Elections 2022: Chamel Roukoz - waking up with the house on fire.

OK, so this is a complicated story. Chamel Roukoz is the son in law of the president of the republic. To be more specific, he is the "other" son in law (I am not sure how the family does Christmas dinner, considering how Roukoz - who splintered from the Free Patriotic Mouvement - and Gibran Bassil (who heads the FPM) are at odds, while Roy Hachem who is married to the third Aoun daughter (Mireille) manages OTV the television that is the mouthpiece of the whole movement).

I did say it is a complicated story. Which bring us back to Chamel Roukoz. "My honor is to my country - first and foremost". I think Roukoz is playing on his past as army officer with their tagline "honor - sacrifice - loyalty" or he could be saying his first allegiance is to the country rather than a specific movement. Or am reading too much into an ad that has little to sell (no offence to Roukoz most others have little to sell as well).

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?