Who is the "Lebanese coalition for peace" #askingforafriend

If anyone knows who or what is the "Lebanese coalition for peace" or التجمع اللبناني للسلام please tell me. The reason I ask is because they signed a series of ads which I saved from the net as I was browsing my daily newspaper round (found those on The Guardian if you want to know). The ads are two in Arabic, two in English and try to strike 12 birds in 4 stones because they go on different angles. First the Arabic "Peace is not talk, peace is our interest... Enough wars" then "He who counts baton (hitting) is not like the one administering them. Lay off the south (of Lebanon)... Enough wars" (this is a local idiom by the way about someone watching a disaster vs someone living it). 

Then the English "It's not treason to dream of living in peace... Enough wars" and "We want to succeed here like we succeed abroad... Enough wars". Sure invoking treason is enough to cut the corner of any "dissenting" voice, now about succeeding let us ad incredibly slow internet, red tape, bureaucracy, bribes, incredibly high office space rent, just for starters. As I said, the ads play both the rational and emotional card at once, the patriotic and the anti-internal fragment at the same time, try to speak to the youth (or on their behalf), families, and elderly people wishing to remain in situ. 

Now, again booking ads and producing them requires money, so who on earth is "Lebanese coalition for peace"... Trying to ask for a friend obviously.

Kafa - using tactics which make little sense

Well, that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

First, before anyone telling me I am being biased. There is a big difference between Labneh w Jebneh  (for reference check here) and between the ad above. The other was funny, it made you look, was very tongue-in-cheek, the Kafa ad uses tactics used by the nation bordering us on the south used to scare people prior to bombing. So using such post-colonial pseudo-terrorist ads basically fostered by - what technically is still - our enemy, is not exactly a smart move Kafa no matter the intentions (which I am sure are originally good). Sometimes, one really, really needs to read the room before issuing ads.

Small update on Facebook, the ad was eliminated and a long, long notice was put instead - which instead of simply apologizing it goes on a diatribe of justification. You know Kafa, sometimes admitting a mistake goes far enough...

My crystal ball applies only to advertising

Part of my installation "No Truce in Beirut, Only Virgins" (here)

Recently I wrote a post, "Jours tranquilles a Beyrouth" (here), and here we are right in the middle of back-to-school Lebanon is again, in the throws of war. Strangely, whenever the geopolitical situation gets testy or bleak, I have - relatively a lot of people - asking me "so, what do you think will happen?". Not sure if my infinite advertising wisdom of knowing what is inside advertisers' head however extends to politics or conflicts. Funnily, the late Andre Leon Talley - here - used to say he can see the images on the mood board of designers in the collection and know their influences, oddly, I can do the same to advertisers - my immense back catalog both in my brain and my archive can immediately spot which previous ad influenced them, but I digress. 

And now? Now no idea. The Iranian embassy was very clear (here). Revenge will happen. Was this the promised revenge - either from Hizbollah or the Iranians - I know not. All I know that we are again, very close to an all out war. The international press is all over this, each covering it from its biased angle (spare me the fair and free reporting lie). But does this influence anything on the ground? No, it does not. The field equation is separate from pundits.

Each side is now claiming the "damage was minimal" or "operation was a total success" (both sides are, as Hizbollah has caught up, if not bypassed, Israel in terms of mastering propaganda - not just to their loyal public but to the world at large). I have no possibility or clue of checking either claim - as I said, the press is covering it in a very biased way. 

Is this the beginning of an all-out regional war or is this an increase in skirmishes from both sides? Either way, I know not. My crystal ball seems to apply to advertising more than anything else.

The Belfour promise and the silliness of the Arabs

The above image comes from my installation "No Truce in Beirut, Only Virgins" (here). Has Lebanon had a checkered history with the Palestinians? Indeed we have. Have we paid an exorbitant price in the process? We have, indeed. Does this deter us from being human? Judging by how the Lebanese (well, most of them I think though no statistics are available) no, it does not. I will still let you ponder about that campaign on the streets about Lebanon not wanting war (here and here) and I ask again who placed them and with what money and who is funding this.

However this does not deter us from easy talk and empty gestures and useless political discourse. The two images above come from an manifestation that happened in Beirut. The story was told to us (as a class) by our Arabic teacher. Therefore I have no specific dates for it. But the gist of the story is that the beginning of the manifestation the slogan being shouted was "fal yaskot wa3d Belfour" (may the Belfour promise be annulled) and at the end of the manifestation? "fal yaskot wa7ad min fow2" (may someone from above be toppled). If you say these two sentences aloud, they sort of rhyme, especially through an Indian telephone that a manifestation becomes. The point is, people just wanted to join the action, not caring what the message was. 

And yet these are "malayeen" (the millions) that singer Julia Boutros deplored in her song (here). And again, Lebanon and Beirut were the hub of the pro-Palestinian movement. So if this was the hub, what to say of the Others? Those who, not only did not do anything, but were in tacit support.

The world keeps on turning: Rafah crossing and the Met Gala

Yesterday yahoo headlines were:

Israel seizes control of Rafah border crossing, what all stars wore at  last night's Met Gala - and more...

Already, some people I follow on social media were up in arms about the Met Gala to begin with, and even the organizers of the said event were curling their toes for many reasons: Conde Nast which publishes Vogue (the Met Gala in case you did not know was headed by Dame Anna Wintour who also is the global chief content officer of Vogue) struck an 11th hour deal with employees threatening to disrupt the Met event, and pro-Palestinians were having a manifestation right across apparently. All this without even broaching the topic that the main sponsor of the event was Tiktok, which president Biden had signed into law that is either needed to be sold or banned due to the fact that its parent company Bytedance was Chinese.

The fashion gods were apparently clement and the mega-event went without issues.

Which brings us to the Rafah crossing and Israel.

I already said it that as a Lebanese 2023 was incredibly triggering as a year (here), and considering that - like most Lebanese - I lost all my money at the bank, I am dealing with all the other issues Lebanese are dealing with in terms of shortages (even if they are less acute than before), and since the market is in a disastrous state still, adding the Palestinian plight to my own is taxing and draining no matter how emphatic I am.

As a matter of fact, yesterday I had a row with a German person I know - the man had certain circumstances but his country pays for his hospitalization, his housing, his cleaning service, his transportation, etc... Trying to make him understand that I am flying without a parachute was just too much for him to grasp. I was trying to make him understand that he had a very sturdy safety net, one that is not there for me. He even implied that I should rest on my social security, only for me to gently explain to him that his too evaporated. 

All this is to say that whereas I am expected to be on the camp that it is sacrilegious that the Met Gala is happening right at the same time as the Israeli offensive in Rafah, believe it or not, I am not. Remember, war in Lebanon was not this eternal doom and gloom despite all the casualties that happened. We watched "al hijra min Dallas" (hehe "exodus from Dallas" or "Knots Landing" on a TV in the shelter wired on the battery of Ayoub's car stationed above), there were discotheques (though I was too young to attend), radio stations which played both local music (Jabal Loubnan), or foreign (Radio one, Pax, Magic 102, Fame, etc...), and so on and so forth.

I previously spoke of the demise of Kaslik (here) but the mere existence of that street and its accoutrements of luxury shops and beach resorts and night life was a proof that even in the midst of a war there was money to spend and people spending it. Fouad ElKoury has this image which sort of encapsulates this mood - in the middle of a war-torn Beirut a man - presumably a driver - changes the wheel of a Cadillac as two other men (one of them in a fancy coat) stand looking (also presumably one or both are the owners of the vehicle) - see the image here.

Life does go on - in both in its atrocity and sublime. And does it make sense? Well, who said it should anyhow.

Gaza quicksand drowns Zara

Zara walks into the controversy open-eyed. In this sensitive, very sensitive time marketing-wise, where brands and celebrities are being scrutinized for what they said - or for what they did not say - Zara issued a new campaign titled "The Jacket". A better name would have been the straight-jacket because honestly not seeing the implications of this campaign - meaning no one from marketing, management, communication detected a hint of second-layer - is in itself insane.

Well, the image speaks for itself. Rubble? Check. Debris (in the shape of a certain country)? Check. Body wrapped in a (white) plastic covering (reminiscent of a certain burial color for a certain religion)? Check. Do I proceed? Does this remind you of - ahem - anything currently happening in the world? Of course, Gaza and the disaster hitting there. Well, if Balanciaga could not detect it, why should Zara.

But today boycott IS real. Starbucks, McDonald's, Coca-Cola are some of the brands suffering major backlash for supporting one camp again the other in the war happening in Palestine. I already spoke of how this dragged the local McDonald's franchisee in Lebanon (here and in extenso here as well). Boycott among other reasons had led Starbucks to start closing shop in many countries in the region, while their stocks dwindled 11% by the time this post is written.

Does Zara really want to join the list? It seems so. Right now words by their head of women's design Vanessa Perilman said in 2021 (while engaging with Palestinian model Qaher Harhash), which can be described as colorful (here), are doing the rounds online. So perhaps Zara is indeed set on being part of it. If that is the case, they are doing quite a good job.

Why is an ad about 2006 war leading me to the US department of State regarding Gaza?

So how does this get me this? (Here). 

The still above is from an ad that popped up as a I was browsing. It is about how devastating the 2006 war in Lebanon was. In numbers. Interestingly, when I pressed on the offered link I got the page of the US Department of State about "humanitarian assistance to Gaza". I am not going to say anything here (about supplying bombs to one side and humanitarian assistance on the other), but what I am trying to understand is: why is it that an ad about the effects of 2006 war and the tagline to "choose security" gets me to a link about Gaza and humanitarian assistance. Who is paying for this ad and why? Also about two days ago I got a message on my phone with a hashtag: #Lebanon_does_not_war. Well, mass messages on phones cost money - who paid for those?

All am asking is - what is the relation between the cause and the effect. And how come an ad about Lebanon ends up linking me to Gaza?

McDonald's Lebanon and 25 years come in a checkered festivity

So lately McDonald's Lebanon is celebrating 25 years in the land, but it has also been embroiled in what is happening in Israel-Palestine (here). So not sure about the timing but these are festivities dipped in controversy what's with brands being boycotted left and right due to the support of the Israeli side of the issues. Whereas 25 years calls for celebrations and if instagram is any indication, the ad dates back to October 11 (here) - which is after October 7 when all hell broke lose - and already the comments beneath it are very telling. Well, McDonald's Lebanon has been dragged into this big time, whether they wanted it or not.

No Halloween this year, the horror is real....

I don't care where you stand politically, this is an excellent ad.

I could get any other information about it apart from the fact that it is in Tunisia. Pity - no client or no organization behind it. But it is excellent, and again, I don't care where you stand politically.

McDonald's Lebanon is being dragged into what is happening in Palestine

"No two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other" or so said Thomas Friedman in his book The Lexus and The Olive Tree (1996). OK, fine, the principle proved wrong, first India and Pakistan in 1999 over Kashmir, followed by Israel and Lebanon in 2006, Russia and Georgia in 2008 - although not in a declared war - Russia and Ukraine in 2022. Did you know that between 1968 to 1990 Coca-Cola was boycotted in the Arab world by order of the League of Arab Nations since it provided "financial help for Israel" in the 1967 six day war? And now McDoland's in Israel has been distributing free food with "we came!" written in Hebrew under their logo.

This prompted the Lebanese owners of McDonald's to come clean and issue a statement - the gist of which is - we are a Lebanese company and we have nothing to do with what other franchisees are doing in other countries (read the full communique here). Honestly, can't I just enjoy my Happy Meal in peace? Bfff.... What a strange, convoluted world we live in.

Can we apply MAD theory between Hezbollah and Israel? Thank you.

Still from the movie War Games

Good news: Hezhollah has precision missiles (as per Israel's Channel 13)

Bad news: Hezhollah has precision missiles (as per Israel's Channel 13)

Now, yes, I know - the same news can be looked at from two competing points of views. And I am personally freaking out with the possibility of a war looming (hey, I said the same thing about banks crashing and I was laughed at!). Naturally, between our economic breakdown, or the covid situation, or the daily struggles we face in Lebanon, or the lack of government, or the disparity in opinion when it comes to our regional allegiances, or this incredible dark cloud (hey, with the winter being so rainy-less so far it is not even a "real" cloud!) looming over Lebanon, all this is not even on the radar yet.

But it is there, make no mistake.

My best hope is that the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) theory would prevail between Lebanon (specifically Hezhollah) and Israel. I mean, it did work preventing a global war between the United States and the (then) USSR, so why not now. In case you are not familiar with the concept, MAD is simply about the idea that once war is unleashed, it is enough to destroy both sides of the equation. And yes, I know what you are thinking, how can Hezhollah claim to have the same military capacity as Israel?

Exhibit one: the 2006 war.

Exhibit two: Hezhollah has precision missiles (as per Israel's Channel 13)

That Lebanon needs less worries and hassles when we have a(n almost) total void of central decision making what's with a caretaker government taking the backseat, and a new government formation taking no seat at all, is a bit obvious. Still, I may be ringing the doom and gloom for no reason (that's me calming myself down), but realistically... Where is Stanislav Petrov when you need him?