I was checking my email this morning when I was treated to a Facebook event invitation: “The Lebanese Laïque Pride – مَسِيرَة من أجل دولة علمانيّة في لبنان”. The Idea is simple: All you guys out there who think that Lebanon should have a secular state should come and express yourselves. It sounded like an exciting idea: Like-minded people in a collective act of civil activism hoping to effect some change, what’s not to like about that?

But then you look deeper.

The event doesn’t have a website. The organizers don’t reveal their faces. They used a weird picture to represent their cause: A Nacho salad platter. Moreover, “The meeting point and itinerary are yet to be announced”. Even the choice of the word “pride” suggests a pre-admission of defeat. It’s a way of saying “we know we are outnumbered and unpopular, but we still believe in our cause”. So many things can go wrong it’s hard to believe anyone decided to attend that rally (a rally that could easily be hijacked by flag waving partisans who can claim ownership of the event if it were a success, and deny involvement if it flopped )

In a way, that Facebook event is a perfect symbol for today’s Lebanese secularists: Anonymous, scattered, unfocused and powerless. The last time they had an ally in power, his ideas were shot down faster than you can say “Elias El Hrawi”.

No matter how much we pretend otherwise, the fact of the matter is this: Organized religion is part of the very fabric of this republic. Demonstrating against this won’t get rid of it. You can’t even legislate against it (remember, MPs are also chosen by religious affiliation).

Still, all hope is not lost. People like the Minister of Interior Ziad Baroud are working behind the scenes for the long haul. Seemingly small measures like dropping religious affiliation from the Lebanese ID card could end up having a profound impact. If the Minister of Education follows suit, future generations could very well be ready for change.

Photo by Lara Zankoul

So apparently, I can prevent my wife from traveling if I wanted to. I could abuse her, beat her and forcibly summon her to my home whenever I so demand. It seems the Lebanese penal code couldn’t care less about what I do in my own house. So i learned from reading this excellent article in the Daily Star by Josie Ensor and Dalila Mahdawi.

We knew it all along. The Lebanese rulebook is littered with laws that are obsolete, decrepit and outright anachronistic. Some of them are funny. For example, if you fall from the balcony on someone’s car, it’s your own fault. But the rest, like those relating to women, are not. They are unfair and very consequential. They split families, they break souls and they force many people to make difficult choices.

The matter got me thinking. We are supposedly a democracy, and if i’m not mistaken, we have more female voters than we have male ones. Why won’t Lebanese women vote in more sister lawmakers that would improve their lot?

I blame “electoral lists”, the set-menu system that encourages aspirant politicians to coalesce around zo3ama (Big Men) with big pockets/guns. This leaves us with a parliament where a handful of honchos set up the big-picture agenda and ignore the domestic mundane topics.

And yet the laws are so shocking I couldn’t help but wonder: Imagine a certain Lady XX deciding to run for elections. Now imagine her creating a clever ad campaign that exposes these individual laws (with real examples of their tragic consequences), with the simple promise: If you elect me, I will dedicate myself to changing these laws. It’s all I’m going to parliament to do, I will do nothing else.

Would I be too optimistic if I believe that Lebanon has enough sensible people to vote for her and get her elected?

Obama. One Year on, the shame remains

One year later, I still resent how the election of president Obama made me feel about my country, Lebanon.

In a swift, blistering move , America’s first black president laid bare the primitive way in which we chose our leaders. Our President had to be a Maronite Christian, our constitution says. The Prime Minister has to be a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker a Shiia Muslim and the deputy speaker an orthodox Christian.

In that fateful day, president Obama exposed my country as a fraud. A fake melting pot…

Having many religions used to make me proud. But November 2008 made me see a different place. I saw a country where tribes coexisted in an eternal power struggle, where leaders of the various sects negotiate their power relationships. It dawned on me: Lebanon could never produce a minority president. Lebanon could never have a president Obama.

I wrote back then: “How can you not be embarrassed, watching the Obama spectacle, if you live in a country where your destiny is dictated by the God you worship and the clan you belong to? President Obama puts to shame our obsolete system that assigns a different set of laws to [Muslims and Christians]”

One year later, as I watch our elected leaders spending endless months trying to form a government, I still feel the same…

So today is blog action day, and the topic is climate change. I really don’t know what “action” the people behind this day are talking about. What I really care about is our role as a tiny nation, whose minuscule green gas footprint is so small it hardly registers. Do we, as Lebanese, really need to take part of this great debate?

When it comes to global warming, the Lebanese are divided into three categories: The preachy (”do you know that your gas-guzzling Hummer is going to kill us all?”) , the apathetic (”Global warming? Whatever dude”) and the skeptic (”Global warming is a hoax man, I can’t believe you’re falling for this”)

What I don’t see is people asking: How can we benefit from this worldwide scare and put Lebanon at the forefront of action to find a solution? (and cash in on it)

I can hear what you’re thinking: But we’re a small country, we can hardly make a difference. But that’s exactly where you’d be wrong. It is precisely because we are a small country that we can try out new ways to power our lifestyles. America and China are too big, too industrialized to use their countries as labs, but Lebanon? with our pathetic electricity supply, we really have nothing to lose.

If you think I’m talking pie-in-the-sky, I invite you to look at our enemy down south. Israel, a country with a similar size and climate to ours, is putting itself at the forefront of research to fight global warming. Do you know that Israel will be the world’s first country to use electrical cars on a wide scale?

Renauld-Nissan needed a small country to test what an all-electrical-cars market would behave like. They needed a government that would install electrical filling stations all over the country, entrepreneurs that would make money out of the venture, and scientists that would keep improving the efficiency.

It is a failure of our nation, of our society, of our politics, that Renauld-Nissan –whose CEO Carlos Ghosn has Lebanese roots– chose Israel, not Lebanon as a battleground against global warming.

(Photo credit)

Please also take your time to see what my blogger friends had to say for this global action day: Lilliane, Rami, Maya, Chantal, Joe , Darine, Hummus, Cafethawra

This morning I read a NowLebanon article that blew my mind away (pun intended). If the statistics in the article are correct, almost 50% of Lebanese households now have one form or another of weapons, with most of them unlicensed.

Some of the stuff in the article is really chilling, take this paragraph for instance:

Bassam, 24, got his new M16 as a present from his father. It is his new toy, he said; he even lets his eight-year old cousin play with it and has taught him how to hold it.

But while there seems to be a consensus in civil-war-scarred Lebanon that having guns is a very bad idea, nobody seems to be making the counter argument. This is why I venture in the name of balance to play the devil’s advocate, even if I carry the risk of being shot by the anti-gun folks.

Here are the three main arguments why gun ubiquity could be a good thing, and I urge you to have an open mind about them:

1- The if-you-want-peace-get-ready-for-war argument:
The idea is that If everyone has weapons, people will really think twice before starting a war. People are more likely to talk and negotiate their difference if they know that the other party is no military push-over.

2- The I-sleep-better-at-night-with-a-rifle-in-my-closet argument.
Whether perceived or real, many Lebanese are losing sleep over the threat that the ‘other’ will raid their homes at nights, kill their kids and rape their wives. If having a gun (that you’ll never use) in your drawer makes you sleep better, then go ahead. The country could use the gain in productivity and loss of stress that would give you.

3- The economic-wheel argument.
The guy who sold you the gun and made a huge profit will probably use the windfall to send his kids to school and buy stuff, ensuring more employment for teachers, sales people and manufacturers all over the country..

These are not necessarily arguments I agree with. In fact, on balance, I believe that something must be done to control and reduce the proliferation of guns. But I also think it’s important to for people to consider the other side of the story to enrich the debate and make people more informed. What do you think?

(Photo source of boy holding a bubbles gun)

In the Hollywood movie ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan’, Adam Sandler plays an Israeli agent who just couldn’t get enough of ‘Khhummus’. He gorges on the delicacy by dipping everything from chocolate to chicken to his father’s eye glasses in it.

What we see as a goofy if harmless comedy,  Fadi Abboud, the president of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists, sees as a sinister attempt to hijack our beloved Lebanese cuisine by our enemies down south. Mr. Abboud believes  that Lebanon is loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars because the world thinks that Hummus, Tabbouleh and Falafel are Israeli inventions.

So what is Mr. Abboud’s  plan to rectify that error? First, we break the Guinness world record for largest Hummus plate on earth. After that, we “file an international lawsuit against Israel for claiming ownership of traditional dishes that are believed to be originally Lebanese. ”

While Mr. Abboud’s intentions are doubtless good and the whole exercise will be a lot of fun (I mean come on, the online discussions this would spark? The “hummus is Lebanese” Facebook page? All priceless!), this all sounds to me like an exercise in futility.

Trying to prove that a dish was invented in a specific geographic area, let alone one as tiny as Lebanon, is like trying to pinpoint exactly where the Arabic language was invented. You can’t tell for at least two reasons. 1- this old dish was invented before current borders and ideologies. and 2- You don’t just invent a meal like that. It’s a process that took thousands of years and input from all kinds of peoples and areas.

And don’t get me started with claiming ownership by creating the world’s largest plate of the stuff. This Dubai-esque exercise sounds like a giant penis-measuring competition only adolescent boys would engage in. I just hope the Israelis won’t hop in and play the game. Besides, Mr. Abboud seems to be fighting an imaginary threat. In my experience, people in the US and the UK refer to our food -correctly- as “Middle Eastern” cuisine, with many even calling it Lebanese.

To wrap this up, let’s make that giant delicious bowl of Hummus, but let’s not pretend it’s anything other than a whole loads of fun..

*Update*
I want to sincerely thank Ms. Anissa Helou, the internationally known food writer, for pursuing the matter with some of the world’s leading experts on the matter. Please read more about her findings in the comments section.

(img src )

By now, everyone should have heard of Mr. Jumblat’s gargantuan swerve on the Lebanese political scene. The erstwhile leader in the March 14 movement decided to forsake his trench buddies for what he is laughingly calling a “neutral” position.

Mr. Jumblat has a way of making a splash; Lebanese newspapers and websites can’t get enough of the story and everyone has something to say about it. March 14 commentators are expressing disappointment while March 8 pundits can hardly hide their Schadenfreude. Yet one particular breed of commentators -the one I’m interested in for this post- have a peculiar take on Mr. Jumblat’s move: They “understand” why Mr. Jumblat “had to” do the thing he did and sometimes make Mr. Jumblat look like a Martyr.

There are two major arguments that the above-mentioned are making. The first is the one Ilham Freiha (of Al-anwar newspaper) made in her column today, that Mr. Jumblat is protecting his vulnerable sect. The second, best expressed by my friend Abu Kais, is that Mr. Jumblat was disappointed by a combination of spinelessness from his local allies and lack of commitment from the international community.

While those arguments have some merits, they remain insufficient for explaining what seems like a shortsighted move by Mr. Jumblat.

Ms Freiha writes (my translation):

Mr. Jumblat’s U-turn goes back to May 7th of last year. That is when he pressured the Seniora government (under the threat of resignation) to dismantle Hezbollah’s communications network and uninstall their point man from the airport’s security. Things went downhill from there and Hezbollah fighters reached the gates of Mokhtara. That is when Mr. Jumblat sensed a threat not only to his political position, but to the safety of his entire sect.

The trouble with that argument is that by surrendering to the transgressors, Mr. Jumblat is sending a dangerous signal that it pays to bully other Lebanese with your weapons. This will give another reason for Hezbollah to hold on to their arsenal and increase their defiance without really guaranteeing the safety of his people. Mr. Jumblat, a student of history, should know better:  The appeasers are usually the first to go under..

Abu Kais on the other hand, writes a brilliant piece in which he paints Mr. Jumblat as someone who was let down his spineless allies, so much so that he had to retreat into the safety of “moral cowardice”:

Now that he has seemingly been shown that moral courage is synonymous with suicide, Jumblatt defaulted to moral cowardice to survive and achieve peace, and reap the promised fruit of the fabled “new beginning”, albeit at the expense of an independence that will likely never come.

But moral cowardice isn’t the stuff leaders are made of. He should instead have discussed this with his allies and put them on the spot in front of the Lebanese public opinion. He should also have been forthright with the Lebanese about why he’s doing this instead of making up hollow reasons that won’t convince anyone.

In short, let’s all call this what it really is: An act of political opportunism that senses power gains from a perceived regional shift. Anything else would be excusing the inexcusable.

- First, let’s get my shameless self promotion out of the way: Do make sure you follow my own twitter account @beirutspring. I am following almost 400 Lebanese people, and keep looking to retweet interesting posts. You can also look at the people I’m following and follow them

- Make sure you’re following @sharek961 , which is a volunteer based organization that maps the Lebanese elections live on their website. @sharek961 actively retweets all the reports it’s getting from the field. (Full disclosure: I volunteered to design their site)

- Go to http://search.twitter.com and look for #lebanonelections. It sort of became the conventional tag, but some are still using #lebaneseelections and #lebelections. If your’re a twitterer yourself and want to file a report, don’t forget to tag it (who knows, we can even make it a twitter trending topic)

- Other notable Twitterers to follow: @nowlebanon , @sharek961, @meetsamer, @hibz , @LB_ELECTIONS_09 , @abuhatem .

There, I hope that was useful :)

Here’s the problem:

There are very important events taking or about to take place in Lebanon (Elections, Egypt-Hezbollah spat, attacks against our army. ), and yet, as you noticed, I can’t seem to find the time to collect my thoughts and discuss things with you guys over here. For the record, that really sucks.

So what’s a Lebanese with many thoughts on his mind and little time on his hands to do? Abu Kais, friend and venerable blogger has pulled the plug. I thought about doing the same but didn’t get the heart to do it. This is why I’ll be doing the next best thing: I’ll be updating from Twitter.

Twitter is a great medium to express and share fast thoughts and Ideas. It conveys the message, suggests links and opens the door for a discussion. It’s like blogging on a smaller scale and does the trick for me. It’s great for fast updates in days of crises and excellent for finding and suggesting cool links about Lebanon.

This doesn’t mean that I’ll stop updating beirutspring.com. Every now and then, I’ll be writing normal posts over here, and the best way to know about them would be following me on Twitter.

So go ahead, if you don’t have an account, create one, it’s worth it. Follow me @beirutspring and I’ll follow you too.

For those who still prefer old media, you can always email me to beirutspring@gmail.com for your thoughts and suggestions..

Bummer. It turns out Hillary Clinton is just Like George W. Bush after all. Or so it must be what’s going through the heads of the Iranians and the Syrians right now. The “axis of evil” states are suddenly coming to the realization that President Obama won’t be so cuddly after all.

How could the Iranians not be concerned, as they watch America’s top diplomat all but ignore their darling Hamas while showering cash and praise on their nemesis Mahmood Abbas, the President of the Palestinian authority? How could they not be queasy as they watch Hillary’s chumminess with the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a man they worked so hard with their proxies to discredit..

Not that things are better for the Syrians. Bashar El Assad thought that he was hearing great news: Two top washington officials are to be dispatched for talks. Finally, they’re talking to us! He must have thought. But then came the shocker: One of the two is Jeffrey Feltman. Yes, that Jeffrey Feltman, the same “Godfather” of the Lebanese Cedar Revolution, the man who worked hard to kick them out of their cherished Lebanon. How could anything good come out of that man?

You see, this is the American way of telling the Lebanese: Don’t worry, we got your back. And just in case you still don’t get the message, or are still in anyway concerned about a deal that will sell you out, Feltman and Shapiro will visit Beirut twice: Once before heading to Syria and once after coming back. They will also have dinner with M.P. Saad Hariri, a man whose movement attacks Syria anytime it gets the chance to.

Add to that a sprinkle of symbolism for the most die-hard of conspiracists: American officials made it clear that the visit “Will not take place on March 8″, the date in which hundreds of thousands of Pro-Syrians marched in Beirut in 2005. Ahh, the Fletman effect has begun…

In other words, while many Arab and Iranian commentators will fret about how America “still doesn’t get it”, the Lebanese should try -for a change- to shelve their paranoia.

While reading the coverage of Mr. Obama’s interview with Alarabiya on American news websites and blogs, I’ve noticed  that an important angle of the story was missing. People either extolled Mr. Obama’s “brave” and “audacious” overture  or criticized his supposed naiveté and implied that by granting an Arab station an interview, he was somehow selling out Americans. 

Missing in all that coverage (and apologies to those I might have missed) was a small detail that has the potential to add texture and subtlety to an otherwise straightforward story. 

You see, Al-Arabiya is not Aljazeera. In fact it is the anti-Aljazeera. In that proverbial divide between moderate and fanatic Arabs, “moderates” (those who are more interested in shopping and trading than killing Americans and Jews) generally prefer Al-Arabiya’s milder narratives and its overall friendliness to the west. Hisham Melhem, the Lebanese anchor who conducted the interview is a supporter of the “Cedar revolution”, the pro-western movement that sacked the Syrians from Lebanon 3 years ago. Moreover, Alarabiya is funded by the Saudi King who is leading the so-called moderate front in a cold war pitting realists  against hardliners who are lead by Iran. 

Alarabiya is the Arab MSNBC to Aljazeera’s FOX News, and President Obama’s granting Alarabiya his first interview instead of the slightly more watched Aljazeera is the media equivalent of him calling Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and shunning Hamas’ leader Ismail Hanié.

In short: While President Obama’s interview looks on its surface like an “opening up” to the Arab world, with all the due emphasis on mutual respect and change of course, it is also a pointed snub and a shrewd maneuver in the heart of the war of ideas taking place in the Arab world.

So far, Mr. Nassrallah is only using his “soft power”. Relying on his prestige and influence among Arab masses, he urged Egyptians to break open the walls of Rafah with their “bare chests”. Whether  his prime-time TV address makes a difference is not clear yet, but Hezbollah has a big question in its mind at this moment: Should it join the war and open another front?

While some might find the question easy to answer, Hezbollah strategists and game theorists have their work cut out for them; not joining the war is risky because it would demonstrate that the 2006 war did put an end to Hezbollah’s ability to poke Israel when it wants to relieve Hamas. That would undermine Hezbollah’s entire narrative of victory against Israel in 2006 and show weakness.

At the same time, joining the war isn’t easy. Lebanon is not yet ready for a re-run of July 2006, and Mr. Nassrallah knows that the Israelis would be even more deadly and ruthless this time around. The Lebanese President and the minister of Defense pointedly made the point from the southern border that while we should all vocally protest the Israeli aggression on Gaza, Lebanon is no launching pad for Missiles.

There are other reasons why Hezbollah should think twice before joining Hamas in its fight. The cheap price of oil has put a financial strain on Hezbollah’s main backer Iran. This means that reimbursing people whose houses were destroyed will not be easy this time, let alone replenishing their stocks of expensive missiles.

Also, by joining the war Hezbollah risks postponing Lebanese parliamentary elections scheduled for early 2009. As things stand, Hezbollah and its allies have a decent shot at gaining a majority in the parliament and rolling back last last 3 years of anti-Syrian dominance. Politically, Hezbollah is right where it wants to be at this moment and the last thing it needs is a war that might compromise its internal standing.

So what is a Party of God to do? 

Do what Sayyed Hassan is doing: Use strong rhetoric and secretly hope that international and Arab pressure will end the war as soon as possible. If all else fails, provoke the Israelis into doing something stupid in Lebanon and pounce on the opportunity. After all, as they all say: “They started this!”

Everyone loves Hamra (Reuters)

When countries choose locations for their embassies in other territories, one of the major factors deciding their choices is the level of hostility they could expect from that country in the future. This is why American embassies are isolated fortresses in the Arab world, while Swedish and Canadian embassies often occupy regular flats in big cities.

So when Syria chose Hamra, the bustling quasi-bohemian Beirut high street, to host its temporary embassy in Beirut, it wanted to send a strong, confident signal to the rest of the world: We are in friendly territory.

And yet, the location can be fraught with minefields for Damascus. Hamra is a walking distance from two American universities with a high concentration of anti-Syrian students. Anti Syrian demonstrations (say in the event of an assassination) and counter pro-Syrian ones would fill up the relatively narrow streets and bring the entire already-busy neighborhood to a standstill.

The Syrians could yet change the location if it proves too unbearable for comfort. The temporary nature of the Hamra location could prove to be a test balloon. But for now, Damascus is hopeful that the Lebanese will put the Syrian ambassador in their hearts. If not, then perhaps accept his presence in Beirut’s heart.

So what’s your take on this? Syrian embassy in Hamra: Good or Bad?

It was by all means a feat by our Minister of defense Mr. Elias El Murr. As he toasted his celebratory vodka with his Russian counterpart, he must have predicted how the Lebanese, people and media, would be overjoyed by the promised spectacle of modern fighter jets wearing a cedar tree.

Politicians are rushing to embrace the story. To March 14, it’s “proof to Syria that Lebanon is an independent and sovereign country” as the Hariri-owned Al-Mustaqbal newspaper put it. To the Hezbollah and Arabist types, it’s an act of liberation from an Israeli-imposed ban on weapon sales to this country.

But regardless of which point of view you come from, it will not be hard for you to notice –after the party is over and the corks are swept away– that the Mig-29s could be a meal that the Lebanese will find hard to digest.

Not withstanding the political headache of of assigning pilots and staff to the liking of all sides, the economics of such a deal are ominous; as the Lebanese daily Assafir puts it:

هل نحن على مستوى الدخول في منظومة متكاملة، تبدأ مع إرسال نحو ثلاثين ضابطاً من الجيش اللبناني على الأقل للتدرب كطيارين على الـ»ميغ ٢٩«. وعلى خط مواز، إرسال نحو مئة من أفراد الجيش للتدرب في روسيا كفنيين، يؤمّنون الصيانة الكاملة لهذا النوع من الطائرات. كما أن هذا الأمر يوجب على الجيش اللبناني صيانة القواعد الجوية أو تأهيلها، وبناء الهنغارات اللازمة لمبيت المقاتلات وأعمال الصيانة لها.

Translation: Are we capable of setting up an entire (military) system that begins with sending 30 Lebanese army officers -at least- to train as pilots for the Mig-29s, in addition to one hundred soldiers tasked with learning how to fully maintain such fighter jets? Not to mention the necessity of refurbishing and maintaining Lebanese airbases and hangars that would accommodate those planes.

The deal specifically states that the costs of maintaining and training the Migs should be borne by the Lebanese state. The same state, mind you, that is struggling to pay for teachers and workers and whose finances are so strained we had to beg for ParisII donors and their humiliating strings.

So the costs are high but the benefits should be worth it, right? I’m not too sure. Will 10 Mig-29s be sufficient to affect the balance of power with Israel? Would they present any form of military deterrence? What guarantees that the Israelis won’t just wipe them out in one preemptive strike like it did to the Egyptian Air Force back in 1967?

In other words, the Lebanese are about to take ownership of very expensive showpieces that would most likely just end up lying around.