Lebanon’s election season has begun. With it comes hatred, spite, segregation, animosity, and the most vicious deception imaginable. Desperate to sway votes in their favor, our narrow-minded politicians have one strategy in their playbook: isolate and manipulate. Playing on ignorance and fear, they further divide our already fraught communities. Last month we witnessed just how low these politicians are willing to go. Blind clientelism rules each political reshuffle in this country, while ordinary Lebanese are trapped in constant fear over their security and livelihood. Their concerns are left unheard, and if heard, ignored. The only concern of our politicians is power and maintaining it at any cost. Meanwhile, Lebanese citizens are increasingly removed from the reality of the street, living instead in a virtual world behind their tablets and smartphones. On the one hand, these serve as gateways to new ways of thinking and new technologies that are now embedded
