Voedselrellen, op z'n Libanees

In 2005, tijdens mijn eerste bezoek aan Libanon, viel het me op dat er nauwelijks bedelaars en daklozen waren op straat. Een enkele straatventer, af en toe een mannetje die schoenen wilde poetsen (mooi weer = slippers = slecht voor zijn zaken), daar bleef het wel bij. Ik vroeg mijn vriendin waarom, wetend dat een groot deel van de Libanese bevolking rond moet komen van €150 per maand voor een gezin van vijf. Volgens haar uitleg zorgde de sociale controle in de Libanese samenleving ervoor dat armoede buiten beeld bleef: iedereen kent iedereen, dus als jouw oom op straat staat te bedelen, wordt jij daarop aangekeken. Als het even kan, zorg je er dus maar beter voor dat al je familieleden en aanverwanten te eten hebben. Nu, drie jaar later, lukt dat kennelijk voor veel mensen niet meer. De stijgende voedselprijzen en de kosten van transport die steeds sneller steeds hoger worden, maken het almaar moeilijker om rond te komen van het minimumloon. Meer en meer mensen proberen een extra inkomen bij elkaar te sprokkelen door loten, kauwgum, schoonmaakartikelen, speelgoed en andere zaken te verkopen op straat. Bij de afslag naar de snelweg staat elke dag een man met een plastic zak vol vis, en hoe later op de dag, hoe wanhopiger hij met zijn koopwaar bijna voor de auto stapt. Met name oude mensen, krom van een leven hard werken, staan op drukke kruispunten in de hoop dat iemand hen een muntstukje toestopt; als je ze 500 lire geeft (€0.25) wensen ze je nog een half uur lang alle zegen Gods toe.

Gisteren heeft de regering bepaald dat het minimumloon omhoog moet van 300.000 lire (€150) naar 450.000 of 500.000 lire (€225 / €250, de kranten berichten verschillende bedragen) per maand. Vandaag is er een staking, georganiseerd door de oppositie, die eisen dat het minimumloon omhoog gaat naar 960.000 lire (€480) of dat de regering maatregelen treft om de effecten van de wereldwijd stijgende voedselprijzen tegen te gaan. Het is jammer dat het wederom een issue is geworden van regering vs. oppositie, want dat betekent dat de staking vandaag voor velen een aanleiding zal zijn om eens een goed robbertje te gaan vechten (met of zonder wapens). En dat, bij mijn weten, brengt meestal niet veel brood op de plank.

Bad advice (or, Parking lot romance - part 2)

for part 1 of this story, click here. So A. had passed his little not to C., and then the waiting began. He didn’t quite know how to proceed. What if she walked by the parking lot without looking at him? What if she would try to talk to him but he would be too busy to reply? He wanted to send her another note, asking her to clarify the details of their relationship, but because he didn’t really know if that would be a good idea, he asked my roommate for advice.

Hadi told him he should play it cool. Don’t be too eager. Let her come to you, if she likes you. Don’t go running after her. A. took the advice and applied it the next time C. walked past. He gave her a barely noticeable nod of the head – so barely noticeable, in fact, that she didn’t see it and thought he was ignoring her. The result? Silence on her side. No note to answer his last one, no smile when they happened to cross each other on the street. The relationship seemed doomed to fail.

A. then decided to ignore Hadi’s advice, and he asked a regular customer of the parking lot to write another note. C. accepted the message: they are speaking to each other again.

Luckily, A. doesn’t blame us for giving him advice that had almost cost him his only hope for a bit of romance. When we moved out of the apartment last week, he came to me and shyly said ‘You know, I will miss you guys. Really, I will miss you.’ I will miss him too. But I’m still within walking distance of the parking lot, so who knows – maybe I’ll go say hi one day, and hang around long enough to hear how the story continues…

You can laugh about it if you want

Generally accepted definition of parallel lines: ‘Two lines on a plane that are always the same distance apart and never intersect’ (or any variation hereof).

Definition of parallel lines (so my friends tell me) in a very, very strict religious school here in Beirut:

‘Two lines on a plane that are always the same distance apart and never intersect, unless God wills it’.

Obviously, in their eyes, God has nothing on mortal mathematicians naming things. That’s his job.

Unsolved

It requires some navigation, but there is something I would like to show you. Please click here, go to the bottom of the menu (left), click on ‘wat kunt u doen?’, then on the first link on that page: ‘verstuur een e-card’. Take a look at the map at the bottom of the page. That’s Palestine/Israel.

The red is the amount of land in Palestinian hands (1946 – 2007). The light grey is the amount of land in Jewish/Israeli hands (1946 – 2007).

Lebanon, neighbor to the above, hosts about 200 to 400 thousand Palestinians in various camps around the country. Some people have been living there since 1948. Can you imagine? Living in a refugee camp for 60 years? Life in these camps is not exactly luxurious: high unemployment and poverty rates, militias ruling certain areas (the Lebanese army is not allowed to go inside the camps), housing often consists of random building materials with essential elements (doors, windows) lacking. A friend who works in Bourj el Barajneh, one of the camps, overheard a colleague saying ‘my wife couldn’t go to work today. The roof fell down and it dislodged her shoulder’, in the same tone of voice as if he told her he forgot to pick up the newspaper on his way to the office. Shit happens. That’s life in the camps.

Living in Lebanon it is impossible to forget about the Palestinians. Their presence in Lebanon, and what’s happening to them in their homeland, is a constant factor even outside the news-bulletins. If it’s not in one of the exhibitions, lectures or concerts organized to commemorate the start of the civil war in Lebanon (33 years ago, this April), it’s in the words of Walid’s grandfather who starts many of his stories with ‘when I was young, and the state of Israel didn’t exist, I would walk to [name of a city in Palestine/Israel] to teach there’. And then there is the inevitable response when discussing the news: Sure it’s bad that two soldiers died in Afghanistan. But is anyone concerned with the nine Palestinian children that were killed today?

This is not an accusation. It is merely a reminder of the bizarreness of the situation, a reminder that this should not become ‘normal’. Other people’s thoughts can be found here and here and here.

I didn’t write this because I know what needs to be done (obviously, I don’t). There are many solutions, to as many problems, and none of them will please everyone. I just wrote this because I think it is a situation that requires more attention. And hopefully, if enough people hear about it, somebody will have an idea that works. But I have one suggestion: let’s get rid of the term ‘the Palestinian Problem’ first. The other time somebody thought a certain People constituted a Problem, he called it ‘Judenfrage’, and we all know what happened then.

The sea, and three boys on a bike

“Hey Miss! Want to take our picture?!?” the three boys yelled, and then they raced off, the biggest boy pedaling, the smallest one barely controlling the handlebars.

(Behind me, three red tables with matching chairs and umbrellas were waiting for customers, plastic flower-pieces glued to the tablecloth. A hot afternoon is no time for coffee or arguileh, apparently).

Photo taken on the corniche in Saida, April 8th 2008.