A Saudi woman astronaut is now working on biomedical research aboard the International Space Center. Who would have thought it possible? Saudi Arabia is achieving nothing short of miracles in its push to modernize the country.
Lebanon's Sunnis, meanwhile, who look up to Saudi Arabia as their reference since the Kingdom is Sunni Muslim, continue to regress backwards into barbaric traditions. Last week in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, Sunni Muslim clergymen harassed two women who were sunbathing on a beach, claiming that the wearing of bathing suits is "indecent".
As usual, the Lebanese - in all their sects and confessions - prove their backwardness. They never lead with new ideas they come up with themselves. They look to the outside, then like monkeys copy-paste the worst of the outside, never the best. It usually takes the Lebanese 20-30 years, i.e. a whole generation, to adopt new ideas from the outside world which they initially disagreed with. It's a primitive reflex innate to Lebanese arrogance to dismiss new ideas at first, then when they see others distancing them or the dollar signs flickering from the new ideas, they rush to adopt them. Still worse, they adopt them out of context because, in the rush, they haven't thought through them.
You name it: the environment, individual rights, separating state and religion...
I reside in a middle class neighborhood somewhere in the Matn region where Maronite and Orthodox Christians are the majority. They condescendly look down on Syrians and other foreigners (yard workers, maids, etc.) who work with their hands. Having surfed on the fake booming economy of the past 30 years, these Christians have forgotten what it is to work hard. They get their fresh dollars from their children and relatives who have fled the cesspool, they hire maids, drive in huge gas-guzzling SUVs to show off, and are convinced that "loving life" means sit down in cafes, smoke the water pipe and eat. Life is all about show-off in Lebanon. People rarely do things because they are convinced of them; they do them to prove that they are not "low class", that they are successful (even if only in appearance), and that they are better than their neighbors. Now that the economy has tanked, they are having a hard time adjusting to what I consider "normal" life, in which you clean your own house, cook your own meals, walk your dog - Yes, they all have dogs, but they have the maid take the dog out on its daily walk.
They spurn public schools and prefer to send their children to religious schools where they are taught to believe just enough science to get a job later. But forget about teaching the children human rights, the environment, real science like Darwinian theory and quantum physics.... because all these "western fads" are against God and the Church. These children and young adults trash their own villages and towns. Right next to my house is a long street flanked by wooded areas. I go out every day and pick up the trash - tissue papers, plastic bottles and bags, wrappings of US-style fast food, chocolate and candy wrappings, etc.- that these children or maybe even adults dump around them when they come here to play and fornicate in their souped up noisy cars. I don't mind the play and the fornication, but I abhorr the trash and the abject contempt for the environment. These are the same kids who grab their shotguns during migratory bird seasons and shoot at any stork, pelican, hawk, etc that passes overhead.
So I ask myself: What do these parents and schools (nuns and priests who fill their heads with barbaric religious beliefs) teach the children about the science behind the environment, about their place in the world, about mutual solidarity with their fellow Lebanese and human beings? The local municipality is a den of cronyism, corruption and incompetence that has left the town marred by potholes and garbage strewn everywhere. So I understand why the children behave the way they do.
But these people who call themselves Christians are not Christian in the substantive meaning of the word. They are politically Christian, but do not put any of the Christian teachings in practice in their daily lives. To them, to be a Christian is like going to a restaurant: You pick and choose from a menu those items which you like. As soon as they are out of the church on Sunday, they resume their Mafia-like lives of clients to the boss, of conniving merchants searching for a dollar here and there, without any consideration for solidarity and cooperation. In a village nearby in the region, there are three churches built right next to one another. Each church was built by one of the two dominant families of the village over silly disputes. The first two churches were both named after Saint Elias. When another dispute erupted within one of the two families, a third church was built to be named, again, after Saint Elias. But they finally perceived the riddicule, common sense prevailed and it was named after Saint George.
If the Christians of Lebanon claim to be "more advanced" than the Muslims because they tolerate women in bikinis on their beaches, it doesn't mean that they are civilized. They have a long way to go, and it seems that the heart of Sunni Islam, Saudi Arabia, is far ahead of any of those religious numskulls in Lebanon that can't even run a country properly.
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