The Lebanese have suddenly discovered that they are being murdered, this time on the road. Of course they do not remember the civil war which has supposedly ended as claimed by its lords and Lebanese who are celebrating its end. This issue is no longer between Muslims and Christians, but between Shia’a and Sunni. The iftar banquets are a testimony to this where the perpetrators of the “Black Saturday” massacre are feasting with the perpetrators of the Chekka massacre.

The Lebanese do not realize that they are being killed in the hospitals where surgeries are being carried out without medical justification and where mistakes exceed 25%, nor do they not realize they are being killed due to fraud in food and medical products and pollution.

Today they want an immediate solution to the traffic problem. They are oblivious to their political choice and to the lifestyle they opted for: it does not matter that used cars are being imported in pieces and glued together after undergoing plastic surgery; new cars are being recalled from international markets except in Lebanon; hazardous roads; sporadic and claustrophobic construction on the highways; drunken drivers without license or who bought their license; policemen working as escort. And suddenly we are surprised that there are accidents! Of course when talking on the mobile phone at a speed of 150km/hr! 

It is about time that we recognize that we have chosen an untimely death when we chose a life of beggary.  We beg at the doors of the Zua’ama and our Zua’ama in turn are doing their bidding. And finally, we all beg for the establishment of a state and we beg for public schools and the Lebanese University and we beg for the road, the hospital, the medicine and the air and the water.

We are dying by choice and not due to nature’s wrath as in Pakistan nor in Benin (central Africa) due to disease, hurling to our death like the whales in a mass suicide ceremony. Whales however, die in grandeur silence while beggars die slowly as they whine or celebrate. 

Jawad Adra