy! We need to destroy all the structures that makes a government a virtual mafia, and an opposition being an accomplice of the government for the most part.

Yesterday night, I was watching the only interesting Lebanese TV channel New TV. They have a program called “Corruption”. They had Zuheir Berro the head of the association for the protection of the consumer. A guy you may never have heard of, but who has actually worked for your interest for the past decade or so, a guy who worked diligently to denounce any type of excess the government and its affiliated monopolies engage in. Basically a guy who is worth all of your politicians.

The moderator(ess) is everything but a moderator. She is wild and fiery and rarely lets Berro and co. talk of anything. But still she’s actually making a show that has no precedent in the history of Lebanon so is forgiven. I can understand her excitement. So a lot of bashing against the government but also nicely enough against the opposition who are sitting playing cards and tawleh in their tents while Solidere is building right next to them. Actually I saw the new building project: It is between Virgin and Annahar building.

By the way, I think the Annahar building is the main cause behind the downfall of the newspaper. They had to live to the expectation of its price! I loved the moderator who at some point decided to answer some criticism to the show voiced by a journalist in Annahar. After answering she said: “We as journalists are sad to see such a great newspaper (historically) go down to such low levels so as to cover for corruption and being apologist of the ruling monopolists”. So I thought “way to go woman!”

Another nice thing was to hear people actually calling from all over Lebanon. Now where do you get that on Lebanese TV? A guy from Bint Jbeil with a problem with fixed telephone lines. Another from Jounieh, etc. So many people calling to tell the “politicians” that they don’t have patience for political affiliation, they just want to see exploitation stop.

At some point the commentator called the Minister of Finance Azour but the latter could not take the call because his wife was giving birth! She congratulated him and asked him to get back to them when he can. Idem for the Minister of Telecommunication Hamade who’s phone was closed.

Now citizens of Lebanon, stay tuned for more anti-exploitation demonstrations. Turn off your phones when you should. Soon we’ll do stuff against the DSL robbery, and against the cartel for fuel. Oh and against the bank!! I’ll post more about all this.