Bad Weather, A Stolen Thunder And Some Crowd Spinning.
Today’s turnout was compromised by many factors, opening the door for malicious spin and legitimate questions.
Here’s a mischievous question for the average Hariri or March 14 diehard: If you were a mother who just learned that an international terrorist has been bombed in next door Syria, and that his funeral was taking place at the same day as the one you and your teenage kids planned to attend. If you add the stormy weather and the mention of the word “massacre” a few days ago by a lunatic ex-general, how excited will you be to get stuck in traffic for 3 hours to mark February 14?
That was pretty much the plight of the average demonstrator today. Still, the turnout managed to be impressive, but how impressive?
The expectations were set so high that even the slightest spotting of unoccupied space made way for sneers from the opposition: “The puny crowd does not suite the memory of Rafik Hariri”, Wi’am Wahhab scoffed on OTV, a station that was trying to pick holes in the turnout. “The car movement is almost normal in Tripoli”, their cheeky reporter said, in reference to the day when Tripoli, a loyalist stronghold, was almost empty because everyone was demonstrating in Beirut back in 2005.
It was not meant to be this way. The idea was to overwhelm the entire world with the majority’s crowds. It did not help that international coverage of Lebanon now had to be shared with coverage of Imad Mughniyeh’s funeral, which is also expected to attract large crowds. Moreover, one cannot dismiss fatigue, fear and the outright disgust of the average Lebanese who chose to stay home. That’s a lot of water in March 14’s wine.
March 14 decided to fight a wrong war over crowds -dare I say an unwinnable one?- instead of focusing on the war of ideas and hearts and minds. Now we have to endure the silly yet all too usual spin and counterspin over the size of the crowds.
**Update**
The turnout seemed to be really huge. Check this out.
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Hello, my name is Mustapha and I blog in The Beirut Spring about Lebanese society and politics. I started in February 2005 after the killing of P.M. Rafik Hariri.
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SINCE when is anything related to Wahab or the orangites credible ???!!
o.c.,
since your mom was purchased by my father rafic for an afternoon romp in the hay.
hahaha what can i say to u “saadhariri”.
Get a life Dude
You cannot fail people as miserably as M14 did (especially Saniora/Hariri) and expect people to show up like sheeple when you say jump.
-M14/gvmnt allowed the illegal sit-in in downtown, for over ONE YEAR> Now their speakers say it’s illegal?
-M14 did nothing (no gvmt action and no big demos) for Pierre, Eid, Eido, Hajj, Hatem and now the big demo???
-Let Joumblatt speak alone instead of having a unified position/propaganda (on resistance, on Mughniyah) and then expect to defeat HA?
-egghead Saniora deplores/condemns or whatever the murder of Mughniayyah (i.e. equates it to he loss of of Hariri/MP’s/Hajj/Eid) and wants people to demonstrate for M14???
Want me and my kids to demo? I think I’d rather crap on you.
JoseyWales, well said!
the hariri demonstrators and the mughinya funeral attendees are different crowds. perhaps fear or frustration might have kept m14. but i don’t see that the funeral hampered the number of attendees as the people that support m14 may not (i would guess) attend the funeral and vice versa.
Ya Mus ya habibi, I don’t know what you’re talking about in your post. Low turnover? From the North of Lebanon alone, there were 20kms of traffic from Batroun to Beirut, the road was blocked from ABC Dbayeh going, thousands of cars that came from the snow covered areas of bsharri and Ajaltoun and endless crowds that couldn’t make it from the North because of extremely heavy trafic.
AFP estimated 1 million people at the mouzahara and half a million that couldn’t make it. I should have sent you a few pics to illustrate; it was great to watch.
The weather didn’t stop people from going significantly, albeit there could have ben 100,000 people more if the conditions you talked about were more favorable.
“turnout”
It’s because of the weather.
In a weather like this I wouldn’t attend
even my mother’s commemoration.
.
The turn out was huge on the sunni side, but that’s it. There was a low turnout among christians, that was very noticable and you feel from the way each name was cheered. Northern sunni went there, mainly after being visited by “Sa7ib lnazarat lbalha2″ and paid. For 200$/car everybody went.
BTW, the AFP didnt estimate that crap you said. it said hundred of thousands.
Googlebot has chosen to put up an ad for Kabbalah on ur blog, that has got to mean something.lol
Mustafa, it’s “turnout”, not “turn over” (which either means change or - in sports - handing the other team the ball :)
As Josey Wales said, the buffoons in M14 leadership have totally failed their “constituents”. Why would anyone want to go demonstrate support?
The last point (Saniora and Hariri eulogizing Mughnieh) has to take the cake though.
Mustapha, what are you talking about? The crowd was huge, far exceeding expectations on such a dreary day, and the Hezbollah thing didn’t factor in at all, and in fact it was anti-climactic. I have no idea where you got that impression.
And Darko is full of it. The large presence of Lebanese Forces and Kataeb was very visible, and the were the first there. The PSP contribution was big as well. This is nonsense.
3500 cars came from Zghorta alone, Darko. So spare me the nonsense.
BV Mus,
The crowds were unbelievable, christians were there too! there are some detailed stats as well.
so someone give us official states, like Reuters of AFP…
Dear Sir
The words of Nasralla enable any idiot in the world to do some thing, preferably to Jews, preferably bad, and leave a note in the name of the Hizb. and Lebanon.
The words of the official leaders of Lebanon make a strong connection between the Hizb. and the state and society of Lebanon.
The whole stupid celebration serve to connect Lebanon and the Lebanese to “international terror”
What good does all this do to a honest human being trying to make a living and holding Lebanese documents or even other documents saying that he was born in Lebanon?
Seems every body became mad.
To be clear,
My comment was not about whether the turnout was large or not. I wasn’t there and I don’t know. I’ll leave that to those who were.
My comment was about the bungling that M14 has been making for 3 years. They say “We’ll have a president.”…Great! How about you nincompoops head down to Nejmeh (two blocks away) and vote 50+1 for Suleiman and be done with it? Why are we still talking about this?
And one more time: Why do Saniora/Hariri and company feel the need to out-pray the pope whenever it comes to resistance and martyrs? Why eulogize Mughnieh at all? Let Hezballah mourn him all they want. You don’t have to show the people that you too think Mughnieh was a hero of some sort. Jumblatt seems to be the only one who gets it.
Just because someone is holding an lf flag does not mean that that person is an lfer. i was in tripolis and saw all the convoys holding all kinds of flag, all FMers and some holding LF flags(pics on my blog).
And can u please find me an independent source to confirm that “3500″ number
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/video/0,47-0@2-3218,54-1011578@51-965845,0.html
Trois ans après l’assassinat de Rafic Hariri, près d’un million de Libanais se sont rassemblés, jeudi 14 février, sur la place des Martyrs à Beyrouth. Saad Hariri, le fils de l’ancien premier ministre, a promis à ses partisans que “la vérité [allait] triompher” dans l’enquête sur la mort de son père. Une statue en bronze de Rafic Hariri a été inaugurée sur les lieux de l’attentat.
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/080214123943.4du1vocb.html
BEIRUT (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of government supporters converged on central Beirut on Thursday for the third anniversary of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri’s assassination, as just miles away Lebanon’s opposition Hezbollah prepared to bury a top commander slain by a car bomb.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1444445020070214
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The second anniversary of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination in central Beirut was anything but a somber and mournful affair. The mood was one of defiance rather than grief.
Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese turned the commemoration into yet another opportunity to finger-point at Syria and blame Lebanon’s political woes on the Hezbollah-led opposition.
Boutros Harb’s speach was the best….
Sad…..we show up in huge numbers for a man who stood for something great and gave back to lebanon, yet USA Today, Cnn, BBC chose to cover the Hezzbollah funeral as their top story; all this for a world known murderous thug. Unreal. And Saniora…dont even let me get started. Thanks for the non-distinction. Talk about pacifying…God help us all. We are truly doomed.
There was plenty of people on Martyr Square! Mustapha, look on pro-Aoun Albaladonline which admit the huge number of people who gathered!
Lebanon is for Lebanese not the safavid nor the alawite.
Darko stay off the orange “juice”…
LF were there in force. I guess that scares your orangebutts to hell!!!
Great turnout!!
Other analysis not warranted for this post!!!
You’re right Tony…I guess some had Hassoun’s Zoom in and zoom out issues!!!
State it as is!!
Yeah those rumours remind me three years ago when prosyrians media tried to make the 14 of march 2005 event sound like a football game with 50 k supporters.
From what i’ve seen on TV, and I was surprised, there was as much people as 3 years ago, maybe slightly less.
it is a successfull day for M14, and now that they know they have the support of the people, time to have new parliamentary elections and THEN a presidential election of someone within march 14…
But hey, they were wussies 3 years ago, and from sanioras and hariris talk about ebn el char… mughniyeh, nothing seems to have changed.
joseywales,
My sentiments exactly. Thank for speaking my mind. I am a die hard M14 supporter. But I have been let down by the cowardly stance that its leadership (Sanioura/Hariri) has been taking.
Yes it was amazing Lf supporters are groing in number…now they have supoorters from menieh and akkar….that s good for national unity…..
Here you are arguing about numbers. Tfeh!
Instead of going to the demo and listen to empty slogans and false promises you should have demanded out loud the immediate ELECTION of a president, the OPENING of parliement…etc.
When will you ever learn, neither M14 and especially not M8 can bring freedom, independence, sovereignty…etc to Lebanon.