Good Big Brother

Psst..The government has just made a brave decision on a very divisive issue.

Not everything that divides the Lebanese is political. Take the issue of traffic lights for instance. Everytime it comes up, anywhere in the world, the Lebanese get polarized. On one side, we have the proud rule breakers. Their argument runs as follows: “It is in our blood as Lebanese to trick the law. This is what makes us what we are and this is the reason why we’re so successful all over the world. We’re too free to be constrained”.

This naturally infuriates the other camp. They see the attitude of the first camp as an embodiment of all that is wrong in Lebanon. “How can we build a country if we lack the single most important trait of civilization? Discipline?” They fume.

In light of the above, the government has shown some surprising unity and resilience in making up its mind: It has unanimously decided to back the second camp. The city of Beirut is to install “Red light cameras” to monitor law-breakers and to fine them everytime they exercise their favorite sport of ignoring traffic lights.

This is a bit tricky. The government might want to think about how it plans to communicate to illiterate Taxi drivers what those cameras mean. That, of course, is secondary. They have to first explain to them what the actual traffic lights are for.

(P.S: Just for curiosity’s sake and as an informal poll, which camp are you on?)