Lets begin with a little introduction. Yesterday I was on my way back home in a bus. This one was special because it has 2 doors to get out; one on the road and the other one on the safe side. There was this Asian worker (like many here in Lebanon) who was sitting near the door that lead to the road side with 2 other guy sitting next to her. She arrived at her destination and she was like "Sorry to bother you can I..." without letting her finish her sentence these guys were like "NO GET OUT THE OTHER WAY", the guy who was sitting next to me was also harsher because he said "[here there are some insult that I categorically refuse to write] there are a lot of you anyway so one less won't make any difference".
This phrase is what is driving me to write this article right now. This unacceptable! How can you have such a diminished value for a living human even if she is different?
Lebanese keep bragging about how open they are and that they love everybody etc etc... but who is this everybody? Americans? Germans? French? or simply people with MONEY? People who are reading this I'm very sorry to tell you that money is the only thing most Lebanese love about foreigner. They don't even view the poor Asian worker as a human because they don't have money.
Unfortunately this is the sad truth, Lebanon is a
Racist country. For you who might be thinking that one example is not enough to say this I have a big load of example with me.
2 months ago there was this Ethiopian worker who always has been victim of violence by her greedy masters who where refusing to pay her her salary, who weren't even giving her enough food and were treating her like less than a human being. She tried to seek refuge in the Ethiopian embassy but she was caught in front of it by her boss who beat her on the road in front of everybody, insulted her and then he pushed her in the car with the help of a friend. And the guard that were posted in front of the Ethiopian embassy didn't even raise a hand to help this poor worker...
Public media painted this poor maid as a thief who was trying to escape; what kind of thief would seek refuge in an embassy? People aren't that dumb! This prove how corrupted public medias are (let's not talk about this because this is not the subject right now)
There a lot of cases where maid are being brutalized, tortured physically and mentally and there are some cases of sexual abuse.
I could talk a lot, write pages and even shout it nothing will change. Racism exist in high proportion in Lebanon, especially against these worker who only came here to work and earn some money for their family who are waiting for them. Some worker are lucky because they end up with kind employers, some are less because they end up with monster. Some even committed suicide because of horrible treatment. Their home country doesn't even lend a hand for them
Now a little word about the role of parents in this matter, parents teach their children to consider themselves superior to others. We can see a lot of children ordering maids around without even feeling sorry for her; children that are supposed to be innocent are corrupted by their sick parents from the beginning. [Thanks Mathild Haidar for this part]
People think about it, would like one day to be in the same situation as these maids? Would you like to be abused off just because you were born Lebanese? There is a phrase that my beloved parents taught me "Treat the other like you want to be treated".
Shame on those people who's brain is smaller than an ant, and thanks to my parents who raised me well.
I pray for a Lebanon without Racism and Corruption
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