Who needs enemies with politicians like this?

Naharnet (always a good source of laughter news) reports the following: Geagea greedy for Public Works Ministry which Jumblat Clings on To.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has reportedly informed Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri during a recent meeting that he wants the public works ministry in the new government, a portfolio MP Walid Jumblat is not willing to abandon. The daily As Safir on Friday, which carried the report, described talks Wednesday evening between Geagea and Hariri as "stormy."

It said Geagea continued to hold on to the LF's three ministerial portfolios, including a key ministry like the public works.

Hariri, however, informed Geagea that he wishes to grant both the LF and the Phalange party one share consisting of three seats.

The PM-designate was said to have told Geagea that it would be difficult to give him the public works ministry, which has been a Jumblat demand.

While inner LF circles reportedly called on Geagea to "turn the table" and boycott a new Cabinet in which the party does not get hold of appropriate representation that would be suitable to both its political and electoral weights, the Phalange party continued to hold on to two ministers – Sami Gemayel (Maronite) with hopes he would be granted the industry ministry, and Salim Sayegh (Catholic) or a minister representing the Orthodox sect or the minorities, As Safir said.

It sure reminds me of my baby-sitting days, with screaming toddlers all wanting the same thing at the same time and none of them would ever give in. The sad thing is that these are all adult men, ‘elected’ to lead the country. Ah, Lebanon...

My husband is officially a /

Alternatively titled: My atheist husband is no longer a Sunni. When we got married in Cyprus, our papers said ‘Walid, Lebanese Sunni’ and ‘Nicolien, Dutch None’. Because the Cypriots take all the information from the official documents, and Lebanese official documents automatically state a person’s sect (whether they are religious believers or not is irrelevant), my poor atheist husband will forever have a marriage certificate that classifies him as a Sunni.

(Or Muslim, as it occurs on some papers, as opposed to Shi’a, for whom the Lebanese State does not use the word Muslim, interestingly enough.)

Unless we get married again, because then his papers will say ‘Walid, Lebanese /’: yesterday, he officially removed his sect from his papers. He will no longer be forced to identify as something he doesn’t believe in, that his father didn’t even believe in, passed on to him along paternal lines just because the Lebanese State refuses to make a civil law for things that can also be arranged by religious decrees.

Until recently, it was impossible to have any papers that did not state one’s sect/religion, until the former Minister of Interior Ziad Baroud decided that it was permitted to have it taken off (and replaced by a “/” sign). This despite the legal problems that will probably occur when the people who have removed their sect want to get married in Lebanon, or be buried in Lebanon, or other such personal matters which are up until now only arranged by religious institutions and then recognized by the State. The Minister didn’t have time to print official applications, but he made the required text available to all Mokhtars (a Mokhtar is the person you have to go to in Lebanon to identify yourself in order to do any and all governmental procedures – usually a guy with an office on a street-corner close to your house, or, as with one of my friends, in the back of a gas-station), thus opening up the possibility to keep one’s religion separate from the State.

Jamil, a friend of ours, was the first to do it. Whether he believes or not, he doesn’t think religion has any place on official documents, so he went through the remarkably short procedure and had his sect removed – despite his mother’s fears that this was his first step on his way to becoming Shi’a (quite possibly her biggest nightmare).

Because Walid’s Mokhtar didn’t want to participate in the procedure (giving excuse after excuse about the lack of official applications), he went to Jamil’s Mokhtar, who gladly obliged and wrote the required yada yada yada on a paper, cheered on by two men who were waiting and thought that everybody should have their sect removed.

Not so in the Ministry of Interior. On his way to the office to get the last required signature and be forever de-sunni-fied, a friendly government worker tried to warn Walid of the dangers involved in carrying out this operation. ‘You will not be allowed to marry in a religious court!’ he pleaded, his hand on Walid’s arm. ‘I’m already married, in a civil ceremony’, was the answer. ‘But you won’t be able to be buried in a Muslim cemetery when you die!’ the distressed employee tried one more time, just before he opened the door. It couldn’t change Walid’s mind; he went in and had his paper signed.

I’m proud to say that my husband is now officially a “/”.

Pulling out the big guns

Coming back from Damascus, I was once dropped off at the highway just before Beirut and needed to take another bus to get back home in Hamra. I got on a mini-van which happened to be empty and was supposedly going my way. Unfortunately, the driver changed his plans upon seeing me, and took a left turn where I knew we should be going right. I asked him where we were going, and he said he ‘just wanted to pick something up at home, I didn’t mind now did I? We could have a cup of tea together?’But yes, I did mind, so I opened the door of the van and when he saw I wasn’t kidding, he slowed down and I jumped out.

***

Last year I was living on one end of an L-shaped building. On the other end, new apartments were still under construction. Communication with the construction workers was usually courteous and friendly, until one day they employed a guy who just couldn’t stop staring into our apartment. Whether my roommate and I were in our respective bedrooms or in the living room, his eyes were constantly following us. One day I couldn't take it anymore, so I went over to the work-site and told him in no uncertain terms (in limited Arabic, yes, but with easy-enough to understand hand gestures) that I had had enough of his non-stop looking into our house. Luckily, the other workers followed me and yelled at him what the hell he thought he was doing, and before I was back in my apartment they had sent him away and never employed him again.

***

A few days ago, I was home alone in my pajamas, when I heard voices on our rooftop-terrace. To my surprise, I found the janitor of the building right outside our open balcony-doors, showing the living room to a prospective tenant. When he noticed me, he backed away, but a minute later the doorbell rang. It was the manager of the building: if I could please move over and show the tenant our house. This time in French, I was a bit more eloquent: Did he think it was ok to sneak into my house like that? What if I was in the bathroom? Or walking around in my underwear? Just to name a few scenarios. He saw nothing wrong with it, after all the prospective tenant was an American woman – just like you! But neither am I American, nor is the janitor, who was also there standing on the terrace of my house with the tenant, a woman (and neither of which are really the point, ultimately), so I slammed the door in his face.

This morning, the manager wanted to speak to Walid about the inappropriate behavior of his wife, what with me denying them entrance to my own house and objecting to the janitor breaking in by way of the terrace. Walid asked him what he would do if a stranger would enter his house when his wife was home alone, and when the manager didn’t know what to answer, the assembled neighbors were there to help him out: shoot him, of course! ***

A while ago, a foreign friend of mine living in Beirut for the summer wanted to take a bus home, but accidentally got on the wrong line. A friendly passenger advised her to stay put until the end of the line, when the bus would turn around and go back to where it came from. Sensible advice, except that the bus, with my friend as the only passenger left, did not turn back – the driver took some back-roads until he got to the highway, parked the bus on the side of the road, and sat down next to my friend, to ask if she was married, after which he proceeded to grope her. She screamed and pushed him off of her, but having learned never to get out of a vehicle on the side of a highway she still needed to stay with him until he decided to drive again and get back to the inhabited part of the city.

We have so far identified which type of bus is was (the beige one), and which line (the 4), and there are apparently only 4 or 5 drivers on this line so it won’t be long until we’ve singled out which driver it was, but we’re as yet undecided what to do with him. Sending in a big friend acting as her husband, although probably an effective scare, will only reinforce the idea that what he did would have been ok if she were not married, so we need something else. These are obviously issues that need attention on a much wider scale, but until then we have to deal with it on a case by case basis. Anybody any ideas?

A Message from the Organizers of the Baalbeck International Festival

Dear Internationally Renowned Artist who will be performing at the Baalbeck International Festival: Thank you for accepting the invitation to play at our festival in the historic site of Baalbeck. Now that the date of your performance is coming closer, we would like to inform you of the following:

- Lebanese people are always late, so your performance may start at 7.30 (as scheduled), or at 7.45, or at 8, or at 8.15pm. In any case, we cannot start until all the VIPs have arrived, so please be flexible when waiting in the dressing room to go on stage.

- Once you start, don’t be surprised if your soft rendition of Schubert disappears by the sound of the nearby mosque’s call for prayer. See, we cannot possibly know what time those pesky things start singing and schedule your concert around it, so you’ll just have to live with that.

- The local population will be very happy to receive you, and will demonstrate this intermittently with fireworks and gunshots around the venue throughout the entire duration of your (acoustic) concert. Don’t worry about it, it’s tradition.

- Similarly, a welcome-party will be held across the street, and cars will drive by honking loudly. Don’t worry about that either, we will send the police to ask them to turn down the volume of the music, and they will do so with blasting sirens so you are sure they are doing their job.

- Some of the audience will be there to listen to you play the piano. Most of them are not. They’re the ones with the expensive tickets sitting in the front row, and they will come and go as they please. Don’t think that they are rude for getting up in the middle of the concert – they’re just trying to get their money’s worth in terms of showing off. Similarly, we’ve made the floor-boards of the venue extra squeaky, to assure the full attention of the whole audience when the above-mentioned guests get up and walk out of the temple during your concert to answer their phones.

- If all the noise and disturbances make you feel unappreciated, know that we can’t help it, this is how people are here. The client is the king, so we can’t possibly ask our security people to tell paying guests to turn off their cell phones, or return on time after the break is over. That would just be impolite.

So, we hope you will have a great concert here at the International Festival of Baalbeck, and remember: it’s not about you – it’s about them!

Looking forward to seeing you here,

(signed) The Organizers of the Baalbeck International Festival

Can you tell we had a great night at David Fray’s acoustic piano-recital yesterday, in the Temple of Bacchus at the Baalbeck International Festival?

Simpelweg hilarisch

Ik heb al eens eerder geschreven over de lolligheid van een multiculturele relatie: humor laat zich maar lastig vertalen. Ik herinner me een Iraanse collega in Amsterdam die elke ochtend bulderend van het lachen de nieuwste Iraanse cartoon zat te lezen – cartoons die zelfs met de beste uitleg niet meer dan een glimlach op het gezicht van de rest van het team veroorzaakten. Hier is weer zo iets. Onderstaande video is een clip van een slapstick-achtige TV-show genaamd S.L.Chi (‘meest irritante ding’) die eind jaren ’90 hier in Libanon op de buis was. De meeste van mijn vrienden vinden dit geweldig, en kunnen niet stoppen met lachen als ze dit eenmaal na beginnen te doen. Ik doe heus mijn best in het integratie-proces, maar dit? Ik snap niet wat hier zo grappig aan is... (vertaling onder de video):

- Meneer, meneer! - Ja? - Uw deur staat open! - Wat? - De deur! De deur staat open! - Deur? - Deur! - Mijn deur? - Uw deur staat open! - Oh! (zegt iets tegen zijn mede-passagier/chauffeur) Dankuwel meneer!

Lachen gieren brullen, nietwaar... Wat denk jij?