Rami Ollaik

Rami Ollaik (born 1972) is a Lebanese writer, political activist, attorney, and professor of beekeeping in the American University of Beirut (AUB).

He is also the founder of the Lebanon Ahead movement, and initiator of the 10 October Revolution.

He is best known for his autobiography, The Bees Road (طريق النحل).

Ollaik was born in Khiam in southern Lebanon to a family with a heritage in beekeeping.

At the age of 13, Ollaik was recruited into Hezbollah and later on became the party's student representative at AUB.

Between 1992 and 1996, Ollaik played a crucial role in Hezbollah's growing and controversial influence in AUB, and led the 10 October student protest of 1994.

Ollaik resigned from the party's ranks in 1996.

In 2008, Ollaik published his autobiography, "The Bees Road", which recounts his experience with Hezbollah.

The book was rewritten in English and a French adaptive translation "La Route des Abeilles" was released by Editions Anne Carriere in Paris.

In 2009, Ollaik founded Lebanon Ahead, a movement aimed at improving the country and changing it into a peaceful and democratic nation by creating a platform of communication and understanding among citizens.

Through it, he founded a coalition of independent democratic civic forces “Takaddom” and ran with two other candidates on Lebanon Ahead's ticket in the general parliamentary elections.

Ollaik published Your Guide to Beekeeping - Arabic in 2010, co-written with his father Salman Ollaik.

A sequel to The Bees Road, "Under the Green Waters", was published in Arabic on November 21, 2012 and a second sequel is currently underway – the final version of the trilogy.

Ollaik also launched a national protest movement for political reform in 2013, “10 October Revolution”, which focused on the need to abolish the Lebanese sectarian political system through amending the prevailing sectarian structure of the Lebanese state since Independence.

The revolution calls for the establishment of a sovereign nation for all Lebanese, where all citizens are equal under the law and where corruption is curbed, and for restoring the voting power of the people through a just, modern, non-sectarian electoral law.

In 2013, Sofia Amara directed, alongside Bruno Joucla, the documentary The Renegade on the work of Ollaik.

Ollaik pursued a BS in agriculture and diploma in agricultural engineering and an MS in agricultural economics at AUB, and a PhD in food and resource economics at the University of Florida.

He also obtained a License degree in Law from the Lebanese University and became an attorney at law at the Beirut Bar Association.

In an inspirational journey that takes the reader from war-torn South Lebanon to a detention cell at JFK airport, The Bees Road is the personal narrative of Rami Ollaik.

A Lebanese Shiite raised in an environment full of violence and cruelty, Rami joins and rises to the top echelons of Hezbollah.

After 13 years of party involvement, he reevaluates his life and his conception of love in an attempt to rid himself of his haunting fundamentalist past and to finally pursue his ultimate goal of personal freedom.

A rough path that leaves him a traitor to Hezbollah, a suspected terrorist to the United States, a professor of beekeeping in Beirut, and author of The Bees Road.

The Bees Road follows the true life of Rami Ollaik starting with his childhood in Southern Lebanon at the brink of the Lebanese Civil War.

This ravaged landscape proves inescapable, and, like many Southern Lebanese Shiites, Rami is drawn to Hezbollah's resistance movement and indoctrinated into a path of fundamentalist Islam.

Distinguishing himself in the Party of God, Rami builds friendships and connections with some of Hezbollah's most prominent figures.

However, as he moves to Lebanon's capital to attend the American University of Beirut and head Hezbollah's AUB recruitment operations, pivotal events on campus and key interactions with the student body cause him to question his values, his views on women, and even the Party itself.

After clashing with Hezbollah's leadership, Rami leaves the Party of God to pursue a life of open-mindedness and freedom.

This personal reform proves difficult, involving humiliating romantic interactions and a troubling suicide attempt, but eventually the path of the new Rami takes him all the way to the United States to pursue his education.

In the land of “The Great Satan,” it doesn’t take long for Rami to fall in love with everything that America stands for.

Unfortunately, the fateful events of September 11 and the resulting national paranoia and Islamophobia push Rami into confrontations with the FBI, blackmail, and interrogation.

After an unexpected and unwarranted deportation from the US, Rami's assistant-ship is canceled and he's forced to continue his PhD studies through distance correspondence.

The story ends with Rami back in his home country teaching beekeeping at AUB, filled with the urge to build a stronger Lebanon and unite the nation as whole.

A French version of the book, La route des abeilles, was released in France by Éditions Anne Carriere.

- ISBN 978-9953596006

A war-shocked child brought under the wing of Hezbollah.

That child's growth into a man, and his subsequent Intifadas.

A traitor to Hezbollah, a suspected terrorist to the United States, a professor of beekeeping and author of The Bees Road.

Where is Rami Ollaik?

Where has his unlikely path taken him?

And, perhaps most importantly, who has been watching him?