I left Beirut with the family last week with the temperature there being 20 degrees Celsius or so, and travelled to London where the temperature was two degrees below zero. And while it rained for two days only during the two weeks I spent in Beirut, it snowed in London a day after I arrived there, with an arctic snowstorm affecting the entire United Kingdom. I know that life is not only about the weather; however, the weather should be considered all year round. In Lebanon, we have four seasons with distinct features, and for this reason, the Lebanese word for rain is derived from the word winter, because it mostly rains in that season. In London, however, there is only one season; it is neither spring nor summer, and rain falls all throughout the year. When I travelled outside of London for two days last “summer”, I found out that I had missed its entire summer season after I returned and found that the rain has resumed. I am not disparaging London here, as I have lived there longer than I have lived in Beirut. I have good memories about the British capital, a city that is an international financial focal point, and a centre of culture, arts and science, and the capital of the old empire on which the sun never set, but on which the sun now never rises (as the empire is now relegated to the borders of Britain). Instead, what I ask here, based on my knowledge of both London and Beirut, is this: why do the Lebanese complain, while the Britons freeze? If we go beyond the weather, there is in Lebanon the sea, the mountain and the plains, and there are both rocky and sandy beaches (just like the sea bass fish). So if the Lebanese want to jump from the rocks to the sea, they will find shores in Beirut and other cities, and if the Lebanese choose to just lie on the sand, there is a lot of that north of Sidon, south of Tyre and around Tripoli. As for the Lebanese who are not easily satisfied, and who feel trapped in their small homeland, they can take an hour's drive and visit Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Also, the Lebanese are an hour away by aeroplane from Cairo, Amman, and Jerusalem, - after the latter is liberated-, or Cyprus and the shores of southern Turkey. So I ask again, why do the Lebanese excel at “nagging”? For instance, the Lebanese complain about the high costs of living; but I want to tell the Lebanese “if you complain to me, I will cry to you”. London is the most expensive city according to the worldwide cost of living survey, and is ahead of even Tokyo and New York City. Moreover, I and many friends pay the maximum level of income tax (about 40 percent), while there is also an additional tax paid by those who do not want to be taxed for their wealth abroad. Of course, this does not mean that the costs of living in Lebanon are not high. But if the Lebanese are unable to afford “designers'” and imported goods, then there are many cheaper outlets; or they can simply do their shopping in Damascus where similar goods are available at cheaper prices. Moving on from what is concrete and tangible, to what is moral; there is a Lebanese touch that is totally missing from the West. For example, a friend of my daughter's visited us the day after we arrived in Beirut, with the house out of food and drinks. The next day, we were surprised to see boxes of vegetables and fruits pouring on us, as it turned out that the friend's family has a private farm. Then two days later, I saw the young friend, and thanked her and said jokingly that we ate all what she sent. Of course, I was joking because it was impossible to consume all what was in those boxes, even if we were famished Somalis, in particular when we received more boxes the next day, which we then gave to family and friends- almost as if it were part of a “food aid”. Nothing like this ever happened to me or to my family, despite our long stay in London, Washington and in the South of France, nor will it ever happen even if I were to live forever in the West. Furthermore, there is another important difference: Whatever fruits and vegetables I eat in London or Washington, they all ripen while being transported from where they were grown, -usually in air conditioned greenhouses-, to where these produces will be sold. In Lebanon, meanwhile, fruits and vegetables are naturally grown, and are mostly picked in the morning, and then remain fresh for the remainder of the day before being sold. This means that the oranges or mandarins that I ate from the friends' farm have no match in terms of their good taste in what is available to us in London. I could thus easily write a poem praising the grapes of Bhamdoun, or those small white grapes that are as sweet as liquid sugar. The above reminds me of my Kuwaiti friends, who still remember their days in Bhamdoun. In fact, all of the people in the Gulf still choose to have their holidays in Lebanon, even when their cities today compete with the finest cities in the West in terms of progress. I have seen many people from the Gulf there around the Western holidays, and even Egypt is sending its citizens to tour in our country, or Amr Diab and Sherine to please the people of Lebanon and its guests. Beyond all this, we have in Lebanon more than 60 religions, denominations or sects. Any resident of Lebanon or visitor will find that they can pray freely and as they please. The landscape in Lebanon often involves a mosque and a church, one with a bell tolling and the other with someone shouting in a minaret, as Abou el-Ala'a saw in Latakia one day. Lebanon is not a utopia, and if it were one, many of its visitors would not have come. The costs of living there are indeed high and there is much corruption, and there is always the face of doom and gloom that is Israel to the south. Also, it angers me, I who come from London, the city of law, to see that the traffic lights in the streets of Beirut are merely a part of the Christmas decorations. Nevertheless, there are a thousand positive things in return, and instead of “nagging”, I think there should be an evil eye hanged to repel envy. [email protected]
