Dusty Wyndow Blog

Here's why tomorrow, April 25th, is a big day in the history of Lebanon. For decades we had been accustomed to riding cars, whether for leisure or for work; that same car had been going hand in hand with social status: you have no car, you then belong to the poor. Owning a high end car, on the other hand, meant you're doing well, and thus earn society's respect in some way. Fast forward to last year where two girls, with the help of friends, had started what we know today as the BikeToWork day, years after being infatuated with the charm of the four-wheelers, as in to try and encourage an entire nation to go back to the days the majority had no cars. How did they get around? How were delivery boys getting by? How did my grandfather and yours go to work at their younger years? It's that mesmerizing slinky beast we all call the bicycle. I mean, it's often cheap, doesn't really cost any maintenance really, doesn't break down easily, doesn't take up ...

Around March 9th 2018 a video shared on Social Media of a child beaten down sparks an outrage among activist groups and the pubic in general. In the story a student, Mamdouh Al-Ragheb, was allegedly "brutally beaten" in his school in Tripoli. The school where the incident took place, "Al Enaya", is second home for hundreds of young students of Syrian nationality, and is for that reason managed by an unofficial educational body known as الهيئة التربوية التعليمية في لبنان operating away from the radar of the official Lebanese educational bodies, and whose general secretary, Majd Atef Oyoun Al Soud, is the perpetrator. What started as a digital protest on Facebook is now a national cause that is slowly and progressively unearthing shocking truths. One of the early scandals was that, as people started debating whether or not the child was in fact beaten so badly, the principle -Majd- invites the child's parents for some sort of a reconciliation recor...