Category Archives: opinion

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Don’t Call It a “Media Law”, Call it a “Freedom of Expression Law”.

There’s a report in the Daily Star on the importance of having a new Lebanese “media law” to “protect journalists and journalism”.

Such a law is very important as the report makes very clear, but why stop at journalists? What if some regular Lebanese voices off on Twitter or Facebook and got arrested as a result. Doesn’t she deserve equal protection?

What about people like me who write regularly to thousands of readers online? I am not a “journalist” but I am equally bound to annoy someone sometime. Don’t I deserve protection? Am I chopped liver?

The first step in making a “new” media law is to stop calling it a media law. It should be a broad, strong a law designed to protect the freedom of expression in general.

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❊ Don’t Ban the Baath Party in Lebanon

March 14 MP Elie Mahfouz:

Given what is happening in the Arab region especially Syria and the fact that this party created [a branch] for itself in Lebanon with an approach that does not correspond at all with the civilized culture of Lebanon and its glorious history in respecting human rights, we see fit that [the government] takes the decision to withdraw permission for the Arab Baath Socialist party

Many people will respond with a round of applause to that statement. But as much as I abhor that party and everything it stands for, I will defend its right to exist for two reasons, a principled one and a Machiavellian one.

First, our beloved principles: Banning parties, no matter how despicable, shouldn’t be the proud act of people who believe in the freedom of speech. This, if anything will expose you to charges of hypocrisy by your dictatorship-loving opponents.

Second, why bother killing a sinking man? The Baath party is nothing without the Syrian regime, and eventually when the Assads lose power, Lebanon’s branch of the Baath will become a shadow of its former self. It will become a joke of a party whose only purpose is to remind us of the bad old days. Why then give it the gift of Martyrdom? Why give it the decency of retiring in its peak?

I say let the bastards hang around for a while. Their day is coming..

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❊ Don’t Fall For The Siren Call Of Najib Mikati

As some of you know, I’m a fan of Najib Mikati. But I am very disappointed that he agreed to play the role of a docile mask to Hezbollah’s vicious war against the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL)

Don’t fall for all his fuzzy claptrap about consensus, centrism and nationalism. MR Mikati will have one mission only in the next government: To shoot down the STL and assassinate, for the second time, the legacy of the Hariri family in Lebanon.

As Prime Minister, he would be pushed around by a motley crew of Hariri haters to kill the STL and to oversee a witch hunt against March 14 figures, intended to forever entrench the Syrians and Iranians in Lebanon.

Mr Mikati is a better choice for Hezbollah than the arguably more pliable Omar Karami. So much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if he were Hezbollah’s choice all along, the unelectable Karami being a smoke screen to lower March 14‘s guard.

The clean shaven billionaire businessman will make it easier for wavering MPs to obey Hezbollah’s wishes without losing face, because Mr Mikati gives the illusion of centrism and independence.

But we all know better. We’re not falling for this.

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❊ A Case For Secret Ballots During PM Consultations

The events taking place nowadays in Lebanon are starting to show the limitations in the way with which we choose our Prime Minister.

In the current system, MPs effectively announce the name of the person they support for the position after “consulting” with the president (Why they even call this process “consultations” is beyond me. I’ve never heard of Any MP who changed his/her mind after the consultations). Problems arise — as we have seen with Mr. Jumblat– when threats to your person, family and constituents start to significantly influence your choice.

All of the world’s democracies involve political battles where arm-twisting, cajoling and bribing are the norm (Just witness President Obama’s travails ahead of the approval of his healthcare bill.) But in Lebanon, the threats to one’s safety are real and the bribes, like the stakes, are huge. Both sides are guilty, but threats involving militias taking hold of your city are especially heinous.

All this is to say: Why not make the process less stressful to all involved, more democratic and more transparent?

The MPs can submit secret ballots with the name of their choice for Prime Minister without having to fear retribution. The process can be very transparent. A live camera can be aimed at a translucent ballot box near the President. Then each MP submits his/her secret ballot live for everyone to see. In the end, the president counts the ballots publicly, perhaps in the presence of the press or even independent monitors, and declares the winner on the spot.

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❊ The End Of A Mirage

In the end, it doesn’t really matter who killed the fabled Saudi-Syrian initiative. Fingers will be pointing here and there, but we should remember that the initiative was doomed from the onset.

You can talk all you want about compromise, solutions and bargains. But this particular corner was impossible to round. This was a zero-sum game to its core: One party wants to kill the tribunal, the other wants to strengthen its sacrosanctity.

Signs of the impending failure were right in front of our eyes. The Saudi ambassador in Lebanon again and again downplayed the talks’ importance. The secrecy surrounding the discussions was so watertight that to the last day, people wondered if such initiative even existed. Some tried to fill the void by giving the S-S talks a fantastic scope.

And yet everybody wanted the initiative to succeed. It represented hope that the coming confrontation can be dodged. That the gods of sanity will somehow bestow their wisdom on the Lebanese warring parties, and on the Lebanese people who lived the last few weeks in a collective state of suspended disbelief.

Today, we fall back on reality. A new phase of the confrontation has begun. Things will be difficult, but at least we will be living in the real world.

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Not A Happy New Year For Egyptian Christians [Updated]

It’s amazing how savage and mindless acts like the bombings of places of worship are. We’re hearing all kinds of words of sympathy and sincere outrage from Egyptian Muslims and even religious leaders. But outrage, no matter how sincere, is not enough.

The government is blaming foreign elements for the bombing, but it is the Mubarak government itself that is responsible for increasing the tension between Muslims and Christians in that country. The government had shamefully tried to get support from the islamists ahead of an election by playing tough with basic Christian rights like building churches. This helped foster an environment of deep mutual distrust which has made the bombing possible.

Egypt needs a long term reconciliation plan that involves convincing the Muslim majority that the Christian minority is an equal partner in the nation. A government that doesn’t play to the basest instincts of its constituents would be a good start.

Update:

Great piece by Hani Shukrallah in Al-Ahram [via As'ad] :

I accuse the millions of supposedly moderate Muslims among us; those who’ve been growing more and more bigoted, inclusive and narrow minded with every passing year. I accuse those among us who would rise up in fury over a decision to halt construction of a Muslim Center near ground zero in New York, but applaud the Egyptian police when they halt the construction of a staircase in a Coptic church in the Omranya district of Greater Cairo. I’ve been around, and I have heard you speak, in the office, or in the club, or in dinner banquets: “The Copts must be taught a lesson,” “the Copts are growing more arrogant,” “the Copts are holding secret conversions of Muslims”, and in the same breath, “the Copts are preventing Christian women from converting to Islam, kidnapping them, and locking them up in monasteries

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❊ Oh Please Spare Us The Outrage Over Elias El Murr

In today’s Al-Akhbar wikileaks scoop, one of the people who came out most damaged is Minister of Defense Elias El Murr. According to the cables:

Israel cannot bomb bridges and infrastructure in the Christian areas,” Murr was cited as saying.

“Murr is trying to ascertain how long an offensive would be required to clean out Hizballah… The LAF will move to pre-position food, money, and water with these units so they can stay on their bases when Israel comes for Hizbollah — discreetly, Murr added,” the cable read. “For Murr, the LAF’s strategic objective was to survive a three week war ‘completely intact’ and able to take over once Hizbollah’s militia has been destroyed.”

Many pro-Hezbollah people, reading this in their favorite newspaper were scandalized. Angry Arab (who regularly contributes to Al-Akhbar) spoke for many when he wrote:

There should be one political priority in Lebanon: the call for the resignation and trial of Al-Murr: who seems to give advice to Israel on how to beat Hizbullah and win support from the Lebanese population.

It is easy to sit and preach after the dust has settled, the bombing has stopped and quasi normalcy has resumed. What many of these hollier-than-thou finger-waggers are forgetting is the context within which Mr. Murr was making those remarks (if accurate). Bombs were falling on Lebanon and the Israelis were behaving as madmen. It was perfectly natural for the Minister of Defense –who realized that we were on our own– to get into the “Let’s save what can be saved” mode and bargain with the devil.

[Update: It was brought to my attention that Mr. Murr's comments were NOT made during the July war of 2006, but in March 2008. Still, as I mentioned in the comments, I think my argument still stands]

Many Lebanese were livid at Hezbollah at the time. In their eyes, the party of god was the one who brought this onto us with its recklessness. It was not insane for Mr. Murr to propose: “Fine, if you won’t stop the bombing campaign, take Hezbollah but at least spare our Legitimate army and please don’t bomb areas that have nothing to do with Hezbollah”.

I’m not saying Mr. Murr is a winged angel, but trying to vilify him as a treacherous devil worshipper is to forget what a messy thing the July war was, the divisions it spawned and the raw emotions it incited.

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Note: Posts with titles starting with an ❊ (asterisk) are my opinion and article posts. I used this system to separate long posts from quick links and comments.

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❊ Worst Time For Creating A New Media Law

The entire Journalism and media landscape is changing. We are in the middle of a disruptive structural transformation. Newspapers are going under, the internet is becoming more and more dominant and news is becoming flatter and more social.

We don’t even know how people will be consuming news 5 years from now. This is why I become nervous when I see plans like that of Minsiter of Information Tarek Mitri to create a new “comprehensive” media law in Lebanon.

The details are still sketchy. Here’s how Minister Mitri sees the task ahead:

“We are in need of a wide-embracing law that combines [separated laws], secures consistency, modernizes what requires modernization and fills the legislative holes”

The law could be bad if it creates a monstruos bureaucracy that attempts to preserve the status quo, empower the entrenched special interests and protect the current stakeholders from any disruptive change. Newspapers will start asking for subsidies from the tax payer because they believe they’re performing a “public service”.

But it could also be good. It could consolidate all the red-tape into a law with a light touch, a law that follows general guiding principles without being too specific and overbearing. It could also create a reasonable safety net for all the journalists that will most certainly be the victims of the upcoming disruption to make the transition smoother.

I trust Mr. Mitri is an enlightened man and I’m sure he’ll make the right decision. And yet, it is important for us as bloggers, blog readers and general internet news consumers to let our voice be heard. If you have suggestions for the upcoming law, send Mr. Mitri your suggestions to qanun@ministryinfo.gov.lb .

I will be emailing him a copy of this post after I publish it.

Update: Minister Mitri has responded to the post. Here’s his email:

Thank you for the feedback. I am pleased to know that you are inviting fellow bloggers to make their voice heard.

On another note, you should know that the English translation of the paragraph you quote is miserable. “Jami’ Mani’” in Arabic means wide-embracing or comprehensive and not “binding and deterrent”.

In addition, the hypothesis that the new law could create a monstruous bureaucracy that attempts to preserve the status quo is absolutely alien to what I said yesterday. My working hypothesis is just the opposite.

Regards,

Tarek Mitri

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Note: Posts with titles starting with an ❊ (asterisk) are my opinion posts. I used this system to separate long posts from quick links and comments.

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❊ Lebanon's Heartless Capitalism

Lebanon’s capitalism has a lot of beauty, but very little heart.

Broken Heart

Yesterday I linked to two stories that are more related than you think. In the first, the minister of public works authorized a fashion show to take place in the middle of an important bridge, shutting it down for three days and causing a traffic hell to the commuters. In the second story, a charming 100 year-old coffee house is to be shut down and replaced by a bank.

I’ve been having this idea growing in me for a while. But yesterday, it finally took shape because of the two stories above. It hit me like an apple falling from the Naccache bridge: Lebanese capitalism has a lot of beauty, but it has no heart.

Before you dismiss me as a communist, I want you to know that in fact I’m as capitalistic as you can get. I’m a businessman when I’m not blogging and the only magazine I can read from cover to cover is The Economist, a vanguard of free market and capitalist thinking. I’m actually one of those people who are regularly caricatured in Lebanon: I make good money abroad, and then visit during the summer to splurge on Items that are more expensive than many people’s salaries. I own an appartment I don’t use and a car that I only use for one month every year. You get the picture.

A look in the mirror

And yet, even I look at our capitalism in Lebanon and see no heart. To understand what I mean, let’s take a good look in the mirror and see if we can recognize the monster we have become:

  • We don’t care about the plight of foreign workers if the consumers (the ‘Madames’) are satsified.
  • We don’t care about people stuck in traffic if a modelling agency paid enough money for a cat walk
  • We don’t care about old historical houses and cafes being destroyed because the replacements will bring quicker money
  • We design billboards that say “My Jewelry, My right” and we don’t care about the countless people who pass by everyday and can’t afford jewelry .
  • We treat rich-looking people like royalty and not-so-rich people like shit.
  • We shut down entire neighborhoods for months to make a political point, and we don’t care about the countless people who will lose their jobs because of this

Get it? The list goes on, but the conclusion remains the same: Lebanese capitalism has a lot of beauty, but it has very little heart. And that is breaking mine.

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Note: Posts with titles starting with an ❊ (asterisk) are my opinion posts. I used this system to separate long posts from quick links and comments.