Bambi's Thoughts
Bambi just discovered a new joyful (love) song while listening to her internet radio.
The singer is called Hanine and her song is the Lebanese-Arabic version of the French “Bella” by the French singer-songwriter of Congolese origins, Maître Gims.
Below you can listen to Hanine‘s Arabic version of “Bella” and watch scenes from Beirut and its beach. If you wish, you can also watch the beautiful original version of this song.
Enjoy :)!
Thank you BBC News for speaking with some of the survivors of the Beirut blast a year following their surrealistic, yet still unaccountable, port explosion. Bambi’s heart goes to all of them, including her own family members and childhood friends. Some of them are still undergoing surgeries (hang on Dearest Maya!).
Thank you Beirut 607 and l’Orient Le Jour for reminding us of all the victims of the Beirut blast, showing their faces and telling us their stories. May their memory be eternal. May God know how to comfort the hearts of their loved ones, wherever they are right now in Lebanon, Syria, Ethiopia, the Netherlands, France, Canada, Australia, or elsewhere around the world.
Bambi will start by sharing the 219 victims’ beautiful faces. Then, if she may, she would like to offer Fairuz’ famous song, interpreted by a young moving singer called Maritta, to Beirut’s living victims of negligence, corruption, and of endless, destructive, warrior mindsets hijacking their capital’s charming soul.
One of the CBC’s recent articles is entitled “Should British Columbia change its name? As we reckon with history, some say it’s time” (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-name-change-1.6126983).
As per this article, “B.C.’s name is derived, in part, from Christopher Columbus, who paved the way for colonization of the Americas.”
Related to this topic, the Government of Canada itself (https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/provincial-territorial-symbols-canada/british-columbia.html) informs us of the following origin of the name of this beautiful province: The southern part of the area now known as British Columbia was called “Columbia”, after the Columbia River. The central region was given the name of “New Caledonia” by explorer Simon Fraser. To avoid confusion with Colombia in South America and the island of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean, Queen Victoria named the area British Columbia when it became a colony in 1858.”
The relatively short history of Canada is complex.
Sadly, Canadian politicians are not showing lucidity, courage, and maturity to encourage us to look at all our past and all the memory of the past, with its very dark and brighter days, with a sense of responsibility as well as hope and a commitment to a better future together.
Instead of building this kinder and just future, our elites seem to be complicit in the destruction of shared symbols from the past and present (monuments, street names, churches, statues, censorship of books or persons, etc.).
Can someone tell Bambi if this a healthy solution to the excesses and abuses of the past? how will the destruction of our collective memory help us heal and face future adversity?
So, why is the CBC pushing for all this in one way or in another?
Our own tax money is ironically serving to fund a public institution, calling once again to erase our memory?
When will we instead begin to focus on bringing us together to heal and truly progress, as a country, not to self-destroy endlessly?
Friendships, especially older ones, are life’s treasures.
Bambi is blessed to have you in her life for over 41 (Nayla) and almost 31 years (Carla, Katia). Thank you for enriching her life at every stage, including our happy, sad, and even collectively insane times. Thank you for being whom you are. Bambi loves you and wishes you ALL the best!
To conclude this short post on a musical note, here are two songs for you. The first, you can guess what it is :). The second celebrates friendship with beautiful French words, thanks to Mr. Nicola Ciccone!
This video is almost one year old (perhaps one week following the surrealistic Beirut port explosion). It features a talented French comedian, of Lebanese descent, called Mr. Roda Fawaz.
MANY relatives and friends kindly shared this artist’s testimony with Bambi last year. She just found it on YouTube with English subtitles. In turn, she is is sharing it with you as it is filled with truth, today more than ever…
Thank you, Mr. Fawaz for your thoughtful text and all the best to Lebanon!
In the following press release, we learned that the European Union (EU) delivered on its promise to adopt a legal framework to sanction Lebanese politicians by the end of July:
Led by France, this EU initiative seeks to increase the pressure on Lebanon’s politicians. The move is part of larger international efforts to force overdue reforms, following: a political chaos, an economic collapse after the financial crisis, and the Beirut port blast that destroyed half of the capital on August 4, 2020. Yes, that was almost a year ago with total impunity!
Will this European initiative work? Time will tell…
This being said, below is a picture from US Today, which illustrates the diagnostic made by the Lebanese people concerning their surrealistic Beirut port explosion:
While reading the EU press release, a powerful Lebanese song came to Bambi’s mind. She recalls having posted it on her blog in the fall of 2019 (when the people of Lebanon revolted against their central bank’s exposed Ponzi scheme). The singer is called Mr. Rabih el Khawli. To repeat a comment by Bambi’ friend/reader Aline, “Mr. Ghassan Saliba sang this song in the 1990s“.
Regardless of the artist, this song remains timely as Lebanon’s current tragedy is the result of MANY years of political mismanagement and financial corruption. Indeed, the situation in Bambi’s birth country is so bad that, when she recently asked her dad if it was worse than the 15-year-civil war (1975-1990), he did not hesitate in replying: “MUCH worse!” Can you imagine :(?
Thus, thanks to all the international efforts trying to stabilize Lebanon by shaking its heartless leaders. It is Bambi’s hope that those international efforts will also remember to shake the hegemony of powerful countries over Lebanon.
To conclude this post, and before sharing a short version of the song (thanks to MTV), here is a quick English translation for you, taken from Bambi’s earlier post:
“You who were waiting, what are you waiting for? What do you expect from those who stole the sunshine and sold the wind, along with their consciousness? From those who stole the country and built houses larger than its squares?
You who were waiting, what are you waiting for?
Revolt for once. Stand up in those squares and tell them: You have stolen, you have killed, yes you have assassinated the people, the country, and the dream…. And you turned this land into a refuge for the Pharisees (or self-righteous)”.
Last year, shortly after the unforgettable August 4th, 2020, the President of Lebanon promised a 4-day-investigation.
In 4-5 days, it will be 365 days since the Beirut tragedy.
There is still no justice.
Yesterday, before going to sleep, Bambi read that the Lebanese Parliament was ready to lift the immunity on politicians, so Judge Bitar (leading the investigation) can interview them (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanon-parliament-ready-lift-immunity-beirut-blast-probe-2021-07-29/).
This morning, she read in the media that a large political party (close to the Hezbollah and, of course, as corrupt or as innocent as all the others) voted against lifting immunity (https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1270022/berry-appuie-les-propositions-du-futur-le-cpl-sy-oppose.html). Can you imagine, even if this in itself tells us something? The irony, as Journalist Roula Azar-Douglas hinted at in a tweet sharing the article above, is that this political party is called “Le bloc du changement et de la réforme!” (yes, change and reform, in English). Where is the change? Where are the reforms?
For a change, can Lebanon begin holding its political leaders (i.e., former warlords) accountable for this surrealistic criminal negligence?
The 200+ families of the victims are still waiting. We are all waiting with them, including the 6000+ injured people, the 300,000+ homeless ones, the Beirutis, all the Lebanese, the diaspora all over the world, and all the friends of both Lebanon and justice.
Thank you ABC News for this moving short news documentary…
You may wonder why Bambi is offering this song for Liberty of Ms. Nana Mouskouri to Mr. Trudeau et al. Well, she hopes to refresh their memories about the meaning of the beautiful name of their party: “Liberal“.
You may wish to take the time to read the following iPolitics article below, which informs us of our federal government’s proposed bill, which will complement Bill 36. Both are supposedly meant “to crack down on online hate“.
As a reminder, under Bill 36 (if the Senate passes it), citizens can be fined up $50,000 and eventually silenced. Who would be defining hate and deciding on it? Our federal bureaucrats? Wouldn’t that be arbitrary? How fair is that? How logical? How liberal?
Even Lebanon’s Hezbollah did not come up with such bills (yet) to crack down on “online collaboration with the (Israeli) enemy“… Let’s hope our government will not give them such ideas.
Bambi believes that a (truly) liberal approach remains the healthiest approach when it comes to (online) freedom of expression. Let people remain free to express themselves, except for calling for violence or defamation.
Luckily, we already have laws to address the above as well as all the other criminal activities stated to justify this new legal framework on “online hate speech” (i.e., child sexual exploitation, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, incitement to violence, and terrorism).
Mr. Trudeau et al., Bambi is against your proposed Bill 36 as well as your proposed plan to regulate or monitor social-media content. She is saying so, even if she is not on social media herself. She thinks so, even if she has been the target of an online censorship campaign because of her blog.
Enough of authoritarianism please, despite any good intention!
Thank you.
Bambi’s earlier posts on this topic:
