Persiflage & Paroxysm

Syrians have suffered a great deal, of that there is no doubt, but in Lebanon they are also making serious money. Syrians are hardworking and entrepreneurial, more so than the Lebanese, at least in Lebanon we seem incapable of matching the Syrian can do spirit, instead we choose to enjoy the many annual holidays we have and our famous weekend barbeques as well as arguing politics, completely self obsessed, as if our country is not in crisis. At a local fruit and veg market set up by Syrian entrepreneurs, I heard one Lebanese patron address a Syrian member of staff: “You must feel happy you are in Lebanon away from war and compulsory military service?” To which the staff member replied: “Yes of course, we are doing good business here, but in Syria education and health care is free.” And therein lies the rub. This sprawling modern market is an example of the Syrian can do spirit. Service is impeccable, every member of staff, many I suspect relatives of the owner, are atte...

The Korean War never ended. The armistice signed in July 1953 means that technically, South Korea, a major Asian economic powerhouse and technology hub, is in a state of war with North Korea, a brutal, repressive, dynastic dictatorship that has an unspecified number of nuclear warheads, some capable of reaching the US heartland. Trump’s successful summit meeting with Kim is probably the single smart move of his presidency and that is saying something! The news media seems unable to swallow that, after all Trump is the Twitter president, the man who is responsible for so much stress and anxiety, the man who acts like a petulant child when someone disagrees with him, how can the media ever give him any credit?! The whole day has been devoted to nit picking every detail of the meeting, the body language, the joint US-South Korea military exercises Trump said he would stop, the praise he lavished on Kim, the invite to the White House, what will US allies Japan and South Korea have to say,...

The self-hating Arab, it’s both a real thing for a lot of angry frustrated people and an overused cliché. First, let me dispel any myths surrounding the origin of this condition. Some suggest that our negative perception of ourselves and our Arab identity and culture is informed by Western propaganda pumped into our developing brains at a very young age through the all-powerful Hollywood entertainment machine and through slanted news media rapportage. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The well informed and aware Arab, the well-educated bi-or-tri-lingual Arab is not that gullible, at least our electorates never elected an Arab version of Donald Trump! We are far from easy to fool or trick into believing bad things about our culture and national identity. We are the experts on that subject and our hatred and derision for all things Arab are based on observable facts over a long period of time. Let us begin by exploring the roots of the Arab identity: the Arabic language...