مجد سورية الأسير وعار الإعلام والإعلاميين

وائل عبد الرحيم

يُحاكم في سورية قياديو إعلان دمشق للتغيير الوطني الديمقراطي المعتقلون منذ أشهر بتهم سياسية عوّدنا نظام الحكم في سورية على تضمينها أبعاد الارتباط بالخارج والعمالة، رغم ضحالة هذه المزاعم والادعاءات.
والحال أن من يحاكم في سورية هم كوكبة من نساء ورجالات الشام الديمقراطيين الوطنيين، ونخبة من الكفاءات الشريفة التي تضرب جذورها في العمق السياسي التاريخي للشام، والتي لم تصبها لوثة السياسات الكبيرة، فاستمرت تعضّ على الجرح وتوائم خطابها الرافض للديكتاتورية والفساد مع رفضها الذوبان او الارتهان لحسابات الدول.
هذه المعارضة في 'دمشق الشام' هي معارضة مبدئية، ولعلّ مواجهة نظام حكم سليط اللسان يزخر خطابه باتهامات التخوين والخيانة ويتربع على عرش القضايا الكبرى تستدعي من مناضلي إعلان دمشق ورفاقهم من الناشطين الوطنيين في سورية تأكيد الطابع المبدئي للمواجهة.
هذا كله مفهوم، ومفهوم ايضاً ان يستشرس النظام الذي يفاوض الإسرائيلي، ويسعى لنيل رضا الأميركي، في الدفاع عن نفسه فيستعيد اساليب البطش والتنكيل الأمنية.. لا حاجة لتبيان الرابط بين الديكتاتورية والفساد، بين القمع وبين إقصاء المجتمع السياسي السوري عن نقاش القضايا الكبرى، هذه القضايا التي تكتسب هالة القدسية في خطاب التخوين، ويُمنع النقاش فيها حينما ياتي وقت التفاوض والصفقات الكبيرة منها والصغيرة.
لكن.. ما أريد ان الفت النظر إليه، هو الغياب شبه التام للإعلام العربي ولا سيما الفضائيات عن إيفاء هذه القضية حقها.
فإذا كان مفهوماً ان الإعلام الرسمي في الدول العربية يتجنب 'التدخل' في شؤون 'الأشقاء' كي لا يتدخلوا هم في شؤونه أيضاً (!)، إلا ان الإعلام 'الخاص' او المستقل لم يشذّ عن هذه القاعدة.
'الجزيرة' مرتهنة بالكامل إلى علاقتها بالنظام السوري وارتباطها بالأخوان المسلمين في الوقت نفسه، وتغيب عن التركيز على الاعتقالات إلا كجزء من تحصيل حاصل حيث تفرض أبسط قواعد المهنية ان لا يتم تجاهل الخبر.. لكن لا البرامج تتناولها ولا التغطيات الطويلة التي عوّدتنا عليها هذه المحطة. فالتغطية خجولة.
اما 'العربية' فتقترب من هذه المسألة بقدر ما تتلاقى مع نفخها المستمر لتضخيم حجم تحالف عبدالحليم خدام – صدر الدين البيانوني الموغل في حساباته الإقليمية والدولية والبعيد عن تمثيل التطلعات الحقيقية للمعارضة الوطنية السورية في الداخل.
البي بي سي التي أطلقت تلفزيونها العربي، تزاوج بين 'حياديتها' المعلنة وضعف إمكانياتها المالية لتبعد عمّا يثير غضب الأنظمة، وهي التي تفخر بانها بدأت الإرسال مبكراً ذات صباح لتغطية إطلاق الأسرى اللبنانيين من سجون إسرائيل، تتغاضى عن واقع أنها محكومة بمراعاة اضطرارية (مراعاة تهزّ ضميرها المهني!) لمتطلبات العمل في الدول العربية.. فلا تريد مشاكل ولا قطع علاقات، وفي الوقت نفسه تعزف معزوفة القومية العربية الإسلاموية البلهاء بأموال دافعي الضرائب في بريطانيا.
العار في كلّ ذلك، انه وعلى الأقل منذ اعتقال فداء حوراني ورفاقها في نهاية 2007 لم يخرج برنامج تلفزيوني واحد على الأقل على أثير هذه الفضائيات للحديث عن هذه القضية.
هو عار ليس فقط على ممولي هذه الفضائيات، بل على العاملين فيها وعلى كبار محرريها، لأننا نعرف كلنا كإعلاميين ان ثمة هامشاً من الحرية معطى لهم.
لكن ما العمل حينما يكون الإعلامي ضابط نفسه قبل ان يضبطه الاخرون؟
الم يحن الوقت للتفكير جدياً بكسر حلقة الاحتكار والحصار والنضال من اجل إعلام عربي حرّ مرتبط بقضايا مجتمعاتنا وليس بالسياسات الضيقة لبعض الدول، او بالنزعات الشخصية لبعض 'كبار' مثقفي إعلامنا في الداخل والمهجر؟

The Arabs at the Olympics

By Joseph El-Khoury

The Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games famously commented that the Olympic Spirit was not about the winning but rather the taking part. This was certainly a noble comment from a noble man. But throughout their history the performance of national teams has become a way for nations to send a message to the international community or assert their economical or military might. Ever since the Berlin Olympics in 1936, the games have become intertwined with politics and ideology. The Nazis determined to prove the superiority of the Aryan race were stunned by the dazzling performance of Jesse Owen and the black members of the US Athletic team. From the 1950s the Soviet block turned its gymnasiums into Olympic medal factories, as the cold war turned steamy in the stadiums. With the communists crumbling, the Americans felt that their new status of only superpower in a unipolar world should be reflected in the medals table. This was short-lived and the quiet display of Chinese financial, organisational and presentational skills in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics was an omen of the emergence of a new sporting superpower.

The Arabs did take part in the Olympics, with various degrees of dedications. Without taking anything away from those athletes who gave it their best shot, the outcome was a meagre tally of eight medals. This is for a combined population estimated at 340 million people. With the exception of Bahrain, the countries of the Mashreq appear to have adopted De Coubertin’s mantra literally, avoiding any noteworthy success. The countries of the Maghreb fared substantially better, specifically if we take into consideration their socio-economic context, showing a culturally inexplicable affinity for Judo. The medal standing at the closure of the 2008 games was as follows:

BAHRAIN

MEN ATHLETICS 1500m GOLD Rashid RAMZI

TUNISIA

MEN SWIMMING 1500m F/STYLE GOLD Oussama MELLOULI

ALGERIA

JUDO MEN<90kg SILVER Amar BENIKHLEF
JUDO WOMEN<52KG BRONZE Soraya HADDAD

MOROCCO

MEN’S MARATHON SILVER Jaouad GHARIB
ATHLETICS WOMEN’S 800M BRONZE Hasna BENHASSI

SUDAN

ATHLETICS MEN’S 800M SILVER Ismail Ahmed ISMAIL

EGYPT

JUDO MEN’S<90kg BRONZE Hesham MESBAH

In the final analysis that same socio-economic context cannot be solely responsible for the poor performance at the Olympics and other Sporting competitions when countries like Jamaica, Cuba and Mongolia outperform Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Libya. We have to come to terms with an underlying malaise running within Arab society, a lack of self belief and what can only be described as an ‘eternal loser’ mentality. The state, viewed mostly as an apparatus of oppression does not view sport as a priority. Nonetheless, small practical measures can be implemented at reasonable costs. Individual countries need to focus on sports at which their citizen traditionally excelled, while a broader strategic plan is required at the regional Arab level to improve the general quality of competition. And for once we cannot blame the Israelis for our misery. They managed a unique Bronze Medal in Sailing.

An Arab sporting ‘Nahda’ is required before 2012. Is there a Sport Psychologist in the house?

Peaceful Palestinian Walks disturbed by Zionism

By Bachir Habib

On the second of August 2008, the title of an opinion article in the Jerusalem Post caught my interest. Titled “The ‘Economist’ Rewrites History” by Zalman Shoval, former Israeli ambassador to the United States it accuses The Economist of revisionism only because it positively reviewed, under the Arts section, a book called Palestinian Walks, Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, written by Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian Lawyer and founder of Al Haq* organization in 1979.
In his book, winner of the Orwell Prize 2008, Shehadeh describes the change in the landscape of the hills surrounding Ramallah through seven walks he took in the area. His lyrical description of the “Biblical Hills” comes as a perfect justification of the prize awarded to the author and his book. The seven walks counted were not made within a year or two; they are spread at least over two decades. That’s exactly why the reader, while turning the pages of this book, is taken through the geographical changes to the hills and their surroundings over a troubled time, where political and military events had the strongest impact on transforming the peaceful nature of what Shehadeh calls the “Highland Hills of Palestine”.
Shehadeh’s perspective is also interesting in the way he shows how the function of the hills surrounding Ramallah changed over the generations. From a place where Palestinian men used to escape the hot summers, working the land and building Qasr (round stones structures built without concrete dotting the land where farmers kept their produce and slept on the open roof), the hills now fulfill a security function, but this time for the Israeli settlers building outposts to better control Palestinian areas. Shehade’s journey and description of this change of function intersects with the Israeli architect Eyal Weizeman’s thesis called "The Politics of Verticality", where the latter develops the idea that the Israeli architecture has played an important role in the conflict for the past six decades. Weizeman’s more recent work has focused on the way the Israeli outposts are built in a South African “apartheid” style.
Shehade’s book is Art, contrary to what his Excellency the ambassador pretends. How can art not relate to politics in that part of the world where the historical artistic patrimony is transformed daily by political conditions? In that specific sense the book is politically potent. Even if its formal relation to the political sphere is subtle, using hints and questions that push the reader to seek political answers elsewhere.
This last argument is probably one of the reasons why Shehade was awarded the Orwell prize. He doesn’t impose political conclusions nor affirms ideological positions. A fact he comes across as a very harsh critic of all Palestinian factions and militias, simply by counting the number of times he came close to being shot dead by armed Palestinian militants on his walks, or the abuse he suffered, he who founded an organization to protect Palestinian rights, at the hands of those who pretended to protect him.
In its review to Shehade’s work, The New York Times Book Review found that: “Few Palestinians have opened their minds with such frankness”. Such acclaim disqualifies totally Shoval who showed nothing but hatred and racism in his judgmental article published in the Jerusalem Post. Nowhere was that more obvious than in the disdain he showed “a certain Raja Shehade, portrayed as a lawyer and a writer…” As if he, a government official, did not know that Shehade is well known to Israeli tribunals as a lawyer who defended the Palestinians against land expropriation practiced by Israel. Shoval’s position is in fact against anyone who dares looking at the Israeli – Palestinian conflict from an angle that questions long-established Zionist myths. That is why he accused The Economist of re-writing History.
His Excellency knows well enough that if this book achieved fame, it is because Shehade does not play political games. Instead, as an experienced professional lawyer, sticks to the hard facts. A concept that the seasoned diplomat obviously struggles with.

*Al-Haq is the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists - Geneva, and is a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), and the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO).

Remembering a Towering Personality

By Ahmad Mustafa*

Long before Francis Fukuyama published his famous article by the end of last century, an Arab thinker coined the term "End of History" in a different context. As it was in Arabic, it did not attract a lot of attention and the author was not much credited. That was one of the early books of Dr Abdul Wahab Al Messiri, who died in Cairo on the 3rd of July 2008, aged 70.
In the book, End of History: An Introduction to Structural Study of Zionist Thought, published in 1972, Al Messiri suggested that the notion of "end of history" is a sort of Western hegemonic theory imposed on the world.
An outstanding professor of English literature, Al Messiri was predominantly known for his Encyclopedia on Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. Though some dogmatic propagandists accused him of anti-Semitism, Al Messiri was the most enthusiastic proponent of Semitism, yet staunchly against Zionism as a fascist outcome of Western imperialism. In the Encyclopedia, which took 25 years of hard and continuous work, Al Messiri establishes the difference between Jews, their religion, and Zionism. He refutes the misleading demagoguery linking Zionism to Judaism, and in all his other writings he was for the peaceful co-existence of Jews, Christians and Muslims in the region. But he was always clear about the nature of the Zionist entity in occupied Palestine, created as a spearhead for Western powers to keep the region under their influence for good.
In his last year, while suffering from cancer, he led the opposition movement Kefaya (Enough) calling for political reform in Egypt. That was part of the spirit of that great thinker - determination and leading by example. Besides the Encyclopedia, Al Messiri wrote tens of books, hundreds of articles, and gave as much lectures on wide range of subjects. He was a model of the comprehensive intellectual, though the main contribution was his unrivalled, in-depth analysis of Zionism and its relevance to the Arab-Israeli struggle.

Intellectual foundation
Al Messiri spent years in the US early in the second half of last century, where he completed his post-graduate studies and worked on the early seeds of his literary project. His exposure to Western culture enriched his experience, without deforming his genuine intellectual foundations.
The most important example, for the wider public aside from his academic colleagues and apprentices, Al Messiri will be remembered with is being genuine, consistent and principled. Devotion and dedication to a cause were the mantra of the time, and he kept inspiring those who worked with him by the same principles. He was one of the knights of a generation of great people that included economist Dr Ramzi Zaki, and politician and writer Adel Hussain, who left our world before him. There remains a few of this brand such as the socio-economist Galal Ameen and writer Mohammad Hasanin Heikal.
One of the things not that well-known is Al Messiri's contribution to the renewal of Islamic thought, in a more rational yet fundamentalist way. Like many of his generation, he started as a Marxist. Then, like many others also, he moved closer to political Islam - without sacrificing the critical mentality and the scientific way of thinking.
I knew Al Messiri through his books before I met him two decades ago. Since then we met in Egypt and abroad, and every time I got that impression of a man who lives what he thinks and says - without any pretence or hypocrisy. Personal integrity, like intellectual genuine consistency, was a common feature among that generation of pioneers. I did not work closely with him in academia, nor was one of his students, but I learnt a lot from him. One precious thing about the great Arab thinker we lost is the humility of a great scholar mixed with the marvellous dignity of Sufism.
Besides his philosophical work, he was a great literary critic, a poet and novelist. I remember one of his recent analysis a few years ago was a comparison between Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram and her Egyptian colleague Ruby, and how he concluded that Nancy is more real than Ruby.
His solid belief that Palestine will one day be for the Palestinians was never shaken, and it was no coincidence that he spent his last week of his life in Palestine Hospital in Heliopolis, where he died. Al Messiri will live, not only through his literary creativity but also through the example he was living all the time.

*The writer kindly agreed to republish this article on Arabdemocracy to commemorate 40 days since Al Messiri's death.

The Fundamentalist Waltz

By Joseph El-Khoury

As a generally peace loving individual I should rejoice over the signing today of a mutual non-aggression understanding between two feuding factions in Lebanon. But I am not!

So Hezbollah and the 15 or so Salafist (read Sunni hard-liners) groups have finally agreed to settle their theological and ideological differences through ‘rational’ dialogue as opposed to Rocket Propelled Grenades. It took dozens of casualties to get to this point and the fact that the Salafists couldn’t find enough in common between them to join hands under one banner should be enough to predict the chances of success. Can a duly signed sheet of paper resist the instinctive fundamentalist urges to eliminate any discordance through fire and steel? Even putting my cynical attitude to one side the answer is still a resounding No!

But even if it did work, I will still be far from happy. It is hard to feel part of such a historic moment where One Muslim decides not to spill the blood of another Muslim…when one is not a Muslim. In fact I should probably be more concerned. For when spilling someone’s blood seems to be the only way forward in the struggle against Zionism and Imperialism a simple statistical calculation will make it obvious that this blood is more likely to be mine now than it was last week.

On a practical level the choice of interlocutor puts the strategy of the resistance to the test. Once committed to reassuring the Christian Street it revelled in the assertion by its Aounist Allies that the real threat came from Sunni extremists lurking behind the respectable façade of Hariri’s Future (Al-Mustaqbal) Movement. While the latest evidence from Tripoli confirms that on a local level these groups might have at least cooperated if not fused militarily, the signature of the accord with Hezbollah gives the impression that the Salafists are now on an equal footing with the Shiite group. A fact that will not escape its secular detractors but more importantly the Christian electorate in the run-up to the 2009 parliamentary elections.

Reflecting further, it seems this agreement is a reminder of a time when killing a goat belonging to one tribe might get you into serious trouble but slaughtering the entire herd of another tribe was considered OK for some strange reason only understandable to a few elders. Morality had nothing to do with it but prejudice, hierarchy, kinship did. Centuries of philosophical soul searching, Enlightened Monarchies, nationalist movements, Socialist revolutions, Liberal Reform have led to a Tribal gathering held by a small number of bearded men in an obscure Hotel.

I despair! Call me Old fashioned but I am hoping for a return to a basic universal civil contract that guarantees my human rights as a citizen of a modern state.

وأنت وجوه نحبّها في وجه واحد

وائل عبد الرحيم

محمود درويش يتوسط ياسر عرفات وجورج حبش

هنالك انت، على تلة في رام الله، تناكدنا برحيلك المبكر، تُبكينا وتُثقل علينا.. ما انت إلا وجه اجتمعت فيك كل الوجوه التي نحبها، فكأنما برحيلك رحلوا كلهم... على هذه الأرض قصيدة حب تستحق أن نولد معها من جديد.. على هذه الأرض فلسطين التي زيّنتها انت وسرّحت شعرها وغسلت قدميها، وهي الآن تحضن جسدك.

انت فلسطينُك فلسطيننا، وانت امُّك امنا...

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حينما يغرُب وجهٌ آخر من الوجوه الحلوة، ...
حينما يذهب فدائي إلى النوم، ويعلن العام ان سيدة، ام البدايات والنهايات، حزينة للفراق، وحينما يبكي الشعراء سيّد الشعراء، وتنزوي عصافير الجليل وترفض ان تطير...
حينها، فلنعلم انه اكثر من موت وأصعب من لحظة رحيل.
شخصياً، أفضل العام الذي قبل هذا العام على العام الحالي. وحتماً افضل الذي قبله، وقبله..
وربما كنت افضّل لو ان الزمن ما عاد زمنا.. تجمّد او تحجر او اخترع الله او العلماء له بديلاً.. هكذا لكنا عشنا احلامنا في سني الحُلم ولم نهزم عشرات المرات.

ليست الهزيمة ان تُحتل الأرض ويمزقها جدار.. بل الهزيمة ان نعود إلى البداوة، والجاهلية تنخر عقولنا وتصيب القلوب بالتيبّس. فلكم هو بليغ حقاً سميح القاسم في رثائك يا محمود درويش، يبكيك فإذ هو يبكي فلسطيننا الآن.. فهي حقاً "ذُبيانُ تَغزو. وعَبْسٌ تُحارِبْ".. وها هو القاسم يتمنى لو انه يلحق بك غير آبه بحزننا، فيصرخ "خذني معك"، حتى لكأنه نكاية يريد ان يضيف حزناً على حزن في الزمن الحزين.
فها هي غزة يا محمود درويش إمارة حيث "صار لكل عصابةٍ نبيّ، ولكل صحابيّ ميليشيا"...!

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هل اختار محمود درويش الرحيل عن سابق تصوّر وتصميم؟
هل اصيب بجرح الاقتتال وتدمير الذات الذي يمارس ليلاً نهاراً وجهاراً جهاراً دون حياء ودون تورية؟
ربما.. وربما هو مجرد موت..
لكنه القدر ان تغيب الوجوه التي شكّلت وعينا، ترحل وجهاً بعد آخر، تخلي مكانها لأبي سفيان وصبيانه.. وتعلن ان موعد فلسطيننا مع انتفاضة انسانية متجدّدة تأجّل زمناً...

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انت الذاكرة يا محمود درويش، وانت عرس الجليل، وانت انتفاضة الحجر في رام الله.. وانت مقاومة الحصار في غزة.. وانت الذي ما غادرت حيفا..
انت الاخرون الذين توالى رحيلهم في سنوات القهر هذه، انت ياسر عرفات وجورج حبش وابوعلي مصطفى.. وأنت توفيق زيّاد وإميل حبيبي... وانت وجوه نحبّها في وجه واحد..
وانت بيروت الشعراء والفدائيين... وانت العواصم العربية في لحظة حرية.. وأنت الذاكرة والذكرى.
برحيلك اليوم، تشرف دائرة الحلم على الفراغ... لكن برحيلك يا احبّ الناس إلى فلسطين يزداد الإصرار على التمسك بجوهر الصراع.

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انا لم أعد اؤمن بالحتميات التاريخية، لكن هذه القضية التي نزفت 100 عام واكثر لن تنمحي.. وهذا الشعب الذي قدّم أغلى الشهداء واجمل الأبناء ليحيا، لن يموت.. هذه هي الحتمية التاريخية!
وسيبقى علمك يا فلسطين، علم منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية، مرفوعاً عالياً عالياً عالياً ما بقي حيّ على هذه الأرض.. وسيبقى هذا الشعب ينشد مع توفيق زيّاد أننا باقون.. باقون.. "كأننا عشرون مستحيل، في اللد، والرملة، والجليل"، واننا "هنا .. على صدوركم، باقون كالجدار"..

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سنفتقدك يا محمود العائد إلى التراب.. سنفتقد قصائدك وثورتك وشجاعتك وصدق الأحاسيس..
و"فلسطين لنا".. ستظل قصيدة حب، وانشودة حرية وتحرر، ونبيذاً على جسد عار راقص في عرس بين كنيسة المهد ومسجد عمر.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

By Marwan Madi*

“A wise traveler never despises his home country”
William Hazlitt

To my loved ones, especially my mother and sister:

As the plane took off from Heathrow airport on that hot July day, I couldn’t stop thinking of what I might have left behind in Beirut . My DC pad keys? Heaven forbid my passport? Soon, Patti Griffin’s “Long Ride Home” playing on my ipod brought back memories of a part of me that got lost between business meetings and travels, and failed relationships. It was hard to push away the bittersweet thoughts of a land that helped shape who I am. Memories of war, shelters, hatred, disappointment, despair, and broken hearts came crawling back though strangely enough they were overshadowed by memories of laughter, love, family, and friends, weddings and baptisms, and funerals. The long ride to Washington opened the door for much thinking and an emotional walk down memory lane.

I remembered that accidental email I received ten years back from a now estranged friend informing me of the death of my uncle in a car accident. I reckon seeing my uncle a few months before I left Lebanon when he came to wish me a safe trip to the Lone Star State . A few years later, dad calls to tell me that my grandfather had died. By 2005, I hadn’t visited my family in almost five years. I was on the road all the time, so I had a lot of excuses. I wasn’t there when my brother and sister graduated. I wasn’t there when my close friends got married. I’ve missed many things in my life because of this self-centered belief that so many people depended on me to get the job done and done right.

Over the past decade, distance has always been a big thing for me. Not just physical distance, but emotional distance. And if you’re emotionally distant from people, especially those you’re romantically involved with, they eventually leave. I didn’t have time to argue against breaking-up back then and more so I didn’t care, I had me. That was enough.

Sometimes, it takes bad news to get real and that’s exactly what happened in 2006. It was the kind of non-fatal bad news that hits a family member; the kind that tells you:”wake up, you have another chance”. Suddenly you realize how much they mean to you and how much your life depends on them; strange feeling when you live so far away, yet so true.

The two weeks I spent in Lebanon this summer were not much different from what I expected them to be. It was the same old stories about politics, corruption, and sectarianism. Expect well, I was there for a reason. I came to Lebanon to attend my best friend’s wedding and meet my sister’s significant other. I came to listen to my father nag about cost of living; I came to see my brother’s new pad. I sat in my mother’s kitchen everyday for lunch and dinner talking about family. I came to debate politics with my sister’s boyfriend through the wee hours of the morning. I came to listen to the same old stories that made me laugh a decade ago, and well, they still do. I came to hit the club scene in Beirut so I could complain about the vanity of the happy few in Lebanon afterwards.

As the plane landed in Washington late into the night and was welcomed home away from home, I had already started to make travel plans for Christmas and I anticipate to be back home several times in 2009 for various event.

It never occurred to me to think once that life is here and now. But this is it, no return or exchange policies, and no second chances for the time wasted, but perhaps opportunities to learn.

So where do I go from here, well, I’m pretty sure there’s going to be more of the same business trips, maybe a serious relationship, and a whole lotta laughing and eating around that kitchen table up on the hills of Mount Lebanon overlooking the Mediterranean.


*Marwan Madi is Lebanese. He has lived in the US where he works in Consultancy for most of the past decade. He writes on Lebanese politics and the interface between various cultures from a personal perspective.

Subtly and determinedly, Syria is taking over Lebanon

By Jonathan Spyer
(The Jerusalem Post)

Syrian troops entered Lebanon in 1976 for a misson that lasted till 2005

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman is to visit Syria next week, to discuss the opening of diplomatic relations between the countries, a Lebanese official told reporters this week. French President Nicolas Sarkozy last month hailed President Bashar Assad's expression of willingness in principle to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon as "historic progress."
The establishment of a first-ever Syrian Embassy in Beirut is probably not imminent, for various reasons. Nevertheless, the signs of normalization in relations between Syria and Lebanon are significant. They are the latest indication of Syria's growing confidence, and far from being a harbinger of more peaceful times in the neighborhood, they offer clues as to the shape of possible further strife.
The formation of the new Lebanese government after the Beirut clashes in May represented a very significant gain for the pro-Syria element in Lebanese politics. Hizbullah now controls a blocking 11 of the 30 cabinet seats. With a Lebanese government of this type, there is no reason for Syria to be in dispute there. The short period when Damascus felt the need to express its will in Lebanon solely in a clandestine way is drawing to a close.
Still, Western hopes for the rapid establishment of formal relations between the two countries are probably exaggerated. Damascus is in no hurry. Syria's return to Lebanon is a work in progress. Assad has listed the preconditions for the establishment of diplomatic relations to become a real possibility. These include the passing of an election law, and the holding of the scheduled May 2009 general election.
Behind Assad's honeyed words, one may glimpse the contours of Syrian strategy in the next stage. The election of May 2009 will be conducted under the shadow of Hizbullah's independent and now untouchable military capability.
Intimidation will go hand in hand with the real kudos gained by the movement and its allies because of recent events - including the prisoner swap with Israel, and the Doha agreement that followed the fighting in May. The result, the Syrians hope, will be the establishment of a government more fully dominated by Hizbullah and its allies, in which the pro-Western element will have been marginalized.
Such a government would mark the effective final reversal of the events of the spring of 2005, when the Cedar Revolution compelled the Syrian army to leave Lebanon. Damascus would then go on to conduct friendly and fraternal relations with the new order in Beirut. Mission accomplished.
If this strategy plays out, however, it will represent not the normalization of Syrian-Lebanese relations, but rather the enveloping of Lebanon into the regional alliance led by Iran, of which Syria is a senior member.
On the ground in Lebanon, this regional alliance is still engaged in consolidating its gains. The lines separating the official Lebanese state from the para-state established by Hizbullah continue to blur. The new government's draft policy statement, which is still to be discussed by the parliament, supports the "right of Lebanon's people, the army and the Resistance to liberate all its territories."
This statement thus nominally affords the Resistance. i.e. Hizbullah, equal status with the Lebanese Armed Forces, and appears to consider it an organ of official government policy. The new organ of government policy, meanwhile, is building its strength. Ostensibly for the mission of "liberating" 20 square kilometers of border farmland, Hizbullah has built a capability of 40,000 missiles and rockets, is frenziedly recruiting and training new fighters, and is expanding and developing its command and logistics center in the Bekaa.
The latest talk is of Iranian-Syrian plans to supply Hizbullah with an advanced anti-aircraft capacity that would provide aerial defense to the investment in rockets and missiles. Such a move would represent a grave altering of the balance of power. Serious moves towards it could well prove the spark for the next confrontation.
In all its moves, the Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah alliance has known how to combine brutal military tactics on the ground with subtle and determined diplomacy. Its willingness to throw away the rule book governing the normal relations between states has been perhaps its greatest advantage. While the West sees states as fixed entities possessing certain basic rights, Iran and Syria see only processes of rising and falling power. They see themselves as the force on the rise, and the niceties of internationally fixed borders as a trifle unworthy of consideration.

The region has known the rise of similar systems of power and ideology in the past. Experience shows that such states and alliances have become amenable to change and compromise - if at all - only after experiencing defeat, setback and frustration. The Syrians and their allies, of course, are far weaker in measurable military and societal terms than their rhetoric would suggest. Western (including Israeli) actions over the last years have tended to blur this fact. The general acceptance of the transformation of Lebanon into a platform for this alliance - and the lauding of it as 'historical progress' - is the latest example of this. The reacquaintance of rhetoric with reality on all sides is long overdue.

Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya.

Mauritania: Obituary for a young democracy

By Joseph El-Khoury

541 days was the life span of Mauritanian democracy. This small African country, full member of the Arab league had been very much on the periphery of events in the Middle East and North Africa until it experienced its first democratic Presidential elections (March 2007) since it gained independence from France in 1960. Run by a one-party state apparatus under the leadership of successive Army officers, Mauritania was familiar to coups and power struggles. But the military junta behind the 3rd August 2005 coup that ended of the Twenty years dictatorship of Colonel Tava kept its promises to facilitate the transition to a civilian administration through the ballot box. This was unheard of in the Arab world and the small republic was making the headlines. The elections came and went praised for being transparent and free of violence and intimidation. The emerging republic appeared on a straight but narrow course, fighting off tough economic conditions and Islamic militancy.
Three years later the experiment has ended and the generals are back in power declaring martial law and clamping down on any opposition. The conflict between the President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and the military hierarchy had been brewing for weeks but the deeper reasons, which will no doubt include foreign interference, will become clearer over the coming days. His whereabouts and those of a number of his ministers are unknown. While news reports on Al-Jazeera revealed small groups of supporters roaming the streets chanting their support while the coup unfolded, the majority of the population is likely to keep a low profile until the dust has settled. The African Union was among the first to condemn the move and so did the UN and the US. The French response came suspiciously muddled. Meanwhile Colonel Kaddafi is investigating while other Arab leaders remain silent.

What the military gave in August 2005, the military took away in August 2008. The dawn of another bleak day for Democracy in the Arab world.

Guantanamo Bay: The 21st Century Guide to Torture

Sami El-Haj is an Aljazeera journalist who at the age of 32 was captured by US forces while covering the war in Afganistan. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay where he was detained under the toughest conditions for 6 and a half years without charge. Finally released on the 1st May 2008 he tells his story to the Swiss Journalist Silvia Cattori. The integral interview is available in English and French through the links below. We chose the following paragraph because it highlights the specific torture techniques used by US interrogators. The emphasis is less on physical pain than on the psychological traumatisation of a human being through repeated humiliation and degradation. In recent weeks reports have emerged on the role of US Doctors and Psychologists in devising and implementing these efficient, cheap and subtle methods that often leave no physical scars but cause lasting damage to personal integrity and mental health. It is easy to imagine or even assess the impact of such treatments over a sustained period of time but as a word of caution…Please don’t try this at home!

Arabdemocracy

‘They beat us up. They taunted us with racist insults. They locked us in cold rooms, below zero, with one cold meal a day. They hung us up by our hands. They deprived us of sleep, and when we started to fall asleep, they beat us on the head. They showed us films of the most horrendous torture sessions. They showed us photographs of torture victims – dead, swollen, covered in blood. They kept us under constant threat of being moved elsewhere to be tortured even more. They doused us with cold water. They forced us to do the military salute to the American national anthem. They forced us to wear women's clothes. They forced us to look at pornographic images. They threatened us with rape. They would strip us naked and make us walk like donkeys, ordering us around. They made us sit down and stand up five hundred times in a row. They humiliated the detainees by wrapping them up in the Israeli and American flags, which was their way of telling us that we were imprisoned because of a religious war’.

Full Interview in English
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=25632
Full Interview in French
http://www.silviacattori.net/article469.html