Getting Ready for the Smoking Ban

Posted on by Mustapha

Many restaurants and coffee shops are not waiting for the official smoking ban to start and have already began a no-smoking policy. Here’s the encouraging news:

despite some restaurants’ concerns that the impending law could hurt business, several establishments with non-smoking policies have reported an upsurge in lunch and dinner guests.

But this is not an argument for laissez-faire. Those establishments are only doing well because they’re alone in serving the significant market of non-smokers. But once the law starts being implemented, a strict blanket ban is necessary because the cheaters (those who will allow smoking) will be rewarded at the expense of the law abiders.

Meanwhile, tobacco companies are themselves trying to cheat..

Iran Launches Spanish Language Satellite TV Channel

Posted on by Mustapha

The Washington Post:

Hispan TV — the first Spanish-language channel airing from the Middle East — will broadcast news, documentaries, movies and Iranian films 24 hours a day. [...] “The new channel will limit the ground for supremacy of dominance seekers,” Ahmadinejad said during a Tehran ceremony marking the inauguration. “It will be a means for better ties between people and governments of Iran and Spanish-speaking nations.”

I checked out their website and watched some of the programs. Production is not bad and the presenters are actual Spanish speakers, not locals who spoke Spanish with an accent. But it all feels so pointless..

❊ Historical Dissociation

Posted on by Mustapha

– Can you erase one of the world’s most documented events from history? –

Culture Minister Gaby Layyoun on the inclusion of the phrase “Cedar revolution” in Lebanese history books:

We cannot keep such a phrase in the curriculum … [It] is sensitive to many in the country and it might create problems between people

Let’s call that the “dissociation” school of historical revisionism. Shying away from any historical detail that might cause awkward feelings in people living in the present. Who cares if half the Lebanese took to the street if the other half finds that fact inconvenient? By that standard world war II should be removed from German history books and the entire slavery chapter should be scraped from American ones.

Defenders of Mr. Layyoun say that the debate is simply about semantics, that the revolution itself is thoroughly discussed in the book, but not its American-made moniker. But to me the interesting question is this: If history is always written by the victors, how does a country with “no victors and no vanquished” write its history?

The problem with Mr. Layyoun’s statement is not that it is a egregious distortion of events (after all, distortions like this happen all the time when victors write history books). The problem is one of overreach and overconfidence: An assumption by one party that its opponents have no life left in them, and that they can simply be erased away.

If Mr. Layyoun had truly read the history of Lebanon, he would not have made such a rookie mistake.

The Resilient Revolution

Posted on by Mustapha

Juan Cole:

The contest between the Baath Party in Syria and its opposition over the past year has been surprising in its perseverence and longevity despite a stand-off that has given neither side any real reason for optimism. Usually when a popular movement has no real successes for months on end, it gradually peters out, as happened in Iran in 2009-2010

To me this is the most defining feature of the Syrian uprising. Even if you don’t care about the people or the country, your curiosity must be by now begging for answers: What is it that makes people go out on demonstrations, month, after month, after month, braving real danger, fatigue and indifference from the rest of the world?

❊ Rusty Nabih Berri Begins Difficult Turnaround Process

Posted on by Mustapha

– Can he pull it off? –

There are many things that Walid Jumblat and Nabih Berri have in common. Both are warlords who benefitted from the Taef agreement. Both are Machiavellian figures who play off larger powers against each other to remain relevant. Both secretly despise absolutists like M.P. Aoun and Sayyed Nasrallah, but both won’t think twice before allying themselves with them to maintain their hold on power.

Most importantly, both are political survivors who have kept up with the darwinian world of Lebanese politics despite being relative political midgets. Soon though, Mr. Berri’s skills at political reinvention will have to be tested, as the events in Syria present the combination of threats and rewards that typically precede political turnarounds.

Mr. Berri could play a key role in the rolling back of Hezbollah’s influence in a post Arab spring Levant. He can be the pro-arab Lebanese Shiaa who helps reduce Iran’s influence in Lebanon. But to get from here to there, he will need a transformation of Jumblatian proportions. This is a very delicate dance that will take months to pull off. It’s fraught with danger and it will take time for people to completely understand the magnitude of the strategic shift that will take place once Assad falls.

Can he pull it off? Unlike Mr. Jumblat, Mr. Nabih Berri hasn’t been having much practice in the dark art of extreme political repositioning. His alliance with Hezbollah has been stable for a while and he is yet to prove that he can still reinvent himself. Luckily, the smooth operator of Mukhtara is offering him some lessons. The most important one of all is: Always start small..

About That Syrian National Council’s Goodwill Message to the Lebanese

Posted on by Mustapha

Michael Young is cautiously optimistic that the message by the Syrian National Council is “potentially, a highly significant moment in the uneasy Syrian-Lebanese relationship”, but he acknowledges the skepticism:

There continues to be a perception in Lebanon, perhaps justified, perhaps not, that whoever controls Syria will pursue some form of hegemony over its smaller western neighbor. Long before the Baathists came to power in Damascus, defenders of this thesis argue, Syria had designs on Lebanon, and that won’t soon change.

So why should the message of goodwill be anything more than jaw-jaw, i.e. the natural act of ally-building weak parties typically engage in before getting to power and seeing Rome from above? Here’s Young’s best shot at an argument for optimism:

a large number of those suffering during [the lebanese civil war] tens of thousands killed, injured, maimed, kidnapped or humiliated by Syria or its epigones—did not merit their fate, nor were they ever consulted about what Lebanon’s affiliation with Syria should be like.

That is why the initiative of the Syrian National Council is so necessary. There is baggage to clear away, as well as myriad misperceptions on both sides. Lebanese and Syrians must overcome the insufferable sense of contempt they still frequently display when talking about each other. Syria risks today what Lebanon faced three and a half decades ago, so destructive sectarianism is not solely a Lebanese curse. Yet as more Syrians suffer and become refugees, the Lebanese should recall how greatly they welcomed the empathy, and indulgence, of outsiders in their times of need.

To grossly oversimplify his point, he’s basically saying that now that the Syrians understood what the Lebanese went through, we could be bound by a common victimhood toward a better, more respectful relationship.

Perhaps. But if I were a betting man, I’d still bet on the next Syrian leadership attempting to pull strings in Lebanon (after all, in this region, who doesn’t?). Young himself wrote about the temptation of Lebanese factional leaders to interfere in Syria once the Assads are gone. The new leaders in Damascus might very well want to pre-empt such meddling and decide to do what Syria has done very well for a long time: Playing off the Lebanese against each others.

❊ Anti-Israeli Vegetarians and Anti-Israeli Vegans

Posted on by Mustapha

So I guess Lara Fabian is coming to Lebanon after all.

The only thing worse than reversing course is changing your mind about reversing course. So we are now entering a clash pitting “fans of the usurping power that kills Lebanese children” against “mullah-loving gun-totting enemies of culture and civilization”.

These are really harsh classifications. Surely we can come with something better than that. So I was inspired by previous comments in this blog to come up with different categories of Lebanese:

  • Anti Israel Vegetarians: They are declared enemies of Israel and boycott activists. Every now and then they find a celebrity who sang in Israel, a gallery displaying the work of an Israeli photographer or a politician who accidentally said hello to an Israeli on twitter, and decide to publicly shame them for contributing to the death of Lebanese children. After that, they resume life as normal citizens of the 21st century
  • Anti Israel Vegans: They are truly committed to the cause of boycotting Israel. They don’t use cancer drugs invented by Israelis, they don’t drink Starbucks or eat at McDonalds. They don’t use the internet, google, facebook, twitter or Microsoft products. They shun banks, loans, credit cards and just about any invention that Israelis happened to have taken part of somewhere down the creative line. These are the truly committed to the cause of not killing Lebanese babies

The problem with this dichotomy is that the vegetarians are hypocrites and the vegans are savages. The rest of the Lebanese are stuck between the two. They are not carnivores, they’re just people who decided that the best way to live is to eat that meal and not ask whether it’s halal or not..