The past few days, after actors painted and dressed in all green popped up in ABC and Le Mall in Dbayeh, theories were spiralling about everything from a new eco-friendly initiative, to a new vegan restaurant and everything in between.
Last week, Zaatar w Zeit confirmed they were behind the teaser campaign, but it wasn’t till last night that we found out what it actually was: their new supernatural green wrap.
Their new wrap’s dough is infused with spinach, giving it the green tint you see, that’s all-natural without any food coloring. I was lucky enough to be one of the first outside the ZwZ team to try it out with my friend @LeNajib at ABC Dbayeh last night.
The wrap was delicious, and includes grilled chicken, bacon (beef or pork) bits, some fresh greens and an especially yummy sauce. This wrap is available for dine in and delivery starting today all across Lebanon, and will be available for just one month. So, when you order ZwZ again, try out the new wrap before it’s off the the menu again!
Being a guest on Joe Maalouf’s Hawa El 7orriyeh might’ve not been my first time on his show, or on live television, but it’s definitely the appearance I feel had the most impact. Since the episodes aired, whether I’m walking in a mall, ordering food over the phone, standing in line at passport control, boarding an airplane or even going through a drive-thru, men and women, young and old, would smile and show me their tattoos and crack a joke, referring to the 2 episodes where personal choice and more specifically tattoos, were a hot topic.
Last week, on April 5th 2018, the Syriac Catholic Patriarch sent a letter to my fellow guest Maurice Khoury, whose firebrand, grossly misinformed and offensively intolerant Facebook video rants had garnered thousands of views online. The gag order, which was shared on the Catholic Information Center’s website, chastises Khoury for speaking on behalf of the church, and “confusing believers” with his arguments with “seculars and non-Christians” on TV and social media. This is the letter in Arabic:
Harsh Punishment
I respect the right of his church to ask him to not speak on its behalf, but I think this gag order is indicative of a larger problem within the different branches of religious institutions in Lebanon. The Catholic Information Center which shared this letter, is perhaps the biggest instigator of bans of arts and culture in Lebanon. Their expertise is shutting people up and deciding for you and me what we can read, write, watch, listen to, capture and say.
Khoury, no matter how inconsistent, ill-informed and outright absurd his opinions are, has a right to say them, especially since many unfortunate souls seem to buy into his hateful rhetoric.
Unlike religious institutions though, I and people like me don’t seek to shut others up and quash any form of critical thinking and rational discussion, which is why I’m disappointed we won’t be able to discuss topics with this particular priest-in-training again.
Despite the vicious attacks of many of his followers, with some especially disgusting specimens of them harassing my family members, I think he should have a right to speak. Just like it is my right and the right of the majority of Lebanese people who aren’t as intolerant as him and his posse have a right to shred Khoury’s backwards opinion to pieces.
Don’t Rejoice at this Order
I went on the show twice, and I’d go on thrice and as many times as it takes to plead a case for tolerance and freedom of individuals to choose, especially when it comes to their own bodies. I know many of you are snickering at this news, saying things like “he deserves it” and “he should have known better”, but the reality is, he’s voicing the ideas that sadly way too many people share in this country.
The only way to resolve these issues, is to talk about them publicly, and let people decide which side they relate to more: the side where old men are dictating what young women (and men) should look like, dress and do, or one that chooses to focus on acceptance of those who are not identical to us in their way of thinking and behaving. In other words, focusing on the supposed essence of faith: tolerance, acceptance, forgiveness and love, not nitpicking tiny parts of scripture and explaining them in the most rigid of ways, while neglecting or even going against the general idea behind each of the different faiths people claim they subscribe to.
Fear is Driving This
Khoury might have gone apeshit over tattoos, but some of his colleagues did the same about yoga, psychedelic music and heavy metal. Everything that seems to be becoming popular, while church attendance steadily dwindles, makes the fringe groups of believers do knee-jerk reaction that they didn’t think through, calling everything different “satanic”, “sick” or other derogatory, hateful words. This only drives people away from their faiths, not closer to it.
I’d like to wrap this up with a famous phrase, and tell those priests and their followers, “what would Jesus do?” and I think we can all agree that he definitely wouldn’t do what Khoury and his colleagues are.
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know I’m spending this weekend in Turkey’s Izmir province, with Middle East Airlines (MEA) for their yearly networking event.
The second we got to the delightful Swiss Hotel Izmir, a stone’s throw away from the Aegean Sea, MEA chairman Mohamad El Hout revealed to us several bombshell announcements about MEA’s fleet and headquarters.
MEA will purchase 15 new airplanes between 2019 and 2021
11 of the airplanes will be Airbus A321, and the other 4 will be the “wide-body” variants
All MEA planes will be equipped with WiFi
MEA will now fly directly to Madrid3 times a week starting June 16, 2018 (Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays) at takeoff and landing times that would be perfect for La Liga fans who want to jet off to watch a game.
Apart from that, MEA will expand its headquarters even further in the area surrounding its recently inaugurated training center. Massive 150x95m hangars will be constructed for maintenance purposes, a green office building and more. You can check out how the MEA campus will look like by 2021 below.
Source: MEA Chairman Mohamad El Hout, Izmir 2018
The Airport Expansion
Being delighted with news of expanding the MEA fleet and getting its passengers connected at cruising altitude, I had loads of questions about the planned expansion for the Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport.
The current capacity of our international airport is around 6 million passengers a year, but in 2017 more than 8.3 million passengers made their way through it.
This has prompted Public Works Minister Youssef Fenianos to begin “urgent expansion” of the airport, allowing it to handle 2 million extra passengers within the next 9 to 12 months. By 2030, the airport is scheduled to welcome 20 million passengers.
Now, after a lot of digging, I was finally able to get the renders of what the Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport will look like, courtesy of MEA and Lebanon’s Public Works minister Youssef Fenianos.
So, I present to you the renders made by Dar Al-Handasah, who won the contract to design the expanded Beirut Rafic Hairir International Airport. You guys are the first to see this outside Dar, the ministry and MEA!
As you can see, the first phase will be adjacent to the seaside runway, and the second phase of the expansion will be on the opposite side flanked by Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The expansions will include additional baggage conveyor belts, inspection stations, power generators, flight docking systems and cooling systems.
Stay tuned for more, I will be following MEA’s fleet expansion, as well as Beirut’s airport expansion over the coming weeks and months.
PPP Plans
Below are screenshots I took from a presentation given by Dr.Omar Kaddouha, Director of Flight Safety at The Lebanese Directorate General of Civil Aviation on March 6, 2018. It was part of a session titled “Showcasing of PPP-Candidate Infrastructure Projects” at the Four Seasons in Beirut last month.
The presentation highlights that the project’s construction and financing will be handled by the private sector, signaling a good example of a PPP project (Public-Private-Partnership).
The government’s job is to manage the project, and make sure the tenders are transparent and have the taxpayers’ best interest heart. It’s also their job to attract financing from the right private sector entities.
The private sector will finance, build, operate and maintain the new terminals (and maybe the entire airport).
Personally, I’m glad this estimated 500 million USD project will not be funded from taxpayer money. I also hope that the private sector being a partner, means more diversity in what’s offered in Beirut’s terminals that doesn’t immediately have to do with airplanes and flight (food, shopping, etc.)
As for where the 20 million passengers will come from, the region is seeing a steady increase of around 5% in air travel, and in Lebanon’s first 2 months in 2018, passenger numbers spiked 10%. So, don’t just think Gulf tourists, think Lebanese expats, layover passengers, Lebanese who are traveling more for leisure and business and tourists from non-traditional locations.
Also, I really hope the tender process next year for the 2 phases is transparent and fair, so that the specter of corruption stays away from this ambitious project. I also hope the airport will be run more efficiently with the private sector operating it. Lastly, I hope the government will cut taxes they keep hiking up on travel, and that prices of tickets outbound from Beirut become more affordable, as more and more people fly more often, with more planes to take them to more destinations, making flight a necessity that’s met efficiently in Lebanon, not just a luxury many struggle to afford.
Phase 1
Phase 2
Special thanks to MEA for inviting me on this trip. It was awesome meeting everyone, exploring this Turkish province that I hadn’t visited before and working on getting this story in tandem. Also, special thanks to my dearest Lea Mehanna for the invaluable help in compiling this, and Nadine Mezher for helping me find a presentation that had extra information from what I was able to gather.
After a crazy, election-fueled overreaction by the current ruling elite last month after a pair of boobs was seen unexpectedly, it brings me great pleasure to announce that Discotek is back TOMORROW!
What Happened
After Discotek hosted the world-renowned Cirque le Soir in mid-March 2018, videos of the sultry performance spread through Whatsapp groups across Lebanon like wildfire. Since it’s elections season, everyone in the government decided to appoint themselves of the defenders of Lebanon’s honor by shuttering up the club.
Of course, this was an obvious overreaction, and after the fuss died down and the elections points were scored with hardliners, the judiciary did its investigation and decided to let Discotek re-open after a couple of weeks.
The Return of Disco
Discotek is back to its winter venue tomorrow, starting 10PM. You can RSVP and find more info here. My loves Romax & Rea will be behind the decks, so get ready to have an absolute blast tomorrow night, celebrating justice winning over elections hype, and the return of one of Beirut nightlife’s staples. It’ll move to its summer venue soon though, at The Garten, so make sure you catch a dance or two at the current location.
PS: I love the video banner they made for the event that I embedded above!
This is my first official endorsement of a campaign for Lebanon’s 2018 parliamentary elections. I encourage and ask my friends and loved ones from Beirut’s first district, to vote for Koullouna Watani’s Beirut 1 list.
The List
I have been a supporter of the Li Baladi movement since its inception on the heels of the Beirut Madinati experiment that was so successful in Beirut’s municipal elections in 2016. It combines everything all of us loved in the Beirut Madinati campaign and mission, plus a political aspect to it, where it goes beyond the day-to-day, developmental concerns of a municipality, and into the political, economic and more macro stated mission of a political movement that we need to unseat the current political regime that has impoverished, humiliated, beaten, jailed, exiled, poisoned and stolen from us for the past 30 years.
This list is the one I am most excited about in Lebanon, where 5 out of the 8 candidates are people I love, support, know and have worked and volunteered with. This makes it the only list in Lebanon so far that I actually support, trust and respect a majority of the candidates in.
But
If you didn’t read my post from last week, give it a quick read, especially if you’re still not sure if you’re gonna vote, who you’re gonna vote for or if you want to drop a blank ballot in protest at the situation.
I know this post might make me lose some friends, and invite aggressive criticism from some, but I can no longer hold my tongue with just over a month from election day.
This law is a disaster, and pushes folks to make unholy alliances to just have a chance at getting to the needed threshold. This means that all the work you might put in, for a list by a coalition you don’t necessarily support all partners in, might mean that your hard work campaigning and your vote, will help the people you don’t want to see in parliament, get the seat, instead of someone you know and are convinced is better and represents you and your goals and concerns.
I cringe at the thought that support for this list might mean that candidate I do not support will get the seat or seats this list wins, based on the tafdeeleh vote (preferential vote).
So
Focus on the Tafdeeleh. This list is amazing, despite an asterisk or two I’m not wholly convinced by. I will not go into the names now, I don’t want to be that guy. All I am saying is that you need to go vote, especially if you’re from Beirut 1. Not voting, or an empty ballot, only helps the ruling elite, not the movements and groups working for positive change and real reform.
In the coming days, I will write extended posts about the candidates in this list I wholeheartedly support, to help you make your decisions if you still haven’t. In the meantime, I invite you to do your own research into the candidates and groups that form this coalition, and decide who you will award your preferential vote to. That will make all the difference. That will determine if the seats this list gets, go to candidates and groups you want to see, not groups or candidates you would have never voted for if they weren’t part of this coalition.
I’m sorry for my frankness, but it’s time to be adults about this and consider the realities. Whether we like it or not, the tafdeeleh is everything, and we need to focus on that if the seats that independents actually do win in different districts, go to candidates that are truly independent and truly represent people like us.
I was in ABC Dbayeh last week with my friend Najib from Blog Baladi. On the way back from the restroom, I noticed a handful of parents with their kids walking behind something. I thought maybe it’s one of those parades they do in malls during holiday seasons. When I looked again though, there was no music, and just silence.
It was a couple, a guy and a girl, painted and dressed in green from head to toe. They stopped at Antoine and looked through some books, then walked around the mall. There was no camera crew, no nothing, and just a superman-style insignia on their chest.
They would talk to each other, but wouldn’t answer when I or other people from the crowd would ask them what they are doing, why they are dressed like that, etc.
A friend on Instagram suggested that it might be a campaign to promote diversity and fight against stereotypes and misconceptions, given similar campaigns were done in places like Canada. However, the Canadian version had people dressed and painted in all the colors of the rainbow. As far as I know, only green made an appearance in Beirut so far.
This morning, while headed to work, I noticed a billboard in Dbayeh, right after the Nahr El Kalb tunnel, that, believe it or not, was NOT a lame political ad campaign for the upcoming elections. The billboard had been pointed out to me on Instagram as well, and it featured the same symbol that was on the chests of the two green people.
So, I guess that this is a teaser campaign, but with this being the fifth day since it first appeared, I expect we’ll know who’s behind this by this week or next week. I wonder if it’s to promote something like the diversity angle in Canada, or maybe a new place? An event?
Anyway, I’ll keep you posted, and if you have some insider information, please fell free to share.
It’s time to have a grown-up conversation guys and gals.
Let’s start with the obvious: these elections, under this law, are absolute shit. The law that we previously felt like a dimwit’s clusterfuck, turned out to be an insanely sly orchestrated move by the ruling elite to ensure their asses stay glued to parliamentary seats, in a weird twist that makes proportionality useless in a majority law kind of way, divided and gerrymandered according to sectarian pieces of the pie.
Having said that, we also have 66 candidates that identify as independents in total, and have a stated goal of unseating the current political class. That’s more than any of the political parties. It’s also more than the weird, contradictory and shamelessly shifting alliances between those parties.
So, it’s not all bad, but it’s definitely very, very far from ideal.
Forget Lists
Many of us, myself included, have been preoccupied with the lists formation for weeks. “I don’t want this guy, I want this girl instead. Why is that group on that list. I wish we can pick and choose from lists”, etc.
If you take a step back though, and see things from a wider perspective, you’ll realize this election is basically a 2-step, 1-person-1-vote kinda thing. The law forces you to form lists, which means that sometimes, unholy alliances might spring up. That’s just for the first phase though, where competing lists try to get more than the threshold of votes in a district.
The threshold (7asel), is the total amount of voters who actually went out and voted, divided by the total number of seats in that district. So, if a district has 4 seats, and 40,000 people voted, the threshold for one seat is 10,000 votes.
Let’s consider that the list you support, got 20,000 out of the 40,000 votes. This means they automatically get 2 seats in parliament.
Focus on the Tafdeeleh (Preferential Vote)
Here’s where things get interesting, and where we might be able to salvage our hopes and dreams for real change this election. The 2 seats that are awarded, go to the list that got them, obviously. However, the candidates from the list, who will go on to serve a 4-year term in parliament, are chosen based on which two candidates have the majority of the preferential vote.
So, if the list you love has 4 people, but one you don’t support for whatever reason, such as past involvement with established political parties, behavior or attitudes you don’t support, and anything else that might make you want to not vote for them, you can make your protest voice heard by giving your preferential vote to someone you do support and want to see in parliament representing you from that same list.
This will help ensure that the woman or man you want in parliament, gets a fighting chance to get one of the seats the list they’re part of is able to attain.
Go Vote, and Forget “War2a Bayda”
The more people go and vote, the higher the threshold becomes. Given that, unfortunately, a majority of people who do actually go and vote are partisan, this means that your blank vote is raising the threshold for victory, but also giving political parties an advantage.
Political parties might want less and less people to vote, to keep the threshold down, and maximize their winnings. A blank vote doesn’t do that though, it just makes it tougher for independent coalitions to get to the threshold, given you added to the total number of votes, but didn’t choose the independent coalition and give them a chance to compete with the established political parties in 9 out of the 15 voting districts in Lebanon.
So, if you want your vote to be a protest vote, choose the independent coalition list in your district, even if it’s far from what your ideal list would be, and award your preferential vote to the candidate you feel would be your best representative in the country’s legislative body (protesting the compromises made in some of those coalitions clearly, instead of just ambiguous blank ballots that will do more harm than good). A blank vote just makes it harder to beat the political parties, without giving independents the chance at a fair-ish fight.
Don’t Stay At Home
Not voting is the worst thing you can do under this law, even worse than a blank ballot. Political parties are mobilizing every last one of their supporters, bribing people, spending millions and millions on their campaigns. Their supporters are gonna go vote, whether it’s by actual conviction somehow, intimidation or “encouragement”. The majority of voters, who do not support any of the political parties that have been abusing power and refusing to leave office for almost a decade, need to go vote.
A boycott will not help, as this statement won’t really shake the politicians we have. The kind of people who aren’t ashamed of the corruption, nepotism and criminal waste and theft of public money, won’t be shaken by a low turnout because of boycotting. They’re like alligators, emotionless and with thick skin.
However, if you boys and girls just put the slight effort of showing up to the ballots, choosing the list opposing the current status quo, and making sure you award your preferential vote to a candidate you personally support, we can ensure that the good people from those not-so-good lists get higher chances of being our representatives in parliament.
Endorsements
I will begin publishing my official endorsements of lists and candidates on Monday, April 2nd, 2018. Till then, Happy Easter!
With this hot weather, you’re probably itching for a night in the gargantuan, angular structure we all fondly know as The Gärten. Well, I have some awesome news for you summer ravers:
The Gärten officially opens on Saturday April 7, 2018 for the season!
The main act of the night will be none other than Beirut favorite, Nu. I also heard that Acid Pauli will be making his much-awaited Beirut comeback at The Gärten very soon too, so can’t fucking wait for that!
If you’re like me, you miss the magical sunrises witnessed under the pyramid. Well, get your dancing shoes ready for an all-nighter at The Gärten next weekend!
Stay tuned for more details and April’s lineup here.
It’s the first of two long weekends in a row, and that means loads of parties and events taking advantage of the fact you don’t need to wake up early to get stuck in hours of suffocating traffic.
Here’s my selection for the coolest stuff to attend this long weekend.
The beloved weekly ritual of disco and funk that made its debut in AHM last summer, is coming to The Grand Factory this Thursday! If you have Friday off this week, then maybe put on something that makes you feel good and dance in celebration of the coming long weekend.
Metro Al Madina is one of Beirut’s most beloved spots for shows and performances that don’t necessarily feature in the more mainstream venues and spaces. The venue is taking on a fresh direction though this Friday, with my dear Rita spinning some middle eastern funk, disco, latin brass, oriental classics and balkan drops starting midnight. Oh, and it’s free entrance!
SMASH TV are back! The Berlin-based duo are some of my favorite artists, who love Beirut just as much as Beirut loves them. They’re going to be shredding the intimate space at Reunion, with local sweetheart Alias. It’s a list-only event, so submit the form here if you wanna attend.
Mind Against are coming to C U NXT SAT this Saturday, and I personally cannot wait. The gruesome twosome’s sound is one that many artists have tried to emulate, but no one has gotten quite right. Their collaborations are particularly amazing, like their regular collabs with Tale of Us and their epic “Solaris” collab with Aether, from which I’ve embedded “Eclipse” below. The Afterlife label heavyweights never disappoint, and I look forward to seeing the Italian duo at the factory this Saturday night!
Chronicles have been doing some amazing things the past few months, inviting Lebanon’s best and brightest behind the decks to RendezVous sessions in different venues, and catching it all on tape. For their 20th edition of Chronicles Rendezvous, they’ve decided to showcase Beirut’s most iconic venue too: B018. Yves, Ziad Ghosna dn Anthon b2b with Priss will make your RendezVous and B0 a perfect wrap-up for March 2018 and the ideal time to experience Chronicles if you still haven’t.
Boiler Garden is a lovely series of events that started last year on a nice shore in Amchit. Since then, several intimate gatherings have brought together electronic music aficionados and artists in gardens all over Lebanon. This time, they’re getting All Day I Dream’s Gorje Hewek and Izhevski on board as well! It’s at Puncho in Amchit, and starts at noon, so enjoy the good weather this Saturday with some good music and maybe a dip?
Kasser is the awesome idea of partying, while intermittently breaking stuff that will all be taken to recycling plants once you’re done relieving your stress on an old TV screen, some glass bottles and ceramic garbage. This time, you can get your own sorted trash as well, and break them at Kasser and have them recycled after. Party starts at 2PM at KED, and stays till late. So, if you feel like putting a sledgehammer to an old computer, or bowling a steel ball towards a bunch of glass bottles, then you know where to be this Sunday.
Yesterday morning, Uber Lebanon announced its plans to make sure voters in Beirut get to and from polling stations on elections day for free. This is amazing news, given that Lebanon is a country where candidates and political parties are actually allowed in the law to bribe voters by giving them money in return for transportation on election day.
The fact that voters who don’t live close to their home district, where they vote, means they are vulnerable to be “persuaded” by political parties who give them gas coupons or get them cars to pick them up so they vote for the list or candidate.
Beirut’s voters won’t have this problem this time, and they can use a promo code that’ll take them to vote for free. I’ll share the promo code when it’s out.
I hope as potential voters, you don’t let something as stupid as a 20 liter gas coupon make your decision on elections day, especially given the billions those giving you that 20$ or so coupon have stolen from your money over the years they extended for themselves.
I’ll be beginning my elections coverage, endorsements and tips this week. So, stay tuned!
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