Blogging: beside the point…

It’s been almost a month I haven’t blogged. And as usual, I wonder if there’s a point to all this. Why do people blog? Why do others read blog postings? Is it a waste of time? What kind of need does it answer? I don’t know.

I’m going to give it another chance in these coming weeks. Here’s a glimpse of the topics that I might be discussing.

• A conference on Democracy and Religion at the Orient Institute
• A book signing at the Francophone Book Fair
• A summary of an article on Martyrocracy
• A reaction to an article published by Samir Frangieh.
• Something on Middle Eastern Peace sites and blogs.

How they helped defeat Farouk Hosny (the story)

The 9 original candidates. Housny is second from left

Before delving into the analysis, let’s set the record straight. I won’t be looking into the dirty politics behind these elections. I do have some crusty insider information on some dirty play, but it’s closer to gossip than meaningful information, and strictly off topic. What we’ll be looking into is the public debate that surrounded these elections. I believe it had an incidence on the final outcome: Irina Bokova’s election to the post of Director General of UNESCO. But there is no way to prove this fact.

Interestingly enough, the reasons behind Farouk Hosny’s defeat are not of much interest. They will leave no trace in the public conscience. On the other hand, the fierce debate surrounding this election will undoubtedly mark those who feel envolved in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Let’s start with a quick look at the five rounds that brought Farouk Hosni to his defeat. If you’re interested in more details, check out this blog.

Results of the 5 rounds


Candidate	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5
Farouk Hosny	22	23	25	29	27
Irina Bokova	8	8	13	29	31
Benita Ferrero-Waldner	7	9	11	0	0
Ivonne Baki	7	8	9	0	0
Ina Marciulionyte	3	4	0	0	0
Alexander Yakovenko	7	3	0	0	0
Noureini Tidjani-Serpos	2	2	0	0	0
Sospeter Muhongo	1	1	0	0	0
Mohammed Bedjaoui	0	0	0	0	0
Blank	1	0	0	0	0
Total	58	58	58	58	58

As the figures clearly show, Farouk Hosni was the leading contestant up to the fifth round. His candidacy was supported by the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organization for the Islamic Conference. It was backed by France and unopposed (though grudgingly) by Israel. So what happened? If you’re interested in geopolitics, check out what Stephen Suleyman Schwartz had to say about it. I’d rather look into one campaign that picked up speed and was given more media attention than any other story in these elections: that of Bernard-Henri Lévy (alias BHL, alias BHV) relayed on the net through Save Unesco!, a blog started by “French students in political science” that was deleted earlier today (but here is the cached copy). Much can be said about Bernard-Henri Levy and the anonymous group of French students, but I will focus on the issues that they raised, and they are identical. Instead of supporting one specific candidate, they attacked the Egyptian candidate on three main issues

• Antisemitism. This accusation springs from a misquoted statement on burning Israeli books found in Egyptian libraries (a statement Farouk Hosny later apologised for in his “message to the world“). BHL reinterpreted this statement as a vow “to burn with his own hands any book in Hebrew that could have possibly infiltrated the stacks of the Alexandria Library”.
• An alleged involvement in the Achille Lauro Hijacking affair.  
• Responsibility as Minister of Culture (for over two decades) in the crackdown of liberties and freedom of expression in Egypt.

So, is Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace price laureate, right when he says “UNESCO has escaped a scandal, a moral disaster. Mr. Hosni did not deserve the job he does not deserve this honor  tomorrow”. Can we agree with BHL when he says “We have won. Liberty has won. Tolerance has won. And thanks to all of you, respect has won. I’d like to thank you, net surfers, for engaging in this battle for democracy and peace. Thanks to all who refused the unacceptable and who allowed for this beautiful victory”. That’s what we’ll be looking into tomorrow.

De l’islamophobie ordinaire*

*Réaction à l’article d’opinion d’Ivan Rioufol “Voila comment s’installe la barbarie ordinaire…”, paru dans le Figaro du vendredi 17 juillet.

Vous avez remarqué les points de suspension qui terminent le titre de l’article, ou plutôt le laisse ouvert pour indiquer que beaucoup de choses restent à dire. En fait, il aurait été plus juste de le ponctuer avec un deux-points car cet editorial est un véritable réquisitoire où l’auteur exprime méthodiquement tout son dégout sur les Musulmans, un dégout ordinaire puisqu’il est partagé par beaucoup et peut passer inaperçu: une virulente islamophobie de salon dirons nous en détournant l’une de ses expressions. Pour bien saisir les idées fondamentales autour desquels l’article s’articule, il est conseillé de se poser ces trois questions suivantes en le lisant:

• De quel danger s’agit-il?
• Quels en sont les symptômes?
• Qui en est responsable?

Pour mes commentaires, lisez la suite:

Aounomania vs Aounophobia

The idea of comparing the two afflictions came to me when I came across an opinion paper published by NOW Lebanon: “The Madness of King Michael“. I couldn’t help myself from writing a comment thanking them for bringing so much Aounomania and Aounophobia together.

First the Aounomania:

A 50 min spot in which pictures of Gibran, JFK, Lincoln, Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Lenin, Marie Curie, Mother Theresa, Mandela, Fidel Castro, Coluche, Che Guevara, Einstein, Alexander Fleming, Mohamad Ali Clay, Napoleon, Roosevelt, de Gaule, John Paul II, Martin Luther King, Lech Walesa, Michel Aoun, scroll across the screen and a voice-over reflects: “Statesmen, Peacemakers, Visionaries… many have followed, some have ignored them, many have love them, some have denied them… Rebels, revolutionaries, geniuses! How many times were they called lunatics. They persisted in their combat until their struggle became a right, and victory a truth“.

When I saw the clip I said to myself “wow, these people are taking the cult of personality to a new high!!”.

Now the cult of personality is not new to Lebanon. Most Lebanese televisions air hero-worship spots. Al-Manar, for instance, broadcasts clips of Hezbollah combatants. Future Television has been airing spots on Rafic Hariri since his assassination. For over a month, Hariri was the only subject the television discussed. LBC followed suit and aired spots of the politicians that have been assassinated since 2005. This is equally true for the Press. Rafik Hariri’s picture adorns the Mustaqbal’s header and  Gibran Tueni’s picture adorns the Nahar header… And all those people are worshiped as heros whose actions cannot be criticised because they were savagely murdered.

Political parties follow yearly rituals to honour their heros: the anonymous combatants that died in combat and the heroic figure that founded them or lead them for a couple of years: Kamal Joumblatt for the Ishtiraki, Bechir Gemayel for the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb, Rafik Hariri for the Mustaqbal, Pierre Gemayel for the Kataeb…

During their lifetimes, the founders enjoyed hero worship. This is particularly true for Mussa Sadr, Pierre Gemayel (Sr), Kamal Jumblat, Rafik Hariri. So did Samir Geagea, Amin Gemayel… to a lesser extent.

So what’s new with OTV’s political worship? The answer is simple: Michel Aoun is still alive! And his cult isn’t indirect. It’s not mediated by a cult to a relative (father, brother, husband). It is direct! blatant, barefaced, unashamed. It’s the Zaïm’s cult at its crudest. No critical distance, no direct reference to actions, no evaluation. Just flattery and adulation.

Then the Aounophobia:

Now let’s look at the article’s arguments. It sums up the clip quite correctly and very quickly shares with us a very convincing (and obvious) conclusion : “we are served up a sycophantic and brainless piece of drivel, dressed up as a serious message“.

The anonymous opinion writer isn’t interested in simply mocking a “clip [that] would have been terrific spoof material“. He’s real target is Michel Aoun. “The depressing truth is that Aoun has done nothing except to create conflict and division, while exploiting the aspirations of an electorate that, amazingly, still believes he offers a genuine, alternative voice in the Lebanese political arena. He believes that by shouting he is a misunderstood intellectual, that by being a hypocrite he is a visionary and that by supporting murderous non-state actions, he has the whiff of a revolutionary about him“. Notice that there is not a trace of argument in this paragraph. The opinion writer assumes that these are self-evident truths. And then we get to the last conclusion: ”But the fact that OTV, the FPM’s official television station, has seen fit to run it at prime time viewing, is surely the final nugget of proof – as if one were needed – that Aoun has lost the plot.” Now this final argument is quite interesting because it presents itself as a demonstration (albeit a superfluous one). But the logic behind the argument is actually nowhere to be found. The fact that OTV sees fit to run it at prime-time exhibits the television’s partisanship, it proves that this television is actively participating in a cult of personality! If Michel Aoun approved it, it shows that his inflated ego and megalomania (attributes shared by most Lebanese politicians) don’t shy from such crude display (other politicians would rather flirt with false modesty by publicly asking their partisans to stop such a display while privately encouraging it or even funding it).

Nothing in Aoun’s political conduct shows that he has lost his ability to understand or cope with what is happening. He still commands one of the largest parliamentary blocs, and by far the largest christian parliamentary group. And like all political actors he is bidding for the largest possible share in government. If the opinion writer things otherwise, he should try to explain to his reader how he got to that conclusion.

This being said, I believe we should thank  NOW for bringing Aounomania and Aounophobia together. It just shows how similar both afflictions are, and how blind the afflicted are to their suffering.  We shoud equally applaude all Aounomaniacs and all Aounophobics for expelling all reason (and reasonableness) from political analysis & lowering the political disussion to such a dismal pit.

A month in a virtual-peace-community – part 2

What I didn’t say yesterday about this virtual-peace-community is that it is managed and owned by an young Israeli, a member of Peace Now.

This fact could explain some of the problems the virtual-peace-community faces. Peace Now is a left leaning zionist organisation. It enjoys a large international support in intellectual circles because of its pro-peace stands, but in Israel, it is criticized by all sides:  On the right because of its attitude against the settlements in the West Bank, on the left because it’s seen as inefficient and too zionist. 

I personally have been quite sympathetic to some of this NGOs work, but critical of its two shortcomings:  

- Its support of the 2006 July War

- Its lack of interest in non-jewish membership (which is odd for a Peace movement that is in a multinational country and in a multi-religious region). 

Nevertheless, one can only be admirative of the courage Peace Now and the creator of the virtual-peace-community have for extending a peaceful hand to their enemy when they are criticised by their own and generally ignored and rejected by those to whom they extend your hand. This is what Peace Now has faced, and this is what the cyber-community is suffering from. If they can’t find a way to solve these two problems, there’s very little chance that they will be able to succeed in their venture.

A month in a virtual-peace-community – part 1

Dear blogosphere,

It wasn’t really work that kept me off this blog, but my growing involvement elsewhere in cyberspace. Over a year ago, I joined a virtual-community committed to peace in the Middle East. For months I was a regular, but this summer, things slipped out of control. I spend over two hours a day reading and responding to postings and comments. It was eating up almost of my spare time, to what avail? This is what I asked myself yesterday when I decided to wean myself off it. 

It was time to check the balance sheet. What was I getting out of this virtual-peace-community? Was it of benefit for me to stay on?

Well, it was interesting to see that the “Peacemakers” on the site are deeply divided among different lines:

- the first line is linguistic: the site is mostly in English, so those who master the language are likely to dominate the discussions (i.e. English native speakers and people with a high academic background). The site tried to encourage postings in Hebrew and Arabic, but it didn’t work,

- the second line is ideological: on one side you have the pro-zionist (adamant defenders of Israel) and on the other the anti-zionists (they’re mostly anti-zionist Israeli or diaspora jews). Each group has his cyber-soldiers who shoot at anyone that doesn’t belong to their camp.

- the third line is on the level of arguments and experience in “peacemaking”: some arguments are journalistic, others are academic, some were highly ideological, others were technical… Some were informed, others not at all… The same subjects were treated ad nauseam… the same arguments repeated incessantly… Copy/Pasting from other cites used extensively by some in their postings and comments… 

What a challenge it was to make such a diverse audience interact with each other peacefully! Anger is palpable in most discussions and cyber-soldiers are very efficient in hijacking discussions (though their number is limited: never more than 10 out of 1000 member).

Reacting to an article by Hazem Saghieh

Comme attendu, ces extraits m’ont horripilé. Non pas en raison de la force de leur argument ou de la férocité de leur attaque contre le CPL et son chef, mais en raison de leur médiocrité et de leur superficialité qui m’ont laissé pantois. Je n’ai jamais été un grand fan de Hazem Saghieh, mais je ne m’attendais pas à ce niveau de discours d’un journaliste aussi chevronné que lui.

Réduire le phénomène aouniste et le CPL à une convergence de haine à l’encontre de Geagea, de Hariri et de Joumblatt est ridicule. Et ne l’aborder que sous son aspect « nationaliste » est tout aussi réducteur. Mais ce genre de réaction est quelque part attendue. On ne peut rester indifférent à un phénomène aussi étonnant quant à son ampleur au sein de la société chrétienne qu’il est singulier dans le contexte politique libanais.

En fait, les réactions acerbes comme les réactions jubilatoires à l’encontre ou en faveur de cette mouvance nous renseignent tout autant sur l’état de notre société et de son microcosme intellectuel. Dans les deux cas, les réactions sont mues par la passion et les arguments dont ils se servent ne résistent pas à une analyse raisonnée et raisonnable.

Les extraits prétendent que Michel Aoun est impliqué dans la préparation des conditions favorables aux crimes qui ont secoués notre pays depuis 2005. Ils prétendent par ailleurs que Aoun serait plus que impliqué dans le blocage politique qui caractérise le pays. Responsabilité donc criminelle et politique.

Cet argument est d’abord d’une structure logique bassiste pure. Il suffit de remplacer le nom Michel Aoun par « Opposition Chrétienne » pour se rappeler de ce que les médias libanais disaient à l’unisson lorsqu’ils étaient « sous influence syrienne », ou ce que les médias syriens disent aujourd’hui de l’opposition syrienne… Tout d’abord l’argument ne s’appuie sur aucun fait et effectue un saut logique formidable. Comment est-ce que Michel Aoun rend les conditions plus favorables à ces crimes ? D’abord, quel est le sens de l’expression « conditions favorables à un crime » ?! Ensuite, retirons Aoun de l’équation politique, est-ce que cela aurait rendu les crimes plus difficiles à commettre ? Est-ce que cela aurait neutralisé leur effet ? Est-ce que cela aurait estompé la motivation de leur(s) auteur(s) ?

Deuxième argument : Michel Aoun “est impliqué dans le blocage politique qui caractérise le pays”. Qu’est-ce que cela veut bien dire ? Tous les acteurs sont impliqués dans le « blocage politique » ! Faisons maintenant le même exercice que tout à l’heure, enlevons Michel Aoun de l’équation. Est-ce que la situation se serait alors débloquée ? Comment aurait-elle évolué? Quel rôle joue-t-il dans le blocage ? Quel poids pèse-t-il dans la décision politique ? A-t-il les moyens de bloquer ou de débloquer la situation ?

Il faut sortir de nos illusions. Les Chrétiens et leur leadership ne pèsent rien aujourd’hui, pas plus ni moins que sous l’occupation syrienne. Au niveau du poids institutionnel des hommes politiques chrétiens, nous pouvons dire qu’ils se valent tous, aussi bien Michel Aoun que de Samir Geagea, Nassib Lahoud ou Chibli Mallat. C’est au niveau de leur légitimité et de la représentativité qu’ils diffèrent. D’ailleurs, c’est autour de cette question que tout le conflit inter-chrétien se joue ; jeux dans lequel tout le monde perd parce qu’il n’y a pas de règle de jeu.

Pour retourner à la crise politique libanaise (dont le « blocage » n’est qu’un symptôme), c’est l’antagonisme Chiite/Sunnite qui l’alimente. Et il est lui-même alimenté par des acteurs et dynamiques régionaux qu’internationaux.

Les Chrétiens ne sont que des spectateurs, de simples figurant qui servent à donner un visage « transcommunautaire » au conflit. Et c’est sans doute la meilleure chose qu’ils puissent faire vu leur poids démographique (sans doute le 1/4 de la population résidante), leur léthargie intellectuelle (ils sont bloqués dans des schèmes et des discours qui datent des années 1920-1930) et la qualité de leur Zu’ama (i.e. médiocrité). Tant qu’ils sont bien partagés des deux côtés du clivage, ils peuvent rassurer les véritables protagonistes et jouer le rôle de pare-choc. Et c’est ce qu’ils font.

Je pourrais dire autant de tous les autres arguments de Saghieh. Mais je préfère me cantonner au pire d’entre tous, celui de l’exploitation « du virage de la communauté sunnite vers sa libanisation ».

Il faut impérativement sortir des années 1920. Cela fait plus de 60 ans que les élites sunnites ont abandonné leurs ambitions pan-syriennes (et à mon avis on aurait pu dire autant de la masse des sunnites, seulement on ne l’avait pas consulté, et elle ne l’avait pas réalisé avant les manifestations de 2005). Et d’ailleurs que signifie libanisation ? Nous sommes tous Libanais, nous sommes tous libanistes, mais chacun à sa manière.

Comment imaginez-vous votre pays ? Comme une Suisse du Moyen-Orient, une République jacobine, l’avant-garde d’un nouveau socialisme, un Modèle du pluralisme, un Etat du Faqih, un Sultanat, une Démocratie majoritaire, une Démocratie consociative, un Message interreligieux, une Fédération de fiefs féodaux, un Hong Kong du Moyen-Orient, un Vietnam du Moyen-Orient… Vous trouverez un parti au Liban qui vous promettra de réaliser votre rêve.

Ambitions, discours et susceptibilités communautaires

Il est certain que le discours anti-Haririste de Michel Aoun est parfaitement condamnable ; parfois il semble empreint d’anti-sunnisme et, d’autres fois, il est perçu comme étant anti-sunnite du fait qu’il s’attaque au Zaïm communautaire des sunnites. Et il ne faut pas rater une occasion pour critiquer les discours qui ne prennent pas en considération les susceptibilités communautaires et condamner les amalgames qu’ils opèrent, les sentiments qu’ils provoquent… Mais il ne faut pas s’arrêter là. Dans nos analyses, c’est de notre devoir de remarquer que ce genre de discours ou de dérapage n’est pas isolé. Il est même généralisé. On entend depuis un an un discours parfois ouvertement anti-Chiite dans les médias (ou qui est parfois perçu comme étant anti-chiite par les Chiites du fait qu’il s’attaque à leur Zu’ama). En fait, les discours qui visent à mobiliser une communauté risque souvent de heurter les susceptibilités d’une autre communauté. C’est un art difficile à manier. Joumblatt a lamentablement échoué à le faire en 2005, ce qui lui a valu une hostilité renouvelée parmi les Chrétiens. Mais on se rappelle des discours de Rafic Hariri au moment des élections de 2000… Le Sultan était plus subtil et raisonnable que le Général ou le Néo-Féodal, mais son discours était tout aussi farouchement communautaire. Mais il avait l’intelligence de ne jamais s’attaquer aux « Chrétiens » ou à « leur président » ; il concentrait ses efforts sur l’attaque du Sinistre Hoss pour avoir « porté atteinte au poste de Premier ministre » et qui l’a affaibli face à la Présidence… Et c’est dans des termes de reconquête qu’il avait organisé le plus grand rassemblement à Beyrouth depuis 1992. Le Sultan travaillait en ce temps pour son retour au Sérail, le Général lui travaille pour son retour au Palais. Ceci ne justifie en aucune manière leur discours et stratégie de pouvoir, mais ça a le mérite de l’expliquer.

Buidling homes to connect people: why not in Nahr el Bared?

I enterred a jolly argument with some guy in cyberspace over Nahr el Bared. And this has been going on for a couple of days. This brought me back to a question I’ve been asking myself for a couple of months now: What would be a relevant peace initiative in such a situation? The work I carried out this summer with som IDP children coming from that camp was neither relevant nor a real peace initiative (for many reasons that I could develop in some other post).
I remembered an article I had photocopied some time ago on an Irish initiative that seemed to be quite succesful. The operation was called “Blitz Build” and it was carried out by Catholics and Protestants in Glencairn with the help of Habitat for humanity. I believe Offre Joie, a very active Lebanese organisation, participated in a similar operation in southern Lebanon last year, in cooperation with my Alma Mater. Maybe something similar could be done in Nahr el Bared… I should give it a bit more thought and start doing contacts…

This Lebanese is still worried

It’s been many months that I haven’t written posts on a regular basis. But this doesn’t mean in any way that I have lost interest in middle-eastern politics, shied from political debate or stopped being worried about the whole situation the region seems to be stuck in. It’s just that keeping up a blog is quite time consuming and frankly I had other priorities that hardly left me any time for sleep!Fortunately they’re over now and I can make time to think calmly about them and even write a couple of posts a week so as to throw into cyberspace some ideas I have about what’s going in Western Asia.What’s great about this region is that even if extreme violence can flare at any time, the dynamics never seem to change. You can recycle everything you’ve ever thought or said about the region by simply modifying the name of the players and changing the date of writing.I feel I can easily resume where I had left off a couple of months ago without loosing a thing.In Palestine/Israel, it’s pretty much the same. The Israeli government is still waving sticks at Hamas and carrots at Fateh. Mahmoud Abbas is still showing that like many other Arab leaders, clinging to power is what he does best. And he has enough arrogance to do it at any cost; the highest being that of a complete political and social paralysis and/or regression. He is the perfect example of what the Americans term a “Moderate” (I should write a post on Moderates, maybe next week).Lebanon is still the Middle East’s favourite playground/battleground (not even Iraq has managed to compete with us withstanding the records that are being broken there in bombings and killings)

Reclaiming my blog

During the past three months, I’ve been working day and night on a peace education workshop for a young Lebanese peace organisation that a group of friends founded last year. This has kept me away from the blog. In fact, I had little time to ponder on very worrying political stuff happening around me. Moreover, I felt that such intelectual speculation worthless. During these three months, my thoughts had to be action oriented; i had to set up, lay the ground and then carry out the project.
I will try to resume where I left off, even if it may seem as yesterday’s news.

Anti-confessionalism at its worst (another hate mail)

Here is an email I wrote yesterday and sent to AMAM:

I believe Amam is doing a terrible job. It has been launching one political campaign after the other for the past year ridiculing sectarianism, confusing sectarianims and communalism, and equating them with division, underdevelopment and war.

The ideology AMAM diffuses is not new. It can be traced to the 1920s and it has marked the Lebanese constitution since its adoption in 1926 (c.f. article 95). Oddly enough, it’s a State ideology that is propagated in our history books (try to find in a history manual any reference to communal identity), in ministerial declarations, in television programs… And what has it amounted to? A complete ignorance by most Lebanese on all issues pertaining the communities they don’t belong to, and even the knowledge of their community is flawed.

The Lebanese do not even know the exact number of communities that are established in Lebanon. Do you know? It’s 17, not 18, not 19. Seventeen: 12 Christian, 4 Muslim and 1 Jewish (the Ismael-is are not an established community in Lebanon). Do you even know that a non-religious community was recognised but never established? probably not. Brainwashed since your youth that Lebanon, State and Society, is confessionalist, and that confessionalism is bad, you’ve never gone further than that and asked yourself in what way is confessionalism bad? Is our system really confessionalist?

So what is AMAM actually doing? Is it doing anything new? In the content, absolutely not. In the format yes, it is making anti-confessionalism “sexy”, pseudo-humorous, contemporary.

AMAM’s campaign is fighting the only positive development in the past few years: communalism is no longer taboo, people are expressing their communal belonging (and fears) freely and openly. The expression is new, but the feeling old. Now that it is expressed, maybe the country can start addressing it.

What is wrong with being proud of ones communal heritage? What’s wrong with wanting to be truly represented by a person from ones own community? What’s wrong with communal power-sharing? In principle, and in practice too. But remember, when one is judging things in practice, one has to be sure that they are the result of the specific variable he is working on, and not of something else, or a mix of variables…

So now communalism isn’t taboo any longer. People talk about their communal fears and wants. Christians are expressing their fears of mass immigration. Do you think it better if they just shut up and left the country silently, like the Lebanese Jews did or the Lebanese Armenians are doing today (check the yearly figures of student enrolment in Armenian schools).

Instead of trying to understand communal expressions and fears, AMAM is fighting them, ridiculing them. You do not fight the manipulation that surrounds them, you denounce their very expression. You conflate communalism and sectarianism under the same derogatory label: “confessionalism”. You refuse to distinguish between their socio-cultural and political dimensions, their spontaneous and their manipulated expressions… To AMAM it is all very simple: “confessionalism” is a social ail. Hence, all your campaigns denigrate the Lebanese society and portrays it as bigoted and sectarian. Here you’re mocking an imaginary private company, in another campaign you are mocking social and professional interactions “parking for Maronites”, “doctor for Shiites”, “Greek-orthodox specialist”…

What you are doing is foolish, short-minded and arrogant. You think you are reacting to the failings of the Lebanese society when you are actually but their simplest expression.

Working on Peace education

I have been working for several weeks now on two programmes for peace education in Lebanon: One for trainers and one for a summer workshop. It’s a whole new field I’m discovering and I this has resulted in my total neglect of this blog. One of the main fuels for my post writing was the daily news. I chose to ignore it a couple of months ago because I noticed that it was sterile and reported nothing really new. But today, it is very difficult to ignore the news because it’s here, it’s violent, it’s real, and it is bloody.
For over two weeks now, there has been ongoing fighting between the lebanese army and a militant islamic group in and around the camp. And I see myself quite supportive of the Lebanese army. How can I reconcile this position with my pro-peace work? how can I be supporting a military intervention while working on an anti-violence pro-peace programme?

What is the point of this blog?

For some time now, I’ve been wondering if I should keep up this blog . When I first started it, I used to write an entry every day. It was a kind of diary in which I jotted all my political thoughts. I couldn’t keep up with this regularity, so very soon, I started noting ideas down everyday and then developping them and posting them twice or three times a week. And today, I hardly make the time to write new posts once a week. The fact that I’ve been travelling a lot lately doesn’t help regular posting either.

Most of the themes that I wanted to - and eventually did – develop relate to intercommunal affairs and how differences (ethnic and ideological) are managed in the Middle East. But it isn’t easy to write something new on this subject everyday. And it is hard to escape the headline news and the simmering political debates. On the other hand, one cannot rely on headline news for new subjects because the novelty in them is often very hard to find.

So instead of reflecting (on) news about the Middle East, the post will from now on mirror my political preoccupations (on what could and should be done), readings and the research I’ve been doing for a Peace eduation programme I’m working on. Let’s give it a try for a week or two. 

Democracy without democrats, commenting a friend’s take on the subject

Can’t quite figure out where I wrote my comment, will add it as soon as possible.

In the meantime, you could check it out on http://niouzes.blogspot.com/ (in French)

Ya Libnan, a weblog

http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2006/12/nasrallah_preac.php

Every now and then I check out this blog. One could guess its partisanship by just looking at its colour. And truth to tell, it doesn’t really hide its biases. Here is a piece on Hezbollah. Instead of really analysing Hassan Nasrallah’s speach (which is the stated aim of the article), we are shown the thinking of the author and his emotional reactions to it. Nasrallah’s threats are not taken for what they are. The author finds the need to link them to events that have nothing to do with these threats and even to a a potential political assassination.

The posting is actually quite interesting because it shows how the March 14 audience reacts to Hassan Nassrallah’s increasingly didactic, arithmetic and still threatening speeches.