Tallying the stories on the reasons and circumstances of the crash of the Ethiopian aircraft drains the efforts of the Lebanese and their ability to use their imagination. No one is able to believe that an air disaster could take place in our country, akin to the ones that take place in both the poorest and the richest countries, the most primitive and the most technologically advanced airports. The Lebanese, whose minds are overflowing with ideas about a conspiracy being involved, cannot acknowledge that aircrafts do actually crash, and at high rates, and that a calamity of this kind almost happens every week in any country in the word, from the tropical jungles in South America to the ice deserts in the North Pole. Human-made mistakes and technical flaws are taxes paid by mankind in return for making roads shorter and for the progress achieved in the transportation field. One cannot escape destiny, whether in the form of a car accident (like what happened with a dear colleague at Al-Hayat a few days ago) , the collision of two trains or the crash of an airplane. Since the first hours of the crash of the Ethiopian airplane, the Lebanese and their media outlets fabricated stories on the catastrophe. Some talked about a rocket that hit the plane while others claimed the plane was deliberately attacked because a certain figure was onboard. Those who have a poorer imagination held the pilot responsible for the disaster because he ignored the instructions of the control tower. As search operations progressed, and when an American warship entered the zone of the disaster and located the site of the wreckage and the two black boxes, some were creative and talked about a hidden conspiracy between the American government and the Boeing company, alleging that the warship seized the boxes and hid them. Why? Those spreading the news reply that the Americans do not want to disclose the flaws that exist in their airplane and at the same time, they seek to evade responsibility and avoid paying compensations for the families' victims. This reveals a sick imagination and ignorance of the most basic mechanisms of how relations between countries and companies work, and [ignorance] of the methods of emergency management, which has become a science in itself. These people, to whom television channels and newspapers were available, are undoubtedly controlled by a superstitious mind that has nothing to do with the facts saying that the crash of the airplane is a possibility that every sane person is aware of, and that Lebanon is not an exception to this rule in any way. The sense of uniqueness and exceptionality of our citizens becomes clear. The Lebanese who died in the disaster were victims of an unqualified pilot and were on board of an airplane owned by an unreliable airline company and so on. This implicitly points to a racist behavior toward the Ethiopians who lost tens of their sons and daughters in the incident, and whose national airline company is known to be one of the three best African airline companies which the European Union allowed to fly in its airspace. Moreover, the pilot had 20 years of experience flying commercial aircrafts. However, this discussion is not a call to blame the disaster on the Lebanese civil aviation authorities. It is a mere desire to abandon the revolting urge to effortlessly make judgments before forming investigation committees and retrieving the black box, and before the experts give their say in what happened. Hence, emotions should not take over reason. On the one hand, the disaster uncovers how the Lebanese economy walks on two clay feet: "Exporting" labor to foreign countries and "importing" labor to carry out manual and household work – in a juxtaposition of the numerous annoying Lebanese ironies. On the other hand, the disaster has highlighted the entrenched superstitious mentalities in the Lebanese public opinion and how these mentalities completely and comprehensively control it, to the extent that a normal and noble feeling of grief over losing a beloved person is not only prohibited, but condemned in the kingdom of Lebanese exceptionality.
