Archive for category Editorial
Minister Zero’s chances of success in the Republic of “Not Now”!
For a while now, Citizen Zero has been working and dreaming of having a say in the decision-making process and reform in this country.
He believed that there was a serious chance during the Chehab era, had it not been for the American-Nasserite feud, the coup by the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, the circumstances leading to the Cairo agreement, and, and … Read the rest of this entry »
“Their” book about “our” history or Who corrects exams at the IC? As’ad AbuKhalil1 or Avigdor Lieberman2?
Jawad N. Adra - Modern World History, a book that has been taught in IC’s second level curriculum since 2003, suddenly became a topic of discussion in the Lebanese press. The controversy focused on a few pages titled “Hunting for Terrorists”; more specifically about the mention of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations. Then, just as suddenly, everyone went silent.
What happened exactly?
It is worth noting that not one member of the IC’s parents committee, parent, student or teacher (needless to mention nobody at the Ministry of Education) had in the past considered this important. Perhaps it is because we didn’t read the book, or perhaps because we read it and we approved of it, perhaps because we are simply apathetic, or, perhaps because we are content with any history book at all. Read the rest of this entry »
The Francophone Games: USD 125 million, no sports and Condi the savior
Posted by . in Editorial, Uncategorized on October 28th, 2009
Citizen Zero was not surprised by the Lebanese public’s indifference to the annual Francophone games, which were organized primarily to demonstrate the link between Francophone countries, including Lebanon, and, as always, between them and France.
The Lebanese played the perfect hosts on the opening day, with the attendance of most of their zu’ama and representatives, applauding Lebanese singer Majida Al Roumi as she sang “Beirut, Lady of the World”, a poem actually written by Damascene poet Nizar Qabbani – an irony lost to the leaders of the ‘Cedar Revolution’. They also failed to notice that the Beirut Sports City was built by Syrian laborers and that the chairs they sat on were cleaned by those same laborers. Read the rest of this entry »
Citizen Zero Forms Government
Citizen Zero is still dumbfounded over the Lebanese system’s innovative methods to manage or ‘mismanage’ the country’s affairs. Due to the Zua’ma’s unquenchable thirst for power, the following steps were taken:
First: The Governement is expanded to include 30 Ministers, among them 7 state ministers without portfolios. Since the situation is a zero-sum game, the cake should be bigger even if it has to be cut into more and more slices.
Second: The Ministries were categorized as follows:
- Sovereign Ministries: Ministries of Interior, Defense, Finance, Foreign Affairs and Justice. Read the rest of this entry »
The Emirate of Lebanon Or the Not-United Not-Lebanese Emirates
A friend of mine, who was once a member of the Phalange Party then he moved to the Lebanese Forces and back again, called me in reproach: Why did you mention the story of the Sunni woman whose mother was killed on the doorsteps of her home, whose disabled father was burned in his bed by supporters of Phalange Party (Lebanese Front) and who elected or supported Antoine Zahra because she was afraid of Hassan Nasrallah? Why didn’t you mention other stories?
Why didn’t you mention that Orthodox woman from Al-Mina-Tripoli who voted for Bilal the son of Said Shaaban, who had once declared Tripoli a citadel for Muslims, sowing fear in the hearts of the city’s Christians and accelerating their departure or displacement?
Why didn’t you mention that mother in West Beqa’a who supports the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and whose son was killed by Hizbullah gunmen and yet voted for March 8?
The conversation ended after the friend stirred up even more memories… what about the so-called “War of the Mountain” and the massacres committed mutually by Druze supporters of Kamal and Walid Jumblat and by Maronite followers of Bashir Gemayel and Samir Geagea? The massacres were committed against each other and against civilians who did not belong to either side: Weren’t Walid Jumblat and George Adwan elected by those same people and those same victims?
Didn’t the “Arab Deterrent Forces” of 1976 serve as a cover for the displacement by Al-Marada and the Lebanese Front of Koura residents, who became divided between March 8 and March 14? Didn’t the Sunnis vote for Nadim Bashir Gemayel, who would have been killed by Al-Murabitoun had he passed through one of their checkpoints (had he been born then)? Or perhaps not since he is Bashir’s son, otherwise he would have definitely been forgotten along with the thousands who disappeared at the checkpoints of our leaders who insist on passing over the reins of leadership to their relatives and sons.
There are some who say “La Tanka’a Al-Jirah” translated as “don’t pick the wounds” but did the Maronite and the Sunni vote hand in hand as a sign of love and forgiveness? Or did they do so out of hatred and fear of the Shia’a and loyalty to the leader?
Did the Christian and the Shia’a vote together as a sign of love and forgiveness or out of hatred and fear of the Sunni and loyalty to the leader? Did the Druze and Maronite forgive the crimes of their wars or is this a temporary demonstration of solidarity?
A society that was polarized in the civil war because the Muslim left and the Christian right is now further fragmented by the greater vertical rupture that was demonstrated in the parliamentary election between Shia’a, Sunni, Druze and Mawarineh (Maronites).
We did not wish to explore the civil war causes and consequences and now we do not want to discuss the electoral law and the election expenditures. The important thing is that our leaders are well and what they have done and what they are capable of doing, no elected member of Parliament anywhere in the world has the nerve to do and now we hear talks about amending the constitution.
The interest of the Druze requires so, the interest of the Maronite requires so, the interest of the Sunni requires so and the interest of the Shia’a requires so and everybody understands “the so” of the other. Why don’t we then amend the constitution so each confession elect its deputies, in fact let us abolish the elections altogether and declare Lebanon an emirate and let them canonize themselves as official princes of money, weapons, confessions and tribes. Let us drop the charade of a republic and statehood.
Lebanon, the playing field and the laboratory, is not a necessity for its people but a detriment. Lebanon the emirate or the emirates is the reality of the matter and the need now is to amend the constitution in that direction and to “dot the I’s and cross the T’s”.
Each and all are for this Lebanon which is not-united not-Lebanese.
Jawad N. Adra
Madeleine Albright, the leaders of Lebanon, and the banality of evil
It has been said that the heart of Rome was not in the marble of its Senate, but in the dust of its coliseum or fighting arenas. The subject of concern today is the arena of parliamentary elections in Lebanon, and the international observers or ‘referees’ that have been delegated to monitor this election.
We have elected ‘war lords’, or more accurately ‘war criminals’ to office, rewarding them with legitimacy as a prize for killing ‘the other’ on our behalf. Should we add up the number of victims killed by these ‘emperors or quasi-emperors’, either directly or by proxy, the numbers would be very high, and yet more staggering when foreign powers are involved.
To elaborate on this point, let us all remember the following conversation that took place on CBS’s 60 Minutes on May 12, 1996:
Lesly Stahl: “We have heard that half a million Iraqi children died. This is more than those who died in Hiroshima … Is that price worth it? …”
Madeleine Albright: “It is a difficult choice…. But we believe that it is worth the price.”
It is therefore befitting that such observers monitor such an election, conducted in accordance with an appalling electoral law that only fosters polarization.
Let us not forget that many of those observers have approved the1996 elections that were boycotted by a large segment of society, and also the 2005 elections, that were conducted under tragic and dubious circumstances, judging them as ‘fair and impartial’.
Ruthless was Rome, but more chivalrous.
Today, the “killings” are by proxy, through the ballot box and under regional and international auspices. Maybe we deserve it. But are these leaders and observers really so bad? Of course not, they are human. Like us ordinary people, they have their families and their stories of joy and tears. Look at Bill Clinton, George Bush, Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice and most recently, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who had ‘a conscience revival experience’, just like Kofi Annan did before him. They play music, dance, joke and travel. They are only human. Humans that find themselves caught in a Hobbsian machine, executing orders that cause the plight of millions without a blink of an eye. They have only their vanity to celebrate. Sometimes they shed words of wisdom and worthless tears. They are only human and pathetically so. They are a living proof of Hannah Arendt’s thesis on the “banality of evil”. This banality is further illustrated by the Arab League’s participation in this charade by sending their observers as well.
Jawad N. Adra
Citizen Zero (0) is Now Citizen “Slash”(/)
Citizen Zero was pleased for a while when he first heard that Minister Baroud had released the positive response of the Department of Legislation and Consultations to the right of Lebanese citizens to strike-off their religious affiliations and register a newborn accordingly. Baroud had set the directive free after being held in the drawer of former Minister Sabeh. Citizen zero was even happier to hear of the more than 100 citizens who have applied that purpose. Citizen Zero was happy …but not for long.
It didn’t him take long to remember the treacherous, devious and unscrupulous ways of the schizophrenic Lebanese political system. As his hopes faded, Citizen Zero’s mind wandered off and for no clear reason he recalled the day Patriarch Houwayek received General Gouraud, the man who killed Youssef Azem, the Syrian Commander-in-chief of the “Arab Army”, leaving his daughter, Leyla, alone where she died in Turkey, destitute. She would have been happy too, to know that there is a statue of Yussef, as well as schools and roads named after him in Damascus and all over Syria. Yes, he thought, but would she have not felt better had someone took care of her or just visited her?
Back to General Gouraud’s visit to Lebanon, where he said to the Patriarch that France would come to Lebanon’s defense for as long as “you want Lebanon as a homeland”, and of course as long as you hold mass for France annually! In fact, Emile Edde was the only one (among the Maronite Leaders) to be true to this “dream” (whether or not he wanted to send the muslims to Mecca or not) he did not want to annex districts inhabited by Moslems (Sunni or Shia) to the Mount Lebanon. The same words were repeated by President Chamoun to Begin, in the house of the latter in Jerusalem about Ghaza and the West Bank for “the Jewish land” to remain “pure”. . . But an agreement between both Maronite and Sunni leaders gave the new entity a different color and for a while a nice allure and perhaps a spirit. It was an agreement between the owners of the land (the Maronites or the Landlord), and Tenants (Sunni, Druze and Orthodox) but not the Shia’a who were not seen as”citizens” yet.
Of course the Maronite Leaders and their Church had neither the vision, soul nor heart to build a nation with a tinge of democracy, citizenship and secularism. You are branded at birth, in politics as in marriage, in death as in inheritance, for the bequeathal and bequeathed. As for the “Zaim” in his community, he is the community and all its interests, temptations and threats; he kills and is killed; he employs and expels; he instigates change but never changes. The faces of “Zu’ama” stay the same and the flock remains the same, they were born that way and they will remain so…
Did Patriarch Houwayek know that a day will come, not too far away, when the number of Christians in Lebanon would not exceed a few hundred thousand or less than 10% of the population? Or that the Mufti of the Republic would take the place of the Maronite Patriarch in out-bidding all others in “Lebanese patriotism”?
Did Riad Solh know that the “enemy” of his Sunni “community” is going to be his sons-in-law’s “community”, the Shia’a?
Lebanon is today, and as we have always known it, an arena for external forces to settle their differences. They have followers we call “Zu’ama”; who, with their backed-up strength, walk haughtily amongst their ”people”, but shamelessly bow to their “Kings and Presidents”.
Isn’t this an opportunity for all the seculars to write-off their religious affiliation in spite of the difficulties they will face? Where is the Syrian Social Nationalist Party? All busy these days (as usual) in the up-coming elections, choosing its candidates and accepting votes on religious basis? Where is the Lebanese Communist Party? Busy making speeches full of resistance zeal, fighting Israel and backing “rejectionist” regimes? Why not start here, by “rejecting” being religiously categorized in birth certificates.
It seems that the Lebanese System renews itself either by blood or by making “freedom choices”, but the most flagrant deception are the seculars: the callers for de-confessionalism yesterday are today, the ardent advocates of elections governed by a system of religiously divided districts. They have become the very pillar of the system they have opposed for so long.
Without “them”, Citizen Zero and with a “Slash” wrote-off his confessional affiliation. It took the step between “Zero” and “Slash” to make him a happy man, under no obligation to call on a “zaim” or a religious leader. Of course he lost any chance of ever becoming a deputy or a minister or even getting any government employment, and he definitely has no idea where he will be buried.
Citizen Zero is happy. He was happy as he walked to church and mosque for the first time in his life, to pray.
Jawad N. Adra
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