A Game of Chicken Over Electricity in Lebanon

Fix this..

If Lebanon plunges into total darkness, who are you going to blame? The minister or the striking workers?

This is not an easy choice to make. On one hand you have a minister who is obnoxious, cantankerous, whiny and tone deaf. On the other you have a motley crew of entitled workers who got their jobs through a corrupt patronage system; workers who insist so hard on making the Lebanese pay for their redundant jobs that they’re willing to occupy and shut down EDL, everyone else be-damned.

This being such a difficult choice to make, the Lebanese have decided to ignore it and think of other more cheerful things in their gloomy lives. But if this escalates to the point where Lebanon plunges into complete darkness, it will be such a shock that it will focus our minds and force us to pay attention. We will start to look for a guilty party. Which one will it be?

Who’s the baddy?

I made up my mind a while ago, but I can’t predict what the general consensus will be and who will emerge as the ultimate villain who deprived us of the last sliver of light. This is a rare situation in which an independent opinion can be formed, since it’s pitting two supposed allies against each other: Speaker Nabih Berri (the corrupt patronage king) and MP Michel Aoun (The Don Quichottian reformer).

I’ll go ahead and take a guess. I have a feeling that the workers have overplayed their hands. They may be right that the managers will cut off the lights to blame their strike for the blackout, but the optics of the workers forcing their way through the EDL’s premises and “occupying” them beg for an association between their hooliganism and the resulting black-out.

Minister Bassil may be calculating that this is his Ronald Regan Vs air-traffic controllers moment. Perhaps, but even if he fails, we have to at least give him credit for being ballsy..