The No-Fly Zone in Libya: Hijacking the Arab Uprisings

Last night’s UN Security Council’s decision to authorise military action in Libya was greeted with almost universal jubilation revealing how confused the anti-imperialist camp has become. The very same people who had been opposed to the US invasion and continuing presence in Iraq and Afghanistan cheered the decision that will supposedly prevent Qaddafi from massacring his people. This also revealed the left’s lack of faith in revolutionary politics: overnight the Libyans were turned from subjects attempting to take control of their destiny into victims in need of protection. The most troubling aspect of this is the willingness to recognise the West’s moral superiority, failing to acknowledge that Western intervention has been actively propping up authoritarian Arab regimes for decades. The no-fly zone is nothing to celebrate, on the contrary it signals a major turning point that will hand the West the initiative allowing it to ensure its interests are maintained in the region. It will also undermine the legitimacy of the autonomous Arab uprisings as they begin to be associated with Western sponsorship. We have entered a new phase with direct Western intervention that will pose serious threats to the pursuit of freedom in Arab countries.

The Egyptian Uprising: on the universal aspiration for freedom

The sheer exhilaration that I felt in response to the  Egyptian uprising, admittedly as a voluntarily-implicated observer, has been somewhat dampened by the reaction of Western elites to this phenomenal display of courage and yearning for change. On the one hand, it seemed that the Egyptian people have managed, despite extremely adverse circumstances, to translate the universal ideals of liberty and autonomy into concrete political actions that have inspired millions around the world. But on the other hand it seems to have exposed how little faith in those very same ideals there is in the West today, as exemplified by the strange debates that are being conducted about the prospects of the Egyptian uprising. The most bizarre suggestion that I have heard is that this uprising somehow vindicates the neo-con position that democracy is possible in the Middle East! This confirms the impression that I had about some in the anti-Iraq War camp: their opposition to the War was not based on a principled rejection of Western intervention but on their lack of faith in democracy and liberty as universal values.

Tunisia: Hopes, Myths and Copycat Revolutions

The success of the Tunisian uprising in forcing President Bin Ali to relinquish power last week has sparked off hopes of change across the Arab world. Considering that most Arab leaders hang on to power till the last day of their lives, this is no mean feat. Bin Ali's departure from office after 23 years of autocratic rule and as a result of a popular uprising seems to have broken the crippling barrier of fear. The question that many are asking now is who's next? Even the BBC has volunteered a few candidates and asked 'will there be a domino effect?' 

The March 8 Paradox: Thoughts on Nasrallah's Speech

On the eve of the parliamentary consultations to determine the next Prime Minister of Lebanon and, as rumour has it, the long-awaited indictment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), the Secretary General of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech this evening in which he declared March 8's decision not to nominate Hariri again for the post. Hezbollah's ally Michel Aoun, head of the Free Patriotic Movement, had earlier in the day made a similar declaration. Both stressed that their opposition to Hariri's return to the premiership is not solely related to the STL, but also to the shoddy performance of the government and its incompetence.

When Karl Marx quoted Hariri

"He who never destroys what he has built, ever stands

On this terrestrial world, which itself never stands still,"

says Hariri, who is no Frenchman by birth, but an Arab."
 
(Karl Marx, On Freedom of the Press)

Lebanon's self-induced paralysis

Firstly, the significance of latest ‘crisis’ to hit the Lebanese political system following the resignation of 11 cabinet ministers yesterday, and the de facto resignation of the cabinet that ensued, should be properly understood. The Lebanese confessional system appears to be exhibiting the symptoms of the law of diminishing returns: in the past this system used to function for a couple of decades in between major crises. This cycle how now been shortened to two years. By any objective measure, this system has now completely exhausted itself. Nevertheless, a viable alternative remains conspicuously absent.

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.