Who would want to kill Samir Geagea?

Dr. Samir Geagea is a man with a colorful past. Let’s leave it at that. Any more info on the man can be found on his Wikipedia page (a rather glowing biography).

The Lebanese Christian leader has been taking it easy in recent years, sticking to a narrative he espoused during the civil war and backed up with military action during the 1980s. Given the goings on in Syria, and given Lebanon’s (or at least this government’s) relationship with Damascus, Geagea has been striking a chord of anti-Assad opprobrium that has gone down predictably well with partisans and even generated some unexpected bonhomie with champions of wildly different ideologies who happen to have found, in Geagea, a mutual Bashar basher.

Another reason why religion and politics shouldn’t mix…

 

Copyright Reuters

It is remarkable how Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch, Beschara Rai, can deliver sermons and addresses so adroitly with his foot stuck in his mouth.

First, he defended Syrian President Bashar Assad by arguing (not unlike senior March 8 Christian figures) that the fall of the regime would automatically imperil Christians living there. Aside from being rather a large diplomatic boo-boo, Rai’s rhetoric was roughly analogous to that of the late Muammar Gadhafi, who warned that Al-Qaeda and rats and drugged up Salafists would replace his tyrannous tenure. It is fear-mongering at its least convincing and it places the head of the Maronite Church in direct opposition to most of the Arab world and most of the international community.

Now Rai has decided that, because one man last week raped and killed an innocent women at a sanctuary, and because that man happened to be neither Lebanese nor a Christian, that all foreign non-Christians cannot be trusted as employees in Christian institutions.

Well then. The crime was horrifying and must obviously be utterly condemned, but I’m not sure it happened because the perpetrator was a foreign non-Christian. It happened because he’s a murdering rapist. See the difference?

Rai obviously feels like he has to say something, but his timing and slant are both plain wrong. Given the sectarian makeup of the country, its less-than friendly history, and the faith-related tensions currently surrounding it, Lebanon does not need a senior religious figure blaming inhuman behaviour on foreignness or non-Christianness.

Through Rai’s intervention, a personal tragedy has been flung headlong into the political arena. With the government on the brink of collapse, I would venture it’s the role of religious figures to preach togetherness and unity, not xenophobia and sectarianism.

 

 

An interview with HMA Tom Fletcher, UK Ambassador to Lebanon

Yesterday I met with the new British Ambassador, Tom Fletcher, who last month replaced the popular Frances Guy as the U.K.’s representative in Beirut.

I was impressed. He remained on message, but thoughtful, on a whole range of potentially thorny issues, including the STL, Syria and Hezbollah. Below is the full transcript of the interview:

Q: What are your thoughts of the country so far?

A: The first thing is just how stunning the place is. Even though everyone had told me to expect that, I still find that overwhelming. When I drive up the mountain in the evening and look back at the sunset, it’s just extraordinary. But then also, as we discussed, the complexity of Lebanon, and the fact that on the surface so much is logical and yet beneath the surface it becomes much, much more complicated. So I’m very daunted by the scale of the challenge in trying to understand how politics and society works. I think, most of all, [I’m struck] by the energy and the dynamism of life here and of people here. You know, the talent of the people I am working with at the embassy, who actually are more talented I think than any group of staff I have worked with in much bigger embassies, but also then the talent of the people you meet around the circuit, it’s just overwhelming how many incredibly well-educated people you come across, who have a point of view on everything, very articulate, often in a third language. That is extraordinary. I think that encourages me that this is somewhere where, as an ambassador, you can actually have an impact because people want to talk and people are receptive and people are engaging. It’s not a country where an ambassador is just writing reports for his capital and going to diplomatic receptions. Here you are actually part of the game.

Latest Lebanon WikiLeaks: meh

After having spent the most part of 10 hours going through the more than 1,000 leaked diplomatic cables on Lebanon released last night by WikiLeaks, I feel qualified to advise against you doing the same. It’s really not a fulfilling pursuit.

Whereas the last tranche of cables, released late last year, from the US Embassy in Beirut and other consuls throughout the region, were in the “kind of interesting, but we probably already know that” vein, this latest batch is decidedly less eyecatching.

Here are some mildly interesting cables I’ve come across:

Former PM Fouad Siniora accused Iran of discouraging Lebanon to make a big deal out of Shebaa Farms in order to perpetuate a pretext for Hezbollah.

Cabinet? Yes. National salvation? Hardly.

Talal Arslan was a minister today for about 60 minutes

Trying to look at Lebanon’s latest government without cynicism is like trying to pass a Cabinet with no female or opposition representation off as progress.

It may have taken more the best part of half a year to form, but Najib Mikati’s 30-strong administration looks like it could have been scribbled on the back of a cigarette paper, a list of no names and partisans that will struggle to implement the thousands of badly needed legal reforms crippling the country.

It also appears as depressingly backward-facing. After having covered conference after conference on the need for electoral development – particularly the necessity of greater female representation in national and local government – it’s hard not to feel betrayed by the male-dominated line up. It’s not surprising, so much as extremely disappointing, but it’s not as if Lebanese politicians have ever truly cared for much other than themselves and their sect.

Lebanon’s government? Ask the world

After several weeks of writing somewhat enjoyable editorials concerning the tangible lack of progress concerning the formation of Lebanon’s “national salvation” cabinet, I finally managed to stick the boot in with yesterday’s effort. All credit to my editor who, like virtually all journalists – and civilians – here is sick to the back teeth with politicians bickering as the country smoulders.

Not that it will make a modicum of difference, but it’s always nice being waspish from time to time.

To continue to allow people to suffer in ignorance would be the ultimate insult, worse even than the four months of fecklessness that got them here.

Here’s a link (on the infinitely improved website): http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Editorial/2011/May-21/Clock-is-ticking.ashx#axzz1MxkNnbNA

Breakdown at the border

A soldier at General Security in Beirut

Approaching from the arid foothills on the Syrian side of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, our bus breaches the crest of a precipice and Lebanon lays before us, noticeably greener than its neighbour.

All that remains is a border crossing, a quick clamber to pay for an exit visa and the ever unpredictable queue on the Lebanese side.

I knew that the hurriedly scribbled notes, stamps and stencils emblazoned in varying hands and colors across pages of my passport would cause confusion. They always do.

I have been in Lebanon for 10 months and have applied on two occasions for a  residency and work permit. Although both times my approach has been batted away by General Security – for reasons unexplained – I have notes in the document to the effect that I will eventually be given iqama, just when the Labor Ministry and General Security deem it appropriate.

At the Mazar border crossing, I am instructed politely but firmly to walk behind the visa application counter. I have spent the last two nights in Damascus, as my visa is expiring and there is no chance of being granted a work permit in time. It is a normal procedure and, unlike the hundreds of ajeneb who work in Lebanon on tourist visas for three months at a time, pop over the Syrian side and get given another three months, I have not done anything wrong.

It is to my surprise, therefore, that I am put in a small, windowless office with a door leading directly on to prison cells. In the airless room there is a desk with a surly GS employee and a sofa with a Syrian worker – who has obviously rubbed someone up the wrong way – handcuffed to it.