Lebanese Army Day, when you think you’ve seen it all


When it comes to obscenity, you think you’ve seen it all. Then something comes along and proves, once again, that Lebanon is the black hole of decency.

Army Day should have been a day of dignity, a day of support to the families of the soldiers kidnapped by Daech two years ago and still unaccounted for.


Mohammad Youssef, Hussein Amar, Ali al-Hajj Hassan, Seif Thebian, Ibrahim Mgheit, Ali al-Masri, Mustapha Wehbe, Abdel Rahim Diab, Khaled Hassan. Today these names should, at the very least, have filled our social media timelines.

Instead we’ve seen an orgy of opportunistic ads, emphatic poetry filled with “koullouna” and “watan”, and this.

I wrote “this” because I can’t find the words to describe it. It’s a video Oceana Beach Resort posted on its Facebook page, supposedly in honor of the Lebanese army. And it has already been viewed, liked and shared by thousands.

I can’t find the words because every one that comes to mind can’t possibly describe people I share a citizenship with. Let alone people worth fighting and dying for.

About Lebanese soldiers, independent journalist Nadine Mazloum wonders: “One has to seriously ask, what are these men fighting for?” Well, that’s a question we should all be very afraid to answer.



>> After this post was published, Oceana deleted the video from its Facebook page. For the sake of documenting what happened, it's now available on Youtube.