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.

Coca-Cola shoots itself in the foot with its Bangladesh ad

So small background: Coca-Cola is among the brands targeted by boycott due to its perceived support of Israel with the Hamas war in Gaza. Actually it just put out an ad in Bangladesh to distance itself from the whole debacle. In the ad - which is a regular one, nothing too special - the talent says "even Palestine has a Coca-Cola factory" and invites the people to search for "Coca-Cola Palestine factory". The problem? It is in Atarot, an illegal Israeli settlement built on stolen Palestinian land. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Note that Coca-Cola no longer exists in the Lebanese market (here) but 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. So here we are again - sometimes as the saying goes "when in a hole stop digging". If you wish to see the Bangladesh ad please look here.

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.

2023 was exceptionally triggering for me

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly from the series "Visit Palestines"

In case you are not aware, I am literally a war child. I was born 6 months before the beginning of the 1975-90 was in Lebanon. Growing up, I never knew anything that was not war. Mind you, one of the things people do not understand, is that your parents were experiencing war live with you - nothing prepared them for this. So basically, I also came from a family that was suffering from war. Sure these are things you understand as you grow older and you have no idea what they mean as they happen on day-to-day basis. I remember that my parents had to have Tranxene 5(mg) even before bread. And no, I am not digressing. 

The problem is that what happened in Palestine in 2023 was a major trigger for me. All the images which were coming from social media - and even though I just follow a few people on Instagram and have no Tiktok, the people I do follow are as opinionated as I am. Naturally, considering I read and analyze all day long, I kept seeing a flood of news about the region.

If you still cannot put two and two together, let me make it easier for you - all the war trauma went back to the surface as I saw and watched what was happening there. All those shelter days, and bombardment days, and explosions, and newsflashes, and everything else. All came back in a condensed package through my mind. Sure, I am tough, always have been (even if there were bouts of depression at times), but seeing all this made the past more visible, more naked, more urgent.

And believe you me, trauma does not leave you. It may hide, but it never leaves.

So whereas anyone who knows me expected me to be more vocal about what happened in Palestine, the issue was that I was dealing with the war backlog - in addition to the other problems and things that 2023 (which was not kind to many many people!) has presented me with.

So voila, there was just too much on my (mental) plate, all while knowing where I stood.

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.

Bayti Store goes for the biggest political dig of them all

Now that came out of left field! Bayti Store goes for a major political dig... Their prices? "Cheaper than all Arab leaders"... Now only that but they say their products are useful - a dig to some leaders or many who are not. It is interesting that in a world where boycott seems to rule (and from what I heard the boycott is functioning) for a company to go all out and just blow the roof - also note the Kaffiyeh background in the ad and the flag this must be a fresh breath of air to many people. OK, side note: You can use their products to store clothes, shoes, winter foods and goods etc...  Check the lovely ad here.

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.

Of life, carpets, cardigans and wars

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

On November 10, 2015, I published the following:

This year, we put the winter carpets early on with early November already being so rainy and cold where I am - hint: not Beirut - but back when times were more defined in terms of four seasons, there was a local expression which went "al sajjad min isteklal la chouhada" - the carpets from independence till martyrs. Independence day falls on November 22nd and Martyrs day on May 6th. Both were at the time national holidays which allowed women (and men) of the house to do the whole brouhaha associated with putting on the carpets and taking them off (which is very time and labor consuming mind you).

Well, this year, the cold came ever earlier, which is why today - was carpets day. Thankfully someone helped me with the whole load. Yes, yes, I am aware that this blog is mostly about talking about advertising and communication - and there is a new campaign on the street which, at best, is idiotic and I do not feel like talking about it (hint: It is a public health campaign, and yes, I ran it by three other people and "idiotic" was the kindest remark being said).

Which brings us to today and carpets.

And yes, the world is ablaze, thank you for reminding me. I am aware of it. Even if not in the daily grind of Beirut, I can still feel how convoluted everything is. But also, life is life. What I mean by that is simply that well - there's always daily chores to be done, and cooking, and cleaning, and heck - in the tumult of all of this - I managed to buy mother a winter cardigan and if you think this is simple, please try again.

Several years back frustrated from mending her cardigan - daily - I went on to find a replacement - the first was too tight (mother is minuscule but even size large - in men's! - was too tight for her liking), the second was not thick enough, the third was not of the color palette she would wear. So I went to the market and in one day, I visited 20 shops in the same day and in the middle of Burj Hammoud I found what I was looking for - color was correct, thickness was correct but it was not XL. It was obvious I was deflated, so the man suggested he'd go up to his shop's attic to see what could be done. And bingo, he manifested exactly the cardigan in XL.

So a few days back, as I was scrolling on instagram, a cardigan came my way on one of those resale sites. I knew it was it. And voila, mother fell in love when it was delivered yesterday (mind you she was not aware I was bring here a replacement to the aforementioned garment). Again, if you read above you'll discover it was really something like stars aligning for this to happen.

So there:

Carpets - done.

Winter cardigan - done.

Worrying about the war - also done but life is what it is.

So we march on bravely.

Palestine: A country that lives in us (new video art)

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Palestinians have a saying "everyone has a country to live in but we have a country that lives in us"... Lebanon got dragged into the Palestinian story by virtue of becoming a "confrontation nation"... The video addresses Palestine and Lebanon as an idea and concept. You can watch the video here.

How can one seek stability when all goalposts keep on changing?

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly based on a vintage Rimal resort ad

Not even sure what I am saying here. Might be the product of frustration, or disillusion, or tiredness, or of personal circumstances, or of being Lebanese, or just being me, or a combination of any of the options that preceded. At a time when friends in Europe are plotting their vacations in February 2024, I cannot even see what tomorrow will bring. Already, I am living in Lebanon, a country that lost all logic, where institutions barely function, where we did not have a president for a year now, where banks basically stripped us of our money, where inflation is at 128%, and where poverty levels are at 80% (and please do not believe those Instagram accounts where everyone is living their best life), a country where day-to-day life has an element of surrealism in it.

There has been too many upheavals in my life. Truly, too many to count. I was born 6 months before the 1975 war and already what was normal in my childhood, must have been totally mind-mending in anyone else's. But you know, comes a time when I really - as in really - crave stability. Boring old routine. Am serious. I keep living my life inside problems and issues and uprooting and what not. And yet, here we are - again.

Obviously, I am referring to what is happening in Palestine, specifically Gaza, with the danger of what it might mean if this spilled over to Lebanon. And this is not some farfetched scenario I am dreaming up but rather a real probability with real tangible implications on day to day life, which already is hanging to normalcy by a thread.

I was speaking to a friend and he said he quit expecting stability, he just went on assuming that everything would be sh*t. To be honest almost everyone I know seems to be in some in-between phase, one is waiting for her parents to move to the US to leave as well, another is moving to Dubai with her family but her husband was rushed to the hospital, a third is shifting from company to company where she works online for meager salaries which do not even cover her rent and living expenses, and so on and so forth.

Maybe I am imagining things, that people outside of Lebanon - you know Europe, US, etc... - have stable lives. But truth be told, I wish to have a routine where I go out to work in the morning and back home at night all while earning a very respectable salary as I used to do which was there for a fleeting period of time. But I guess instability was the norm. But after a while, all these shifting goalposts become too tiring to follow and keep up with.

I guess this is too cheesy, and that it dates me, but as the once-philosopher Madonna said "If we took a holiday (...) just one day out of life" - and preferably before February 2024 (no disrespect for my European friends' calendar).

What's goin' on? There's a riot going on

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

When Marvin Gaye issued his seminal album "What's going on" in 1971, Sly and the Family Stone released their own "There's a riot goin' on" on that same year. Which brings us back to the Middle East. The cursed region which seems to know no respite.

I refer you to this passage from "Beyrouth Mayhem-ek" which you can find here:

… And the bombings over Beirut intensified, and I found myself…
Strange how some statements seem ageless and dateless, as if their only reference is simply their own being. The above could have taken place anytime between 1975 and 1990, then sporadically – yet recurrently – after that, although choosing 1996 and 2006 would give a better statistical opportunity of be dead on. Excuse the pun. It seemed the same as saying “the sun rises”, a benign statement with no implications whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, a mechanic, repetitive act – a little like sex when the initial impulse of the discovery of the other’s body has gone.

Replace Beirut with Gaza and you get the drift.

The current Ukrainian crisis showed that some refugees are more equal than others

Source: The Art Of Boo

Moustafa Byoumi wrote a brilliant article in The Guardian lately (please read here) whereby he detailed how "racist" the coverage of Ukraine is. Of course, by now, many of us are familiar with CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata masterpiece of journalism when he uttered live on air (about Ukraine), that it "isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen" - now of course, when Mesopotamia was a civilization, I am not sure what the rest of the world was.

Let me give you this other story, when trying to save almost extinct species, human beings - when interviewed - wanted to allocate more money towards species with anthropomorphic features. Anthropomorphism is that quality where the animal species has much more "resemblance" to the humans. And even the title of this post is a paraphrasing of George Orwell's "all animals are equal, some more equal than others". I am not directly comparing almost extinct animal species to refugees, but sadly the comparison does stand on the ground.

I have previously detailed the one-sided love between Lebanon and France (please look here). But this is just a small example of how hard it is for a Lebanese to get a visa to Europe. Lebanon has hosted, per capita, the highest amount of Syrian refugees in the world. When Europe was squabbling about a thousand here and there, we had more than 2 million (the latest figures still indicate 1.5 million if you want to know). Even inside Lebanon, the Damour massacre has displaced so many people who still did not go back to their original villages. 

Actually, Christian Lebanese always had this fallacy in their head, that Europe wants them. It would welcome them with open arms. But of course, these are the same people who never tried to apply to a Schengen visa - last time I did it took 60 papers. 60. Papers. I can tell you stories about how embassies treated me (at the time I was teaching at a university, with two full passports filled with stamps and visas and still, they made it incredibly hard to get the visa. Small example: I asked (backed by papers) to get a multiple entry visa. I got one. For how long? 4 weeks! When did finish? One day before Christmas! So it was impossible to actually spend the holidays in Europe even if then I was loaded with money).

But all this to tell you, no - as Lebanese, Syrians, Afghans we are not so welcome to Europe. Of course, just to be clear, considering I grew up in a war, all these sights from Ukraine bother me immensely (and yes, they trigger flashbacks for me). But whereas the whole world rallies around Ukraine (and rightfully so), when all this was happening in Palestine, no one moved a muscle.

Daniel Hannan in The Telegraph put it as succinctly as possible when talking about Ukrainians, "(they) watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts" - you hear that Lebanese "influencers"?

Bayan Dahdah x Nativeheads.co and some meaningful watermelons

"In 1967, it became a crime to raise a Palestinian flag in occupied Palestine. In a gesture of protest, Palestinians would carry a slice of watermelon as it contained the same national colours. Today, in light of recent events and censorships, the watermelon has resurfaced." So this is how designer Bayan Dahdah describes her collaboration with Nativeheads.co for her watermelon embroidered items (which you can shop there on this link) - you can also go to Bayan's instagram for some powerful narratives (here).

Why I haven't said anything about Palestine.

With the whole world up in arms about Palestine (no need to link anything, you can just read it anywhere), I have been totally silent about the issue. Why? You might ask. Well, for a long time I have been the proponent of the idea that tags and social media do not solve much (remember how effective #bringourgirlsback campaign was? Not much actually). You know it is easy to post on Facebook between zoom meetings or whatsapp discussions about this or that, and flood social media with sentiments: But apart from the feeling that you have cleaned your conscience and engaged in an act of slacktivism, tell me - what else did you do?

All right,  I can see your point already: You are running a blog, supposedly for the betterment of the advertising industry, so how does that differ? It differs that for 15 years I taught at master's level at universities, worked on future generations of advertisers, was very harsh when it came to ethics, tried to instill in them - not just methods of creativity - but also deep entrenched values. It also means that advertisers (and here I know how little that effect can be in real life) were less enthusiastic to copy (read that steal) other people's ideas knowing they will get caught and exposed and ridiculed (usually this is under "compare and contrast" on this blog).

Oh, and last week, mother had a health scare. The kind of health scare that in the past would lead her to a hospital stay. She was adamant she did not want to go. So the Chemaly boys worked hand in hand to stabilize the situation. And it worked. But of course me being the resident of the house, there was extra duties to perform and things to do. So all this was time consuming, and me being me, I had to remain calm and steady and ever-efficient. So honestly this was priority over an issue (i.e. Palestine) I had no control or influence on.

I do care about what is happening there, but also am trying not to be a hypocrite and just do things which are ethically pseudo-meaningless.

On that road to Jerusalem that goes through Jounieh

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Is there a way to simplify a complicated chequered issue? No there is not.
I personally know the man who used to go to Yasser Arafat and take cash from him in Samsonite bags to fund a local well-known newspaper.
Now that the deal of the century has been announced, to sympathize with the Palestinians is a problem. Not to sympathize with them is another.
How so?
Well, to begin with they made no qualms about wanting Lebanon as an alternative country, and the reason the whole black September happened in Jordan which lead the PLO to be evacuated from there was to stop them from getting Jordan as a supposed alterative country (and here I am divulging two info I got from incredibly well placed person in Jordan: Yasser Arafat was evacuated by wearing a woman's dress and plans for a printed currency and re-allocation of houses in Jordan to Palestinians were already set).
Which brings us back to the expression: "The road to Jerusalem goes through Jounieh" as uttered by Arafat. To begin with, with Jounieh being a northern suburb of Beirut, this is a geographical impossibility - since Jerusalem is to the South. But this implied that they wanted Lebanon - all of it - in lieu of Palestine.
Now here's the flip of the equation: Palestinians have been put in camps in Lebanon ever since the nakba of 1948. Have you visited such a camp? I have. I am - by all means and standards a very thin individual. Yet even I had to walk through certain passages sideways to minmize my body size so small these passages have been. There are areas there which never ever saw the sun and are incredibly humid and damp. Palestinians are not allowed by law to perform many many jobs in Lebanon - the rationale being that they would "settle" if they do. Remember they are here on temporary basis supposedly - all this without remembering that due to shady Lebanese politics, only Christian Palestinians were given Lebanese idendities and were nationalized in a bid to increase the Christian fragment of the population.
As I said there is no way to minimize a very complex issue. And anyone who can tell you where things are going or that there is a gigantic conspiracy theory is in my book, a liar. If history has taught us anything, it's that we have no clue where things are going.
Syrian refugees, may I remind you, are also supposed to be here on temporary basis, just like the Palestinians. All while Lebanese are drowning in their own financial/economic/political problems.
I am not trying to simplify a complex issue, but again - sympathizing with the Palestinians is a problem, not sympathing is another.