Al-Akhbar/Wikileaks: A postscript. The limits of journalism.

On the 1st of December, a Syrian worker was shot by Lebanese police dressed in civilian clothes in the early hours of the morning. The murder happened in Hamra, a residential and commercial district of Beirut that is popular with tourists and locals alike. The incident received little coverage in the media, with the exception of Al-Akhbar newspaper which published detailed coverage of the circumstances of the murder and placed it prominently on its digital version. Two things conspired to keep the story from receiving the attention that it deserved: the fact that the victim Abdel Nasser Ahmad was Syrian and Al-Akhbar’s publication of the leaked cables from several Arab countries which dominated the news.

My first article for Muftah.Org 'the Key to Middle East and North Africa Policy-Making'

I've started writing about Lebanon for Muftah, they just published my first article: "Consensus in Lebanese Politics: The Authoritarian Alternative to Democracy." Muftah is an online publication concerned with Middle East and North Africa Policy-Making, and it's ran and written by an impressive group of volunteers. Please visit the website and if you want to show your support 'Like' their page on Facebook and you can also follow them on Twitter.

A Scandalous Lack of Scandal: Why Wikileaks failed to impress in Lebanon

First things first: the attacks that brought down Al-Akhbar newspaper’s website today are a despicable action that is as pointless as it is stupid. Pointless because any hope of stemming the flow of information on the internet is a delusion and stupid because those attacks will only reinforce the idea that the leaked information that Al-Akhbar published should be repressed. To me, freedom of speech in the Arab world is much more important than political disagreements and we should all support Al-Akhbar against those attacks.

Consensus: the authoritarian alternative

If you believe the hype, Lebanon is heading fast towards another crisis. A round of civil violence is lurking around the corner, or perhaps a renewed confrontation with Israel. For the seasoned conspiracy theorists, even a double whammy is in the cards: an Israeli attack in parallel with civil strife according to some plan being hatched by the tireless forces of imperialism. We’ve been there before of course, at countless times. Typically, the Lebanese instinct manifests itself in two ways under those circumstances: firstly emphasise the need for consensus to ward off the external danger, and secondly seek the intervention of external agents to help us avoid an explosion.

In defence of elitism: the American University of Beirut

I was amused to read this philistine attack on the American University of Beirut by Jana Nakhal in Al-Akhbar newspaper, The AUB and Beirut: One Side Love. Nakhal, 'an urban-planning engineer' (sic), subjects the AUB to a shrill anti-colonial examination, uncovering it in the process as an 'accelerating factor in the popular acceptance of colonial ideas, tastes and concepts'. (Presumably things like engineering, medicine and architecture which colonialism forced us to accept).

Suspended democracy and Lebanon’s paralysis

During Saad Hariri’s recent visit to London, he was questioned by a journalist about the failure to ratify the national budget for the past five years. The ‘opposition’ press has dedicated significant coverage to the subject of the budget during the past few months, especially that its ratification is linked to the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. In any other country, not ratifying the budget for 5 years would be a serious problem. In Lebanon, it’s a minor transgression, as Hariri’s matter-of-fact response indicated. The budget issue is one expression of the perpetual crisis that the Lebanese political system has been going through for years, but it’s only a symptom of the willingness of the political elites to suspend democratic mechanisms whenever convenient.

Saad Hariri: The limits of politics

I met the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri for the first time this week, when I went to a talk he gave at the London School of Economics. The talk itself was very general. Hariri discussed the Arab Peace Initiative which was first proposed at the Beirut Summit for Arab leaders in 2002, and explained the need for peace in the Middle East which he asserted that Lebanon’s internal stability depends on. He touched on the economic achievements of his and the preceding government and outlined how building on those achievements is vital to fulfilling the aspirations of the Lebanese people.