Saad Hariri released a statement today commemorating the death of Nelson Mandela, which contained the following sentence:

“بلغ مانديلا من العمر حدود المئة، وبقي حتى اللحظة الاخيرة من حياته قطعة نادرة من الذهب الأسمر التي تلمع في ارجاء البشرية، وتقدم في كل يوم أمثلة حية عن قيم الصفح والمصالحة والاعتراف بالآخر، وإنزال العقاب المعنوي والأخلاقي بكل المفاهيم التي تجعل من الانسان وحشا ضاريا يخوض صراع البقاء بروح التسلط والاستئثار والانتقام”.

“Mandela nearly reached the age of a hundred, and remained until the last minute of his life a rare piece of brown gold glittering over humanity, presenting live examples of the values of forgiveness, reconciliation, the recognition of the other… etc.”

I hereby announce a competition to find an even more insulting way for a Lebanese leader to commemorate the great man. Leave your suggestions in the comment section below. Here are some ideas to get you started:

“He was an obsidian rock of hope in the whitewater rapids of prejudice…” “He was the black hole that made all the racism in the galaxy go away…” “He was the brown bread that made humanity’s diet so much healthier…”

It’s days like this…