I've been away from Lebanon for a while, so when I venture away from Beirut into the more beautiful parts of the country, I always slow down and stop to take in the views (and Instagram shots), and think, "wow, I need to come back here someday and spend the day". It's a pleasant reminder that there's some good buried under all the hundreds of thousands of tons of trash and corruption.
Live Love Lebanon Moments
I was driving back from Zhaleh this morning, and took the Tarchich road which has yet to disappoint when it comes to aesthetics. It was breathtaking and calm, very few cars were on the road and people in the villages on my way were up tending to their lands already. Behind me was the cloud-covered Bekaa. Right above the Bekaa, the sun was rising from behind the mountains that divide us from Syria. On my left side, the cloud cover was creeping up over the Western mountains and slowly pouring over to the other side. On my right, the sun was creating masterpieces with gorgeous rock formations dotted with pine trees whose shadows bisected the apparently gravity-defying rocks and boulders, that look like something Gaudi might enjoy.
Point is, the drive was such a pleasant one. The only unpleasant element was the occasional maniacal truck driver barreling down the winding road at full speed. That's until I passed Bologna...
Tailgating? Nah...
I was coming up to Dhour Chweir, in that nice stretch of street that's line with gorgeous old mansions and hotels, and pine trees of course. Some are abandoned, some are still lived in and loved. Then, coming up on the turn where there's always that dude selling rain boots on the street, and I had to do a double take and slow down...
There was a dude, in his early 30s I'd say, in full hunting gear: the cheesy camouflage stuff they buy from those gun shops that put stroboscopes on the highway to catch your attention at night, as if I'm gonna suddenly remember I need a GAMO in the middle of the night and be glad there's those flashing lights to guide me... Dumbasses. Boots, rain coat, belt of hunting cartridges across his chest, protective goggles and a double-barrel hunting rifle. This dude was prepared for an expedition. He was sitting on those foldable chairs though... "He might just be resting" I thought. That's when he picked up the loaded rifle resting on his thighs, and aimed at a 45 degree angle above two-way traffic, and shot two quick-fire rounds less than two meters from the street.
Imagine how fucking lazy. He just parked his car on the side of major road, opened up a his chair, and waited for birds to shoot down while he never leaves the comfort of his chair (which he probably bought from the stroboscope-loving stupid gun shops), and when he's not shooting, his rifle is loaded and in the direction of oncoming traffic. Talk about safety... AND from a guy that obviously is too lazy to stand up while shooting, so wouldn't expect him to the safety-on kinda guy. That's when I realized that's probably why so many people die in "hunting accidents" in Lebanon every year. I just thought it's cover-ups to avoid jailtime, but each day, I notice that it's just sheer stupidity most of the time. Something worthy of a Darwin Award.
He Wasn't Alone
I tried to calm myself by saying, it's just one dude, but, I wish. A few hundred meters away, a big SUV was parked on the side of the road with its trunk open, and two pre-pubescent boys were carrying rifles twice their size and pointing them out of the car's trunk. Next to them, a third car with the dude's ass on his car's hood, rifle ready in hand.
This kept happening till right before I got to Bikfaya. I saw 6 other people holding rifles on the side of the streets next to their cars, and yes, you guessed it, one of them even had his arguileh sitting next to him as he loads his rifle and lets the pellets fly meters away from cars and school buses and residential buildings.
On Firearms
I'm from Zgharta, and have covered armed conflict on many occasions. I'm not particularly thrown off by firearms and pretty used to seeing them in action. Hunting, and hunting rifles though, make me feel disgust. Not because I'm a treehugging hippie, but because of most of the people who hunt in this country, are stupid and lazy, who go hunt and bag HUNDREDS of birds every time they go "hunting" (parked on the side of the road?) in a country where most of our indigenous wildlife has already been eradicated. What's worse, is endangered birds of prey and migrating birds, which come in their hundreds of thousands and stop for a break from their long migration in our forests. I still remember seeing the forest in front of my childhood home dotted in endless white dots: birds resting a bit before continuing South for the winter.
Legality and Mentality
Hunting was technically banned in Lebanon in 1995, and that law was ignored by everyone, like most other laws in this country. Almost 10 year later, in 2004, after endless massacres and outrage by environmental groups in Lebanon and abroad, a new law, another law was passed. It was also completely ignored. The 1995 one was a more suitable law, which didn't ban hunting outright, but specified hunting seasons for specific species of birds that the government would assign, like most civilized countries do and have done for decades.
Then again, I don't have much faith in our illegitimate lawmakers. And even if I did, I don't have much faith in the police that's supposed to enforce it. So, change should be a shift in mentality. If we're at a point where some idiot can just park on the side of the road and shoot live cartridges in the same direction as two-way traffic and between homes and schools, then we're kinda off the deep end, and the word "responsible hunter" would be as unlikely as seeing an electoral law that generates proper representation in Lebanon...
If you're a hunter, don't be dick. We know you can shoot, you don't need to prove it with 600 identical dead birds. Don't be proud of killing creatures that fit in the palm of your hand, and which you eat in single mouthful, with your fancy rifles and gear. And it's not sport when you sit on the side of the road and just wait to shoot birds that happen to pass by. The "sport" part is tracking your "game" and surviving in the wild, like our primitive ancestors did before they settled down into civilizations, not just pulling a trigger that releases dozens if not hundreds of pellets, one of which is bound to hit whatever you're shooting at. If you wanna show us how good you are at target practice, why not go to a shooting range and use bullets from a handgun or a rifle instead, then, maybe, someone will be impressed with your sharpshooter skills.
Notes
I know some of you are responsible hunters, so if the above doesn't apply to you, save your speeches. If it does, then you're such a sad, sad person. Birds of prey eat rats and snakes, smaller birds insects and help pollinate our flowering plants and trees. If you're a hunter, or know someone who is, think about it for a second. You don't have to stop hunting, just go somewhere far from kids and people. If hunting is your ultimate passion love, we get it, just don't kill 500 birds. Many people like apples, but no one goes and picks an entire orchard before it's ripened, just to put them on a car hood and take a photo with "FUCK YEAH!" and their stupid grins.
Picture of hunters' massacres courtesy of Lebanese Eco Movement