Obama’s failure and Lebanon’s elections

Obama has now put a definitive end to any hopes for actual change in or outside the US – imagine the first ever non-white US president, explicitly claiming the inheritance of ML King, boycotting a UN conference on racism to protect a racist colonial apartheid system across the ocean… That is after refusing to cancel Bush’s orders on wiretapping, refusing to prosecute torturers, propping his government full of Wall Street cronies who continue to hand all of the country’s debts to the banks, and reneging on his campaign promise not to prosecute medical marihuana suppliers in the US, to name but a few of the more obvious facts. Change indeed. To be fair, virtually all of Europe’s governments are complicit in this absurd refusal to recognise the obvious facts about Palestine that their populations have no problem to see. And of course the mainstream press is at hand to enthusiastically butcher Ahmadinejad’s speech at the conference, which in itself was hardly shocking at all – and therefore remains studiously unquoted in said press.

Meanwhile, the senile pharao of Egypt continues to dig his own grave by attacking his nemesis Nasrallah – foolishly thinking that people are going to be shocked to learn that Hizballah has been… gasp… helping arm the Palestinians! Dude, that is their founding principle, and they are damn proud of it – as witnessed by Nasrallah’s triumphant speech immediately after Mubarak’s accusations. To think that the guy actually believed it was going to cost them votes in the upcoming elections – 2 billion dollars a year sure can blind a president-for-life way beyond the power of alzheimer… He even prompted the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt to finally and unequivocally declare its support for Hizballah.

And speaking about dollars and elections, the Saudis and their American allies are sparing no effort in their desperate attempt to avert the imminent loss of the ‘government’ to the ‘opposition’ in Lebanon. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent buying votes, setting up attempts at ‘anti-Hizballah shia parties’ (usually consisting of one deposed feudal landlord and his family) and flying in any expats who want a free holiday to the home country. A friend who works for a car rental agency in Beirut told me they are fully booked for the next month (crisis? what crisis?), and all of the many Lebanese expat customers want the highest range models, seeing as they got their plane ticket for free and therefore have a higher budget this year (which, being Lebanese, they naturally spend on a flashy car). For an amusing overview of the actual advertising campaigns, see this blog, which also refers to Jumblatt’s recent ‘leaked phone video’ stint, where he is seen and heard to say that ‘ the sunnis and ‘those people’ (ie the christians) tried to set the druze up against the shia [last may], when the 1000 fighters the sunnis imported from the north lasted exactly 15 minutes against the shia and the christians stood by the side and watched’. He also referred to Samir Geagea (Lebanese Forces) as ‘shu ismu hayda’ (i.e. ‘what’s his face’) and generally made it clear that alliances have changed, in a purposeful message preparing the way to jump the sinking ship. Leaked video my eye – this was a top meeting between the political and religious leadership of the druze on an intra-druze reconciliation event in Choueifat between Jumblatt’s PSP and Arslan’s party – which is with the opposition. Nobody leaks a video out of there without Jumblatt’s personal approval.  You gotta hand it to the man: from standing there last may famously stating ‘You want war? Bring it on! You want chaos? Ahlan-wa-sahlan, habibi!’ – to now playing the misguided victim of his ‘evil (ex-)allies’… all in just under one year’s time – that’s impressive.

In any case, in all but three or four (christian) constituencies in and around Beirut, the result is already more or less decided anyway, with either one person running uncontested for one seat (after a lot of cowtowing behind the scenes, both within and among the various parties, blocs and alliances) or the entire constituency consistently voting for one party – or person – anyway. This is reinforced by the confessional nature of the entire election system, which allocates a strict number of seats to each of the various sects and furthermore limits important functions such as the presidency, prime ministership and presidency of the parliament to one sect. Which is why many Lebanese are not bothering to vote at all – unless they can sell their vote to the highest bidder (or at least get some money from the one they want to vote for in the first place). Interestingly, the thing that scares the shit out of many in M14 (and beyond) most, is not the rpospect of Hizballah involving them in another Israeli invasion, or even a Hizballah gobvernment being given the cold shoulder by the west – as happened to the democratically elected Hamas government in Palestine – but the fact that Hizballah are the only ones to want to do away with the sectarian distribution of parliament seats – not illogically, seeing as the shia are the majority group now. This would not only bring the Lebanese political system closer to democracy, it would also force a lot of the complacent feudal and clan-based politicians to actually have a political or economic program to run on, beyond the ‘elect me because I’m the head of your family/religion/clan/militia/whatever’-type slogans that seem to be the only platform many candidates propose right now. And the large majority of them are not in a position to do so. Hizballah, like most islamist movements and parties,  also puts a lot of stress – and not only in their slogans – on fighting corruption and nepotism.  And that scares the shit out of Lebanon’s political bozos even more.

Support the resistance: smoke more hash!

‘The Israeli Anti-Drug Authority launched an ad campaign linking smoking marijuana with support for Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. In one poster, Nasrallah’s head appears rising like a genie on smoke from a bong. The poster reads:  “Nasrallah aims at destroying Israel entirely.” The campaign is based on the allegation that Hizbullah funds its activities in Lebanon and alleged activities in Palestinian areas through drug trafficking.  In white font the poster reads: “Hizbullah has the obvious purpose of flooding Israel with venom which forms a strategic danger against Israel. We should not give him the chance to destroy Israel and we should counter drugs internally and externally.”’

(Click on the link to see an image of the poster described)

Of pirates and slave drivers – and food for thought

‘The only hostel for women in Dubai – a filthy private villa on the brink of being repossessed – is filled with escaped maids. Mela Matari, a 25-year-old Ethiopian woman with a drooping smile, tells me what happened to her – and thousands like her. She was promised a paradise in the sands by an agency, so she left her four year-old daughter at home and headed here to earn money for a better future. “But they paid me half what they promised. I was put with an Australian family – four children – and Madam made me work from 6am to 1am every day, with no day off. I was exhausted and pleaded for a break, but they just shouted: ‘You came here to work, not sleep!’ Then one day I just couldn’t go on, and Madam beat me. She beat me with her fists and kicked me. My ear still hurts. They wouldn’t give me my wages: they said they’d pay me at the end of the two years. What could I do? I didn’t know anybody here. I was terrified.” One day, after yet another beating, Mela ran out onto the streets, and asked – in broken English – how to find the Ethiopian consulate. After walking for two days, she found it, but they told her she had to get her passport back from Madam. “Well, how could I?” she asks. She has been in this hostel for six months. She has spoken to her daughter twice. “I lost my country, I lost my daughter, I lost everything,” she says. As she says this, I remember a stray sentence I heard back at Double Decker. I asked a British woman called Hermione Frayling what the best thing about Dubai was. “Oh, the servant class!” she trilled. “You do nothing. They’ll do anything!”‘

Johann Hari, who wrote the excellent long article on Dubai from which the above is quoted, is without a doubt one of the few courageous and pertinent journalists left in what passes for the ‘free’ press. I have just spent an entire morning reading through his eminently insightful stream of articles for the Independent and he is spot-on on many issues without losing sight of the bigger picture connecting them. He clearheadedly exposes the connections linking the wars of the west, including the drug war, with corporate culture, the economic crisis, global warming and the fights for economic equality and freedom from religious censorship and oppression. As for example in this analysis of the Somalian pirates: ‘Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won’t act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats. The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know “what he meant by keeping possession of the sea.” The pirate smiled, and responded: “What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.” Once again, our great imperial fleets sail – but who is the robber?’

He is also one of  the very few people in the west who seem to be capable of criticising islam and christianity and religion as a concept rather than just taking the easy way out of islam-bashing alone: ‘Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to “respect” the “unique sensitivities” of the religious, they decided – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within “the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community”. In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists. Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN’s Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he can seek out and condemn “abuses of free expression” including “defamation of religions and prophets”. The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself.’

Sue them if they fight back…

Ok, so we’re not even going to mention the insane cooky conspiracy theories behind involving North Korea with Lebanon. Let’s just concentrate on the delightful irony of this fact: first you invade a country and bomb the shit out of it for no reason whatsoever (and for the third time in less than three decades, if we count only the major attacks), and then you sue for compensation when people resist you bombing the shit out of them… That is possibly even more chutzpah than accusing a complying member of the NPT and the IAEA of pursuing illegal nuclear weapons while you’re sitting on a stockpile of hundreds of them yourself and are NOT a member of either the NPT or IAEA…

‘Thirty Israeli citizens wounded by Hizbullah rockets fired during the Second Lebanon War have filed an unprecedented lawsuit at the Washington District Court against Korean government, it was reported Friday. The complainants in the $100-million lawsuit, also filed against Hizbullah, claim that North Korea helped the guerrilla group by providing military training to the organization’s senior operatives and building a network of bunkers for storing Katyusha rockets fired at Israel from southern Lebanon.’

Of course, the real reason why the Schlomos are so pissed off is because they actually – and at least for them, totally unexpectedly – got the shit kicked out of them instead: ‘U.S. military experts were stunned by the destruction that Hezbollah forces, using sophisticated antitank guided missiles, were able to wreak on Israeli armor columns. Unlike the guerrilla forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, who employed mostly hit-and-run tactics, the Hezbollah fighters held their ground against Israeli forces in battles that stretched as long as 12 hours. They were able to eavesdrop on Israeli communications and even struck an Israeli ship with a cruise missile. “From 2000 to 2006 Hezbollah embraced a new doctrine, transforming itself from a predominantly guerrilla force into a quasi-conventional fighting force,” a study by the Army’s Combat Studies Institute concluded last year. Another Pentagon report warned that Hezbollah forces were “extremely well trained, especially in the uses of antitank weapons and rockets” and added: “They well understood the vulnerabilities of Israeli armor.”‘

None of this seems to be seeping through to the politial level in Washington where, Obama or no Obama, policy makers keep betting on the losing horses, whether they see them as ‘moderate’,  ‘compliant’, ‘democratic’ (sic) or simply ‘cheap to buy’. The US ambassador to Lebanon – Michele Sisson, successor to the infamous Jeffrey Feltman, who unsurprisingly seems to have taken over David Welch’s turf in Washington – speaks to (the pro-M14 and pro-US) Naharnet, displaying not a shred of evidence of even the minimal modicum of realism that finally seems to have reached the UK, now in an open dialogue with the democratically elected ‘terrorrists’ of Hizbullah:

‘Q-U.S. envoys visiting Lebanon have not been meeting with members of the opposition, particularly Gen. Michel Aoun and Hizbullah. If the opposition wins the elections, will the U.S. boycott a Hizbullah-led government?
A- By U.S. law, by our foreign terrorist organizations law (FTO), we are actually precluded from dealing directly with Hizbullah. So, no, our visitors and our embassy do not engage with Hizbullah.
Q-What if Hizbullah wins the elections?
A- We anticipate that the shape of the U.S. relationship, the shape of the U.S. assistance program, will be evaluated in the context of the new government’s policies and statements. This is a normal thing. No one has a crystal ball at this point. I think we are eight weeks away from the elections. So I won’t hazard a guess for the 128 seats what the margin will be or won’t be. I think day by day, even those who keep score here are having trouble keeping up with all of the developments. It’s a very interesting time politically here. We have said it before but I’ll say it again: We have a long standing policy in effect. Hizbullah has actually been on the FTO list since 1997. So we do not meet with Hizbullah. Now, should Hizbullah renounce terrorism both in Lebanon and abroad and submit to the rule of authority, the rule of law and the authority of the state and the authority of the state institutions — the army — as the sole bearer of weapon. Then, that would give room for reconsideration of this status. But that’s by our law.’

In Egypt, meanwhile, Mubarak has had 49 people arrested on – hey, this is Egypt, so: on no charges whatsoever – accusing them of preparing for Hizbullah attacks on the country and ’spreading Shia ideology’: ‘Montassar el-Zayat, a lawyer for some of the defendants, said Shehab’s brother had asked him to represent him but he had not been allowed to see him or attend interrogations. Zayat accused security of bringing politically motivated charges against the suspects. “My impression is that it is a fabricated case created by Egyptian security in the context of bad relations between Hizbullah and Egypt. It is a pressure card,” he said. Egyptian officials accused Nasrallah of fomenting sedition and state media branded him an “Iranian agent.” Egypt, a mostly Sunni Muslim country, has accused the Shiite government of Iran and Hizbullah of conspiring to spread Shiite ideology in the region. The general prosecutor listed “spreading Shiite ideology” as one of the aims of the detained men. Egypt and Iran broke off relations a year after Islamist revolutionaries overthrew Iran’s pro-Western shah in 1979. Iran opposed Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel and named a street in Tehran after the assassin of Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president killed by an Egyptian Islamist militant in 1981.’

The Iranians, by the way, display a delicious sense of nasty humour in naming their streets: if you wish to write to the UK’s embassy in Tehran, for example, you are obliged to address your letter to ‘Bobby Sands Street, Tehran’…

Back in business – personal update

I’ve been off the blog for a while, mostly because I’ve been working a lot. I would like to direct you to an article I wrote on the music business in Lebanon and the wider Middle East (did somebody say ‘piracy’?)  called Rockin’ the shop for this month’s issue of Executive Magazine, but unfortunately it is accessible online to subscribers only. I would also like to put a link to a timeline of  Saudi political events I wrote last year (in French) for Les Chroniques Yéménites, the academic journal published by CEFAS (Centre français pour l’archéologie et les sciences sociales à Sanaa), called Chronologie politique de l’Arabie saoudite 2007, but unfortunately the latest issue is not online yet. Apart from these, I have been doing editing work for Hospitality News Magazine, a B2B hotel magazine as well as, incongruously, for Georgia Today (neither of which is particularly exciting work, but the money’s gotta come from somewhere…). But my main activity over the past six weeks has been translating a collection of academic essays on Iran, the Shia around the world, and the relationship between them. The original French volume is called ‘Les mondes chiites et l’Iran‘, edited by Sabrina Mervin and published in 2007 by IFPO (Institut français du Proche Orient) in Beirut. The English translation will be published by Saqi Books in London at some point later this year and under a title yet to be decided. Essays cover Shia communities and movements in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the GCC states and Senegal, apart from more obvious subjects such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, as well as the transnational links and connections between the grand families of  Ayatollahs and marja’s. Authors include, besides the editor, Olivier Roy, Laurence Louër, Joseph Alagha, Peter Harling and Hamid Yassin Nasser. The fourth part of the book, about internal Iranian theological debates, will not be included in the English translation. My next project, apart from journalistic work to keep me in food, drink and plane tickets, will be finishing (finally) my master’s thesis and writing up the related research report for CEFAS, which will be published in the next Chroniques Yéménites. I spent six weeks in Saudi Arabia in Fall/Winter 2007 interviewing a number of ‘liberal opposition figures’ to get a view on the influence and reception of the writings and ideas of Turki al-Hamad, a novelist, philosopher and ‘reformer’ who is seen as the figurehead of the ‘liberal movement’ in the kingdom. I have translated some of his essays for my thesis. The research report will probably be written in French and the thesis obligatorily in Dutch, which kind of limits the potential readership, I am afraid.

Meanwhile, so as to offer you at least something to read, check out this interesting article on the upcoming election of the next Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood by the well-informed Marc Lynch aka Abu Aardvark (incidentally proving that even UAE newspapers like The National do sometimes publish insightful articles).