Daily Archives: April 30, 2007

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Something Brewing

Compromise is in the air, but who’s going to give?
 
You know a solution to the Lebanese impasse is in the making when American Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman gives an Interview to Al-Akhbar, a notoriously pro-opposition newspaper, when Naim Kassem is not wagging his fingers too much, when Michel Aoun appears receptive and when Hariri’s Al-mustaqbal newspaper features Palestine, Iraq and Turkey as main news items on its main page.
 
The initial spark that set this virtuous circle moving is the combination of Walid jumblat’s reaction to the murders of Ziad and Ziad, where he sent an olive branch to his political opponents, and Mr. Sanioura’s initiative where he hinted that he doesn’t mind giving the opposition a veto-wielding share of the government as long as they agreed to a pre-determined program.
 
It is unclear how far the PSP leader and his allies are willing to compromise without appearing to be selling out, but what’s clear is that the brutal murder presented March 14 with an opportunity to backtrack without sounding weak.
 
Jumblat, who only recently criticized his own MPs for cheerfully hugging and greeting March 8 MPs whom he described as “peddlers of the culture of death”, might have calculated that the best response to forces who want to destabilize Lebanon is further Lebanese rapprochement.

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Keep'Em High


Lebanese mobile phone users are getting a bad deal. Do they care?
 

 
It is a fact: Lebanon has one of the highest mobile phone rates in the region. But does that mean that tomorrow’s campaign, where thousands of Lebanese will turn their phones off to protest those rates, will be a success?
 
Hardly. The Lebanese consumer can be a difficult beast to understand. Many theories have been made about the Lebanese being a kind of “show-off” consumer. I witnessed it first hand when a retailer told a TV program that if he reduced his prices too much people will stop buying. It is perhaps a stereotype, but there’s no smoke without fire. Lebanese cell-phone usage remains one of the highest in the world despite the ripoff rates.
 
To illustrate our attitude further, here’s a case in point: A Facebook event was created for tomorrow’s boycott and thousands of Lebanese were invited to take part. Here are the statistics until the writing of this post: 4,473 people will take part, 2,312 ignored the invitation, 1710 are not sure yet, and 3,182 declined. Yes, 3,182 people made it a point that they will decline to participate in the boycott. Some are even publicly disputing the event’s worthiness in the group’s forum.
 
Now that’s the kind of consumers producers love, don’t you think?