Nieuws

Vandaag ben ik elders te vinden (klik op de titel voor de link): Demonstreren à la Libanaise: Als je hier demonstreert ben je tegelijk ook voor Cuba

Bits and Pieces

I am the 804,100,258th richest person on earth!Remember when I told you that one quarter of the people in Lebanon live under the absolute poverty line? Well, even when living on a salary that is modest according to Lebanese standards for someone with my level of education, I am still in the top 13,4% of richest people in the world. Do you want to know how rich you really are? You can calculate it here in (literally) 1 second.

I’m famous! Eh, well, in the Netherlands at least. And only among those who have been listening to BNN Radio / BNN Today and have paid attention to the 3-minute segment called ‘Exit Holland’. As someone who has left the low country, I have been asked to shine some light on the rare and the mundane stuff of life in Lebanon. If you go here, you can hear what I had to say about the falafel-war between Israel and Lebanon (in Dutch only, unfortunately). (Als je klikt op Uitzending van 21 Oktober, en je vindt daar mijn naam, dan kun je ook eerdere uitzendingen beluisteren.) I have a new blog! No, I’m not leaving this one. There will be plenty of stories to follow. But the other one is for pictures, you see. That’s why I called it ‘Qussa : The Visuals’. One photo a day, to illustrate what’s being said here, or for something completely different – whatever I feel like showing you. So come over here and have a look!

Poor Lebanese

It struck me, my first time in Lebanon in 2005, how little poverty I saw. No beggars, no people scouring the garbage, hardly any street-vendors, panhandlers, little kids trying to sell gum or polish shoes. Maybe I was blinded by the bling of the upper class, or maybe it was indeed hardly there. I remember asking my friend about it. After all, she often complained about Lebanon being ‘not even’ a third-world country. Her answer was that Lebanese people were too proud: nobody would let anybody in their family get so poor that they had to display it for the rest of society to see. Bedouins would go around begging, she said, but Lebanese people would always make sure that no one could accuse them of not taking care of even their most remote family-members. But over the course of the past few years, life has not become easier in Lebanon. War, political crisis, and simply being part of a world in which the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer – whatever be the cause, the result is increasing suffering for many Lebanese people. Following the definition of the World Bank, an astounding 28.5% of the Lebanese live below the poverty line. That’s about one million people, in a country of around four million.

I now do see beggars. I see people digging in the garbage for cans and bottles, but also for food-items that are still edible. I see more and more children trying to sell roses on busy roads late at night. I see people riding around their (grand)parents in wheelchairs to collect money from passers-by. I see the old woman who knocked on my door, today, after walking 8 flights of stairs, to ask if I have anything for her to clean. I see a van-driver whose minibus breaks down and can only be repaired if he buys the required part, which costs $400 – news which sends him into a screaming panic… crying, completely desperate, the driver hit his front screen so hard it broke. He broke the glass with his bare hands.

Poverty, I think, is one of the most debilitating conditions a person can live in. Real, deep poverty, the one where you have to choose between using the bed-net as a fishnet to be able to eat, or as a mosquito-net not to get malaria. The one where you have to choose between giving your children to eat, or eating the food yourself so you will have enough energy to go out and try to find work. The one that makes you break your windshield in desperation because you know you will never be able to afford the necessary car-part, which means your single source of income (and that of all those who depend on you) just disappeared.

Today is Blog Action Day, and on many, many blogs, people will write about poverty. I hope some of it will translate into small or big actions to finally get everyone up to an acceptable standard of living. If you’d like and you have $25 or more to lend to someone for a while (and get them back later!), join me in micro-financing a loan through Kiva. And if you have another idea to get rid of poverty, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Inbox Lebanon

It is with pleasure and anticipation that I open my email-inbox at work every morning. Not because of the amount of interesting letters, but because of the advertisements. The spam messages for blue pills and other body-part enhancing potions that I find in my private mail are useless compared to the advertisements I receive at the work-address. The offers for explosion-proof cars, announcements about vacancies in Saudi Arabia, and messages urging me to join the gym to look good for summer – they are a perfect way to keep up with the situation in the country without having to read the newspaper or watch the news on TV. Unrest and economic malaise? Increase in job-offers in the Gulf. Explosions and car-bombs? Increase in gadgets to detect explosives before they set off. Violence in the streets? Increase in options to shatter-proof your windows. Agreement reached in Doha? Book your table now at your favorite restaurant – and don’t forget the option of plastic surgery before bikini-season.

So are you curious to know how Lebanon is doing these days? Just take a peek at my inbox of this morning:

Big Brother heeft Google ontdekt

Een eigengebouwde site hebben heeft zo z’n voordelen: je kunt namelijk plug-ins installeren die allerlei soorten statistieken voor je bijhouden. Interessant dingen, zoals waar de lezers van de site vandaan komen (61% uit Nederland, 8% uit de USA, en 4% uit Libanon bijvoorbeeld, en een paar verdwaalde bezoekers uit Servië en Montenegro, Rusland, Vietnam en Yemen). Er is te zien hoe vaak mensen terugkomen, welke pagina’s ze lezen, en via welke pagina ze doorgelinkt zijn naar Qussa. En daar begint voor mij de lol. Als ze via een zoekmachine komen, kan ik namelijk ook zien waar ze naar op zoek waren – en dat zijn lang niet altijd dingen waar mijn site hen mee van dienst kan zijn: ‘Appartementen in Utrecht’? Sorry. ‘Contactgegevens Ruud Hoff’? Geen idee. ‘Christelijke vakantie verhalen’? Ik dacht het niet. Ook de mensen die op zoek zijn naar de ‘Armeense maffia’, ‘oorlogsverhalen uit Irak’ of ‘reclameposters te koop’ moet ik helaas teleurstellen: Qussa is volledig onbevoegd u met het één of ander in contact te brengen. Maar mocht je willen ‘trouwen [in] Beirut’, dan wil ik wel even voor je rondkijken, en met de vraag ‘zijn Nederlanders welcome in Syria’ ben je ook aan het juiste adres, want ik weet uit eigen ervaring dat het antwoord daarop een volmondig ‘ja’ is.

Nu alleen nog een oplossing vinden voor de mensen die op zoek zijn naar ‘oude vrouwen kapsels’ en die vervolgens terugkwamen op de site via ‘creatief met haarlak’...