Meanwhile in Lebanon
Rachel Moltz
Wed, 04/05/2023 – 07:29
The War in Ukraine is in its second year with no end in sight. Israeli protests continue against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s fiddling with the country’s traditionally strong independent judiciary. Paris is, again, tout feu tout flame in demonstrations mode, as if part of France’s annual “Rites of Spring.” School-shootings continue apace in America.
Meanwhile in Lebanon, as the fasting period of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan 2023 entered its early hours, the country’s caretaker government took the unprecedented step of “postponing” the annual switch to Daylight Saving Time. Lebanon shall rejoin the international DST system at midnight on April 21, 2023, declared caretaker Prime Minister Nagib Mikati—a random inexplicable decision that threw the country into frenzied deliriums of indignation and expressions of approval, doled out in equal measure by supporters and opponents alike. Soon enough, this seemingly innocuous “clocks reset” came to acquire the inevitable sectarian tincture in a multi-ethnic state mired in unresolved ethnoreligious tensions since at least the early 1970s.
The rationale of the Lebanese government and its supporters for the initial postponement was that “springing forward” the official clock would have prolonged daylight hours, making the burden of …read more
Source:: Hoover Institution
