LEBANON TO REVERSE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME DECISION
The logistical chaos caused by living under two simultaneous timings will come to an end tomorrow
Lebanon’s residents, caught between two different time zones, struggled to get to school and work on time yesterday.
Families found themselves divided by time following a decision by Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister to postpone daylight saving time by one month, which took effect on Sunday morning.
After a number of institutions refused to implement the change, Lebanon has operated under two different time zones.
Yesterday afternoon, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati reversed his decision.
Following a hastily-called emergency cabinet meeting, it was decided that the logistical chaos caused by living under two simultaneous timings would end tomorrow.
Clocks will go forward one hour overnight tomorrow, Mr
Mikati said. Upon hearing the news, Shady Hazem Bedda, a computer science student at the American University of Beirut, said: “This is why people shouldn’t play with time.”
When Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri – both Muslim – agreed last minute to an exceptional month-long postponement of daylight saving, it seemed like a gesture of goodwill.
The decision coincided with the start of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.
But the result was confusion, political displeasure, sectarian turbulence and logistical chaos. Churches, some private establishments, and a number of media outlets refused to comply. The Minister of Justice denounced the measure, calling it illegal.
The Education Minister initially refused to comply with Mr Mikati’s decision, then changed his mind.
Suddenly, the Lebanese were divided between following what people are popularly referring to as the “Muslim time zone” – the time as decided by Mr Berri and Mr Mikati – and a “Christian time zone”. The
American University of Beirut announced in a press statement that it would abide by both time zones. Its medical centre, meanwhile, would remain on the Muslim time zone “until our IT teams can reconfigure the systems to follow daylight saving hours”.
Mohammad Madarani, a 21-year-old student, was stuck in between.
Emerging from the American University of Beirut’s Medical Centre, he told The National
that he’d just made an appointment for Friday at 8:30am – or, as his phone had automatically jumped forward one hour, 9:30am. That confusion was just the start.
“My cousin” – who is on Muslim time – “drove me to university,” he explained. “I woke him up at 7am. It was six in the morning for him. It was way too early. For me, I was late.”
Mr Madarani’s sister and mother woke up an hour ahead of the rest of the household, because most schools were still operating on government-approved time. But to get to work on time, his father changed his clock to Christian time.
Members of the Madarani household exist on different timelines. But come evening, the family will be reunited.
“When the sun sets, we will all have our meal,” Mr Madarani
Clocks will go forward one hour overnight tomorrow, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati says
said. “Maybe our clocks will have different times … but the sun will have set.”
Lama Berro, a substitute teacher and part-time AUB student, has remained on Muslim time. “It’s easier to operate on winter time for me as a Muslim, because I’m fasting. It means we work less and fast less,” she said.
Ms Berro acknowledged that the clock controversy caused some minor issues, as her classes and work are on the other timezone but, like many interviewed by The National said, she’d already adapted to the time difference.
“We should invest in our time, instead of having conflicts over it,” she added.
Lebanon has been without a president, a post assigned to a Maronite Christian, since October last year due to political
disagreement. The timezone discrepancy has caused many to question the nature of the arbitrary decision, perceived by the country’s Christian leadership as an exploitation of the presidential vacuum by two Muslim leaders.
The time difference immediately ignited heated political and sectarian arguments in the country, where positions of power are delicately shared by Lebanon’s 18 religious sects.
Ms Berro told The National she was sad to see time become so politicised.
“I wish that this hadn’t happened,” she said, referring to the initial decision to postpone daylight saving time.
“It would have been so normal to establish the summer time and fast normally.”
Sunday’s news that Lebanon’s residents woke up in two different time zones led to jokes about “Muslim time” and “Christian time” but it also exemplified some of the problems facing the state.
The government announced that the usual start of Daylight Saving Time would be delayed until April 21. Although no reason was given, a leaked video of senior officials discussing the move published by a Lebanese media outlet suggested that postponing the time change until the end of Ramadan would allow Muslims to break their fast an hour earlier.
Thankfully, the move was reversed yesterday but the fact that such an important announcement was made with no independent oversight points to the ad hoc nature of decision making in Lebanon and the weakness of its institutions. Justice Minister Henri Khoury’s condemnation of the move revealed internal turmoil.
In a country with as diverse a population as Lebanon’s, this near-unilateral decision quickly led to disarray as some communities, ministries, schools and religious institutions refused to comply, instead putting their watches and schedules forward one hour as usual. That the decision was made despite concerns about its possible effect on essential infrastructure such as flight times is worrying.
The result was that work meetings, medical appointments and transport schedules were to run on two separate times. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s mobile networks were telling customers to change their phone’s clock back manually if they wanted to abide by government time.
The postponement of the time change could have led to sectarian tensions rising, with the government appearing to try to biggest religious communities but exasperating many other citizens in the process. It is not unknown for countries to change their time standards. Turkey, for example, stopped turning its clocks back in 2016. But the situation that unfolded in Lebanon over the weekend is the first in which residents living in a single time zone were to operate on two different times. One satirical graphic trending online depicted the country partitioned into more than a dozen time zones, depending on which community had a majority in that area.
However, the fact that such confusion over something so important took place in a country going through one of the worst economic crises in modern history is no laughing matter. One Twitter post shared on Sunday showed two Lebanese women talking about the daylight-saving move, saying: “What does it matter what time you eat if you can’t afford to eat?”
Had they been allowed to stand, Lebanon’s dual time zones would have been in parallel to its many currency exchange rates. Sadly, every such misstep in Lebanon – no matter how quickly they are rectified – risks generating more passivity from potential donors, whose funding will be necessary to salvage the economy. Many would-be allies in the international community are watching to see signs of political and institutional reform before committing to help. Being unable to tell the time will hardly reassure them.