Rome to Beirut or Tel Aviv

The airport of Rome sticks the gate to the plane going to Beirut to the one going to Tel Aviv. Every single time I have used Italian airports for flight connections it is the same thing. It could be taken as a lesson of ill-directed pride. It could be read something like: for us you are the same, chunks of lands juxtaposed, bunch of brown people with similar attributes, so your gates should be just like Paris and Brussels gates are next to each other. Or it could be read as laziness to separate both gates just because there is a conflict between the two post-colonial countries. Now ironically enough, planes are separated because of “security issues”…

I usually go and sit between the Israeli crowd. As I am early, only one Rabbi sits there with his usual big belly eating a sandwich or something. I take out my laptop and starts listening to Bach’s art of the fugue (blabla). Try that, listen to Bach gently setting a serene almost mystical atmosphere while seeing Israelis arrive. Slowly emerge out of nowhere passenger after passenger and this weird feeling of being surrounded by something different, hostile but exiting overtake me. “Khkhkh” that’s all I can hear. I try to rationalize things thinking that these are individuals, mostly harmless “civilians” as prevailing political legal structures would have it, but my mind seem to evade my will. I always play this game actually. Every time I travel and the occasion presents itself I do that, I go and sit with the Israelis, and each time, I try to feel somewhat differently, this overbearing feeling of irritation but struggle to understand and subliminally ‘reach out’.

This time I listen to a conversation next to me, and it is in Lebanese Arabic. At first it seemed like these two men are Lebanese, like me, who thought of playing this stupid game of “sitting between the Israelis.” But it turns out these are Lebanese who live in Israel. Later on, I sat between the Lebanese, the ones sitting for the plane leaving to Beirut, and I watched the other Lebanese board on the plane to Tel Aviv. I want to wave them goodbye, do something, anything. And then the brouhaha of spoken Lebanese slowly embrace me and gradually tame my ardours, my thoughts. Our own divisions is the subject of the day. The recent armed clashes in Beirut, the various political squabbles following the election of the new parliament, the appointment of Saad Hariri as prime minister, the Sunni-Shi’ite conflict, the increasingly scared Christian and their ill-understood liberty, and so on, and so on…

I give a couple of clicks to my computer and listen to Zaki Murad, that great Jewish Egyptian singer of the early 1900s: Yes’ed layalik, laya…alik, ya…a…a…amar! Akh ya Zaki…

Three Quarters …

Obama signed the 2009 war supplemental tonight. It includes $69 million for Lebanon –  almost all of it Foreign Military Financing (FMF), I believe. The administration had requested $90 million from Congress and would likely have faced tough sledding on Capitol Hill had M8 won the June vote.

Bobby: Actually, Elias, full-length would be creepy; three quarters is gangsta-chic.

This Aphorism Travels Well …

“He packs a tight suitcase.”

More from the Giggle Factory …

Why we never imagined that these ideas would affect how people interacted with the world around them and interpreted it is hard to explain. What is easy to explain is why Western journalists, academics, writers and artists are in love with the Islamic Resistance – it is not despite the violence, but because of it. So how would they like it if an armed gang ran through New York, London or Paris? In effect, it already has.

I think this is the 203rd article in this publication about this ‘phenomenon,’ so let me now ask that I be included in the M14 talking-point listserve.

I propose that they honor their common ancestors by calling themseves Va’ad ha Emet. On second thought, I propose nothing, because they are already the apotheosis of self-parody and do not require my ‘divining’ interventions.

Anyway, especially delicious is the fact that these guys are basically admitting that M14 cannot get good media coverage in the West unless they PAY FOR IT (more on this later).

If such a state is not a sweet-n-sour tragedy, then my Chinese translations of the Greek originals are more useless than ever.

PS: If readers are interested, I could walk through these arguments this weekend when I get the time. Let me know.

PPS: Ours is a coterie, theirs is a factory. If you are confused, just do the math and read your history (more on this later, too).

Woman win case to pass on citizenship

A woman, Samira Sowaidan has won a case, with her lawyer Souha Ismail, to be able to pass on her Lebanese citizenship to her four kids. Samira got married to an Egyptian man working at the Beirut port in 1985, and currently lives in Borj Hammoud. Her husband died in 1994, and this automatically meant that her kids were born in a country and lived all their life in it while paying annual charges for living visas or ‘iqamat’. At some point she could not pay this amount anymore while piling up the number of jobs she had to do to get enough money, now that her husband was not here to support.
It took an energetic and determined lawyer, and a judge famous for his ‘humanistic’ approach to ruling, John Qazi, to create a new status-quo when available texts clearly did not give the possibility for a woman to pass on her Lebanese nationality.
So now the decision is in the matters of the State, i.e. the prime minister in this case. Will they accept the judge’s ruling?

Read to know the world

By now it is all out in the news, that Druze leader Walid Jumblatt met yesterday with Hizbullah SG Hassan Nasrallah. Beyond all the political implications of this meeting that was anyway foreseen given the shifts in Jumblatt position, I want to point out a very interesting development that happened during this meeting. According to Al-akhbar’s account, Jumblatt offered Nasrallah one of Tariq Ali’s books on Pakistan. Now I know from my own sources (that can always be questioned of course) that Nasrallah loves reading right-wing Political books on Israel, ex-army or politicians memoirs, American and Israeli think-tanks pundits, and other Huntingtonians, as well as the Zionist intellectual sphere. But does Jumblatt’s gift mean some kind of peace offering? Is it akin to when tribes would sit and seal reconciliation with gifts of sorts (say goats or lambs, or precious artifacts)? Or is it just another way of saying: “I’m keeping up with news, they’re basically focusing on Pakistan and Afghanistan right now, I know what the Americans are up to”. All is speculations of course, just imagining scenarios for the new Jumblatti motion picture.

A box office success…

… Karim Makdisi nails it:

Lebanon’s June 7 national election was a box office success. It had it all: shady politicians, foreign intrigue, bribes, beautiful women, meddling religious figures, sectarian agitation, recently exposed spy rings, fundamentalists collaborating with capitalists, the poor and oppressed voting for the rich and privileged. It was a brilliantly marketed production with more twists and turns than a Hitchcock thriller, and an unpredictable finale in which the ‘good’ guys (the pro-US, anti-Iran, pro-‘moderate’ Arab, pro-‘peace process,’ March 14 coalition headed by Prime Minister-in-waiting Sa’ad Hariri, son of assassinated former PM Rafiq Hariri) defeated the ‘bad’ guys (the pro-Resistance, pro-‘Axis of Evil,’ anti-corruption Opposition coalition led by Hizbullah and Christian leader Michel Aoun) to retain their Parliamentary majority. All this accomplished with few security problems, record voter turn out, generally magnanimous winners and dignified losers. No wonder Western elections observers were smiling from ear to ear as they proclaimed, “free and fair” from the rooftops. They were, in the words of Jimmy Carter, so “proud” of the natives, who showed that they could be “democratic” and even managed to re-produce the patented “third world” grin and blue-ink-thumb of Iraq 2005 fame.

And see I’m not the only one who says it (although he writes it much better than me:

All in all, 80-90% of the parliamentary seats on offer had already been decided de facto prior to election day: most districts with clear Sunni or Shia’a Muslim majorities voted in their districts with frightening uniformity and discipline for the March 14 coalition and the Opposition respectively, and only the mixed Christian districts were genuinely in play with fierce competition between the two sides. The focus on Christian districts, in turn, brought out the kind of jingoism and chauvinism that has long characterized Christian elite discourse and inflated self-regard, with each side insisting it represented and defended the true interests of (Christian) Lebanon.Post-election analysis within elite Christian circles has thus centered on which side had won in the “pure” or “clean” districts, meaning those areas with Christian-majority electorate unsullied by Muslim voters. Under these conditions it is no surprise that fascist-lite candidates, notably from the March 14 Lebanese Forces and Phalanges Party, gained seats by recalling their old project of dividing Lebanon into ‘pure’ sectarian cantons.

To read also is Raed’s Gramscian insight on how the elections were doomed to be biased towards the majority viewing how the media and producers of knowledge are structured.

Meow …

This report is intended solely for the official use of the Department of State or the Broadcasting Board of Governors, or any agency or organization receiving a copy directly from the Office of Inspector General. No secondary distribution may be made, in whole or in part, outside the Department of State or the Broadcasting Board of Governors, by them or by other agencies or organizations, without prior authorization by the Inspector General under the U.S. Code, 5 U.S.C. 552. Improper disclosure of this report may result in criminal, civil, or administrative penalties.

Now Lebanon is produced by Quantum Communications, some of whose contracts with the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (originally the Middle East Television Network, but renamed in 2005) are described in the OIG-DOS report sourced above. The report was conducted due to ‘irregularities’ in the contracting process.

MTN/MBN was created in 2003 by the Emergency War Supplemental under the authority and funding of the Board of Broadcasting Governors, a US government-funded ‘independent agency.’ Soon thereafter, al Hurra was on the air. It has a budget of about $100 million a year from the BBG’s total budget of about $700 million (Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Sawa, Radio Farda, Radio Free Asia, Radio Marti, TV Marti, as well as al Hurra). There may also be additional revenue streams, but I am not sure.

Quantum Communications, along with Brand Central (which also received MTN/MBN contracts), Vertical Middle East and Firehorse Films comprise the Quantum Group, which is headed by Eli Khoury, who also directs Saatchi-Levant. He is also a founder of the Lebanese Renaissance Foundation, a DC-based group that lobbies the US federal government. The LRF has paid DLA Piper about $1 million for lobbying services since 2007 (the DOJ’s very incomplete online FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act) database includes no Lebanese principals — Brazzaville has five!).

Quantum has had a slew of corporate and government clients (Jordan, Lebanon, IDAL, etc.), so it is difficult to know how much of their business comes from the US government. Perhaps very little, perhaps a great deal.

The IOG-DOS refers only to some initial MTN/MBN contracts in 2004 worth some $4.5 million, so it is unclear how much business Quantum has done through al Hurra. Saatchi-Levant also won a State Department contract for the now-defunct Hi Magazine.

Quantum has also been engaged in Iraq. For example, it has produced a series of television ads under the name of a phantom organization, the Future Iraq Assembly. The ads are available on Youtube and are similar to ads that also ran in Lebanon. Most observers believe the spots are funded by either the Defense or State Department.

It is unclear if Quantum was involved in any contracts related to al-Iraqiya. The station, part of the Pentagon “Free Iraq Media” plan, was initially the product of SAIC and served the needs of the Coalition Provisional Authority. In 2004, however, the Pentagon awarded a new contract for Iraq media to the Harris Group, who subcontracted the work out to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) and a Kuwaiti media company.

Interestingly, Firehorse Films seems to have been around since the early 1990s, producing documentaries about cultural matters. Anyway, post-2003, it has produced a film about al-Zarqawi for LBC, a documentary about religious minorities in the Middle East (yes, the Maronites play a starring role) for al Jazeera, and a documentary about the life and death of Arab nationalism. While I have no idea if these productions have made up the bulk of its work, they do suggest an interesting political line, no?

Is it art, the ‘market,’ political conviction or government subcontracts that is driving demand? I just cannot say, but imagine that like most collective human endeavors, it is a mixture of all those things.

More to come on the Pravdas of the Pradas.

The Coterie Strikes Again …

a coterie of Western journalists and analysts

Good grief! Will someone please buy the M14 kiddos a thesaurus?

WTF …

The Asahi newspaper reported today Italian police found bond certificates concealed in the bottom of luggage the two individuals were carrying on a train that stopped in Chiasso, near the Swiss border, on June 3.

The undeclared bonds included 249 certificates worth $500 million each, the Asahi said, citing Italian authorities. The case was reported earlier in Italian newspapers Il Giornale and La Repubblica and by the Ansa news agency.

That’s $124 billion. In somebody’s suitcase. WTF.

The return of the right

I don’t know if this has gone unnoticed, but there has been something strangely disenchanting about local Christian politics in modern day Lebanon.

I will list a couple of disjointed points:

1- The Loubnanouhom paradigm is gaining institutional currency. Once a remote petty reactionary movement led by the son of a disgruntled leader followed by a plethora university followers, now the leader of Lebanon-old party, the Kataeb, and a parliamentary member, Sami Gemayel may well be the representative of Christian isolationism for the decades to come. As this article makes clear, Gemayel will still brandish the federalist option as a suitable system for the Lebanese tiny hell-hole of 10452km2. I remember having this discussion with a friend who said that these guys will always be marginal to the Lebanese political system. That was without counting Christian betise. In a matter of a bit more than a year, Sami Gemayel is now at the top of the most reactionary and elitist political organization of the country. Today Loubnanouna is the Kataeb party: Young, re-energized, very elitist, anti-Muslim, and ready to impress.

2- The Tayyar/Hizbullah is not just being undermined in the economy of texts, meaning, and knowledge, but is most probably the one trigger of the winning of more radical Christian right-wing brands. Basically, Christians were not prepared to understand such rapprochement, it is just anathema to their different cultural viewpoints. I won’t cite here the multitudes of media propaganda that kept on bashing this very unusual political step judging from Lebanese historical practices. From my own experience, I felt that whether coming from Tayyar or from Hizbullah, both parties had a very strong interest at keeping a solid alliance that reached down social networks and localized activism. But what is scary here is to see that Christian chauvinism has trumpeted the culture of this agreement, and has actually rejected. Hizbullah is still a weird and unknown beast for many Christians from Tayyar who if anything do bear the marks of historical Christian isolationism. This is not a condemnation I insist. This is the very core of Lebanese first national narrative: the Maronite re-writing of history of geography and community. It just cannot be otherwise, unless you do away with On what parties like the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb are betting by allying with Hariri, I still can’t figure it out. But I find it hard to believe that they could have found an admiration for Sunni politics, even though Sunni politics has dramatically change throughout the years, going from a form of contesting the very existence of the Lebanese state and its Maronite dominance to adopting a virulent the concept of Lebanon, change the national mythologies.

3- One of the reasons why Hizbullah is hardly accepted is because they present new national stories that are quite different from the earlier Christian even though quite dependent on them. Hizbullah’s weapon is not really an issue in itself because it is the way one perceives these weapons that changes the picture: Hizbullah is seen as contradicting actual (sanctified, official, etc) Lebanese national priorities. Whereas Hizbullah supporters and allies find it very logical that Hizbullah has weapons for ‘national’ reasons, whatever the reasons it makes sense to them, in the same vein others are truly scared of that. But the scary aspect of it is caused by a cultural factor. Countless times did I have discussions with Christians (when I say Christian I talk of people belonging to a specific social ‘niche’ like me for example), who after showing the rationale behind the weapons (Israeli threats, resistance, etc) would quickly revert to the argument, “but we don’t want to live in an Islamic state” or “we want to still be able to drink alcohol” etc. That is the frightening part, even if baseless.

4- But still Hizbullah will have to come to terms with that. If they want to be part of the Lebanese game (i.e. nation), which is surely what they want, they will have to accept Christian petty fears. But as I already mentioned here, the biggest competitor to Hizbullah is Tayyar at the end of the day. This may be exacerbated now that the Tayyar/Hizbullah alliance is being shaken from its foundations. I don’t think thought that this alliance will fall apart, but will surely assume other priorities. Maybe more interesting ones. Let’s see.

Political Party Assistance: Say Hello, Waive Goodbye …?

Two principles govern USAID’s political party assistance policy:

• USAID programs support representative, multiparty systems; and
• USAID programs do not seek to determine election outcomes.

From these principles flow the following guidelines. When it serves U.S. foreign policy interests, however, these guidelines may be waived.

• USAID programs must make a good faith effort to assist all democratic parties with equitable levels of assistance. Assistance to non-democratic parties is prohibited. Where there are too many democratic political parties to assist all effectively, USAID will assist all significant democratic parties. The relevant U.S. Government Mission will determine which parties are significant.

• Commodity support valued at $50,000 or less may be provided annually to each political party that qualifies for assistance.

• Political party assistance should be suspended for a reasonable time period prior to voting. Thirty days is a usual period, but it will vary depending upon the lead-time before an election.
Prohibited activities linked to influencing election outcomes that would require a waiver include

• Offering assistance to only one political candidate, party, or electoral coalition;

• Providing commodity support valued over $50,000 to any individual party;

• Providing cash grants to any political party;

• Paying salaries, wages, fees, or honoraria to any candidate, political party leader, or campaign official during a campaign period;

• Paying for private polls for only one party or candidate;

• Organizing public meetings that endorse or feature only one candidate or political party;

• Paying for a media message that specifically endorses or supports one candidate or political party; and

• Making payments to individuals with the intention of influencing votes.

Policy Exceptions

Washington concurrence is required for activities deviating from this policy that use Economic Support Funds (ESF), Freedom Support Act (FSA), Assistance for Eastern European and Baltic States (AEEB), and Transition Initiative (TI) funds. No waiver is possible, however, for use of Development Assistance (DA) funds.

This policy guideline memo is from 2003, but read further to see how the USAID kiddos are to interpret whether or not a party is ‘democratic’ or not. Of course, it was the position of the United States Government that all parties who did not support Lebanon’s government were ‘undemocratic.’ Think about that for a second: opposition to government = undemocratic.

Anyway, I don’t much should be made of such assistance and it pales in comparison to the contribution of others.

Moreover, my chief interest in this is as a US citizen who is not terribly comfortable with the idea of USG and other-funded propaganda being laundered overseas, folded neatly into my morning newspaper and then worn by DC professionals to advocate certain policies. My second interest in this is that when it comes time for Israel to bomb Lebanon, efforts to delegitimize large portions of Lebanon’s population gives the campaign a ‘hygienic’ quality in American circles — let us not forget that Bolton called the 2006 war ‘good politics.’

It does makes me laugh to think of youthful cadres from some of the M14 parties being taught how to use the internet by northern Virginia-based ‘consultants’. I wonder if those sessions look a bit like this.

Similarly, I am interested in how much money USAID has dumped into Zahle since 2005 ($5-10 million??), but I am more interested in the big dollars, the private sector and the media (I leave out covert aid, because frankly I have no way of knowing, but we should note the two presidential findings by the Bush Administration).

Anyway, I guess I will start firing up my FOIA requests. Stay tuned.

Royal Math: One Plane = One Election …

When his Royal Highness needs to get some work done, he can take the elevator up to his boardroom and play with the touch screen TV’s or the holographic projection system.

And finally in the lineup of ludicrous additions – get this – the well being room has a floor made from a giant screen, showing what the plane is flying over.

Total price? About $488 Million Dollars.

Via M.

I suppose each Royal has his preferred plaything: a pimped out airplane, a French politician, a Mediterranean country of four million — you know, basically whatever tickles one’s fancy.

Anyway, I thought about doing a post about how impressed I was with Saad Hariri’s performance. I felt that I really underestimated his leadership of the Sunni community and Future’s ability to effect discipline on the herds of cats that roam Lebanon’s plains.

Such an analysis will have to wait, though, until we can tally the cost of Lebanon’s election for Hariri and the Saudis (over $700 million in this account). Of course, we will have to add whatever the Americans threw into the effort and then subtract whatever the increase from the Iranians. And still we need to know more about Aoun’s pockets (do they still accept French Francs in Lebanon???). Actually, call me crazy, but I would not be surprised if a lot of Arab money (including some Saudi) ended up in Opposition hands.

If after making these adjustments, it turns out that this election was several times more expensive for the Saudis than the previous one, then M14 is more shaky than ever.

I don’t intend this post as a diss of Hariri (I find the idea of Saudi remote control as dumb as Syrian remote control or Iranian remote control — think transactionally, people!). And, frankly it requires great political skill to bilk one’s patron — foreign or not, in Lebanon or not. One must not only open the purse, but also earn the trust to spend the coin (politics everywhere is about money, but it also about access and trust — these last two are what one might call the human dimension). Rafik had that trust, but it took him a lifetime of strenuous and scrupulous effort to build it up.

It is still unclear if Saad has fully gained this inheritance, but he has certainly passed the first hurdle and given that many did not think he would even do that is a credit to his political skills and will undoubtedly earn him greater entree and greater trust in the Saudi realm. In the coming months, we will see if he has made wise purchases on the Lebanese scene (the federalists can, in some ways, be an especially unruly bunch).

And if any of my Lebanese friends are feeling a bit low about any of this, take pride in knowing that your electoral whims are becoming more expensive by the day! That’s gotta be ‘worth’ something, right?

Actually, maybe that’s what independence really is: the moment your vote becomes too expensive for export.

In our globalized economy, however, I wonder if post-colonial ’states’ can ever erect enough protectionist boundaries to effect such a ‘national’ result. Still, history is a strange midwife so I won’t rule anything out just yet (see, I just might be a M14er after all!!!)

Obviously, the formation of the government will reveal some of this wheeling-and-dealing, but maybe we should also post someone in the south of France next week to see which Lebanese seem especially happy with Sunday’s result.

It may not be whom you would expect.

Sleeping with the Enemy …

Elias Muhanna, the man behind the blog Qifa Nabki, is a Lebanese blogger whose commentary has appeared in The National, Foreign Policy and other publications.

Et-tu, QN?

Just teasing.

If there is any instance of celebrity deserved in the Lebanese blogosphere, this is surely the case. Funny how he apparently emerged from the dungeons of Syria’s Comment to such commanding heights.

Ph’d-schmee-h-deee is all I have to say.

Oh, Good Lord …

Your eyes do not deceive you. That’s Rahm Emanuel (L) — and two other Obamatons — riding a camel in Egypt.

The Coterie …

What else explains the discrepancy between the predicted Hizbollah victory and the March 14 upset? The work of a coterie of western analysts and journalists, many of whom are Beirut-based and fell under the spell of Hizbollah’s muqawama and Aoun’s questionable credentials as a secular reformist certainly helped.

This argument always makes me laugh (a certain Lebanese blogger is really the best at it, because he uses the old anti-Communist canard of ‘useful idiots’ — the lunatic Likudniks he works for cut their teeth protecting America from the Soviet Menace).

Yes, it is Western elite opinion that accounts for Hizbullah’s political momentum.

How could I not see that while reading through American and European dailies?

The fawning symposia about Nasrallah’s leadership of M8 at Iranian-funded Beltway think tanks, the glossy magazine covers featuring Amal supporters, Aoun’s sit-down with the editors of the Washington Post, the clutch of fancy magazine writers the SSNP brought into Beirut. Really, it is just too much.

Thank you, dear author, for finally standing up against this worldwide illuminati. We can only hope there are enough Wahhabi petrodollars, US-Israeli defense contracts and American Maronite Chorbishops to save the world from this chilling conspiracy.

By the way, I don’t read the National, but are they allowed to mention and/or criticize Saudi Arabia?

Meow-ing from Baghdad to Beirut: The Defile of The Felines …

The paper’s editorials hail democracy. Fashion pages chronicle fads in Beirut and Kuwait. There’s little news of the more than 130,000 U.S. troops who remain in the country.

That the paper has no publicly known editor, no bylines and no ads is no mistake. It is part of America’s huge psychological-warfare campaign to influence Iraqis’ behavior and attitudes.

I really need to get to the bottom of this. I was going to let it go, but now it bothers me too-too much.

I am, of course, especially interested in the Lebanese hands that have been involved in this effort, especially the media companies and personalities.

I have a strange feeling some of my readers know more about this than I ever will, so in the spirit of democracy’s triumph in Lebanon on Sunday, let’s make this a collaborative effort in the pursuit of transparency.

Here’s my working hypothesis (and please anything that contradicts is most welcome): the USG has spent a few billion dollars on media efforts to win the hearts and minds of Arabs since 9/11. Most of these efforts have focused on Iraq, but not exclusively. American companies won the big dollar contracts and then sub-contracted a lot of the work out to Arab media concerns. Profits from some of these contracts were then recycled into Lebanon’s  Cedar Revolution, both in terms of media (in Lebanon, the Arab world, and elsewhere) and general politikin’ in Lebanon, after which the slowest animal was given some feed in the form of lobbying the USG for increased aid to Lebanon (or more accurately specific Lebanese parties).

For now, that’s my theory of the case. Let’s see what kind of evidence I can find to support it. The biggest black box is not USG secrecy, but rather Saudi money and the general lack of public information about media markets and companies in the Arab world.

Still, I will give it the old college try. Some might accuse me of a conspiracy theory (guilty as charged), but really I think the best thing to do is follow the money and once we have some idea about that, we can guess about whatever the political machinations of the various parties.

Let me give you an example of why this might not be an entirely worthless enterprise. In the yammering over Lebanon’s vote, reports have suggested that the Saudis have spent anywhere from $100 million to $500 million. I could do a lot of political damage in Lebanon with $400 million dollars (the difference). My point is not that I am soon to be viceroy of the Metn, but rather political analysis is just baseless speculation if you don’t have the numbers or at least an idea of the numbers. Moreover, I kinda like the Sy Hersh idea of throwing shit up against a wall, and seeing what sticks.

I have gathered a lot of information on this score, passed some of it on to others, but have not attempted to put it all together in one place. Consider this post a kind of statement of interest and invitation to any who want to contribute to the effort.

We shall see what I can do.

Note to new readers and others (okay, just my mother) pestering me for information about Lebananon: Meow* refers to Now Lebanon (Now Hariri, for the Angriest Arab), and is the clever invention of Ms. Tee, who has some great posts of late. As does Sean at Human Province. And of course, I hope anyone reading here is also reading from Lebanon’s new Minister of Information, Qifa Nabki. Also good, but a little too M14 by-way-of-America for my tastes, is a blog called Oriente Lux. To balance that last recommendation out, let me also recommend Friday’s Lunch Club. And then, there is also Abu Muqawama, who has moved to a new perch.

I suppose I could also include a ‘don’t read’ list, but I am feeling especially charitable today, so I won’t.

* I am not suggesting a silly online publication is driving regional developments, but that the operation serves as a useful symbolic demonstration of some of these possible relationships. And indeed, I am more interested in the construction of the houses than the purring of one house pet.

Voting, fear, hatred and other mundane acts in the age of democracy

Well, I might as well write something about the elections. As I woke up to read about this, I have to say, surprising state of affairs, I really felt sad throughout the day for many reasons. Genuinely sad. I am mostly concerned with the ‘public’ (or the phoniness of this term) state of affairs and not really with general party strategies and whether one wanted to win or to lose, as many people speculated that actually Hizbullah wanted to lose. I don’t buy this argument. I find it hard to believe that any political actor would wish to lose. Politics in the age of democracy and nation-state is like playing any game: the spirit of ‘competition’ prevails. And regardless of the pompousness of the Tayyar who really thought they were getting it right this time, through such a pretentious campaign, I still think that what tipped the balance is fear. Fear and hatred.

1- Christians showed that they are more chauvinistic and more ignorant of the other than ever before. Not only did they vote overwhelming because of fear from whatever Hizbullah represented to them that they were ready to elect inept kids only because they symbolized some sort of a glorious past the Christians were supposed to have.

2- Democracy on the long term works like the capitalist-liberalist system. Consumption works hand in hand with fear. Nationalistic feelings solidify and become narrower, pettier, and the realm of a fantasized universal reality. So much so that in a country such as Lebanon one can breed division within the already narrow-minded imagined nation (through say sectarianism, social and cultural difference, etc) and think it is highly noble to spring out of it (of course imagining that it is springing out of it) and raise a voice for the nation. This feeling is justified and rendered noble through the consumption of concepts such as democracy, rights, independence, liberty, and other elusive terms that subdue the social actor. So there is gap, or this lag, between the actual narrow mutually-exclusive condition one lives in and the projected ideal he/she thinks he is defending.

And that is precisely what happened when people went to vote for the Gemayels and Tuenis, as well as other candidates of the same movement. They thought they are voting for some righteous, something that is restoring the balance, something that is giving a more ‘just’ possibility. But you never need to point out what is righteous what is just unless you are scared, unless you fear something. But fear breeds hatred. And that is precisely what happened in the previous days.

The exact culprits behind this exacerbation of isolationism? Media, ‘Intellectuals’, priests of all sorts, basically the economy of knowledge. The time span? Oh no, I can’t even go there…

3- What made the day even the sadder is that Jamal did not write about the elections.

Breaking: A CNS Exclusive …

BKIRKI, Lebanon (Catholic Cathartic News Service): The Maronite Patriarch announced Monday that Jeffrey Feltman has been named Chorbishop of Bottom Foggy.

A formal ceremony will be held later this month, where Feltman will receive his scepter, miter and vestments.

“I am truly honored,” Feltman told CNS. “Some of my previous colleagues have received secular honors, but I consider my leadership in the community to be spiritual rather than material.”

Feltman gained prominence among Maronite circles in the United States in 2005 when he discovered the image of Saint Maroun on the back of a US quarter, which usually features the visage of George Washington, the first president of the United States.

According to sources close to the Maronite Council of Bishops, however, some prelates doubt the authenticity of the quarter and questioned the wisdom of the decision by Bkirki’s leadership to rely on the US mint. “What can I say?,” asked one source. “Abu Samir has a perfect record: he is always up-to-date with the latest tales from our American flock, and 20 years behind the times in Lebanon.”

Generations …

I adore these types of photos.

Strange creatures, we are.

Lectures on the Maronite (e)Lectionary …

The following could only have been more annoying  had it been Raghida Dergham rather than Joyce Karam:

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Jeffery Feltman said it would be naïve for some to think that the outcome of the Lebanese parliamentary elections won’t affect U.S. policy in Lebanon.

In an joint interview with both dailies An-Nahar and al-Hayat on Saturday, Feltman said: “The election’s outcome will naturally affect world’s stance towards the new Lebanese government and the manner in which the United States and Congress deal with Lebanon.”

“I believe the Lebanese are smart enough to understand that there will be an effect. When Hizbullah claims that there won’t be any effect, when it claims that it is not interested in the matter, I tend to believe that the Lebanese with their intelligence would think otherwise,” Feltman said.

He went on to indirectly criticizing Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun saying: “one of your politicians is proposing that Christians shouldn’t depend on the United States. I hope the Lebanese had accurately listened to president’s [Barack Obama] speech that specifically pointed to the widest Christian religious minority in Lebanon, the Maronites. The president spoke about the need for respecting all peoples in the region including minorities…I hope the Lebanese would ask themselves: do we want to be on the side of the international community and close to the stances that president Obama made? I hope they would say yes.“

Feltman added that president Obama’s speech received wide regional and international support, hoping that the Lebanese would take seriously “and be part of the president’s proposed partnership that was welcomed by the world.”

The U.S. official added that the role of President Michel Suleiman is important symbolically and constitutionally “due to the fact that Suleiman was elected to office by consensus. We hold great respect to the president and the office of the Lebanese presidency as an institution, we strongly appreciate his leading role.”

Feltman said that Lebanon has benefited greatly from international support resulting from the role played by the Lebanese in 2005.

“We expect the elections to take place, the formation of a new government that would adopt a number of resolutions according to the constitution by peaceful means according to the Lebanese people wish,” he said.

He added that the United States is working for regional peace, saying his country is committed to peace in the Middle East.

“President Obama’s speech [in Cairo] rejected violence as means for achieving political goals this is a message that I hope Lebanese voters would take into consideration when they head to the polls on Sunday,” Feltman said.

I was a bit confus-ed by Obama’s reference to Maronites in his Cairo speech, but now we can know that it was Jeffrey trying to be clever.

Can you imagine the conversation between Feltman and Obama (or a White House speechwriter):

JF: Well, Mr. President, there are these Christians in Lebanon and they got what you might call a persecution complex. So if you are doing a p.r. tour for the ‘aggrieved,’ why not include them? I mean, just mention them, and they will knit you an American flag so large it will cover all of Mount Lebanon.

BHO: But I hear the Maronites are kinda divided. And that, the ones we are supporting in Lebanon rely on American groups who have been attacking me as naive Muslim apologist for a few years now.

JF: That’s true, Mr. President, but you were just a candidate then. And well, frankly, our only interest in these groups is the extent to which they help us with regard to other regional files. And like you say, it is not how we got here, but where we are going. Plus, I don’t have to tell you how quick the Republicans and some Democrats on Capitol Hill will be to say you ‘lost’ Lebanon to the axis of Evil, and its junior partners.

BHO: So you want me to take time out of my address to 1 billion Muslims to score points with a few thousand Christians on some Eastern Mediterranean hilltop?

JF: Well, Mr. President, you got some pretty good speechwriters so I am sure they can work it into some kinda broader ‘religious tolerance’ thing.

BHO: Does it cost me anything?

JF: No. Just a sentence. I will do the rest a couple of days later and you will be safely removed from the political pettiness of it all.

BHO: That’s what I like to hear, Jeffrey. Consider it done.

Feltman is not a ‘neocon’ (except in the sense that all American foreign policy professionals are, structurally-speaking) but he does seem to have gone into overdrive to protect ‘his legacy‘ (I imagine the Cedar Revolution and the increase in US aid to Lebanon was at the top of his resume when applying for Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs).

Especially delicious is the phrasing: ‘I believe the Lebanese are smart enough.’ Seriously, who on earth would put up with this kind of condescension? It is a very short walk from this statement to calling those who vote for M8 ’stupid.’

This is American diplomacy? Actually, I wonder if currrent ambassador Sisson wanted to call him and be like: “chill, dude, your patronising theatrics are actually counterproductive in the short and long term, both on Capitol Hill and in the Metn?”

Perhaps here, though, I am projecting.

Regardless, it is now official: I miss David Welch.

Some might say in Feltman’s defense that he is just reading the tea leaves on Capitol Hill rather than winking at Maarab or Bkirki or whomever (keep an eye on the Suleiman thing).

Regardless, it is foolish on both domestic fronts (the United States and Lebanon).

If anyone is serious about continuing US aid to Lebanon, they should not play defense against the likes of Rep. Cantor. Instead, they should enlist an apparently already-inclined Petraeus in a more offensive effort.

Along those lines, here is Abu Muqawama of the Center for New American Security offering a somewhat tepid defense of continued military aid and here’s Aram Nerguizian of CSIS offering the same.

As I have already suggested, this effort is also horribly dumb on the Lebanese side (calling people stupid or threatening them is almost never a happy or successful communications strategy — and here I won’t even discuss how well this feeds the counterpropaganda).  As I tried to demonstrate in my little fictional recreation, Feltman thinks he is being smart by playing on Christian chauvanism, but his attempt makes clear that he does not understand it, most likely because  he probably does not properly empathize with it.

I could go on with this (how this works on the Lebanese side) and maybe I will later, but I pause now because I am confident that any Lebanese voter waiting to hear what Jeffrey says on the day before they vote probably has more immediate personal problems (actually, I doubt such a person actually exists or could function in the world).

Addendum to electoral campaigns

Unexpected, Indeed …

As the Hizballah-led March 8 coalition campaigns ahead of Lebanon’s June 7 elections, the group has been forced to contend with the unexpected exposure of its covert terrorist activities both at home and abroad.

Right on cue, but no mention of chickpea-terrorism! Needless to say, I am very disappointed. When will WINEP stop kowtowing to the dried bean lobby and speak honestly of its victims?

…

The same Caspit revealed last week that Obama’s chief of staff and resident Israel expert in the White House, Rahm Emanuel, referred to Netanyahu in closed conversations as a “bullshitter.”

An Analysis of Obama’s Speech in Cairo …

Your map of Africa is really quite nice. But my map of Africa lies in Europe. Here is Russia, and here… is France, and we’re in the middle — that’s my map of Africa.

— Otto von Bismarck.

Gentlemen Prefer …

A bit of Trinity Arithmetics

There is nothing like delving into Pythagorean medieval philosopher’s cogitation on your way to university on a London bus (innit):

The number one claims an exceptional position, which we meet again in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages. According to this, one is not a number at all; the first number is two. Two is the first number because, with it, separation and multiplication begin, which alone make counting possible. With the appearance of the number two, another appears alongside the one, a happening which is so striking that in many languages “the other” and “the second” are expressed by the same word. Also associated with the number two is the idea of right and left, and remarkably enough, of favourable and unfavourable, good and bad. The “other” can have a “sinister” significance – or one feels it, at least, as something opposite and alien. Therefore, argues a medieval alchemist, God did not praise the second day of creation, because on this day (Monday, the day of the moon) the binarius, alias the devil, came into existence. Two implies a one which is different and distinct from the “numberless” One. In other words, as soon as the number two appears, a unit is produced out of the original unity, and this unit is none other than that same unity split into two and turned into a “number”. The “One” and the “Other” form an opposition, but there is no opposition between one and two, for these are simple numbers which are distinguished only by their arithmetical value and by nothing else. The “One,” however, seeks to hold to its one-and-alone existence, while the “Other” ever strives to be another opposed to the One. The One will not let go of the Other because, if it did, it would lose its character; and the Other pushes itself away from the One in order to exist at all. Thus there arises a tension of opposites between the One and the Other. But every tension of opposites culminates in a release, out of which comes the “third.” In the third, the tension is resolved and the lost unity is restored. Unity, the absolute One, cannot be numbered, it is indefinable and unknowable; only when it appears as a unit, the number one, is it knowable, for the “Other” which is required for this act of knowing is lacking in the condition of the One. Three is an unfolding of the One to a condition where it can be known – unity become recognizable; had it not been resolved into the polarity of the One and the Other, it would have remained fixed in a condition devoid of every quality. Three therefore appears as a suitable synonym for a process of development in time, and thus forms a parallel to the self-revelation of the Deity as the absolute One unfolded into Three. The relation of Threeness to Oneness can be expressed by an equilateral triangle, A=B=C, that is, by the identity of the three, threeness being contained in its entirety in each of the three angles. This intellectual idea of the equilateral triangle is a conceptual model for the logical image of the Trinity.

C.G. Jung Psychology and Western Religion, from part 1: A psychological approach to the trinity, p.15

F**k My P***y …

Oh, my!!! This Google machine can be dangerous!

A simple search brought me to the web site of the one of the companies owned/operated by Kassim Tajideen, one of two individuals designated as Hizbullah financiers by the US Treasury Department last week. One click later and eff-my-p (the other ‘p’ don’t stand for property) appeared on my computer. I won’t link to the site, lest you be tempted to expose your computer to whatever virus is slowly chewing my hard drive, but some intrepid journalist in Beirut might want to give these dudes a call — they seem to have an office in Bir Hassan.

Tajideen’s companies are in the import/export business and seem to work in Angola and the DRC, with operations in Antwerp and Beirut. The Treasury designation freezes assets in the United States and prevents US persons from doing business with them.

Certain parties have been pushing the naroco-terrorism frame of late, but it might be noted that these companies seem also to trade in us dry beans. So we just need to wait a couple of weeks for WINEP’s report on the scourge of hummos-terrorism.

More seriously, these dudes do seem engaged in some shady stuff. Here’s a Greenpeace report on Tajideen’s logging enterprises in Africa. He was also arrested for fraud by the Belgian police, but never charged.

More to come.

New moralists, that is what we needed

That is really funny. A Lebanese NGO is filing a lawsuit against Lebanese political leaders for “violating article 317 of the country’s penal code prohibiting incitement of violence”.

The accused include party leaders Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbullah, Samir Geagea of the Lebanese Forces, Nabih Berri of Amal, Saad Hariri of the Future Movement, Michel Aoun of the Free Patriotic Movement, Amin Gemayel of the Phalanges and Walid Jumblatt of the Progressive Socialist Party.

Ambitious innit? Most important for me is that it is just absurd and ill-directed. See the reasoning:

“It’s not just about people going to the street and fighting each other,” said Rabab El-Hakim, another CHAML member. “It’s the inner feelings of people toward each other – the hatred between different sects and political parties increases after these speeches.”

I beg to differ with this NGOist. This jump from on one side, practical measures taken to incite violence to, on the other, creating feelings of hatred, is a sweeping step. Looking for “inner feelings” can be very perverse.

First of all, this assumption of ‘provoking’ hatred through a mere verbal statement undermines the capacity of people to think for themselves: if people pay attention to what leaders say it is through a more comprehensive approach to their discourse. People try to make sense of the overall. How it fits into the grander scheme of things through time, albeit through their representation of things. And evidently enough their representations of the others have also to do with their daily practices, their lifestyles etc. Confessional and other divisions in Lebanon are socio-economic. “Hatred” whatever that means has nothing to do with it. It is this urge to moralize the conflict that helps the segregating ‘differentiating’ process between groups.

The real issue at stake is that Nation-building going hand in hand with a process of moralizing, and thus framing notions that may be way more complex in reality. For the ethical nation to strive it needs culprits. Hatred needs to be defined and pointed at: “This is incitement to hatred”. Lawyers are here to back it up. There is a process of deliberation and interpretation in order to decide if this or that means incitement to hatred. Do you realize how vague the quest here is? We are not trying to know who killed or tortured or commanded such operations, but really if the statements made do incite to this vague sentiment called hatred. This is probably one aspect of fascism (or liberalism for that matter).

Do we need to remind ourselves that modernity is built on this constant strive to spell out, define, and categorize “inner feelings”, so to domesticate him better, make him more servile to the ‘rule of law’ to the dictate of the nation-state by the sole use of his own ‘consciousness’? Embrace the modern man.

There is no State in Lebanon ok? Fix your conceptual frameworks

Yet another analysis of Hizbullah very sneakily undermining the functioning of the State of Lebanon. this time by none other than the only Muslim writer of the French Colonialist-nostalgics, chauvinistic and socially elitist Lebanese newspaper L’Orient le Jour. I don’t understand this guy by the way, Mahmoud Harb. Doesn’t he realize how anti-Muslim this newspaper is? Is this some new kind ‘gentrification’ occurring here in the Middle of the East? Ironic innit?

It may never become boring to emphasize that these analyses assume very comfortably that there is a State in Lebanon. This trend of thinking assumes that if some political actor changes his behavior then the State would re-institute his ‘rule of law’ that it is dying to perform. Which means that Hizbullah should just ‘play by the rules’, here rules being the textbooks rule emulated from State-practice in the West. But here, the rules are different, indeed have nothing to do with rules elsewhere because there simply is no State in Lebanon and there is no rule of law because ALL the actors on the Lebanese scene undermine the possibility of having a State by their VERY presence and specific political activity in this delimited geography.

Hizbullah is neither a culprit nor a Samaritan in this game. They face the same problem as others which is the fact that the State cannot give them what they want. Because it is simply not functioning, and that even if they want to make it function they would clash with the interest of others.

Indeed friend and relatives, this is why every political actor in Lebanon constantly balance between having sudden drives of taking-over the State and establishing centralized decision-making, which would create more sense of talking about a ‘State’, and just letting things go and try to carry on with what is available, using that semblance of a State when possible, and using parallel structures when one has to. It is not a joyful decision, but one that is made out of frustration. This last statement is key to the discussion.