Two weeks ago, a 500 kg bomb exploded, killing 16 people, injuring 100’s and damaging no less than 15 hotels in the seaside district of Ain El Mreisseh in Beirut. The finger immediately pointed to Syria, who, only months earlier, had detonated a car bomb in an attempt to assassinate the politician, Marwan Hamade. This time, however, they succeeded and killed the former PM, Rafic Hariri, a businessman/politician who had rebuilt Lebanon and its capital and was jettisoning back the country onto its old pedestal as the Paris of the Middle East.
Boom! In come the Swiss, in come the UN, and in come the Americans. The city is now crawling with foreigners - be they either investigators or journalists. One set of foreigners that have not-so-mysteriously jumped the Lebanese ship are…the Syrians. A large percentage of the 600,000 working in Lebanon have headed straight home, afraid if reprisals.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese - Muslims and Christians - now congregate downtown on a daily basis. The people want answers to the catalogue of unsolved assassinations, and the reels of missing person files that have never been solved. The message is loud and clear - velvet glove of Assad is no longer welcome in the country.
Despite the frustration, seething anger and serious determination, the good old Lebanese humour has already kicked in - disseminated by the technology of SMS…

A researcher was travelling around the world asking people from different countries what they thought of electricity failure.
He went to US…What’s your opinion on electricity failure?
“What’s a failure?” the American replied.
He went to Somalia…What’s your opinion on electricity failure?
“What’s electricity?” the Somalian replied.
Then, he went to Syria…What’s your opinion on electricity failure?
“What’s an opinion?” the Syrian replied.

Are you feeling lonely? Do you get the feeling no one wants to talk to you? Is no one calling you to go out? Do people stare at you in the street and cross the road? Why not ask yourself, “Am I Syrian?”