يوميات معاذ - حيث تجد #حديث_الأربعاء وقصصًا أخرى

Category: Civil war (Page 5 of 5)

Winter in Tripoli with power cuts

2017-01-06 / / 0 Comments
The cold season is here, and with the cold season comes some unpleasant things.
Flu seems to be taking the population by storm, everybody is forced to get it at least once *sniff, and I’m no exception.


For the German version of this post, please check this post translated by Mrs. Angelika Gutsche

Electricity, again!

Another sad phenomenon that comes with winter is long power cuts, it’s funny that an oil producing country isn’t able to provide electricity to power up the capital, but that’s how it is.
Notice how I said the capital and not the country, other cities don’t have this issue, it’s just Tripoli.

Which is very stupid – if I’m allowed to rant here- because Tripoli has all the services: Banks, ministries, and communication companies, which means that when you cut the power off of Tripoli, you are shooting yourself in the foot, basically.

It gets colder every year!

This winter is very cold, I know that every winter seems to be the coldest ever, but this one is really cold!
And the lack of electricity means the lack of heating and hot water! Actually water in general, because the pumps that are used to lift the water are electric.

“Alternative” ways to keep warm

I pity those who were forced to leave their homes in this cold due to the on going conflict in Libya, it’s a terrible time to be outside, and I can’t imagine how does it feel not to have a place to go to, a harsh reminder to always be grateful of what you have, amen!

With the lack of electricity we had to improvise, we pulled an old grill and turned it into a makeshift fireplace, or what we call in Libya a “Kannon”, it uses coal for warming up the place.

كانون فحم ليبي
A makeshift fireplace, Kanoon.
Maybe thats the only good thing about the power cuts, having the families get together around the fire, the wind howling outside, telling old tales and sharing a good laugh as the fire clacks and hisses.

A fair warning tho, keeping the “Kannon” in a closed room may cause suffocation, and many people over the years died of carbon monoxide suffocation, how many died this year because of the cold and suffocation? Who knows? I know who to blame tho! #GECOL.

Sadly after writing this bit I learned that 7 people in the mountain city of Ghryan has been admitted to the hospital due to suffocation, and over 200 people with Pneumonia, seven of them who are seriously ill.  

Lack of house insulation

Another thing I have in mind is house insulation, we don’t have that, at all! Our houses are just blocks of cement that is extremely hot in the summer (we had the temperature go up to 50 degrees last summer) and really cold in the winter; the exact opposite of insulation!
Which means that we need to use electric heaters to keep the house warm, and those things consume electricity like hell!

A popular beverage makes a heroic comeback!

On a lighter subject, a popular winter drink has found it’s way into our kitchen, powdered millet, known in Libya and many Arab countries as “Sahleb.
كوب من السحلب
A glass of millet.
It’s a coffee like beverage made from: powdered millet, sugar, water and milk; served warm and it tastes very nice! It’s a good way to fight the cold.

Major hit to productivity

I am struggling to get things done, I’m yet to adapt to this lack of electricity arrangement, and trying to sync my sleep cycle with it failed badly!
So much for productivity, I feel like I went back to the 19 century (and watching Sherlock wherever we had power made this idea more plausible).
How am I supposed to get anything done on 7 hours of electricity a day, if these seven hours are the same hours I’m asleep at?

Final words

Here we are in Libya, surviving barely, struggling to make a living when everything seems to be standing against us, with no money or electricity; I am not sure how long this struggle is supposed to last, I’m positive that it won’t last very long (as if we can survive like this for much longer).

This was my weekly post, I hope you are feeling warm and fuzzy reading this, wherever you are.

Please tell me of how you and your families face this freezing cold and power cuts, and share this post on your social media for more engagement.

Living in madness, Tripoli under siege

2016-10-20 / / 0 Comments
Think of this as the second part of my post: Blogging from a war zone, things are getting worse by the day sadly, with no signs of relief.

For the German version of this post, please check this post translated by Mrs. Angelika Gutsche.

Political madness and UN involvement

The United nations claim it wants a political solution in Libya, two years later Libya is more divided than when the UN got involved! How many governments on the ground claim to have legitimacy?
All the UN does is feed migrants and issue worried statements, while feeding migrants is a good thing, Libyans are struggling to survive daily and worried statements won’t put food on the table.

Game of coups

The third coup in 2 and a half years happened a few days ago, and both governments are still in Tripoli claiming to be calling the shots and exchanging threats of prosecution and stressing that they have legitimacy while the other is a fraud! And that’s just in Tripoli!!
No one knows who is ruling the country or who is in control now.

Everyday life in Tripoli

How could the people survive without basic health care? With gangs killing and kidnapping people and looting everything in sight? With no money in the banks to draw? With electric power that goes out for up to 12 hours a day, everyday!

Living on the edge of an ongoing war

Every night there is a battle between militias over trivial things at times, and during the day checkpoints are scattered across Tripoli, you might get picked up for looking at them the wrong way or for simply being from an area they had a clash with last week!
Where you wind up from there is unknown, you will be lucky if they call for ransom, or you could wind up dead on a side road or a dumpster somewhere..

Money issues

It sadness me to see women and old men sitting on the floor in front of banks since dawn waiting for the possibility to draw some money (banks didn’t recevie money from the central bank for over 40 days) while being verbally and physically abused by militias.
To be honest I’m not doing much better than them, I too get my share of abuse and I was in the middle of a bank shooting -luckily no one got hurt that day- others weren’t so lucky.
As a result I wasn’t able to draw money out of my bank account for over 6 months.

Inflation

The Libyan dinar lost 73% of it’s value to foreign currency, this resulted in inflation of prices, some goods went up 200% and 300% of the original price! Only in Libya you see increases like this!
Most goods are bought by merchants with government support (government rate for the US dollar) and then sold back to the people at the black market rate (3 times as much as the government rate), and some locally produced goods like Tuna is exported without customs to neighboring countries to be exchanged in US dollars, later sold on the black market, which made these goods rare and in demand, which raised the prices even higher in return.
And yet no one bats an eye..

Schools won’t start this year

As a result of the current situation 1.2 million children in Libya are out of school, and the school year was delayed simply because they don’t have sufficient funds to begin the school year!

All that and no one bats an eye!!

And everybody is quite and living a normal life? That is an outrage!
I really don’t know how do these people do it? It’s either the most persistent group of people I have ever seen or they just succumbed to the fact that things are what they are and could potentially get much worse.
I realize that people are afraid of getting killed by militias as it happened several times before, it’s not the smartest thing in the world to confront drug crazed gun men with protests, but there are other options.

What about a city wide strike?

Just sit home and stop going to work for a few days, if everyone did this then we can make a change.
You will be surprised how fast every issue will be resolved, this is how you negotiate.
Let’s look at it that way: You are unhappy at your work, you aren’t getting paid, but you show up daily and work like everything is OK! What kind of logic is that?
If you keep being quite will will be butchered one by one and no one will bat an eye when its your turn..

The date of this post marks 5 years since the rebels killed col Gaddafi 5 years ago in Sirte, it gets you to think what a landslide the last 5 years has been, regardless of your political opinions.

طرابلس ثاني أسوأ مدينة للسكن في العالم لسنة 2016

2016-08-20 / / 0 Comments
ياله من تقرير مؤسف، يندى له جبين أي شخص يحمل في قلبه مثقال ذرة من الحب لمدينة طرابلس الغرب، عاصمة ليبيا

لم يسرني على الإطلاق مطالعة هذا التقرير الذي صنف عواصم العالم من اﻷفضل للسكنى حتى اﻷدنى لتحل طرابلس الغرب (تمييزًا لها عن طرابلس عاصمة لبنان) ما قبل الأخير متفوقة بمركز واحد على دمشق حاضرة العلم والثقافة التي تربعت على ذيل القائمة.

 رغم معرفتي يقينًا بأنه صحيح كأحد سكانها والمقيمين بها، بل إن الصدمة بالنسبة لي كانت أن طرابلس ليست أسوأ مدينة للسكن في العالم وأن هنالك مدينة في مكان ما من العالم تتفوق على طرابلس في اﻷوضاع المعيشية المتردية، وبما أنها دمشق فالجرح جرحان والنكبة نكبتان، فكلا البلدين بلد مسلم وعربي ونشعر بألم فقدهما كما فقدنا فلسطين والعراق وجنوب السودان، والحبل على الجرار.
يمثل هذا التقرير انهيارًا من مستوى العام الماضي (المنهار أساسًا) حيث كانت طرابلس تحتل المركز الأربعين من ذيل القائمة،  أما هذه السنة فكانت الكارثة!

في البداية نجيب على سؤال: ما هو هذا التقرير بالضبط؟

هذا التقرير يصدر كل سنة عن منظمة المعلومات الاقتصادية التي تقع في لندن (مصدر)، ويسجل مستوى جودة الحياة المدنية حول العالم من عدة معايير مثل: (مصدر) ويقيم جودة الحياة في 140 مدينة حول العالم، هذه المعايير الخمس الرئيسية هي:

  • اﻷمن والسلامة
  • التعليم
  • الرعاية الصحية
  • الثقافة والبيئة
  • البنية التحتية

وتنقسم هذه المعايير إلى اكثر من 30 معيارًا للقياس. وكلنا نعرف كم انهارت هذه المعايير الضرورية للحياة في ليبيا وتستمر بالانزلاق ودون الحاجة إلى مقياس!

أوجه للحياة في طرابلس المنكوبة

  • طرابلس التي كانت مدينة قبل أن تكون المدن، وحاضرة قبل أن تكون الحواضر، كل زاوية منها وكل ركن يشع بالثقافة والتراث وعبق التاريخ، وتشهد لها بين مدن العالم بالعراقة والأصالة، أصبحت سجنًا مفتوحًا لسكانها (الذين يفوق عددهم المليون ونصف بأقل تقدير) والكثيرون منهم لا يجدون جواز سفر يدخلهم حتى إلى الشقيقة تونس لتلقي العلاج، خاصة بعد انهيار المنظومة الصحية في ليبيا وإعلان حالة الطوارئ من بعثة اﻷمم المتحدة، إن كانت هنالك أذن صاغية.
  • طرابلس عاصمة بلد نفطي غني بالثروات تقطع الكهرباء على سكانها لساعات طويلة دون رحمة أو شفقة (مع أن المدن المجاورة لا تقطع عنها الكهرباء مطلقًا) لتعيدها لعصور الظلام قبل أن يسرق أديسون اختراع لمبة التنجسيتن.
  • سكانها لا يقدرون على سحب مرتباتهم من المصارف، البلاد قذرة ومزدحمة ولم يبنى فيها مشروع منذ خمس سنين عجاف، طرقها محطمة ومليئة بالحفر والمطبات العشوائية والقمامة تتناثر على جوانبها.
  • عاصمة حرمت اﻷمن واﻷمان والطمأنينة، كل يوم تحدث فيها حوادث السلب والنهب والسرقة بالإكراه والخطف والقتل، وسط تخاذل من سكانها وتجاهل حكامها أيا كانوا، ففي ظل الانقسام السياسي والفوضى لا يعرف أحد من يحكم اليوم في ليبيا.
  • تتجول فيها العصابات جهارًا نهارًا دون خوف من العباد ولا خالقهم ودون وجود أي تواجد للشرطة أو أي جهاز أمني يحمي المواطن ويصون حقوقه، بل على العكس.
  • الغلاء سمة كل البضائع وكل الخدمات بحجة الدولار، وتضاعفت اﻷسعار عدة مرات مقارنة بأعوام قليلة خلت، مع نقص السيولة كما أسلفنا.
  • تنام وتصحو على أزيز الرصاص وهدير المولدات وضجيجها الذي يصم الاذان ويخنق تلوثها اﻷنفاس.

وهذه فقط الأفكار التي فكرت بها، تحدثت من وجهة نظري ونسيت معاناة النازحين والمهاجرين غير الشرعيين، والناس الذين قذف بهم التغيير السياسي والاقتصادي تحت خط الفقر والذين لا يجدون قوت يومهم ودواء مرضهم.

 طرابلس الجريحة

طرابلس بدلَا من أن تكون وجه ليبيا وعنوان نهضتها وحضارتها صارت سلة قمامة ليبيا ومكب نفاياتها، مالذي تبقى من هذه المدينة المسكينة غير الركام ومن سيتبقى بعد أن ينجلي غبار هذه المأساة؟

هذه المدينة التي أوت الملايين من الليبيين والعرب واﻷجانب تجد نفسها وحيدة يوم مرضها وعجزها بعد أن تخلى عنها الكل وأداروا لها ظهورهم، وبعد أن دمر ما تبقى منها، هي تطلب منكم أن تقفو بجوارها في محنتها وحتى يقضي الله أمرًا.

علاقتنا بهذه المدينة كعلاقة الأم بأبنائها، قد تغضب عليهم وتنزل عليهم سخطها، ولكنها تعود لتحتضنهم وتقبلهم وتستقبلهم باﻷحضان، وهم يدركون أنه رغم كل عيوبها وزلاتها وقصورها، أنه ليس لهم غيرها..

طرابلس قبل التغيير (2010)

 لنكون عادلين بشكل كامل فإن طرابلس لم تكن تحتل المراتب العشر اﻷولى قبل التغيير السياسي ثم انهارت بشكل كلي لتصل إلى ذيل الترتيب هذه السنة، هذا لا جدال فيه!
الواقع أن تقييم طرابلس تدنى واستمر بالانحدار من مستواه في سنة 2010 حتى وصل إلى أدنى مرتبة في هذه السنة، المخطط يوضح مستوى المعيشة في طرابلس في سنة 2010 ويقارنها بسنة 2015 حيث 100 نقطة تعادل ظروفًا معيشية مثالية، طرابلس كانت فوق الستين بقليل، وانخفضت حتى اﻷربعين في سنة 2015، ووصلت الصفر في هذه السنة، وحسبنا الله ونعم الوكيل.

صورة للتقييم من سنة 2016 يمكن من خلالها تتبع مستوى مدينة طرابلس المعيشي من ذيل القائمة.

طرابلس لم تكن جنة الله على الأرض، كان بها مشاكلها الخاصة وزحامها والكثير من الأمور التي استخدمت حجة لقلب نظام الحكم، هذا الترتيب المتدني نسبيا وتلك الظروف والمشاكل صارت حلمًا بعيد المنال لسكان طرابلس المنكوبة.

تحديث مؤسف:الشواطئ ملوثة بمياه الصرف الصحي!

أعلن مجلس طرابلس البلدي في بيان نشرته وكالة اﻷنباء الليبية وال أن شواطئ مدينة طرابلس ملوثة بمياه الصرف الصحي وأنها غير صالحة للسباحة ولا لإقامة محطات التحلية أو صيد السمك، ووجود أنواع متنوعة من الملوثات البكتيرية والفيروسية والطفيلية والعضوية (ما شاء الله!!) والتي أثبتت وجودها تحاليل أجريت على أنواع مختلفة من اﻷسماك والثلج المستخدم في حفظ اﻷسماك، وأن ذلك سيستمر حتى تفعل وحدات معالجة مياه الصرف الصحي بكامل طاقتها قبل تصريفها في البحر (مصدر)

شخصيًا لم أعلم أن هنالك مجلسًا بلديًا لطرابلس قبل قراءة هذا الخبر!!

طرابلس، فبراير 2011

أختم تدوينتي بصورة لطرابلس التقطها وافد من غانا في شهر فبراير 2011 قبل أن يعود إلى غانا ويترك طرابلس إلى غير رجعة.

لا تنس مشاركة هذه التدوينة مع أصدقائك كي تصل لأكبر جمهور ممكن، وهذا رابط التقرير باللغة الإنجليزية لمن أراد الاستزادة منه ومعرفة المدن التي احتلت رأس القائمة كأفضل مدن للسكن.

Blogging from a civil war zone!

2016-07-14 / / 0 Comments
What’s it like being a blogger in a war torn country?
My commitment to blogging brings a huge responsibility with it, and a potential risk as well!

Bloggers under fire

Blogging from a civil war zone is really dangerous, where the wrong word or opinion could mean the end, especially when people in charge can’t read and won’t read, and even if they read (god forbid) they don’t understand what they read or try to do anything about it (except trying to harm who ever wrote that to make sure that they never write again!).

Imagine this: you are sitting minding your business and you hear gunshots, you don’t know where they come from or why they happened, but you know it’s going to affect you one way or the other, and there is always that fear that one of them will land in your house or near your head (happened to me once or twice already).

Priorities 

Libyan authorities always had means to track down activist and bloggers on-line, the equipments and systems that came from France and other countries allowed the previous regime from pin pointing blogger’s locations and enabled them to hack the blogger’s personal accounts, even with the regime change these systems are still active and at large, aimed against the wrong people!
This system allows killers, drug dealers and human traffickers to roam the streets like crowned kings while focusing on social media activists and bloggers, I guess that arresting human traffickers isn’t a priority after all, they are running a travels agency! With no visas or accommodation of any kind..

A bit of the same old

I guess things aren’t much different from the previous regime for bloggers, opinion prisoners were   common back then and things are pretty much the same, freedom of speech and privacy are non existent in Libya, unless you say what “they” want you to say.

How does the people view bloggers?

Sadly even the people who are the victims here can’t see the point in blogging, won’t blog and will make fun of bloggers and try to bring them down, won’t even read the posts! (would spend all day on Facebook but won’t read a 500 word post!) saying that it’s a total waste of time!

Actual risks bloggers face

As a blogger you can lose your job, receive death threats, get arrested for no reason and receive bad treatment if your blog doesn’t appeal to “someone” and it could be anyone now days!
Kidnapping is common, a blogger could be “kidnapped” for his opinions, tortured and killed without a trace.  

Just one of many militia fighters running wild in Libya


There is no law enforcement in Libya, just militias roaming the streets and terrorizing people, it would be interesting to see a militia blogger (although the grammar would be horrible!).

We need to blog

Blogging feels like a luxury at times. Especially when people in here (and I am one of them by the way) can’t find money to buy goods and services, inflation made the price of everything sore high , with non existing health care, and the ongoing war between rivaling militias every now and then making life impossible, closing roads and creating barricades and fighting inside residential areas!  

The airport road, one of the main roads in Tripoli blocked by angry protests

Despite all these conditions someone needs to document this daily suffering and get the message out to the world, that there are people who live here in dire situations, I guess I’m that someone in this case.
Even if it’s a risk to my safety, I am afraid it’s a risk I’m willing to take, I can’t just stand here and watch my people suffer and do nothing about it, my passions and interests can take a pause now until the situation improves a little.

Actual blogging experience 

It’s very difficult! With power cuts that last up to 12 hours each day in Tripoli affecting all aspects of life, including the Internet service, making it even worse than it is already. 
It’s almost impossible to predict the power outages and adjust blogging time to it, and it’s affecting blogs negatively because no one is reading the blog, my main demographic is suffering from all day power outages! Let alone the damage it does to laptops and other hardware, I lost two laptop batteries, and that’s nothing compared what others lost in this mess!
Uploading images takes forever and so does loading blogger, this won’t stop me from posting as often as I can!

Giving the people a voice

Blogging is my way to reach out to the world and speak my mind out about how things are truly are in here, even if it’s dangerous, we need to break away from fear and speak out against this sham!
While politicians spend their days in luxurious hotels around the world, Libyans are dying every day, and the situation is getting worse by the minute. I started to think that they benefit from extending this crisis indefinitely, who would need them if life is OK in Libya?

Who is calling the shots?

As a person I lost count of how many governments we have working  head to head, or how many  legislation bodies this country has, who is running Libya today or when will the constitution will be written (if ever). everyone is talking like they run the place while in reality no one has control over anything.
Libya does have a constitution, why not use that and modify it? Since it has been disabled by the previous regime since 1977. I don’t know the answer to that either.
As I write this, there is no electricity as usual, I haven’t been able to draw money from the bank for months, and its a 120 degrees outside with no means to cool down, and I’m still doing much better than people in camps and immigrants who live in unimaginable conditions here in Libya.

Tripoli voted the second least livable city in the world 2016  

I thought I was just ranting and complaining about how bad it is really, turns out I was right!
Tripoli was voted the second least livable city in the world 2016 according to the independent with Damascus taking home the first place. I’m sure if Libyans work a little bit harder they will take home the first place.

Libya, what a waste!

It’s really sad to see a country with such potential like Libya go to waste! We have so many assets to work with! The youth, oil and gas, tourism, a huge space and just a handful of people, with proper management we could be living like royalty. But we aren’t sadly, we are dying slowly everyday with the world watching.

Leptis Magna, one of Libya’s most recognized monuments


I hope this post is noticed by the right people, I know there has been a dialog in Libya for years now but no one stopped to ask what does the people think, I speak for myself here but I dare to think that many will agree that we want peace and security.
We want our country back, is that possible?

Thank you for reading this post, please let me know what you think in the comments section below, and please share it with your friends and family, that would help me a lot!

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