Lebanon: Defeats should not define us.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly based on a Hussein Hajj quote

Yesterday on Linkedin Tahaab Rais posted about a man who was writing his own headlines instead of reading the depressing ones in the press. Things like "husband loves wife today". You can read the post here. Now this has been a strange weekend for me. Not my usual deep-thinking mode. More like thoughts passing through my head as I was reading. And I added a reply to Tahaab's post. Here it is verbatim: "being in Lebanon is not exactly an easy thing these days. I thought: OK, I lost an enormous amount of money at the bank, electricity comes in batches of 2 hours a day, I have not had any serious work since (I am afraid to think since when!). Meat, water, power all of them rationed. And still - I am able to care for my elderly mother (at 86 is it not a picnic), a friend just gifted me 5 boxes of impossible-to-find meds of hers, I am still able to pay the bills (again, no mean feat!), I live in a beautiful house (I actually almost single-handedly restored in 2003), and I inherited around 1000 books from a British journalist who had to be medically evacuated from Lebanon (which I read when the power is down and summer light still up!). All this to say, OK, the world is bleak right now (specifically in a place like Lebanon), but am pulling through (certainly not easily). That old man is correct - 2020 should not define us, Defeats should not define us as well. The world goes on, so do we."

And so here we are - who would have thought I would be putting a positive spin on what happened? But - again - I can lament as much as I can about what happened, my generosity included. But this will not change things. Or the outcomes. Without any doubt, this was a case of trial by fire - not just for me - but for the whole Lebanese population. Still, it was a perfect storm as I called it earlier, with each element just feeding the others. But again, onwards and upwards.

Defeats should not define us. But that one hell of a defeat.

Claim your narrative, I claimed mine.

Recently, I saw the poster of an exhibition which dates back to 2015 which was hosted by a certain institution. The concept of the exhibition, the scenography, the artworks, the elements on the poster the whole she bang was mine. On the said poster, my name was nowhere to be found. Nowhere. 

Interestingly, I was thankfully in charge of the communication as I always am in my exhibitions. So the press material and the elements that were distributed digitally all had my name on them. 

This is but one detail of the many things that happened where my name as - intentionally or not - omitted. Still, I claim these events as ethically mine. Actually, a few years back I went into a "digital regrouping mode". There were too many sub-brands to my name, even the name of my previous blog was something that did not mention me (Beirut/NTSC). My publishing arm arm was called 7UPstrairs though it was a one-man-army. My writings were generously offered to other publications which, again, did not give me credit several times - or worse, hired me only to give me a salary reduction one week later (guess, who slammed the door behind him?). Actually even my LinkedIn profile was slightly altered so that it would not be telling the whole truth, without telling a lie. As a matter of fact, even tarekchemaly.com was a masking tape for another sub-brand which did not take off.

Long story short, the digital regrouping worked, even if it meant sacrificing brands, side-projects and withholding my name from several other publications (these days, very rarely do I accept my work to be published elsewhere but here). I understand that for many - my name is fragmented: people who follow the blog might not be aware of my art, or my research, or know that I taught at master's level for fifteen years, or the other hats I wear. But that was a deliberate strategy on my part, and I wanted it to survive the afore-mentioned "digital regrouping".

Still, the exercise was worth it. I tightened the screws of the name, the "Tarek Chemaly" brand, controlled the ramifications of the projection to any of the works that has my name stamped on it. And despite setbacks because I am in Lebanon, which the quasi-totality of the Lebanese have suffered, my price list remained unchanged. I know that others are trying to adapt to the post-crash market and totally understand them, but to me - my clients which are stationed abroad were offered the same pricing as before the crisis started in Lebanon which brought the desperate need for "fresh money".

Lately, I was talking to someone and I told him I left my teaching position because it made more financial sense to remain at home, and his reply was "you can afford it". Well, here's the deal - if I can afford it or not, including my financial machinations are all part of a image am projecting to people. What happens behind the facade is purely mine, because the narrative I claimed does not include this part. 

Claiming your narrative allows you to control how you are seen. And to quote rapper Saweetie: "However, if you don't have a voice and if you don't speak up and create your own narrative, someone else will".

How LinkedIn became a facebook/Instagram hybrid

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly from the series "Tanaklogia"

LinkedIn used to be certainly interesting. Seriously, it was worlds away from the constant bombardments of Facebook and its silly updates from "friends" and holiday greetings from "our family to yours", and far from the braggadocio of Instagram where everyone is #nofilter handsome/beautiful, dressed in their logomania attires, and living their best lives.

Just last week on LinkedIn, I saw about 15 people putting certificates of courses they just finished. I congratulate them wholeheartedly, but a closer inspection of the names of the courses and - worse - the governing bodies issuing them, leaves me cold. There were also about four copy/paste versions of the same story about the guy in shoddy surroundings who got interviewed by an HR (but he got the job, yay, because "don't judge the book by its cover"), three other identical stories about companies hiring someone with no experience but who ended up getting promoted twice (twice!), about two other people promoting conspiracy theories (one about the deep state in the US, another about Carlos Ghosn replacing Riad Salameh as governor of central bank in Lebanon). 

Oh and of course, there were half a dozen stories about people who opened a business and failed and opened another one later and succeeded. And a tone of the customary motivational quotes, and several from Brigette Hyacinth. And by the way, all those saying, "if you do not like your place, change it, you are not a tree" (original quote by Jim Rohn) let me remind you as an agriculture engineer, that changing the place of a tree requires moving its primary ecosystem with it to survive (which involves the soil it was planted in - or your previous working experience/rolodex for that matter).

Thankfully, there is a mute button. Or unfollow or whatever they call it.

But yes, it is alarming. All right, we all knew men were using the the platform to privately email women about non-business issues (and at times women posting such messages to fight back), but the amount of info on LinkedIn - serious, business-like, educational - was still abundant.

Lately though, I cannot but worry. If I wanted to see shiny happy people, I'd have gone to Facebook and Instagram.