And what if it is not ONLY the government's fault?

Photo credit unknown

Dan Azzi (a friend, full disclosure) put it best: "Unpopular Opinion: Blaming our problems entirely on the political leadership ignores the issue of a cultural flaw when it comes to civic responsibility & ability to look at collective rather personal interests. It’s not just Killon yi3ni killon. It’s also Ni7na yi3ni Ni7na."

Yes, I am as tired, exhausted, frustrated as the next man. But the difference is, easy and simplistic answers do not do it for me.

Here is my question, with the tag #علقوا_المشانف (hang the nooses) trending (side note: am against capital punishment) - and the government gets toppled, then what? Hiba Yazbeck also nailed it in twitter: "What’s worse is that every time we face a tragic event, polarization increases among Lebanese, rather than solidarity. Perhaps we don’t deserve to have a country..." In times of crisis we tend to gravitate towards those who resemble us, those who share our beliefs, those who are "like us" rather than "like them" - sure, I am in awe in front of the volunteers who took brooms and went on cleaning streets, or those youngsters I saw yesterday who were gathering food and water and supplies, or the many initiatives that people are doing on a small scale. But let me go back to this theory I was discussing with my teacher at AUB in 1996, about why is it that people are clean in their own homes in Lebanon but are dirty in the street. Turns out the answer was that going back to the colonial mentality, because someone will pick up after you.

Picture this scene, I was at a seaside cafe in Tripoli. A young family was near me on the next table. Their daughter, about two years old, started throwing the content if the ashtray into the sea,then at one point seeing her mother giggling, she was encouraged to throw more objects. Until she tried to throw the ashtray itself, her mother sternly told her: "La2 3ayde 3ayzina" (no, this we need).

The image of that man sweeping glass debris on the street while wheelchair-bound is moving beyond words, yet I feel him to be the exception rather than the rule. But hey, there could be a silver lining, my friend Rachid Aschkar, says (in reference to the above-mentioned colonial theory) "maybe this time, the perimeter of "home" has changed to include whole country".

The history of Lebanon: Simulacra and simulation. (Official release)

Watch HERE:

Based on the philosophical treatise by Jean Baudrillard. This art project is an attempt to retrace the history of Lebanon through signs and signifiers.

Simulacra are defined as copies that depict things that either had no original, or that no longer have an original, whereas simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time.

Lebanon has not had a common official history book since before the war, students still study in archaic books that end somewhere around 1972. The reason for that is simple, since history is not the real version of the events but simply the narrative dictated by the winner, and since there was no clear winner of the Lebanese war at the abrupt end of it, then the saying by Bill Farrell - the late New York Times reporter in Lebanon - "there's no truth in Beirut, only versions" still holds.

To make things worse, the same political families which ruled Lebanon during the war, are still there and refusing to look at their past and be able to understand what they did wrong or assess their legacies in the bloody events. Still, all is not lost, for - no matter in which shelter one was in the Lebanese war - we were all listening to the same ads, jingles, watching the same soap operas, using the same products, going to (different) cinemas which were showing the same movies, enjoying the same heartthrobs - be they in roman photo (translated Italian photoromanze) or singing sensations, and the list goes on.

Only the signs and signals of pop culture of Lebanon will be able to join us when "politics" divides us. Politics stems from the two Greek words, "polis" and "ethos" - polis or the "heart of the fortress" and ethos which means ethics. So the original meaning of the word meant "the ethics of living in a community" and if that had to go through advertising jingles, then so be it. 

The project aims to use pop culture, in terms of symbols, names, catchphrases as a way to unify the Lebanese around the same concepts and ideas, and using the said elements as emotional triggers to help preserve memories both personal and collective.

Baudrillard has said about the iconoclasts: "One can live with the idea of distorted truth. But their metaphysical despair came from the idea that the image didn't conceal anything at all". Should this be true then the images of this project do not conceal anything either.

The project is composed of "episodes" each being a video art 13,5 seconds long, with each video containing 9 high resolution related images (thematically, geographically or time wise) with a total time of 120 minutes. Along with a two-hour long soundtrack which explores the Lebanese collective memory in terms of audio rarities and songs (specifically related to the war era).

USAID and protecting water in Lebanon.

At a time when any new ad is worth talking about due to their scarcity, this USAID ad about protecting water in Lebanon "no matter what" with the cedar (of the flag no less) in a fluid form is up to my knowledge the only new campaign in town. Campaign is also stretching it as it is just a few unipoles on the road. Long long ago (mid oughts) one needed 600 billboards for a campaign to be simply visible in Beirut. Now only a couple can do the trick.

Lebanon made in China: Barbarians at the gate

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly based on a Chinese cultural Revolution porcelain statue

Never a dull day. Right after news broke that talks between Lebanon and the IMF broke down, it transpired that China is interested in our electricity company and railway system - or what's left of both. Before anyone goes about the Chinese human right abuses, those enamored with Saudi Arabia, Iran or the United States (the three most popular allegiances excluding Germany-Brasil in football) should do some basic checks. 

A Lebanese saying goes "min ma akhad emme sar 3amme" - whomever marries my mother becomes my stepfather. And well, seems the Chinese will become Mao stepfather. It is really a deus ex Machina situation saving the situation in extremis. But hey, the Chinese are certainly not doing it for the meager money that will come out of our electricity taxes or our now defunct trains. 

As I said, never a dull moment in Lebanon. Am sure the IMF is baffled.

黎巴嫩中国制造 - that's "Lebanon made in China" for you.