Beyond Laughter

Beyond Laughter

by | Sep 7, 2025 | Society

When I was at university, I was convinced that translation was my passion. Actually it was, until I stepped into the real world of translation for the first time. I was 21 years old, freshly graduated, and so excited about the thought of beginning a new journey. I still remember my first day at work: within a single hour, I swung from happiness to disappointment. And from that moment on, the hours grew longer, the work heavier, and I found myself suffocating beneath it all. I needed something, anything, to pull me back to life and to fill the silence of long hours spent behind the screen. That’s when I discovered the plays of Ziad Rahbani.

Of all his works, “Bennesbeh Labokra Chou?” (What About Tomorrow?) became my favourite. When I first listened to it, I was particularly impressed by Ziad’s style and sarcasm. Taking place in the 70s, this play, a famous humorous comedy with catchphrases that are widely used in daily Lebanese life, is the story of Zakaria and Suraya a couple working in “Sandy Snack”, a bar in downtown Beirut and their daily struggles to make a living for their children. From a village to the city, Zakaria and Suraya are doing their best to get out of poverty. However, serving clients in a bar is not enough to make a decent living, so Suraya finds herself going out with the bar’s foreign clients in return for extra money. Zakaria who tries to be ok with this all along, ends up stabbing one of those clients and is thrown in jail. Ironically, things go back to normal two weeks later.

                                Source: 7iber.com

“Bennesbeh Labokra Chou” draws a true picture of the Lebanese society at the time, and at any time in fact. It is a society filled with humor, contradictions, and underlying tensions. Each character reflects a different aspect of the country’s struggles, and together they bring to life a story that is both entertaining and deeply symbolic. Zakariya is that Lebanese who is aspiring for a better life. He has values, but at the same time, he is ok with jeopardizing those values to improve his life conditions. He holds clean hands while others get dirty with his permission and under his blind eye. Unfortunately, with every taste of luxury, he becomes unwilling to give it up and drowns into moral decay, but since he is a person rooted in ethics, there comes a day when he finds out that he doesn’t want to sell his soul for anything anymore. At that moment, something in him breaks and violence takes over.

His wife, Suraya is that Lebanese who is willing to sacrifice standards to build a house on broken values that she calls stability. When others point out the wrong she is doing, she is ready to justify it and to play the victim who is unhappy with her situation, but forced into her actions. To her, it’s life that has been unfair.

In addition to Zakariya and Suraya, two interesting characters, the owner and the manager of the bar are drawn into progress and financial gains despite the calamities. As Zakariya is thrown in jail and Suraya falls into depression, the manager tells her “A disaster has occurred, it’s ok. You have to bear it”. After all, life must go on and people must live with all the disasters that have struck their country since the dawn of time. This reminds me of a popular Lebanese song that we grew up hearing; it says “the country’s working, work is moving, people keep talking, so don’t worry about anything”.

Beneath every joke in Ziad Rahbani’s play is a sad truth and Ziad was very good at reframing this truth no matter how difficult or painful it was. In fact, humor is reality in disguise. It often tells the truth in such a way that makes it easier to accept. The choice of the characters and everyday chaos doesn’t just make the play entertaining, but also shows how our brains react to humor that’s deeply rooted in real-life situations.

Researchers have been looking into how our brains process humor. Our brains activate multiple regions simultaneously: the prefrontal cortex, responsible for cognitive processing and decision-making; the temporal lobes, which help with language and comprehension by creating a context for humor; and even the limbic system, which is involved in the release of dopamine, the “feel-good” chemical. In other words, when we laugh, it’s not just emotional, it’s neurological. Our brains are literally rewarding us for understanding a joke, and for connecting the dots between contradiction and truth.

For me, that play wasn’t just a cultural masterpiece. It was neuroscience in action. It pulled me out of a numb, monotonous routine and reawakened parts of my mind and heart that had gone quiet. Word by word, I was learning that Ziad’s plays, all of them actually, were not just entertainment, but more like coded messages from a time when saying too much out loud was dangerous. Word by word, joke by joke, I was learning how creativity is born under the pressure of wars, as well as political and religious divisions. Word by word, joke by joke and laugh by laugh, I was learning that, most importantly, theater is a translation of reality. It is that mirror that reflects truth and empowers it. Just as translation converts a message from one language to another, theater translates emotions, stories, and cultures into performance that becomes universally understood. After all, translation, in any aspect, is a real pleasure and passion for those who find joy in words and meanings and who love bridging cultures and differences. Ziad’s humor was not attempting to escape reality, but to face it.

So next time you hear some humor, listen closely, and you will realize: the jokes are doing more than making you smile. They are telling you the truth.

For citations:

APA Style

Saad, C. (2025, September 7). Beyond Laughter. Beyond the Words. https://beyondthewords.blog/2025/09/07/beyond-laughter/

 

                                                                                          © 2025 by the author.

Beyond Fear

Beyond Fear

by | Jun 15, 2022 | Society

Source: CNBC

They say actions speak louder than words, but they never say that words are loud enough to dictate actions. Words are so powerful that they can speak to our mind and make us act and react in a certain way. We might have heard someone saying, “your work sucks” or “you’re a failure”, and we probably had a feeling of agony and questioned our capacities. We probably hated and blamed ourselves for all the mistakes of the world, feared being rejected by other people and then projected our anger towards them. We probably grew up hearing things like “don’t or else”, “I dare you”, “don’t even think about it”, “you’d better stay away from” and other similar words and expressions that made us unsure about the world around us and led us to grow defensive. Dale Carnegie once said, “fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind”. The question is: how does fear get into our mind in the first place?

Social media platforms have invaded our lives. People can report any topic, but they are more likely to share negative news without being aware of how their words are causing others to feel or think, and therefore how they’re shaping their behavior. If in the past, it was easy to avoid a politician’s speech or a news report by simply turning off television, this seems unavoidable at the moment. Any event taking place anywhere can travel the whole world in less than a minute through social media.

It is through Twitter for example that I learned about Texas shooting on May 24. The incident took me back to my first year of teaching at university. The first time I learned about the second amendment was when I asked my Creative Writing students to write a review of the famous “Ban the Things. Ban them all“. In one of the papers, a student clearly disagreed with the writer and insisted on the necessity of maintaining this right. He even considered that any government should draft a similar law if it is uncapable of protecting its citizens. Texas shooting also made me recall Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, a 2002 documentary in which he raises a very important question regarding the elevated crime rate in the USA compared to other countries. The conclusion Moore reaches is quite remarkable: Americans are people who live in constant fear because of the public discourse they hear on a daily basis.

Throughout the years, American presidents and administrations have always spoken of a threat to America to justify the decisions they made including wars they waged or participated in. To justify the Iraqi war for example, former President George Bush said in a speech on October 7, 2002, that “the Iraqi dictator (Saddam Hussein) must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons”. Colin Powell who was the Secretary of State back then also mentioned that “Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb” while Vice President Dick Cheney considered that Hussein is gathering weapons of mass destruction to use them “against our friends, against our allies, and against us”. Iraq was invaded in 2003 and the American troops remained there till 2011. Surprisingly, the chemical, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction were not found there.

Another example can be seen in the presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump who announced in 2016 that he was planning to build a wall between America and Mexico. After being elected, he spoke of “caravans (of immigrants) coming” and how it was “getting more dangerous”. In his famous border wall speech in January 2019, Trump said “all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled, illegal migration. It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages”. He kept referring to the number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants. It turns out, however, that “immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States”. And the list of examples goes on…

Apparently, people are conditioned to believe that their communities are much more dangerous than they really are. Since the dawn of time, humans have discovered how powerful they can get by simply using the right words to create scenarios in people’s minds. Media, politics and even religions have had the capacity to control and manipulate people by instilling fear in them.

Are Americans the only people who are constantly living in fear? Is this scenario only made in America? Of course not. Fear is universal and even though it takes different shapes in different places, it bears the same fruit everywhere. When encountered with fear-provoking messages, the amygdala is stimulated and alarming messages navigate through the brain to interrupt its functions and impair our ability to reason. This is how we end up believing what we’re being told and we act accordingly.

You can imagine what happens when you are threatened: you do whatever it takes to save yourself and your family even if this involves buying guns and killing others. If fear is caused by words, and if fear is powerful, so are words. In countries like Lebanon for instance, people live in constant fear of the other who doesn’t look like them whether religiously, politically etc. because they are constantly reminded by politicians and media of the us/them scenario. What’s the result? According to a news report published in December 2021, Lebanese are buying more weapons for personal security; they fear the government will eventually be unable to protect them against “rising crime and political violence”. This makes me wonder: do governments accidently fail to protect their citizens or do they purposely plan for this failure to make other hidden schemes succeed?

A Word or a Trap?

A Word or a Trap?

by | May 4, 2022 | Media

We’re days away from the Lebanese parliamentary elections and the battle is raging. From media appearances to onsite electoral campaigns, candidates are moving by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, some are operating under the pretext of “all’s fair in love and war”. Proof to this is a video that circulated on social media and has been triggering outrage among people. The number of comments, posts and tweets that followed were no surprise. After all, it’s getting more critical and the reference to religion in our society always reaps the “right” fruits. You might have been among the ones who experienced and expressed anger but did you stop for a moment and think that you might be victim of a scheme?

In the first hours after the circulation of this video, social media platforms witnessed an outburst of anger among journalists, politicians, people from all backgrounds… For a piece of information to be true, it should be logical, ethical and emotional. When one of the three is missing, especially if it was logic or ethics, we need to refrain from any reaction and try to understand what’s really happening.

So, what do we have here? First, the sheikh is addressing an audience that we’re not sure of their existence since we can’t see or hear them. Second, we don’t know where and when this talk took place. Third, Hezbollah’s electoral slogan “we protect and we build” in the background gives us the impression that the sheikh is campaigning for the said party. However, a close look shows us that the background is virtually set, therefore fake. Fourth and most importantly, he uses negative words and calls his opponents “impure”. As we watch the whole video, we hear more of such negative words that are definitely so strong for us to handle, but if we’re to have a reaction for every negative word we hear, then we’re becoming an easy tool for others to manipulate.

Every time you hear, read or see a piece of information, be it political, economic, social or even religious, and you experience a great deal of negative or even positive emotions, you should ask yourself: is this true? Is it logical? It is when you find out that the information that made you feel angry or scared for example is built upon carefully-chosen and planned words, sometimes visuals that aim at instilling anger and fear in your heart. The moment you feel angry or scared, the survival center in your brain (the amygdala) releases chemicals (such as adrenaline and cortisol) to get you move quickly away from threats and to slow down any other function that is not necessary for survival.

Source: miro.medium.com

It is so quick that it makes you react before the cortex or the reasoning center gets the chance to check whether your reaction is reasonable or not. In such case, you stop thinking clearly and you miss the opportunity to really assess the information’s validity. You react, and it is usually difficult for most people to readjust or correct their reactions in a more thoughtful way later, so they build on it. This is exactly what happened when people watched the video of Sheikh Nazir Jishi and couldn’t notice the flaws that broke its validity.

The use of negative words causes a feeling of threat which alters the decision-making process among voters. As Aristotle once said, “persuasion may come from the hearers, when speech stirs their emotions”. This is why words are power, and when power is abused, you fall into the trap. However, when you train yourself to see beyond the words, you can start becoming more aware of what’s happening and helping your reasoning to override your emotional responses so that the words you hear would not become your own trap.

“Metle Metlak”, a Misplaced Argument

“Metle Metlak”, a Misplaced Argument

by | May 3, 2022 | Society

Source: facebook.com/DRILebanon

While surfing Facebook few days ago, I came across the hashtag #متلي_متلك (Metle Metlak) or “I’m like you” under a series of videos presenting a number of ladies encouraging people to vote for female candidates in the coming parliamentary elections. At first sight, one might see it as a positive step, but it doesn’t really seem enough. Why is such campaign not as effective as it should be? Why is “Metle Metlak” a misplaced argument that doesn’t really serve its purpose?

I found the answer to these questions as I was heading to one of the supermarkets, and saw a slogan sitting on the billboard there. Part of it says: كوني قديرة وبمشاويرك وفّيرة (be capable enough to save money). I recalled the number of times I heard people talking about “capable” women known for their abilities to work, raise kids, take care of the house chores and effectively manage the family’s finances. Then, I came across the campaign behind that slogan on social media: a man playing online games while his wife is thinking about the hassle of running errands. He ends up telling her that his mum has been always “capable” for she knew how to save money. Funny, isn’t it? Not really! Actually, what’s funny is that such message did not result in any negative reaction. Why? Because “capable” women in our society are the ones who manage their families’ finances that men provide. It’s simply an already existing model in the minds of the Lebanese people.

Media have been among the biggest contributors to the assignment of gender roles. A commercial running on tv at the moment shows members of a family telling the father what they need to buy. A little boy wants running shoes, his sister needs new clothes and the mother wants to get groceries. Why is it that media keep presenting this image of the father who is in charge of providing financial means? More women in Lebanon are now financially independent and they have their own jobs. Why isn’t it acceptable that a woman could be the provider or that both of them could?

Because language activates certain frames in our brain, we can only understand what our brain allows us to understand. We are likely to refuse anything we hear or read if it doesn’t conform with the view that we have about the world. The frame that is drawn in a man’s mind makes it difficult to accept what lies outside of it. Therefore, how do you expect a man to accept you saying you’re like him when he was assigned the role of providing security and stability for his family? How do you expect him to accept you saying you’re like him when he unconsciously thinks that you’re not?

Wanting a gender-biased society to trust our ability to run a country is a wishful thinking, especially when it is convinced that our role is to run our own houses. The solution lies in reframing, which means changing how people perceive the role of women, and to do so, a new language and new means are highly needed. If we, women, want to be recognized as active members of the society, we need to change our discourse because thinking differently requires speaking differently and using the right techniques. Unfortunately, “Metle Metlak” is not one of those techniques…

Till Death Do Us Part

Till Death Do Us Part

by | May 3, 2022 | Politics

Source: aliwaa.com.lb

On the evening of 17 October, 2019, I could not foresee the turning point that was lying ahead in the history of Lebanon. The protests that spread across the country after the government had announced its “plans to impose new taxes on free messaging apps like Whatsapp”, turned into clashes between protesters and the riot police. I remember that moment as if it was yesterday. It was not the first time this scene gets into my way, but this time, it felt different because unlike previous protests and clashes, these kept me up all night. For the first time in my life, I wanted to believe that change was on the way, but it was not long before my hopes bumped into the wall.

When the protests took place at the end of 2019, the slogan which was heard all over Lebanon, “all of them means all of them”, soon turned into “all of them means all of them except my party’s leader” and it was not long before we started to witness a clear regression. Months later, in the middle of a discussion on the degrading situation in the country, a friend asked, “what is it with the citizens of this country? They are suffering from all kinds of misery, yet they enjoy living in denial. Why do supporters of the Lebanese political parties refuse to give up on their leaders even though it’s clear to them that those leaders are not making their lives easier”?

As interesting as this matter sounded back then, I couldn’t really find an explanation or even a justification for the prevailing Lebanese attitude until I came across a lecture by Linguist and Cognitive Scientist, George Lakoff who explains how language activates certain frames in our brain. When we hear or read something that conforms with the view that we have about the world, we are likely to believe it even though we might know it’s a lie. We feel before we think, so it’s very difficult for us to rely solely on our logical reasoning. By being aware of this brain’s function and using the right techniques of persuasion, politicians can easily attract their supporters and keep them on their side.

Based on where they live and how they were raised, people are predestined to think a certain way and vote a certain way. They vote based on their emotions, so politicians don’t need to make any election promises. They simply need to plan their discourse around specific values and beliefs such as “Lebanese resistance”, “Lebanese identity”, “religious communities’ rights”, “neutrality” and so on. As long as a discourse is planned this way, people will vote for the same politicians till death do them part.