Showing posts with label Public Transport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Public Transport. Show all posts

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Racism 101

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





Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Nightmare of public transport [Part 1]



Today on my way back from university, I had to take public transport from Jounieh to Tripoli and there the nightmare begun.
Cigarette!
Yes the nightmare on Lebanese public transport is Cigarette. Everybody Smokes and no one complains. Smokers just light their cigarette on without asking anyone anything. If you make the mistake to stare at them while they lit their death stick, they won’t feel like they do something wrong, on the contrary they would feel that we are seeing them as “cool” and “awesome” people and they feel so “awesome” that they want to share their “awesomeness” by proposing you a cigarette. I mean what the hell! If I’m staring angrily at you does it mean that I approve what you are doing? Or that I think that you are “cool”?
Why are they smoking in a crowded closed place like buses? 2 theories:
The first one is that they know that they are going to die out of smoking and they want to take a maximum of people with them
The second one is that they are unconscious of their behavior like smoking is perfectly natural to them and no one  disagrees.
What really angered me is that I opened the window so I can breath everybody complained: ‘it’s cold”, “please close the window”. I mean come on people you are bothered by wind and not by the cigarette smoke???
The worst part is that there was a “No Smoking” sign and that smokers Noticed it but they just laughed and lit their cigarette
Poor Lebanon and poor Lebanese