Please, no Ministry of Happiness in Lebanon


After Dubai announced its plans to create a Ministry of Happiness, everyone in Lebanon hailed the idea. Ironically, some started talking of doing the same over here. But that would be a fatal mistake.

Actually, the worst thing that can happen to Lebanon is a Ministry of Happiness. It’ll be worse than anything we’ve ever done. The end of whatever positive and happy that still remain in this country of ours. Why? It’s very simple.

In Lebanon, we screw things up. So royally, we should become international experts in the screwing-up field. We have, over the years, developed a talent for spoiling everything. In so many words: we have become the best at producing the worst.

We have a Ministry of Economy and the economy is in dire straits. We have a Ministry of Environment and Lebanon has never been so polluted. We have a Ministry of Labour and there’s no work whatsoever. We have a Ministry of Energy and there’s no electricity. We have a Ministry of Culture, well, let’s not even go there.

So imagine if we had a Ministry of Happiness how utterly miserable we’ll all be.

What we really need is to change the Ministries we already have. And use reverse psychology. If we do that, we can count on our politicians to achieve the perfect opposite of what they’re supposed to achieve.

They are so awfully bad, so incompetent and so corrupt, they’ll fix the country’s every problem without even noticing it.

So if we want a booming economy, we ought to create a Ministry of Recession. To save Lebanon's environment, a Ministry of Pollution could be the only solution. The same applies to jobs, electricity and culture: our salvation could come from Ministries of Unemployment, Darkness and Ignorance.

And if we want to be finally happy, we absolutely need a Ministry of Despair.


© Claude El Khal, 2016