Tag: Lebanese Government

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“Politics and Election Nonsense”

Note: This is the first in a series of four thematic Lebanon-related posts, based on a conversation between the author and a Lebanese citizen who preferred to remain anonymous. The second post covers the economy and the third deals with the environment.   

What’s the best – or laziest – way to reconnect with a subject that you haven’t dealt with in a long time? Talk to someone who does. That’s exactly what I did, as I thought of the best way to write my first post after what turned out to be an unintended and unannounced break from the blog.[1] Continue reading ““Politics and Election Nonsense””

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It’s about Garbage and so much more

For once, and if only in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, the reality on the ground quite literally reflects the exact state of our country and its politics: garbage.

In fact, if it is hard for you to picture it, the tonnes of garbage piling up in and around our capital city are a perfect way to physically depict what corruption, mismanagement, monopoly, nepotism, patronage, clientelism and misuse of public funds does to a country: it is toxic, it affects everybody and may eventually kill everybody, just like the garbage will, the longer it stays on our streets. Continue reading “It’s about Garbage and so much more”

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Time to Re-Evaluate the War against Daesh

We all knew that Daesh was capable of horrible things. However, the death by burning to which Jordanian pilot Moaz al Kasasbeh was subjected to broke through a morbid threshold I believe very few of us, if any, thought would happen. This isn’t to say that the other killing methods (decapitation, execution, drowning, etc..) used by the so-called Islamic State are any less brutal. But we dealt with them by exercising a degree of denial,  if only because of the sheer number of times they have and continue to occur and more importantly, as a coping mechanism to deal with the horrors of Daesh at our doorsteps. Continue reading “Time to Re-Evaluate the War against Daesh”

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Eye on the East wishes you a Happy New Year

Having welcomed 2015 from the agitated waters of the Mediterranean Sea, especially when looked upon from Beirut, Eye on the East wishes a Happy New Year to you and all your loved ones. May 2015 be all that you wish for and more. And may it be a much better year for those who truly deserve it, those who battle sickness, misery and indignity, who have lost loved ones or are waiting for them to come back, wherever they may be, for those who flee death and violence and for the children who suffer, for childhood should be about anything by suffering.

Continue reading “Eye on the East wishes you a Happy New Year”