Fanning the anti-Syrian flames in Lebanon
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/fanning-anti-syrian-flames-lebanon-1292127526
On 14 October, a dispatch appeared on the website of Lebanon’s prominent MTV television channel: “Dear HRW, I Don’t Want to Be Assaulted!!”
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Written by Maria Fellas, the piece takes issue with a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report criticising the curfews for Syrian refugees that have been implemented in at least 45 municipalities across Lebanon. The nation officially hosts about 1.2 million refugees from Syria, a figure that doesn’t take into account unregistered people..
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Fellas’ dubious cognitive capabilities are on display from the get-go. After explaining that “this is quite a delicate matter that some might find a bit offensive” and that she will thus “attempt to approach it in a somewhat more subtle way than [she] normally would have”, Fellas announces that she “almost got knocked off [her] seat” by the HRW report. She proceeds to educate the organisation as to “the reasons behind” the rampant curfews.
The primary reason, apparently, is that a Syrian janitor killed a Lebanese girl in 2011, from which event Fellas extracts the following lesson: “This doesn’t necessarily mean that all Syrians will attempt to kill and/or rape Lebanese girls, but precaution is a must.”
The facade of diplomacy, of course, only serves to entrench the negative image in the reader’s mind. Say I’m writing an essay about Africa and include the disclaimer that “Not all Africans are AIDS-infested barbarians”; chances are my audience will nonetheless come away from the statement with a negative impression of Africans in general and will discriminate accordingly.
Meanwhile, the fact that Lebanon’s thriving tradition of homicide exists independently of the Syrian population - the Lebanese civil war comes to mind - raises the question of why a universal curfew hasn’t been deemed necessary.