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Blogging Lebanese politics, business and society since 2005

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How Big of a Deal is Israel’s New Wall Alongside the Lebanese Border?

Aljazeera:

The Israeli army has begun building a wall that will run several kilometres along part of its border with Lebanon [...] the wall would be more than 2km long and 10 metres high

Many people hate walls. They are the opposite of communication and exchange and are associated with separation, oppression and imprisonment. The Berlin wall and the Israeli west bank barrier are notorious examples of how inhumane such walls can be. But is the one planned alongside the Lebanese border that big of a deal? Continue reading →

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Whose Time has Come?

I was reading with interest Nadine’s post today, aimed at inspiring the “angry disenfranchised people” in Lebanon:

I have a feeling that our time has come. We, the people on the margins. The angry, disenfranchised people who pay too much for bread and fuel and rent and water and parking. We, the kids who grew up in the 80s. We, who are unamused by boring media and mindless entertainment. We, who’ve been struggling for years trying to create small, important projects that go nowhere and achieve nothing. Civil marriage. Women’s rights. Green spaces. Anti-corruption. Renewable energy. Equal pay. Migrant rights. Bicycle lanes. Refugee rights. Public schools. Public universities. Social security. Protect our beaches. Protect our workers. Protect our Internet. Protect love. Save our animals. Save our forests. Save our heritage. End torture. End the civil war. Build a public transportation system that works already!

As a general vision of what is wrong in the country and needs to be fixed, this is a wonderful paragraph. It can be the basis for a manifesto and a program for a new left-wing party. It can be a to-do list for journalists and reporters who are looking for material for their next investigation. It could even be a checklist for politicians who are seriously thinking of ways to improve their constituencies’ lots.

The problem though is that the post is not meant to be any of the above. It is meant to be a call to action:

I have a feeling that thousands of you agree that enough is enough. And what’s different this time is that I have a feeling thousands of you want to do something about it. What better thing to do than take back Parliament?

I’m not exactly sure what she means by “take back Parliament”. If she means “form new parties that are voted in to replace those bums”, then great, go for it. But if this an attempt to “occupy parliament”, to somehow resurrect the “revolution against sectarianism”, ie a street action meant to replace the entire political class and system, then she is in for another disappointment.

There’s a general fallacy in the minds of some Lebanese activists that goes along these lines: “There are many, many people out there who are unhappy with the system and want real change. If only we could find a way to get them all together on the street to overthrow the system in a people’s revolt”.

That is a mirage that is refusing to die. There are a lot of things that the Lebanese don’t like (look again at Nadine’s list above), but it is misguided to assume that together these people form a homogenous group. Many people who “grew up in the 80s” don’t give a damn about renewable energy or equal pay. People who want to save our heritage don’t necessarily care about public transportation or animal welfare. Some of these objectives are even at odds with each other: Money used to create bicycle lanes (which although very important, are a luxury) is money taken away from “public schools, public universities and social security”.

The problem with Nadine’s “Our time has come” is that the “our” doesn’t exist.

The system is not perfect but a lot of people are okay with it. What we need is gradual, long term and focused activism, the kind of activism that Nadine dismisses as “small, important projects that go nowhere and achieve nothing”. Groups like the Civil Campaign for Electoral Reform (CCER), My Nationality is A Right (Jinsiyati), KAFA, Ontornet, the Anti Racism Movement and even Nasawiya itself (in which Nadine is a major pole) are doing the admirable work of slowly shifting people’s attitudes and effecting, with time, real change. One can even argue that we live in the golden age of these NGOs because of the new technologies that make their work faster and more efficient.

To assume that there’s some sort of shortcut to the hard work these groups are doing would be to delude ourselves. There will be no “Lebanon Spring”, no magical moment in which everything suddenly becomes better (an ironic statement from a blog called “Beirut Spring”). Democratic systems in which there’s a modicum of popular representation can only be slowly perfected through the ballot and through gradual attitude shifts.

There will be no revolution, and no, “our” time has not come.

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8 Months Later, Lebanon’s Internet Speed Still Laughable

Make sure you don’t miss Habib’s excellent report on why Lebanon’s internet is the way it is. What struck me most is this part:

So why not buy more bandwidth? “Because we don’t need it,” [a Lebanese official] said in an interview with Bold. “We are not seeing a lot of people requesting upgrades. People are happy with 1mbps.”

For anyone who has lived or worked outside Sub-Saharan Africa [...] that assessment may be a little hard to digest.

Those two paragraphs struck me in two ways:  First for how callous, condescending and clueless the official (and by extension the government) is. People have been going crazy with frustration over how slow the government is at improving the connection’s speed.

And second for the fact that even the author, Habib, is not completely aware of how bad the problem is: Sub-Saharan Africa is also better than Lebanon. I live and work in Sub Saharan Africa, and we have much better internet connection than Lebanon. I’m writing this post from a 20Mb/s connection with unlimited downloads (it even says so in my ISP’s website) that is available for slightly less than $100/month (with cheaper options available that are all better and cheaper than what the Lebanese get) .

There are many reasons why the internet in Lebanon is bad, but to me the chief one is the fact that the ministry of telecommunications is involved in running the show. Telecommunications is the Lebanese government’s cash-cow, and a cheap fast internet connection (like a cheap call rate) is a threat to the government’s margins. This is why competition is nipped in the bud and a policy of artificial scarcity (re-read the official’s interview statement) will remain the government’s line no matter what politicians say.

Moreover, because of all the politics involved, Lebanon can’t just sell its entire communications infrastructures to companies like Vodafone and Orange the way many African countries have done (to the consumers’ advantage). Privatization in Lebanon is given a bad name because it involves laying off a lot of people, people who don’t do any work and are paid by the taxpayer simply because they are some politician’s protegé. And worse, the privatizations that did take place were exploited by politically connected businessmen who enriched themselves without benefiting the consumers.

That was the long version. The short version is that we’re all screwed.

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How is Preventing People from Going to Work a Good Thing?


The bad guy in this story (Photo source: The Daily Star)

So the public transportation unions are angry that the Lebanese government cannot afford to subsidize their fuel. It sucks for them and they want to make their displeasure felt. Fine, but why do the rest of us have to pay for their whiny tantrums?

It’s one thing for taxi and bus bus drivers to decide willfully to stop work and stay at home for the day, maybe people will appreciate their service more and pressure the government to respond to their demands. But it is quite another to block the roads and prevent other Lebanese from making a living. That is an act of tyranny and aggression.

There’s a big difference between: “Look at us, we’re being treated unfairly” and “we’re going to make everyone else’s life miserable until we get what we want”. The unionists are even forcing other taxi and bus drivers who are not taking part of their action to evacuate their passengers. Apparently any apostate who challenges the fatwas issued by Unionistan will be whipped to shape by its religious police.

Maybe the drivers did get a raw deal and maybe their cause is fair. But you know what? Other Lebanese have problems too, problems that they can only solve by going to work and getting paid by the day, or by going to school and acquiring new skills, both things the union’s entitled posturing is preventing from happening.

The unions don’t want your sympathy. They are trying to force your hand. You should be angry.

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Mona Eltahawi Brings The Anger Into Arab Feminism

I always believed that Arab women should be angrier than they actually are. Their stoicism in face of what is clearly a raw deal has always amazed me. So I was very pleased when I read this.

The author Mona El-Tahawi is something of a fringe, but her latest article in Foreign Policy is so explosive and so emotionally intense that after reading it you’ll feel like being hit by a truck.

I wouldn’t have chosen her words or her tone. I accept that her traumatic experiences are not typical of Arab women (and especially Lebanese ones), but I admire her no-holds-barrel tell-it-like-it-is style that is the rhetorical equivalent of burning her bras and throwing them at her tormentors.

 

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Victims Vs. Martyrs

Here’s how one word reflects a completely different propaganda angle (emphasis mine):

Every journalist who dies in violence in Lebanon is called a martyr. [...] But Al-Manar, the television station of the Hezbollah [...] did not speak of Shabaan as a “martyr” but as a “victim” of a battle between Syrian troops and “terrorists”. As one of Shabaan’s employers said yesterday, he was wiped off the news agenda of Hezbollah as a victim of “crossfire”, the old explanation of Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israelis.

The death of Ali Shaaban, NewTV Cameraman and the son of Tahseen Khayat’s driver could mark a turning point in a Shiaa backlash against Hezbollah’s support of the Syrian regime..

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Deterrence by Rumor-Mongering

You don’t read news like this every day:

A former Lebanese security official residing in Paris told [Alseyasa]: “The moment the attempt [on Samir Geagea's life] was announced, hundreds of LF, Phalange Party, and National Liberal Front fighters, as well as Lebanese army backers, headed to the regions that surround Beirut’s southern suburbs and Shiyyah area, Hizbullah and AMAL’s respective stronghold.”

He revealed that Lebanese intelligence confirmed that some 2,300 Christian fighters had in fact deployed in those areas.

This can only be one of two things: An irrational and spontaneous act by armed loyalists that was somehow called off at the last minute, or clumsy rumor-mongering that is meant to establish the high cost of assassinating Dr. Geagea in hope of deterring would-be assassins and assuring supporters.

I’m discounting the first option because it doesn’t sound right. Thousands of armed militiamen can’t just gather around an urban center without being seen by anyone, especially with Dahieh being such a Hezbollah security strong-hold with thousands of informants lying around waiting for any signs of irregular activity. If such a mobilization really did happen, we would have heard about it in Al-Akhbar or Assafir by now.

Considering the source of this story (Alseyasa) and their own source for the news (A former Lebanese security official residing in Paris, a.k.a Johnny Abdo), this story feels distinctly like rumor mongering that is more sad than scary. Such a rumor would have two target audiences and two messages:

  • The assassins and their supporters: Killing Samir Geagea won’t be a walk in the park. Don’t try this again unless you really want pandemonium and another civil war
  • March 14 supporters of Dr. Geagea: Don’t be afraid, Hezbollah are not the only armed militias in town. We got your back in case they attack

This is sad because the people’s need to hear such stories is testimony to the failing of the law-and-order forces and the Lebanese army at inspiring confidence. It’s also scary because such rumors have a nasty habit of turning into self-fulfilling spirals of distrust that can kindle civil wars.

The best thing right now is for Dr. Geagea to categorically deny these rumors and to, once again, declare that he has complete trust in the Lebanese army as the sole legitimate carrier of weapons and the only guarantor of civil peace.

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Traveling

I’m traveling to the US for a few weeks, so please forgive the upcoming spotty blogging..

If you’re around the Manhattan area get in touch and we can arrange for a cup of coffee. A good percentage of my readers are around this area, so I’m looking forward to meeting some of you..