Smash Authority


Blog Aggregators: Lebanese | Palestinian | Syrian | Jordanian | Iraqi | Arab | Israeli

 


Some Thoughts, in Bullet Form
Thursday, May 3, 2007

No pun intended in the title, of course. I don't have time to blog much and for that I apologize, but I thought maybe I could instead tease you with a share of the observations I have been making to myself these past few weeks (or days, I lost track).

Labels: , , , , , ,

posted by Angry Anarchist @ 5/03/2007 10:07:00 PM, ,



The War... Criminals
Friday, April 13, 2007

So it's the big day. It's the day everyone talks about in Lebanon. Every year. I missed the 30th anniversary, not being in the country at the time. But I did not feel I lost out on much, and here I am, on the 32nd anniversary, hearing the same "warnings", the same "never again"s, the same... all the same. I have not met a people so stubbornly self-deceiving as the Lebanese are. Every year this circus of April 13 repeats itself, as the country slides ever closer to a civil war. Every April 13, in the midst of the loud and repetitive "never again"s, I look through the photos of the civil war, I look at the people today running after their self-assigned leaders, I listen to this guy on the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the civil war, who says "Nasrallah is afraid only of Walid beik; we can wipe out the Shi'a in less than 24 hours", I watch all the hype on the news attached to the groups and individuals who have transformed April 13 into a ritual, and for whom the remaining 364 days are good for a kill, I watch all the people insisting that it is the new generation that does not know the horrors of the war and may end up making the same mistakes, but then I see that the older generation, the war generation, is ever ready to engage in blood-baths, at a mere signal from their self-appointed leaders.

On the 32nd anniversary of the eruption of the civil war, virtually all the war criminals, all the fighters, all the butchers, are on the loose. And what is worse, many of them preside over political parties, and hold political office. Then I hear someone say that Lebanon is unique, that it is civilized, and Western -- the latter two descriptions used synonymously. I will not go into a debate on Phoenicianism, or any other ism. Lebanon, at this point, resembles the war-torn African states where tribalism is rampant and every once in a while, erupts in a civil war. This comparison is not to be interpreted as an endorsement of the racist, supremacist rhetoric aired by the likes of one FPM supporter who mourned that "even Kuwait is better than us, and heck, even Congo is better than us". As true as this placement may be, there is something unsettling in that "even". It assumes that Lebanon ever was better than the rest of the countries plagued by authoritarianism, tribalism, racism, civic unrest, and so on. The truth of the matter is that casinos and hotels, and tourism, do not make a country "good" or for that matter "civilized", despite the insistence to the contrary by Hariri, Inc., and for all I know Patriarch Sfeir... The "Paris of the Middle East", that phrase that just keeps popping up out of nowhere every once in a while, is only in the empty minds of those whose pockets were full, and are now overflowing. And since I stuck my nose into this subject, I must give them a piece of my mind: if you cherish Paris so much, my advice to you is to visit the Paris. I mean, the one in France; it saves the time and effort (and money...) you invest in planting Parises in different parts of the world for your touristic, gambling, and sex slavery agendas.

I truly and honestly do not hold any sympathy towards anyone in this regard, except for the Palestinians, whose experiences in the war and in its aftermath have been far more catastrophic than those of any other group or sect; to put the icing on the cake, their place in the discourse on the civil war is now at best marginal; marginal not in the sense that they are not discussed enough (they are discussed and blamed more than enough), but rather in the sense that they have no say on the manner in which they have been portrayed (as the representation of all that was evil), their involvement in the war used as a tool and manipulated to falsify history and weave a mythology around it. As Karim Pakradouni put it today, "the first two years of the war were good, and I do not regret them, because they united the Lebanese".

I had decided against writing on the occasion, as I am not a big fan of such artificial commemorations and marking of dates and events (especially ones that one has not learned from, and in fact seeks to repeat). What made me change my mind, however, is the fact that everywhere I went today, everything I saw, and every single individual I talked to, was so appallingly sectarian, so appallingly the exact opposite of what the Lebanese try to market themselves as, that it became impossible not to write anything about this phenomenon of mass-delusion and this mass-marketing campaign embarked upon by the Lebanese. I have been informed of a number of organizations and groups that have sprung up recently, which claim to be secular and working towards the advancement of civic society (and so on); most of the people I have met and talked with claim they are non-sectarian; some even say they are atheists. Yet in the heat of the debate (and I do love playing the devil's advocate), the vicious sectarianism and hatred (thickly-coated with the so-called Lebanese nationalism, the so-called "civic" culture, the so-called open-mindedness, the so-called acceptance of "the other"), rears its ugly head.

I also decided against posting any pictures (from my rather large civil war photo collection). I have grown to despise the routine references to the destruction, which are often coupled with scenes of "Beirut reborn". In fact, I despise the emphasis on Beirut. And again, which Beirut is it? The Beirut of the refugee camps? The Beirut of the rubble of the dahieh? What about the impoverished north and the Beqaa, and the devastated South? I suppose these do not fall within the scope of the project for erecting a Paris (or a second Dubai) of the Middle East.

The mythology of the civil war needs to be destroyed. Not dismantled, but destroyed. There are those who insist, despite what experience has shown, that pampering will lead to the dismantlement of this mythology. That merely "encouraging" people to discuss the civil war is enough to actually get them to do it, and do it in a way that would be more than merely parroting the official version approved by the sect's self-appointed leader(s). The attack on this falsified and prettified record must be brutal, uncompromising, merciless. To use war terminology, there should be road blocks on each and every single road. Not even alleys must be spared. Leaders and their blind followers are, to use the Dickensian phrase, "artful dodgers"; naturally they will try to find a tiny gap, and slip in through it. As for how this can and should be done, that is not my specialty, although I could definitely get quite creative (and at the very worst case, very distasteful). I am, however, granted my rather violent activist background, of the opinion that this is a much broader and complex task than to be entrusted merely to academics. Research and documentation are important and worthwhile tasks in and of themselves, but they are not enough. Books are not enough to educate people and break the myths that have been planted in their minds. What has been done so far can be described as gathering the fruit of those plants and at best throwing them away (and sometimes eating them). What needs to be done is to uproot those plants.

But so long as the efforts are hijacked by so-called secular groups claiming to work on enhancing civil society, and which do not do anything, and often do the opposite of what they claim to do, there is not much hope.

The mainstream must be dumped. Or else we will all be duped into the mainstream.

Labels: ,

posted by Angry Anarchist @ 4/13/2007 07:13:00 PM, ,



Iran 1 West 0
Tuesday, April 3, 2007

I just saw that the Iranians have released new pics of the Brit captives, the capture of whom should have led, according to Israeli justifications for the July war, to a large-scale invasion of Iran by the UK -- although technically a strike is still not out of the question, nevertheless, it has not happened yet and we can only base our analyses on what has happened.

I read the whole Brit captive affair along three tracks:
1) The domestic Iranian track, i.e. purely for Iranian public consumption;
2) The regional track, i.e. a subtle threat about what may come if USA (or anyone else) attacks Iran;
3) The international/global track, i.e. the image of Iran.

The first track seems to be playing smoothly so far, in so far as it is aimed to boost the confidence and pride of the Iranian people in the face of the psychological war that is being waged against the country. Its primary objective is to alleviate the fears of the Iranian people in the face of a looming strike. We cannot be sure if the second track will be as effective, but granted the risks associated with a strike on Iran (and hopefully the awareness of these risks by Bush, Blair, & co. -- something I am not betting on), it will have some impact, at least in terms of psychological warfare and its transformation of public opinion in the west. On the other hand, this incident has been utilized by some as a "proof" that Iran is a bully and must be put in its right place. Which takes me to the third point -- the image of Iran in the world, and especially in public opinion around the globe. While the incident itself at first was highly denounced, public opinion has gradually calmed down and has been reassured, through those photos (despite the trumpets of war sounding from some "houses" ahem...), of the welfare of the soldiers and the possibility of their release via diplomatic channels. The Iranians' release of photos every few days or so is meant to serve as a reminder of this fact to the world, and lays to waste much of the hyped-up hysteria of a genocidal Iran (once again the "they're going to throw us into the sea" myth comes in handy), along with the attempts at readying public opinion for a strike. The image of an Iran that has been represented in vicious terms in Western media is challenged by the image of an Iran that treats its captives "like kings" (even giving them chess boards and serving them fruit)... It's a bit of a hyperbole (!) I know, but it is good enough to score some points! At the end of the day, in terms of public opinion, it is not "reality" that matters as much as the psychological impact of images.

Nice track suits too... hahaha... (at the risk of sounding ignorant and heartless) I'm having too much fun with this.

Iran 1 West 0

Labels: ,

posted by Angry Anarchist @ 4/03/2007 07:50:00 PM, ,



Iranian vs Israeli nukes
Thursday, March 29, 2007

Whether or not one agrees with Iran's quest for nuclear capabilities and all that it entails in terms of strategic parity vis-a-vis Israel, one must admit that the IAEA and the international community have been hypocritical in their position on Iran -- compared to their position (or rather, lack thereof) on Israel. The farthest they have gone is to call on Israel to "admit" that it possesses nuclear weapons. I mean, wouldn't it have been lovely if Iran would have faced the same amount of "pressure", and nothing more? But no, here we have a situation where people are already sounding the drums and trumpets of war, not in the least alleged "freelance" journalists, some of whom have been at the forefront of defence for Bush's Greater Middle East Initiative and alleged "democratization" agenda. And now, for the good news, this project seems to have spread like a plague, from the ruins of South Lebanon and South Beirut, all the way to Somalia, where democratization is taking form (at the same time as the Arab summit speakers heaped praises on the "interim Somali government").

But back to the topic at hand, the fine line separating the yet-to-be-acquired Iranian nuclear weapons from the decades-long possession of nuclear weapons by Israel. I was watching the proceedings of the Arab summit today, and there was emphasis on the idea of the right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. I could not help but wonder whether it was an implicit reference to the possibility of U.S (secret?) aid to Arab regimes to advance nuclear agendas and projects of their own, especially in light of repeated Egyptian (and other Arab) statements to the effect of: acquisition of nuclear technology is our "inalienable right". You may say this is far-fetched and very dangerous, and so the U.S is unlikely to embark on such a stupid (ad)venture, but this argument fails to explain U.S (direct or indirect) funding to certain religious fundamentalist groups in the region to counter the threat to its interests by certain others. Sure, this is likely to backfire, but the U.S administration has, because of its short-sightedness, invested in its short-term hegemony instead of addressing its long-term interests and presence in the region. All the better, since it hastens the eventual departure of the U.S from the region, and the decline of the American Empire, but this will come with a price, and I would say, a heavy one at that. I'm afraid the alternative in the region will not be much better. That said, in terms of the Israeli conflict, the prospects for an all-out war, I would say, would be much higher, and have a very different impact on Israel than it has ever witnessed or lived under the protective wing of the U.S. Of course, the rise of Iran is portrayed in over-hysterical terms. These apocalyptic assessments of Iranian hegemony are misleading, even if one is to consider it in the context of the absence of an Arab counter-weight (a concept which is much talked about now in policy circles). However, the implementation of such a balance is more complicated than it seems to be, and I think will be manifested in terms of one of the following two available options: 1) the rise of (fabricated) Arab nationalism as a counter to the "foreign" (i.e. Iranian) intrusion in "Arab affairs"; 2) the inter-sectarian card, which will have even more dangerous implications for Shi'ite minorities in Arab countries, and even Shi'ite majorities trapped in "enclaves" throughout the region. From what we can see, there is a cautious indecisiveness in U.S policy as to which of the two to implement, and at the moment both are being used in different places and on different occasions to a certain extent. In Lebanon, it seems the sectarian card will be a far more effective tool, given Hezbullah's immense military power and efficacy, and the failure of Jumblatt's anti-Iranian rhetoric for the most part. Anything short of the threat of a mini-Iraq will be unlikely to place restraints on Hezbullah's domestic and regional agendas and ties, and anything short of the implementation of these threats will be unlikely to create an environment of "constructive chaos" in Lebanon. For its own part, Syria seems to be the last remaining hindrance to the "Arabist" solution to the U.S's "Iranian problem", and one may safely assume that the events leading up to the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon were meant to isolate it from the last "Arab" country that it continued to have significant influence in. But the Ba'ath regime in Syria proved to be far more robust than the U.S thought it was, and I think this miscalculation stems partly from the U.S misreading of the Ba'athist strategy of state-building and regime incumbency (an interesting piece which addresses, in part, state-building in Syria, is David Waldner's State-Building and Late Development, which I must say, is a very difficult and complex read -- nevertheless, I recommend it for the institutional and political-economic perspective it advances, as opposed to the cultural-religious one advanced by the likes of Bernard Lewis, Fouad Ajami, & co.).

At any rate, I strayed a bit from the main theme I wanted to address: the nukes controversy. When I say controversy I do not mean the controversy regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions per se, but the controversy regarding the double standards adopted in viewing the Iranian and Israeli nuclear ambitions. "Double standards" is an understatement to be sure! I have been hearing many saying that the two are incomparable because one is a "democratic" state whereas the other one is a theocratic one with a record of human rights abuses. It is true that Iran's human rights record is not clean (nor is any other state's for that matter), but the utilization of this argument to justify the incomparable nature of the two cases reeks of politicization of the discussion, and what is even worse, a complete whitewashing of Israel's human rights record, which has been far more systematic and large-scale than any other human rights abuses in post-WWII Middle East (I will not say post-colonial since colonialism is alive and kicking in the region).

Very few in fact know much about Israel's nuclear program and the manner in which it was shaped and implemented. Much of this ignorance stems from the deliberate silence of the media on this issue. I suspect that the average American who might feel threatened by the Iranian nuclear ambitions and may support a strike on nuclear facilities, is not even aware of Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, or even if aware of it, might be convinced that it is justified, since it guarantees Israel's existence. But if it does guarantee Israel's existence, and if Iran's nuclear ambitions must be curtailed exactly for that reason, what would explain the decades-long argument that the reason Israel occupied the West Bank & Gaza Strip (other than the standard myth they spread about the Arab armies having attacked Israel in 1967 and Israel having conquered these territories "fair and square") and must not give up on them due to the need for "defensible borders"? Of course the whole defensible borders argument is hilarious in and of itself. If the purpose is to defend Jews and the Jewish state, then isn't it counter-productive to move Jews into the occupied territories to form the new frontier? Wouldn't that subject those Jews (in whose defence the state claims to have expanded its borders) to the risk of murder, violence, and existential threats? What this will give rise to is a self-sustaining loop of expansion and more expansion, all the while as they claim that Israel needs "defensible borders". Will the purpose, after the occupation of the new territories, remain the defence of the pre-occupation borders, or will it shift onto the newly occupied territories and the need of the Jews there for "defensible borders"?

As for Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, a December 1986 MERIP report (no. 143), titled "Recipe for an Israeli Nuclear Arsenal", discusses the stages of Israel's development and testing of nuclear weapons. If I could post the whole thing, I would have, but some excerpts will have to do (anyone who wishes to get their hands on the whole thing -- 7 pages long -- may send me a request by email).

A Textile Factory... Built by France?
Most significant is France's dedication to Israel's nuclear project -- a fact which I am sure will make some elements in Israeli circles who feed on alleged French anti-Semitism, a claim advanced every time France does not do what they desire and expect it to do, fidget uncomfortably in their seats -- a favor paid for, one would guess, by Israel's full collaboration with the French and the British in their elaborate plans to take over the Suez canal, culminating in what became known as the "Suez war" (they were later forced to withdraw following threats by the Soviet Union -- followed by U.S pressure sparked by fears that tensions would erupt in a larger confrontation).
For public consumption, the reactor was a "textile factory." That fiction was exposed in 1960 when a US reconnaissance aircraft photographed the telltale dome characteristic of nuclear reactors. The US government demanded an explanation. Ben Gurion admitted that the reactor existed, but insisted that Israel had no intention of building a bomb. Research at Dimona was for medicine and industry only, he said. In fact, Vanunu has now revealed, France not only supplied the reactor but also helped Israel build the secret 8-story underground plant and actively collaborated with Israel on developing the atomic bomb for two years in the late 1950s.
Ambiguity and Appeasement
Even more ironic is the fact that Israel itself played the ambiguity and secrecy game and was largely appeased in that respect by the U.S (which was not uninformed about its nuclear ambitions and activities), something which it now claims, in the case of Iran, is akin to Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler.
As reports of an Israeli nuclear arsenal became more frequent, and Washington raised questions, Israel obligingly assumed an anti-nuclear posture in public. Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin in September 1975 proposed a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East. Israel repeated the proposal in 1980, and again in March 1982 at the United Nations, but it refused to submit to the application of full-scope safeguards at the Dimona plant, and its nuclear program proceeded apace.
American Complicity
There are those who claim U.S innocence from the whole affair; this is, in fact, far from true. The U.S was not a mere passive appeaser; rather, it was an active supporter and funder of Israel's nuclear program.
In 1955, a US-Israeli nuclear agreement allowed Israel to acquire a small American nuclear reactor, its first. The US paid $350,000 of the reactor's cost, and gave Israel a library of 6,500 US Atomic Energy Commission research reports on nuclear topics. Over the next five years, some 56 Israeli nuclear scientists were trained in the US, while 24 others visited Atomic Energy Commission installations here.
Nuclear Technology for Peaceful Purposes?
In the aftermath of Vanunu's exposure of Israel's nuclear arsenal, the French justified their support for Israel's nuclear program based on the idea that it could also be used for peaceful purposes, an argument that Israel -- and France -- find outrageous when used with regards to Iran's nuclear program. Indeed, this is exactly what Iran argues: that its quest for nuclear technology is entirely peaceful. While this may bring forth the argument -- based on Israel's case and its subsequent development of nuclear weapons through the abuse of the peaceful purposes argument -- that the insistence on peaceful purposes is not sufficient to justify and allow for the continuation of nuclear work, the major issue is not the conclusion that Iran should be forced to halt its activities (violently if need be), but that Israel must hand over its nuclear arsenal. Instead (and not surprisingly), the focus is misplaced, and shifted onto those who do not yet have those capabilities, rather than placed on those who do have them, and who have shown willingness to use weapons of mass destruction and perpetrate crimes, as well as impose collective punishment, against an entire population.
A week after the Vanunu story broke, Professor Francis Perrin, France's high commissioner for atomic energy from 1951-1970, admitted to the Sunday Times that France had lied about the extent of its nuclear collaboration with Israel. France built not only the Dimona reactor, he said, but also the secret underground plant for producing weapons-grade plutonium. "We knew the plutonium could be used for a bomb but we considered also that it could be used for peaceful purposes," Perrin said. In 1959, de Gaulle felt "that the French military was starting to work too closely with Israel." He ended collaboration on atomic weapons, but agreed to supply Israel with the secret plutonium plant.
Zionist Theft: Not Just Of Land
The acquisition of enriched uranium from France and other sources was highly limited, and as such there was a need to find alternative sources that would satisfy Israel's "thirst" for uranium. But there was no need to worry. Theft came in handy, as is habitual of Zionism.
In 1966, the US Atomic Energy Commission discovered that over 200 pounds of highly-enriched uranium (enough to make 13 to 20 bombs, by one estimate) was missing. It had "disappeared" sometime before or during 1965 from a private US corporation, the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Apollo, Pennsylvania.

NUMEC, according to ABC News, had an "intimate relationship with Israel at the time." NUMEC's president, Dr. Zalman Shapiro, was a research chemist who had been involved in the Manhattan nuclear bomb project. He was also a committed Zionist. During its investigation, the Atomic Energy Commission discovered that 50 to 69 foreigners from around the world annually visited NUMEC's supposedly top-security plant with its stock of thousands of classified government research documents. One of these was Rafael Eitan, then a Mossad officer and more recently the spymaster in charge of Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former US Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel in 1986. Others included Baruch Cinai, an Israeli metallurgist, and Ephraim Lahav, Israel's scientific attache in Washington. It turned out that Shapiro was co-owner, with the Israeli government, of a firm purportedly working on preserving foods by nuclear radiation. The firm could well have served as a conduit for sending NUMEC uranium to Israel.

At least five federal agencies -- the National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, General Accounting Office and Atomic Energy Commission -- investigated, but the US government kept their reports under wraps. Eleven years later, in 1977, an environmental group, Natural Resources Defense Council, secured over 3,000 documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request which revealed that US intelligence agencies had long suspected Israel of stealing the uranium.
Zionism and Apartheid: The Fine Line Between Necessity and Morality
Collaboration with and support of apartheid in South Africa is perhaps the most embarrassing, and sadly perhaps the least publicized of all of Israel's actions. Support for apartheid was present on all levels, and transcended the official apparatus of the State of Israel, to include such organizations as the "Anti-Defamation League" (ADL), which purports to expose anti-Semitism (and anti-Zionism). I included anti-Zionism in parentheses since for ADL anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are synonymous. Zachary Lockman, in his brilliant piece "Critique from the Right: The Neo-conservative Assault on Middle East Studies", points out that
in 1993 a police raid on the ADL's San Fransisco office revealed that with the help of a member of the San Fransisco Police Department's intelligence unit who had access to police and FBI files, the ADL had for years been collecting information ... on local activists in the campaign against South Africa's apartheid regime and on many other organizations and individuals. Subsequent investigations and lawsuits revealed that some of the data on anti-apartheid organizing collected for the ADL had been made available to the South African government. Though it continued to insist it had done nothing wrong, the ADL eventually paid a substantial sum to settle a suit brought by the city of San Fransisco.
Needless to say, the file was closed through financial settlement and the affair was swept under the rug and conveniently forgotten over the years. This was not the first time Zionism had collaborated with apartheid. The fact that Israel's geographic reality restricted its ability to conduct nuclear testing necessitated the quest for an "ally", or rather, an accomplice, who would be willing to "host" such a test, in return for data, expertise and technology. This "need" is almost always -- in the rare case of any discussion on this matter -- cited as a justification for Israel's support for apartheid, which is inherently the same argument used to justify the Zionist lobby's (and Israel's) attempts at not only personal denial, but also the active pursuit of the prevention of the recognition of the Armenian Holocaust: the claim that Israel is in urgent need of "a Muslim ally", and Turkey being the only one available in the region willing to cultivate such ties with Israel, the relationship is marketed as a justified one. If there ever was a natural romance, it is the love affair between Zionism and official Turkish denial of the Armenian Holocaust.

South Africa was in fact the country that played host to Israel's nuclear testing.
On September 22, 1979, a US surveillance satellite designed to monitor nuclear explosions detected a tell-tale double flash over the South Atlantic near South Africa. When this became public a month later, President Carter appointed an advisory committee which concluded that the satellite sighting most likely was caused by a particle of matter hitting the satellite. None of the other groups which subsequently studied the flash found reason to doubt that it was a nuclear explosion. Five months later, an Israeli correspondent for CBS News reported that the flash had been an Israeli nuclear bomb test "which was conducted with the help and cooperation of the South African government." A recent study by Ronald Walters and Kenneth S. Zinn, based on 500 pages of newly-released documents from the US Naval Research Laboratory obtained by the Washington Office on Africa, indicates that the NRL concluded a nuclear explosion had occurred. Walters and Zinn believe the US has deliberately covered up its knowledge of Israeli-South African nuclear collaboration.
Morality? What's that?

Arabs May be Paranoid, but not THAT Paranoid: Mossad's Long Arm
Another controversy took place in 1985 with Israel's illegal acquisition of a device used for triggering atomic bombs. The whole thing was a typical middle-man deal, whereby the owner of a company illegally acquired these devices from the firm that produced them, and exported them to an Israeli firm owned by an arms dealer. The deal was exposed, and the middle-man (a man by the surname Smyth) was apprehended. The Israeli firm owner subsequently denied that these devices were ever exported to his company, and insisted that the middle-man had asked for the wrong export license. Israel then claimed it was unaware that sales of the devices were restricted and said that it had only used them in conventional weapons, and following U.S demands, returned the ones it had not yet used.
Smyth, free on $100,000 bail, disappeared with his wife in August 1985 just before his trial. In May 1986, an old acquaintance reportedly ran into Smyth while on a business trip -- in Israel.
Chamberlain Must be Turning In His Grave: Appeasement II
Israel can be compared to a spoiled kid who has successfully turned his parents into a function of his spoiled nature and his wishes and demands and actions. A kid who has his parents "on a tight leash", as the expression goes: "I will torture the street cat unless you get me a toy." The parents, not knowing what else to say or do, or just not feeling like doing anything, agree to go along, and encourage and appease him by getting him a toy. The only time that the parents retract their decision to appease is when the relatives and neighbors find out about it.
In 1975, the US reportedly agreed to supply Israel with Pershing I missiles, which are designed to carry nuclear weapons, in exchange for an Israeli pullback in the Sinai. Public disclosure of the deal led to criticism which killed it.
Israel's Nukes: A Danger to World Security
That Israel even thought of developing nuclear weapons at a time when none of its adversaries had them or had thought of acquiring them, and at a time when it had the strategic and military high ground and Western support (and continues to do so), and more importantly, that it seriously contemplated using these weapons on at least one occasion, and went as far as assembling and readying the bombs, awaiting for a trigger, is enough to conclude that its possession of nukes is a grave threat to world security and the continuation of human life in this densely-populated region. The refusal of the international community to take any action on the matter leaves one door open: nuclear balance and deterrence. Such a balance is not a new idea: it has been present between India and Pakistan for quite some time now, and even if not conducive to feelings of security, it nevertheless upholds the concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction" (I know many have poked fun at it, including the ever-brilliant James Morrow). One may argue that the Middle East is plagued by madmen far more than any other area of the world (I disagree, I think there are far more madmen in the West; look, after all, where they got us to) and as such nuclear proliferation is akin to suicide, but I tend to disagree with the idea that nuclear balance will lead to proliferation. I do not quite see a proliferation link. The fact that there may be madmen willing to go as far as to provide know-how to clandestine groups or other neighboring regimes to offset the rival's nuclear capabilities, is not the norm, but rather the exception, and in the absence of any effort to strip Israel of its nuclear arsenal, the proper action would not be to prevent Iran from acquiring the nuke, but to prevent the implementation of any "innovative" ideas that Israel -- or its benefactor the U.S -- may have; because that, and not, as claimed, Iran's acquisition of nukes, is what will lead to nuclear proliferation.

Special 2 in 1 Offer: American Tax Dollars and Silence
The piece I have been quoting from says it best on this special 2 in 1 offer.
The massive amounts of foreign aid that flow each year from US taxpayers to Israel's treasury give the US government great potential leverage over Israel. Yet it has failed to pressure Israel in any way to adhere to US non-proliferation policy, and has contentedly accepted Israel's assurances that it will never introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.

Even the persuasive evidence revealed by Mordechai Vanunu has failed to stir Washington. The verbal warnings the Reagan administration has issued in response to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program have been conspicuously absent when it comes to Israel. Israel's status as a nuclear ally in the region may suit US interests well. Even if Israel publicly acknowledged its nuclear arsenal, it seems unlikely that Washington would punish this defiance of non-proliferation standards. So long as the matter officially remains in the realm of suspicions and deductions, Washington can continue to blithely hand over billions of dollars in military aid to build up a strong force -- even a nuclear force in Israel, capable of intimidating the region with the ultimate threat.

Labels: , , ,

posted by Angry Anarchist @ 3/29/2007 05:50:00 PM, ,



What the U.S was thinking
Thursday, March 8, 2007

So what was the U.S thinking when it decided to invade Iraq and "liberate" the Iraqi people?
Well "it" wasn't thinking of whether or not it was the "right" thing to do (at least from a policy/political/end result perspective, ignoring for once the humanitarian aspect, which of course does not figure in the politics of the global hegemon). Contrary to what some argue, the U.S insistence on invading Iraq was not informed by scholars who had studied the Middle East. Rather, it was the exact opposite. The invasion was planned and only when it came to marketing it was there a resort to "scholars" (emphasis on quotation marks). But who exactly were those "scholars"?

For starters, Bernard Lewis, who is described as "one of the world's pre-eminent experts on the Middle East." He is the author of the famous (the word that should be used is notorious, really, but it shows the kind of "scholarship" that is valued in "the West") "The roots of Muslim rage", which I think all of you (especially so my Arab and Muslim readers) should read to get an idea of the "expertise" that is being spewed in academia, and especially so in the White [Man's] House.

Speaking of "expertise", the other day I was at T-Marbuta (a coffee shop) and I saw a girl holding a book she had bought only a few minutes before entering the shop. She was talking with her friends about how good it's supposed to be. So what book was it, you will ask? It was a book by another self-proclaimed (and hailed as an expert in some academic circles) Hezb Allah "expert", Judith Palmer Harik. On my old blog I dedicated an entire post (more than enough) to this book and its academic "merits". I recommend that if you were thinking about buying this book you would not base your decision on the write-ups on the amazon website, but rather on a very basic and short write-up as this.

But back to the point, the point about the "scholars" who allegedly informed Bush & co. on the merits of going to war against Iraq. Actually, before I continue with that, I must point out that when I was in Canada I took part in almost weekly protests against the war on Iraq. They were interesting, often violent (especially as the crowds lessened and the "protestor families", i.e. mom, dad, children, went home). They were also very diverse, and not just an "Arab protest" as some made it to be. There were activist groups from all over the spectrum, Jewish groups, and many Americans also. But the most interesting was the "Arab" component of the protest. I actually talked with many of them, and they were not only Iraqis but also Jordanians, etc. I wanted to know what it is that really pushed them to protest against the war, was it only the horror of war, or was it more than that? In other words, was there a politics behind it? I discovered that there indeed, in most cases, was. And this politics was not one of anti-Americanism (although in this case it manifested itself as such) or anti-imperialism. It was rather one that was based on sectarian affiliations. Ironically, it was the non-Iraqi components in the "Arab camp" of the protests that showed a sectarian reasoning. In fact the Iraqis I spoke to manifested a solid Iraqi nationalist perspective, and not a pro-Saddam one at that. They were very much outspoken against the crimes of Saddam, but at the same time condemned the sanctions that had resulted in millions of deaths, without weakening Saddam's grip over Iraq. Some had family in Iraq, others did not. But it was interesting to see the dynamics of the Arab politics in the 'diaspora', and how sectarian affiliation was associated with the war by the non-Iraqis, contrary to what one would have expected, especially in light of the sectarian violence plaguing Iraq today. I used to ask the Iraqi activists what they thought was the best approach to helping Iraq both from the woes brought about by Saddam and the American invasion, and they were rather unsure how to answer. They were rather torn, and did not express their positions positively, but rather negatively, in other words they did not say what they thought the best solution would be, but what would not be a solution. They were actually stuck between a rock and a hard place, and were outspoken against attempts to paint their protest of the American invasion as a pro-Saddam one, given that people (including non-Iraqi Arabs) viewed Iraq's predicament with either black or white goggles, which has become the norm all the more since 2003.

Back to our respectable "scholars" who cheered for the Iraq war (and are now in hiding or are busy preparing the cheerleading-party for yet another of America's "necessary" wars [of libration, don't forget]), the second scholar who apparently "informed" the U.S was Fouad Ajami, whom Sa'id would have referred to, had he been alive, as the "Orientalized Oriental". I was reading a most impressive piece by Zachary Lockman the other day, titled "Critique from the Right: The Neo-conservative Assault on Middle East Studies". Lockman points out that
Ajami's pronouncements, like those of Bernard Lewis, were solicited and cited by high officials of the Bush administration. For example, in an August 2002 speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars laying out the case for war against Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that, "as for the reaction in the Arab street, the Middle East expert Professor Fuad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy in the same way throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans."
This is not only ironic, it is doubly and triply ironic! Notice the naming, "Veterans of Foreign Wars"; foreign wars of what? Of course, liberation, spreading "civilization", enlightening the "barbarians", and so on and so forth. This is pure Orientalism. The enlightened, civilized Americans, and why not also the Israelis, are out to spread civilization, and the latter have in fact made the desert bloom in a land without a people for a people without a land... This has "necessitated" the "removal" of the ungrateful "barbarians", who have opposed attempts to benefit them in an irrational, violent manner. Of course, these barbarians are void of feelings, loyalties, nationalism, etc. These are "complex" things that the undeveloped, irrational Arab (and why not Muslim) mind cannot comprehend. So the Arabs and Muslims should watch the "only democracy in the Middle East" (which in some speeches by U.S officials, faces stiff competition from the "fledgling" democracies in Egypt, yes, the same Egypt that has been ruled by Mubarak for, um, how many years, I lost track, and of course "the Siniora government" - previously it used to be "Lebanon") practice its democratic values of "detaining" (not kidnapping) diplomats and elected politicians (and even offer them the chance at appearing in kangaroo courts, very very civilized indeed, as opposed to "kidnapping" soldiers by Hezb Allah - that's the true face of the barbarian Arab, kidnapping soldiers, because diplomats in occupied territories and 15-year-old kids in another country's territory are detained, but soldiers are kidnapped, and the former does not seem to be a violation of sovereignty or an uncivilized act, but rather an "enlightening" act meant to spread the Israeli values, and thus no war is justified, no "smart" bombs can be quickly shipped to Lebanon or the Palestinians; quite the contrary, the aid package to besieged Israel must be increased. Yes yes.). All this while Israel devours dunam after dunam of Palestinian land, starves millions of people to death, all for the "crime" of electing Hamas in democratic elections. But wait, Israel is indeed practicing what the U.S was out to practice in Iraq: liberating the Iraqi people, first by starving them, then by bombing them, then, in case of failure, putting the blame on the ungrateful, irrational Arabs. Only difference, of course, Saddam was indeed a dictator, and a valid tool in the hands of the U.S at one time, whereas Hamas, which has been elected democratically (though I am by no means a fan of overuse/abuse of the term/concept!) has refused (thus far; I would not rule out the Fatahization of Hamas, it is very much possible, but I would say, in the long run rather than the short run) to become a puppet of the U.S at the expense of its people.

Of course, since the "Middle East expert", and the undeniable representative of the "Arab street", Basra and Baghdad included, Fouad Ajami "predicted" the aftermath of liberation, the U.S of invasion of Iraq can now be perfectly justified. That Fouad Ajami was not more than a representative of himself, is lost on the neo-conservatives. But then again, Ajami was/is not, as I said, more than a tool for the justification of already-laid plans, i.e. America's "foreign wars". In Ajami's case, he is of special use in swaying public opinion in the "media war". Is, not was, because the neo-conservatives are especially artful at concealing and even twisting their own words and "predictions", and as always, the public is more than receptive (especially given that the media is largely under the control of the neo-conservative establishment) to what it is told. The average individual, not to say American (since I do not think this is a specifically American phenomenon, although by all means it is especially acute in the U.S) does not dig, and does not care enough to dig into the immense scholarly material which debunks all the neo-conservative-imperialist, and of course Orientalist cliches about "the Arabs", "the Muslims", and the other lucky subjects of America's "foreign wars". But even then, this does not mean that the neo-conservatives (this is a loose terminology since I cannot possibly repeatedly list all the others that do not necessarily fall under the neo-conservative camp but which cooperate with it and share its objectives) are not fighting tooth and nail the academic establishment that has, especially of late (arguably in a post-Sa'idian milieu), been liberated from the one-sided, hegemonic discourse, especially on the Middle East. But again, this also does not mean that all that counters the neo-conservative agenda and discourse is void of the assumptions that Orientalists have adopted for so long. Indeed, most are full of these assumptions, to varying degrees of course. Take Lisa Anderson, of Columbia University, for example. A while back, I told a number of people that Anderson's view was typically "liberal". I was asked how it was so. What I meant to say, when I mentioned "liberal", was not a mere opposition to "liberalism" (although I am in fact opposed to liberalism), but rather a reference to the U.S "liberal" perspective and approach, which, albeit often challenging the hardcore realist perspective, does not seem to represent different ends, but only different means to the same end. In the end, "democratization" figures highly in the liberal approach, and indeed in Anderson's own writings. While I appreciate the theoretical and scholarly perspectives in democratization theory, I cannot help but view the "democratization" interest and agenda (because all scholars do have agendas, whether they are aware of it or not, whether they like to admit it or not) with a dose of skepticism, dislike, and harsh criticism. The very idea, after all, of "the Arabs" or "the Muslims" being in need of "democratization", is quite offensive. This does not, of course, mean that the Arab predicament is particularly democratic at the moment. However, the idea that people would be claiming to know better than the Arabs or Muslims themselves, what is best for them, is quite unappealing to me, and is, if not an actively Orientalist approach, nevertheless a remnant of such thinking.

On a side note, I wonder, was Dick Cheney a bit confused about the "Arabism" of Afghanistan, or was it a mere comparison of "cheerful welcome" for the liberators who had embarked on liberating the people from the same dictators that they armed and supported in previous "foreign wars", ones that they did not send soldiers to fight in, but rather used the "ungrateful" natives, or the barbaric Arabs and the "Jihadis" to do the dirty job of fighting the Soviets...)? I am not sure.

However, Cheney was indeed accurate with his comparison of Afghanistan and Iraq (albeit not in its content). The voices of cheering from Kabul, Basra, and Baghdad, must be quite deafening. You may now pay your sincerest respects for the expertise of Bernard Lewis (not so incidentally also a denier of the Armenian Holocaust) at 609-258 4280 (inquire about extension to Mr. Lewis's office), Fouad Ajami at 202-663 5677, and Daniel Pipes at 215-546 5406 or meqmef at aol dot com.

Labels: , , , ,

posted by Angry Anarchist @ 3/08/2007 05:51:00 PM, ,



Recollections
Thursday, February 22, 2007

Probably not many of you will be familiar with the location in the photo! This is (was) Cine Vendôme in Mar Mkhael. The long stairs that take ages to climb will lead you up to Ashrafieh. The street pictured above leads to Electricité du Liban. I still remember the specific odors that used to come out of different parts of that long street. I even used to cross the street in some places to avoid the smells. I went back last September and the smells were not the same anymore.

~~
There is a gas station down the street where I used to live. There was a black man there. I don't know what he did there and what he was there for. I was very little, maybe 2 or 3, I still remember, sometimes my mom and I used to see him on the street while taking a stroll, and he would come over and playfully tell me, come, let me take you with me. I used to look at him horrified and he used to laugh out loud. I and my sister used to call him "the black man". He was unique. At least in that part of town. He was a loner I suppose, don't know what he did, where he was from, or what really happened to him. He used to live in the building behind the gas station, a tall building that was hit by a huge shell. He might or might not have been killed during the war. I wish I could find out who he was and what his story was. He was from Africa. Perhaps from Uganda whose poor are being swept off the streets to make way for the commonwealth yada yada. Or from some other ignored, starving country which does not seem to be blessed with Biblical references of first comings and predictions for second comings. The rich eat kaviar and the poor don't eat.

~~
The movie theatre went out of service some 8-9 years ago. In the last few years of its existence, I and a few of my friends (all boys, by the way. The girls were busy fixing themselves up bla make-up bla skirt bla shoes bla bla bla) were its only source of income. First it was 5,000 L.L ($3.something) for a Friday afternoon movie; then the price went down to 3,000 L.L ($2). It was like reserving a private movie theatre. Just the 4 of us. We used to go there every Friday afternoon, after school. They had all the 'cool' movies so it was convenient. Those were the days indeed.

~~
Then there was "the street girl". She was not homeless, but that was the nickname she had somehow 'deserved' according to locals. She was always roaming the streets, always hanging out with boys. People used to let go of their imaginations and come up with stories about her. It was fascinating, I tell you. Do your homework, do you want to end up like the street girl?

~~
I hated going to the doctor to get my immunizations. One summer day, my parents told me, we are taking your sister to get the shots, why don't you come with us? I was playing with our neighbor's daughter, so I said I didn't want to go. Yes no yes no, you will continue playing when you get back, no, yes. Why do I have to come with you? No reason. Okay. Damnit, how did they manage to fool me.

~~
There was no water in those days. We needed to fill up gallons, and we lived on the top floor of the building. The gallons were huge, and there was no elevator. A pulley was installed in the stairwell. The water-filling was a collective process. Who would've thought something as basic as water acquisition could turn into such a 'fun' activity? Two men on the destination floors, the rest downstairs. Ready? Pull!

~~
Stepping on a banana peel and slipping does not happen only in cartoons. One day on my way home from school, passing by a grocery store, I stepped on a banana peel and whooooooooooosh, I slipped. I didn't know what hit me, or how I got up. I remember my face was burning with embarrassment. I looked around to see if anyone had seen me, then ran home. As they say, blame Canada Syria.

~~
I was someone's 'lifesaver'. In grade 1. A boy had forgotten to bring his sports attire for the phys ed period that day and he needed a notice from his parents to be exempt from that day's phys ed class. Having an abusive jerk of a phys ed teacher, he was quite scared for his life. Someone came up with the idea that we should write a letter and pretend it was from his parents. Being famous for my excellent handwriting (yes, even in grade 1), I was chosen without having any say in whether I wanted to do it or not. After yes no yes no yes no, I thought what the hell, I will write it for the poor boy. I wrote the letter and quite happy with our achievement we folded it and gave it to the boy... Phys ed period. The teacher asks the boy, why aren't you dressed? He says, I have a letter from home. He gives the letter. A few seconds. All eyes are fixed on the teacher. He walks to the boy and asks him, did you write this letter? The boy starts crying, no no I did not, it was someone else. Who was it? He didn't say. He orders us to line up side by side. He says, if you don't tell me who it was you will run around this court 100 times. No one opens his/her mouth. Bad threat. He tries a second time, if you don't tell me who it was, I will find out and then I will send you all to the principal and you will be kicked out of school. Silence. He is walking in front of us one by one. In retrospect, I felt like I was in boot camp. What the hell. Then a boy broke down, he was standing next to me, he said, it was her, she wrote it! It was the worst feeling, a feeling of nakedness in front of the whole world. Exposed. Betrayed. He walked up to me, picked me up, carried me to some high platform and sat me on it. You thought you could fool me? I didn't reply. I was too shocked to say anything. I managed to steal a glance at the 'traitor' boy. He shot me a blank glance. The teacher was yelling at me bla bla bla I don't know what, and all of a sudden he slapped me twice. I felt like my jaw was no longer part of my body. My eyes watered, not because I was going to cry, but because of the force of the slap. I couldn't see in front of me. The 'poor boy' was spared any punishment. That was the whole point, wasn't it? All the teachers found out what had happened. One of the teachers who adored me came to me later in the day and wanted to talk but I refused to talk to anyone. I was too angry, embarrassed, and felt really stupid. He slapped me. And goddamnit, I didn't return the slap.

~~
In the first year of kindergarten, I hated everyone and wouldn't talk to them. In the second year, I wouldn't shut up. In the third year, I wouldn't sit down. I would get up and start wandering around in class while the teacher was explaining something. Sit down. No, I want to watch the hamsters and fish. Much more interesting than learning addition and subtraction.

~~
In the third year of kindergarten, at age 5, I learned the true difference between a 'boy' and a 'girl'. No, really. Don't laugh at me. I opened the main door of the restroom to enter the girls' room, and to my luck the door to the boys' room was open. I didn't even need to peek in, I just saw. I went home and told everyone that one of the boys had 'something'. At first I had thought it was just him. Then they told me, all the boys have it. I am surprised I did not say anything foolish in front of anyone before going home. Close call.

~~
When we moved, our new neighbours had two sons our age. In the summers we used to play football (soccer), the three of us. They used to call me to go down and play with them. Then, one day, they were playing downstairs and didn't call me. I waited and waited, and they didn't call me. The next day I went down to play, and called them to come down and play with me, they said they couldn't. Why? Our mom said she doesn't want us to play with girls. FUCK OFF. That was the last time I talked to either of them. I used to go down and play alone, first playing football 'with the wall', then basketball. Whenever I was downstairs they used to secretly watch me from the balcony. If they had played with me they would have 'turned' gay. Their mom is a genius. Somebody hurry up and nominate her for the Nobel Prize.

~~
In the days of the civil war, we used to go down to a 'shelter'. It was not really a shelter. One of the buildings just happened to have an underground storage place, and it was better than sitting like shooting ducks in a building that had sustained at least 10 direct hits. One day, the bombardments started. They were at first rather remote, so my mom hurriedly set the table for me and my sister to eat before running off to the 'shelter'. That day she had prepared mjaddra. With mjaddra she always used to make cucumber-tomato-onion-only salad. No lettuce etc. That day she had prepared 'regular' salad, not the usual salad that goes with mjaddra. I started whining, why haven't you made that other salad? I want that salad, not this one, I'm not gonna eat until you make the other one, etc. My mom got pissed off. She said, listen to me, either you eat right this minute or you go off to the shelter with an empty stomach for the whole day. Needless to say, I didn't eat. They say the donkey is notorious for its stubbornness. Not as notorious as I am. The cops I fought against know that. How can they forget it.

~~
I used to wake up every morning to the music of Sawt Lbnan (Voice of Lebanon) radio station and the famous 'ding dong' sound, after which there would be a news broadcast. There even used to be 'predictions' or 'news' about whether 'they' intended to bombard any location that day. The war against civilians was systematic. Still is.

~~
I remember, there was bread shortage for a very long time. At the time we had some ingredients at home, so we baked bread on saj. We used to moisten the bread with water, add some cheese, wrap it, and eat it.
At the gas station there used to be huge line-ups, and people fighting each other about who should fill up first. To avoid the long line-ups we used to take empty water bottles and sneak in between the cars and ask for a fill-up. A kid asking for a gas fill-up. Who could seriously refuse?

~~
The Dawra gas tanks explosion. A day I will never forget. It was in March 1989, and we were at home as we were on vacation, and we were still asleep, me and my sister. All of a sudden my cousin ran in, woke us up, said, hurry look out the window. She opened the window and there, in the sky, there was a huge red 'thing'. All of a sudden there was a huge explosion. The whole place shook. The window glasses were shattered. Even the eggs in the fridge were cracked. Such bravery. I mean, geez, they are gas tanks, they can grow arms and legs and hold a AK-47 and fight. You didn't know that?

Labels: , , ,

posted by Angry Anarchist @ 2/22/2007 12:05:00 AM, ,



Downtown Beirut: A Sense of Disney
Thursday, February 15, 2007

I urge you to check out the excellent article by Miriam Cooke, titled "Beirut Reborn: The Political Aesthetics of Auto-Destruction," The Yale Journal of Criticism, volume 15, number 2 (2002), 393-424.

She does a brilliant job at discussing the translocation of the war and its memory into downtown Beirut, which has become the center of Hariri's economic terrorism.

She provides a very interesting, innovative (although by no means comprehensive and often innocently (?) ignorant of the real politics and economics of the "reconstruction") analysis and critique of the translocation and transformation of the narrative of the war (or the wish to erase the memory thereof) -- through urban architecture. I will quote some bits and pieces which I have arranged thematically, but I recommend that you read the whole thing to make more sense of what she is trying to convey.

The Narrative
Stories were written to make sense of the chaos, to stand witness and thereby create conditions for the construction of a moral memory. Narrativity, Hayden White writes, is “the impulse to moralize reality, that is, to identify it with the social system that is the source of any morality that we can imagine.” That is why war stories are told and also why their authority has been so policed. Some, like male combatants, will be authorized, others, like female civilians, will not.
"Mobilized Amnesia"
After 1990, the fiction of morality was even harder to sustain. A tension arose between the need to forget this war, this bad patch in Lebanese history, and the need to remember in order not to repeat. Between forgetting and remembering comes a moment of crisis in representation. Such moments, Donna Haraway writes, can be both numbing and empowering because when “historical narratives are in crisis . . . something powerful—and dangerous—is happening. Figuration is about resetting the stage for possible pasts and futures.” The aftermath of the Lebanese war, stretching from 1990 until today, has produced just such a powerful and dangerous discursive moment that will dictate how the stage can be reset for possible pasts and futures.
Political-Economic Power: A Defensive Shield
The survival of this financial artery through the Burj “front,” both in fact and in memory ... complicates the telling of a moral story. It suggests that even in a place that was represented as the epicenter of lethal chaos there was control, and further, that those who made sure their buildings were spared might have other forms of power. These are the details that some want to forget.
Engineering Forgetfulness
First of all the extent of the war must be reduced and contained, even as the official war memorial is placed elsewhere. If the Downtown were to be remembered as the place of the war—its front—it would compel attention to that particular place, and it alone, as the site of immorality. With time and in the absence of a counter-narrative, this translocation of the war may succeed despite the fact that it was generally known that the Downtown was merely a stage on which confessional enmities were spectacularized while the real fighting happened elsewhere.
Silencing Collective Memories
If all the anarchy can be identified with this one location, it can be made to bear all the history.

The key then is to shape that history, transform it so that it will be useful and not continue to harbor unpredictable collective memories.
OGER & Solidere
The first level of destruction after the outbreak of violence was demolition work. Saree Makdisi writes that it is now known that between 1983 and 1992 there were cycles of demolitions in the Downtown, many of them unnecessary. The first demolitions were conducted in 1983 by Rafik Hariri’s engineering company, OGER. The pretext was to clean up the mess to enable reconstruction. The process “involved the destruction of some of the district’s most significant surviving buildings and structures . . . in total disregard for the then-existing (1977) plan for reconstruction, which had specifically called for the rehabilitation of those areas of the city center.” In 1984 fighting flared up again and destruction continued by other means.Two years later, a temporary calm allowed OGER to resume the demolition work they had started in 1983. In 1992, the year Hariri was first elected Prime Minister, the government called for further demolitions.
"A Sense of Disney"
The visitor to the new Downtown is struck first of all by a sense of Disney, or Epcot. SOLIDERE has created generic Arab Mediterranean facades. [The Master Plan] describes the Saifi and Jmaizi districts, the brand new pastel housing blocks, as “restored Levantine vernacular . . . carefully integrated.” [It] calls Saifi an “urban village” and although construction is clearly new, the Plan vaunts the “large number of existing buildings that have been retained.” The buildings in this formerly working class area resemble their antecedents. But not quite. And it is this “not quite” that is so important because it serves to cloud the memory. The slick lines and surfaces of housing blocks targeting the wealthy middle classes cannot harbor the unpredictable collective memories that lurked in the thick green of the weedchoked Downtown ruins.
Profit Without Guilt
SOLIDERE promised a return, a reversion to a pre-war past ... The promised return capitalizes on nostalgia for communal harmony and desire for profit without guilt or memory, in the hope that the repressed will not return.
"A Land Without a People for a People Without a Land"
SOLIDERE, too, is using the instrumentalities of the civil war to displace it from the country and scattered locations of its capital to the site of the Downtown and then elsewhere. It is erasing its traces by drowning them. SOLIDERE has bulldozed the debris into the sea, and is using the ruins to build a new foundation that no one can claim because the sea does not belong to anyone. According to Edward Said, the new colonizer claims, names, and inhabits the land said to be empty. The occupied land can then appear to be productive of culture. The new Downtown has been made to absorb the history of the war and in the process it has emptied it of meaning.
Resisting the Memory of the Forgotten
SOLIDERE’s inflated claims for a glorious history for the Downtown glosses over the war that is finished, and prepares a vision for a brilliant global future that will owe its regeneration to SOLIDERE ... It revives the regional past (Phoenician and Greek) to erase the local past (the war) and to launch this new Beirut into a global future. The war is over. A monument to a conventional (hence, moral) war has been built and installed somewhere in the mountains. The traces will soon be gone. It will no longer matter who was responsible for the war nor why it was fought.

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by Angry Anarchist @ 2/15/2007 06:56:00 PM, ,