Persiflage & Paroxysm

As Lebanese, what would shake us out of our smug complacency, out of our comfort zones and get us to finally take responsibility for our own country? I often wonder about that. Is it taking away our sacred morning Manoushe and Nescafe, or could it be a blanket ban on American muscle cars and four-wheel-drive vehicles on our roads? Could it be a ban on Shisha? or, could it be the removal of our support system, our extended tribal family and clan? Driving in to town the other day I figured it out. Take away our power… no, not our ability to command and bully others, our electrical power! For one thing, with nothing to do on those long nights, a lot more people would be having sex more often which means the maternity wards, nurseries, schools, and universities will be kept busy and productive over the next 20 years. (I wonder how one could harness the heat of bodies writhing in sweat, convert it to electricity, and hook it up to the grid. If we could do that we’d be assured a perpetual su...

All the hullabaloo, the tyre burning, the street-to-street fighting in Tripoli’s Tebaneh and Jebel Mohsen, the bus hijackings, and the check-point gun fights, all those who died, all those injured, all was for naught. Apparently “sectarian tensions arising from the 15-month-old turmoil in Syria,” is why we are where we are. It seems that every time the Lebanese find an excuse to fight each other they always seem to be finishing someone else’s argument. It all boils down to this: March 14 and March 8 are the same basic political animal, neither one is better or worse than the other. Back in 2006, just after the latest Israeli invasion, the March 8 camp wanted PM Fouad Siniora and his government out, today, the March 14 camp wants PM Najib Mikati out. Both put on the garb of reasonableness and the garb of unreasonableness interchangeably. Neither has a national agenda, neither is justified in their recklessness. The sense of anticipation today is palpable, everyone is...

Is Facebook antisocial? To some the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. For these rare people who never followed the crowd, who never got a Facebook or Twitter account, such “social” tools represent the end to kinder gentler days when longing and anticipation were part of social interaction. Everything you ever wanted to know or were curious to know about a friend, a loved one, or a work colleague, is now only a click away. I remember a time when, much like today, people were too busy to keep in touch with friends on a daily or even weekly basis. Then, something would trigger in us a certain memory and we would remember that we hadn’t seen or talked to a certain friend for a long time. The instinct back then was to pick up the telephone and give that friend a call. Eagerly we listened to hear their news, we warmly ask after them and their families. Facebook, some say, killed all that. Of course there are many people who are still not on Facebook and they are the lucky ones, because they don’...

I hold two principles as sacrosanct: First, the protection of minorities and their rights from majority bullies by enacting laws that satisfy the majority while preserving the dignity and distinctive religious, cultural, and linguistic freedoms of minorities; Second, to guard against extremist ideology whatever its politics, color, creed, or flavor, whether Christian or Muslim. Two things need to happen in post-revolutionary Arab countries: First, they need to ensure that no matter what kind of majority takes power, the basic national character of a country never changes. Second, they also need to make sure that laws enacted by extremists with legislative majorities never oppress the silent majorities or detract from their basic human rights including: Their freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom of movement, and freedom of cultural and religious practice. As such, the worrying turn of events in post-revolutionary Arab countries, and the interference of external, regional a...