Tuesday, January 21, 2020

On Gebran Bassil and Davos

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly
Well, here we are: Gebran Bassil, caretaker minister and Head of the Free Patriotic Movement is going to go to Davos and speak about Arab unrest. Cue: Mass hysteria.
To begin with Davos is the annual meeting of the ultra rich. The super well-connected, and those who know where (or what) Davos is to begin with.
Let me ask you: Where was the last place you spent your ski holiday in?
Oh, you do not take ski holidays? No wait, you do not ski to begin with?
Now let us flip the equation: The revolutionaries have always said they have no leader and no one speaks on their behalf, so they got no spokesperson to represent locally or internationally. Ergo, no Davos for them!
A long long time ago when I was doing my military service, tradition had it that officers of which I was one would have a ceremonial Monday morning breakfast. There was talk about something or the other and someone said "wasta" (clientage or someone earning what is not theirs) so the general rectified him with "la2 teshil a3mel" (no, business facilitation).
I thought it was semantics, but the general was right. You need to be connected enough to go to Davos. At the end of the day, Davos is an echo chamber of rich people listening to one another. So: Who are they going to invite?