Exclusive: What is Nick Griffin doing in Beirut?

The Leader of the BNP Nick Griffin is in Beirut and has tweeted several times from there. Here's a sample:

Beirut traffic as bad as London.
— Nick Griffin MEP (@nickgriffinmep) June 10, 2013

There's lots of speculation about what he is doing there. Here are the most likely scenarios:

He's there to learn about Hezbollah's anti-Jihadi programme

Photograph of a Beirut Metro Station

Click to zoom

What would a metro station in Beirut look like? Click on the image to find out.

Warspace: Geographies of conflict in Beirut

Read my new article Warspace: Geographies of conflict in Beirut  in Open Democracy's new series Cities in Conflict. It's an abridged and updated article of an essay I wrote in 2003. With thanks to Tom Cowan at Open Democracy.

ذاكرة جماعية أم تكريس سلطة الماضي على الحاضر؟

كلما انتعش النقاش عن وسط بيروت و شركة سوليدير يأتي من يذكرك بمحي الذاكرة الجماعية الذي من المفترض إن مشروع إعادة إعمار بيروت قد مارسه. الغريب إن مفاهيم كهذا تجد طريقها بسرعة إلى النخب و المثقفين و يصبح تردادها فعل إيمان من دون تدقيق أو نقد افتراضاتها المستوردة بأغلبها. و إذا تقاطعت هذه المفاهيم مع ما قد يبدو سطحيا انه مواجهة للاحتكار و الرأسمالية بوجهها المعاصر و مشاريع النخب الحاكمة زاد رواجها و اكتسبت أبعادا يبدو و كأنها تدخلها في مصاف النقاش السياسي العام. لكن قليل من التأمل كاف لقلب هذه المعادلة و كشف الأسس المُحافظة التي تدفعها.

Sects and the City

In my post ‘Hariri / Hezbollah: in search of a new division of labour’ I argued that the climate of fear being created in Lebanon today is a noisy background for the upcoming deal that will seal a power-sharing arrangement between the main political camps under a renewed Syrian patronage. I closed that post by saying ‘we, as always, remain as spectators in all of this.’ This isn’t a call for disengagement and cynicism about politics; on the contrary it’s a call for the Lebanese people to reject all the secret deals being made without our participation. But how can we express our political will in this crucial period as we watch the blatant abdication of responsibility by Lebanese leaders?