Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Taxation is Violence

Some days, as we read about the latest atrocity from the ISIS "caliphate," the Iranian "democracy," or the Saudi "monarchy," it’s easy to forget that the people of the Middle East are, in many ways, not that different from us.

Then there are days like today.

The people of Egypt are out in Tahrir Square again, but this time not to protest. Amid flags and fireworks, they’re celebrating that the national team qualified for the World Cup.

As for Lebanon, there the people are protesting, but not against the United States or Israel: they’re protesting that their taxes are going up.

Against the backdrop of a nearly $5 billion budget deficit and nearly 150% debt-to-GDP, the Lebanese Parliament last July approved a billion dollar increase in government employee salaries—and a corresponding tax hike to fund it. Last month the Constitutional Council overturned the tax hike, but yesterday Parliament reinstated it with the necessary amendments.

The Lebanese have taken to Twitter and #Stunned_by_Force is trending. There’s a pun in there because the words for stunned and taxes sound similar. Both come from the word daraba which means hit, which gave us our English word drub. In Arabic, therefore, taxation is literally violence.

Some complained about the burden:

Taxes on the people for people on the dole.

 

 

Others called out the politicians:

Oppressive official wants to convince oppressed citizens that taxes are for the good of the people. #fail #marvelous_country #stunned_by_force

 

Member of Parliament Ibrahim Kanaan in particular was called out for hypocrisy. Apparently he voted for the bill despite a previous call not to hike the VAT:

Kanaan demands suspending Value Added Tax increases

 

The woman in this picture is former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard:

 

 

It’s easy to complain about the politicians, but at the end of the day, they’re the ones the voters elected.

 

Fortunately, some Lebanese voters have channeled the spirit of the American Tea Party and promise to do something about it:

 

Granted, that’s going to require a bit more effort than complaining on Twitter:

Q: How do the Lebanese people stand up to a tax hike?
A: We let loose the hashtag #Stunned_by_Force and it trended. The street is for cats and trash and we withdraw to our houses.

 

This lady summed things up nicely:

 

Michael Isenberg writes about the Muslim world, medieval and modern. His forthcoming novel, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092. It depicts the war for the Muslim soul between those who seek to enforce shari’a strictly, persecute Jews and Christians, and stamp out "un-Islamic" science, and those who wink at a few sins, tolerate their non-Muslim neighbors, and write science books instead of burning them.

Posted by at
Labels: , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)