dialogus

Dis-Cursive Fragments

2009-01-14T19:06:00.002+02:00

On Obama's dream

2008-12-03T15:49:00.002+02:00

Jeremy Scahill, author of the book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army", writes about Obama's Kettle of Hawks on Counterpunch.org

Here is the full text:

Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy. But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill Clinton's network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between Obama's staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room.

When announcing his foreign policy team on Monday, Obama said: "I didn't go around checking their voter registration." That is a bit hard to believe, given the 63-question application to work in his White House. But Obama clearly did check their credentials, and the disturbing truth is that he liked what he saw.

The assembly of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Joe Biden is a kettle of hawks with a proven track record of support for the Iraq war, militaristic interventionism, neoliberal economic policies and a worldview consistent with the foreign policy arch that stretches from George HW Bush's time in office to the present.

Obama has dismissed suggestions that the public records of his appointees bear much relevance to future policy. "Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me. That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure, then, that my team is implementing." It is a line the president-elect's defenders echo often. The reality, though, is that their records do matter.

We were told repeatedly during the campaign that Obama was right on the premiere foreign policy issue of our day – the Iraq war. "Six years ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically risky to do so," Obama said in his September debate against John McCain. "Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different judgment." What does it say that, with 130 members of the House and 23 in the Senate who voted against the war, Obama chooses to hire Democrats who made the same judgement as Bush and McCain?

On Iraq, the issue that the Obama campaign described as "the most critical foreign policy judgment of our generation", Biden and Clinton not only supported the invasion, but pushed the Bush administration's propaganda and lies about Iraqi WMDs and fictitious connections to al-Qaida. Clinton and Obama's hawkish, pro-Israel chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, still refuse to renounce their votes in favour of the war. Rice, who claims she opposed the Iraq war, didn't hold elected office and was not confronted with voting for or against it. But she did publicly promote the myth of Iraq's possession of WMDs, saying in the lead up to the war that the "major threat" must "be dealt with forcefully". Rice has also been hawkish on Darfur, calling for "strik[ing] Sudanese airfields, aircraft and other military assets".

It is also deeply telling that, of his own free will, Obama selected President Bush's choice for defence secretary, a man with a very disturbing and lengthy history at the CIA during the cold war, as his own. While General James Jones, Obama's nominee for national security adviser, reportedly opposed the Iraq invasion and is said to have stood up to the neocons in Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, he did not do so publicly when it would have carried weight. Time magazine described him as "the man who led the Marines during the run-up to the war – and failed to publicly criticise the operation's flawed planning". Moreover, Jones, who is a friend of McCain's, has said a timetable for Iraq withdrawal, "would be against our national interest".

But the problem with Obama's appointments is hardly just a matter of bad vision on Iraq. What ultimately ties Obama's team together is their unified support for the classic US foreign policy recipe: the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of US militarism to defend the America First doctrine.

Obama's starry-eyed defenders have tried to downplay the importance of his cabinet selections, saying Obama will call the shots, but the ruling elite in this country see it for what it is. Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain", called Obama's cabinet selections, "reassuring", which itself is disconcerting, but neoconservative leader and former McCain campaign staffer Max Boot summed it up best. "I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain," Boot wrote. The appointment of General Jones and the retention of Gates at defence "all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign."

Boot added that Hillary Clinton will be a "powerful" voice "for 'neoliberalism' which is not so different in many respects from 'neoconservativism.'" Boot's buddy, Michael Goldfarb, wrote in The Weekly Standard, the official organ of the neoconservative movement, that he sees "certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to continue the course set by Bush in his second term."

There is not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the Obama foreign policy apparatus. And this is the point: Obama is not going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. He is a status quo Democrat. And that is why the mono-partisan Washington insiders are gushing over Obama's new team. At the same time, it is also disingenuous to act as though Obama is engaging in some epic betrayal. Of course these appointments contradict his campaign rhetoric of change. But move past the speeches and Obama's selections are very much in sync with his record and the foreign policy vision he articulated on the campaign trail, from his pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan to his "residual force" plan in Iraq to his vow to use unilateral force in Pakistan to defend US interests to his posturing on Iran. "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel," Obama said in his famed speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last summer. "Sometimes, there are no alternatives to confrontation."

Jeremy Scahill pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

A Memory of Forgetfulness

2008-08-22T19:33:00.002+03:00

A paragraph in the official history book; an old building in a capital’s side street; old stones from a city’s distant history. It is the story of a country that keeps forgetting itself. It is a country afraid of its own image. A country whose memory is doomed to be constantly forgotten; each time it surfaces it must again be engulfed in the missing sentences of that history book, the high walls of its rapidly multiplying luxury towers, and the soil of a new coastline rich with mass graves.

As a young student studying the history of modern Lebanon at school in preparation for the official exams I always wondered about that oversized picture of some modern leader occupying the space that should have been given to a more elaborate explanation of what happened in the not-so-distant past. I could not understand how the civil war that characterized the sounds and images of my childhood for the first 9 years of my life and more than 15 years of the country’s post “independence” could be explained in a paragraph of 5 lines. It was a paradox to see that what defined and still defines people’s lives in this country and would be evoked in every discussion about life, memories, and politics (itself one of the most common topics to be heard in a Lebanese small talk) is confined in one paragraph of denial.

I grew up to see that forgetting is not a specific feature of the history book; already in my early university studies I was talking in the past tense about landmarks and places that were rapidly turning into shopping malls, clothing stores, and huge luxurious buildings devoid of any warmth or identity and feeding on the city’s social fabric. The war had taken away whole quarters and had left others with beautiful scars reminding its inhabitants of their deeds and ordeals. Even before most of them had disappeared behind new paintjobs or makeshift plastic surgery, it was striking to see how unnoticed they were in the capital’s daily chaos.

The bullet holes quickly melted into the walls they had decorated. Abandoned buildings seem to have been made for the purpose of being abandoned; what happened to the people who once lived here? Does anyone even realize that they were once inhabited? Some of the wartime graffiti (an understudied and unexplored art) still linger despite the fading colors of their cheap paint. This is a history that will probably never manage to invade any book.

After the end of the war that had already destroyed part of the country’s history and transformed it into a mythical narrative of a fictional golden age now lost, the reconstruction process was announced. The city was now a huge construction site for a huge urban farce to revive what would be called Beirut, “an old city for the future” (or so the slogan could be translated).

Archeology never befriended business, and this was one of the reasons for the destruction of Beirut’s archeological treasures. An old roman bath would be more economically viable as rubble to enlarge the coastline rather than a witness of an old historical period, or so it seems. Monument upon monument and landmark upon landmark soon disappeared to give way to new and empty luxury buildings that supposedly retraced the capital’s architectural traditions (and feed on the national shortage of electricity in order to be visible even at night).

While the distant history of the city is devoured by its new image as an example of the power of capital, its less distant history is in turn subjected to a similar, less systematic (or geographically concentrated) destruction. 19th century houses, old urban landmarks, and middle and lower class social spaces are replaced by cold, aggressive, and ugly luxurious concrete behemoths.

Stones are not inanimate figures devoid of meaning; they are social spaces encompassing social ties and stories that should be explored before they are relegated to the past tense of memories or the non-existent tense of forgetfulness. Evolution, development, and future are a process that entails an understanding of the past in order to design and define the future. Remembering is a learning process; history and war – the history of war - are one of its most important lessons. In Lebanon, however, we strive to learn how to always forget so that at no point we would ever come to realize our responsibility for our own forgotten past.

Normality

2008-06-07T17:57:00.003+03:00

Things are back to normal after the Doha accord. It means that opposition and loyalists are no longer opposition and loyalists; they are back to their rightful places: that strange council of elders we like to call government. Of course the government is not yet formed; however, it is only a matter of agreeing on how to share the spoils after three years of symbolic disagreement. Things are back to normal, namely to that everlasting state of waiting for another “symbolic disagreement” that will end by yet another agreement on redistributing the spoils among the same forces. After all, economy, the Lebanese politicians keep repeating in one of the most paradoxical and absurd formulas, must not be politicized. Politics in Lebanon are a field of its own.

The opposition has failed, even though it likes to portray its misadventure as a great victory. It has failed both its public and its chances to impose a real change, in other words to act as a real opposition. No economical reforms, no structural changes in the decayed political system canonized by the infamous Taef accords and a step back in the electoral law that will further divide the Lebanese sects.

The opposition has failed when it put aside all economical and political demands of social justice for the sake of a share in the government. The Hezbollah even confirmed the possibility of reattempting to reconcile resistance and reconstruction, as if 18 years of attempts have not proven the impossibility of achieving this symbiosis when reconstruction means fierce neo-liberal economy and resistance means disregard to economy.

Things are back to normal. Sanioura is again the democratically elected Prime Minister and the wonder boy of economical solutions with a record high of more than 42 billion dollars debts and a rapidly failing economy. Nonetheless, he insists on his right to appoint the minister of economy and finance. After all it is the share of the Sunnis as many keep repeating explicitly, as if in the opening verses of the Koran God clearly dictates that the economy should not fall into Fitna and that the faithful must always have faith in the fierce neo-liberal model.

Hezbollah’s public, formed mostly by lower and middle classes, will have to choose between resistance and social justice. It seems that the party is able to defeat the Israeli army but not the wonder boy of economy Fouad Sanioura and his twisted sense of economical prosperity. The public of the resistance will now have to choose. One can no longer be a leftist supporting the resistance of the Hezbollah, and expecting them to act as a real resistance, as a real liberation movement and include economy in their strategies of resistance.

Once the opposition leaves aside economical demands that seem far more pressing than the defense strategy, it will no longer be a force of change as it is trying to portray itself. In fact it will be restaging what the “14 of March” had done with their “Cedar revolution” and the “second independence” that achieved the highest degree of foreign interference in a country that has no frame of reference apart from those of regional and world powers. In fact the second independence led to a strange phenomenon whereas President, Government, Prime Minister, and electoral law were all appointed, agreed upon, and imposed by a constellation of States in Doha.

The Hezbollah must realize that resistance is not achieved merely with guns and highly effective military strategies. Resistance, which the party keeps trying to portray as a whole culture, does not consist merely in fighting an external enemy on the field and on the screen. Resistance must achieve liberation; it must build an infrastructure capable of developing and imposing a new model of prosperity. This infrastructure is not military it is social and economical. The resistance cannot cohabitate with the “reconstruction” (another word for Rafik Hariri’s and Sanioura’s failed economical plan of radical liberal economy that led Lebanon to its present economical crisis and destroyed the Lebanese middle and lower classes) contrary to what the Secretary General of Hezbollah said in his last speech. Resistance can only cohabitate with a sane economical system of social and economical justice focused on enabling the lower and middle classes by providing social welfare, a reasonable taxation policy, productive State control of certain layers of the economy, sustainable investments, and a severe anti-corruption policy. If the Hezbollah are serious in their preaching of a new model of resistance then they must reassess their position and look towards the left rather than the right for their safety.

For now the Lebanese sects are back to their respective positions, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, and the secular left is attempting as it always did to prove to itself that it is a force that can make a change. Things are back to normal in Lebanon and the summer will welcome a record number of Lebanese immigrants, the pride of a nation that cannot provide for its own citizens.

Tension-Relieving-Ship

2008-02-29T18:25:00.002+02:00

How many meanings can the dispatch of a battleship to the shores of a country in crisis have?
The U.S. affirms that the battleship is sent for the purpose of relieving tension in Lebanon. Of course the fact that the tension is rising by the mere idea of the battleship (and the very technical description of its arsenal and destruction capacities that emerged rapidly in the Lebanese and International news) only justifies the need to relieve it.

The French spokesperson clearly confirmed this American initiative and added that her country encourages any move that brings stability and relieves tension in Lebanon.

On the shore, however, people are tense, and tension keeps on rising. In fact, an idea lurking out-of-visible-range somewhere in the sea beset them with memories of long ago when another battleship had come to their rescue. Only they do not call it rescue.

Battleships are fierce machines of destruction. They are designed to be battle ships, to instill immense amounts of destruction. Their very name designates their function. Battleships were never designed to relieve tension, if anything, tension is what they are precisely designed to instigate. It is a symbolic act of violence to send a war machine into a terrain of tension. In fact if there is a simple form of symbolic violence it is the mere presence of a war machine, battleships included.

That being said, it is surprising, and to a certain extent curious, that a statement such as the one attributing the relief of tension to the dispatch of the battleship can be uttered without causing a scandal. On the contrary it seemed like a perfectly normal reasoning for the French government.

In some time, when the battleship will exercise its natural function, and achieve the purpose of its dispatch, people will be shocked but not surprised by the sight of destruction it leaves behind and the tension that it annihilates.

I never thought that preparations for war could be so invisible, or so ridiculously camouflaged.

The official Website of the USS Cole, 'The Determined Warrior':
http://www.cole.navy.mil/

Of course it is needless to comment about the role of the battleship in safeguarding Lebanese independence, sovereignty, and democracy. In fact, such a move is a clear demonstration that the U.S. refuses any interference in the Lebanese internal affairs and is actively participating in the preserving the region's stability.

Ministry of Interior

2008-01-29T15:13:00.000+02:00

ذهب و لم يعد
Everyone had an opinion, statement, or declaration about what happened last Sunday, all those officials in their televisions, and those non-officials in their streets.
The government and its supporters blamed the opposition, those who died, and Syria for the massacre. The opposition blamed the government and the army.

One voice remained unheard; in fact one face has disappeared since he retracted his resignation and theoretically reassumed his responsibilities: the Minister of Interior.

Curiously no one even bothers to mention the absence of the one supposed to be responsible of security in the country. After all this is not his problem since these people who were killed are not Lebanese citizens, they are part of the Syrian-Iranian axis of evil. In fact even the location of the event is not in the “real Lebanon” where people are “100% Lebanese”, so why should the ministry of interior be concerned?

6 were killed by gunfire while the army was watching, or even participating in the hunt. Army against citizens: is this Egypt? Is this what we are to hope for? Is this what preserving stability means?

Blaming the victim can only bring more anger, and anger will bring more violence, a violence that would not always be unarmed.

Fouad Sanioura, the Lebanese Prime-Minister made it clear that there are no electricity problems in the suburbs. In fact even the Lebanese economy is doing just fine. At least he did not notice any power cuts while hiding in his office.

This is only the beginning. Disregard of the deteriorating economy and the rapidly increasing economical polarization will soon explode. At this moment political solutions will no longer be useful. When the crowd moves it sweeps everything in its way. And when a government loses control of its people (and control is not exercised by force and bullets) this unconditionally means that it has failed and that a new government is needed. One cannot pretend to be in power, to be the legitimate authority, while refusing to assume the responsibility that this authority entails. No excuses, justification, or exceptional situations can explain why this government is not assuming responsibility for the numerous assassinations, shootings, and bomb blasts that have taken place under their authority.

Where is the Minister of Interior? Did anyone call him? Is he on vacation? Or does he have family duties? Did he leave the key of the ministry with anyone we can call? Or do we no longer need the ministry of interior now that an Army General is going to become President?

So many suppressed issues have surfaced on this bloody Sunday and many more will surface in the coming days. But perhaps for the moment we can rest assured that Samir Geagea is satisfied with the way the army dealt with the situation.

Don't look there, it's Gaza

2008-01-23T16:02:00.000+02:00

Self pity starts with the conviction that we are weak, incompetent, and unable to perform any action to deliver ourselves from the state we found ourselves in. This in short is the official “Moderate Arab” discourse. The blame falls on those who dare to take their destiny in their hands and use the capacities they have in order to deliver themselves instead of complaining and accentuating the pitiful state they are in.

When Hezbollah captured the two Israeli soldiers on the 12th of July 2006, the Moderate Arabs were immediately certain about the causality of the subsequent war: Hezbollah’s adventurous, rushed, and non-calculated decision is the cause of war. It turned out that Hezbollah’s decision was far from being uncalculated.

Gaza is under siege. The Moderate Arabs reformulate their causal statements. The siege is the result of the hand-made rockets fired by the Palestinian resistance factions on the neighboring Israeli settlement of Sedirot. Israel’s large scale siege is an act of self defense, say the Arabs. Of course, they do reject the human suffering involved in this act of self defense, but the blame is on those who dare to defy Israel.

It is not the fact that the Moderate Arabs are supporting Israel that is shameful; it is the hypocrisy that makes these Arab leaders cowardly enough not to be able to defend their decision and position. Instead they hide behind empty prose and strongly reject any accusation of being in the American-Israeli camp.

The mention of Israeli soldiers’ remains and body parts held by Hezbollah since the 2006 war instigated disgust in the stomachs of some Lebanese “leaders”. It is strange that the media consultants of these “leaders” did not realize that such statements would not resonate well in the minds of the people especially that Arab media does not refrain from showing Iraqi, Palestinian, and Lebanese body parts that no one ever expressed such disgust about. It is hard to believe that a militia leader can feel disgust from the mere mentioning of body parts.

The Arab “leaders” are not to blame. After all they need to care about the “stability” of their regimes. The blame falls on the people. The blame always falls on the people. When Ziad Rahbani’s last play blamed the Lebanese people for their destiny, it was met with an unprecedented negative critic even though it might be the most politically mature work of his. People do not like to be held responsible this is why they often prefer dictatorships. It is easier, more reassuring.

One and a half million people living in the most densely populated stretch of land in the world are under siege. They are the invisible spectacle of human suffering. No one wants to know, see, or hear about it. Only the Israeli government is honest enough to say that “we do not care if they are suffering”. Europe does not see, the United States do not mind, and the Arabs smile ridiculously because the white man smiles back; they do not speak, they cannot speak.

The Lebanese government is too disgusted by the mental image of Israeli body parts to feel disgust about the crime committed in Gaza. After all, if the suffering of their own people both during the 2006 war and amid the present economical crisis did not instigate any disgust why would the slow death of sub-human Palestinians do?

There is a definition of terrorism, and there are law texts describing what genocide means. We just need people to read it aloud.

But meanwhile we have more pressing matters: the Iranian/Shiite/Axis of Evil/Terrorism threat and the need to buy billion of dollars worth of American weapons especially now that the American economy is in trouble. Anyway there is an Arab Summit coming up, and the Arabs will certainly “object” on the situation in Gaza. When the oil stops flowing, the Arabs will start exporting “objection” to be used in Gaza’s power plant and Saudi Arabia will still be the biggest supplier of fuel.

Prostitution

2008-01-17T16:08:00.000+02:00

Some time ago demonstrations broke in Lebanon to defend the Saudi ambassador who was the “victim” of negative criticism. It seemed and it still seems that Saudi Arabia is above criticism. The infamous Saudi regime has often profited from its control of the Muslim holly places to give itself an undeserved religious rank.

There exists a deadlock for the development of the critical and analytical perspectives in the Arab world. This deadlock is still related to tribal and tribal-like relations that define loyalty and criticism of self and the close other. If the case of Saudi Arabia is recurrent it is not because it presents a unique one, but a more visible one.

One must start with history. The Saudi Kingdom is in no way different than any other one; its history is one of conquest, political rivalry, and luck. Saudi Arabia was “blessed” by geography with an extensive amount of oil and therefore a strategic value.

It must be noted also that the Saudi regime ever since its creation in the first part of the 20th century, had been, contrary to the common belief of those who demonstrated in support of the Saudi ambassador, the main enemy of any Arab nationalist idea. In fact the Saudi regime is, like Israel, one of the main strategic allies of the United States. This does not mean that they are puppets, or that they are intrinsically evil, it means that the interests of the regime are in concordance with those of the United States. This is simply a matter of survival instinct.

The Lebanese rhetoric is unfortunately too entrenched in the hospitality myth to be able to say more than empty prose and praise when it comes to discussing the role of another country. “Saudi Arabia has always been a friend of the Lebanese people”, “the Saudi King wants what is best for Lebanon”… these are meaningless if not ridiculous sentences. If history has taught us anything, it is that there is no friendship between countries, let alone between two unequal ones.

It is a shame to see that the main enemy of any Arab renaissance in the full sense of the word is beyond criticism, and even praised as the model to look up to. Without mentioning the rotten social and political system in the Saudi Kingdom, it would be interesting perhaps to look at the recent visit of George Bush to the Middle East as an expression of the Kingdom’s great standing in the Arab journey towards prosperity.

Prostitution is perhaps the word that expresses best the attitude of the Arab moderate leaders when it comes to receiving the “white man”.

Opinion polls for the last 6 years in the Arab world have shown overwhelming animosity towards the United States. This feeling was nourished by the campaign against Islam and the Arabs in the western media and namely in the discourse of the Bush administration. The history of the word terrorism is the witness in this case.

No man has brought more misperception, destruction, poverty, and instability to the Arab world than George Bush. However, he remains the patron of the moderate Arab leaders, great men who get insulted when they are accused of working against their own people or of being puppets in the hands of the more powerful.

Such receptions make Iran and Syria, and let alone Hezbollah, appear as the ones who are acting in the interests of their people (regardless of the truth of these allegations).

The white man comes (Bush and Sarkozy) and plunders the wealth of those he despises. The great king smiles and shakes hands, prepares folk events to produce salon jokes about the Arab habits, and rejoices on the empty praise he gets from the white man.

No nation has ever been so despicable.

Billions of dollars spent on arms to fight ourselves, or someone else’s war, but none spent to support the poor, educate the illiterate, and develop one’s country.

Iran is the threat. Syria is not moderate enough. Hezbollah is unrealistic.

The question that must be asked and those who demonstrated a year ago must answer, is the following:
What have the moderate Arabs, the great Saudi King and his Egyptian republican monarch, done in their long years of peace with the international community for their people and countries?

Perhaps this video says it all

Marriage Proposal (Type 3)

2007-11-20T02:22:00.000+02:00

My love, I have met women, I have loved women, I have been attracted to women but never ever have I met a woman as beautiful, both from inside and outside, as smart, as charming, as alive, and as loving as you. And when someone finds perfection, which I did believe did not exist before I met you, one does not want to let it go. So, I, wretched and miserable as I am, would be honored, and not only honored, because it is not honor I am looking for; I would be the happiest man in the world and here happiest is not an expression but an empirical fact if you would marry me.

The evils of PDA (Public Display of Affection)

2007-11-15T13:43:00.000+02:00

Now how does this express freedom, democracy, and human rights? And people wonder why there are crimes in American schools. It is the start of a promising generation of perfect individuals...

Keep in mind this is neither in Nazi Germany, nor in Saudi Arabia.

Where no hugs are allowed (courtesy of angry arab)

“Resistance is Surrender”

2007-11-13T21:39:00.000+02:00

Many argue that the present dominant discourse of global capitalism allows for no revolution, and that resistance can no longer be carried out through violence. Instead change must be performed from within the prevailing system. This perspective is more a theoretical basis than an actual strategy, in fact within the same framework one finds conflicting views as to which strategy must be adopted. Moreover, there is a larger division within the left, on one hand those who adopt this view, and on the other, those who adopt the view whereas change can still be achieved by force. Whether one must be in power to subvert it, or outside of power, there are great issues related to the failure of the leftist model that have not yet been resolved. The trauma left by the failure of communism in the Soviet Union, its transformation back into capitalism in China, and its degeneration into a revolutionary monarchy in Cuba has not yet been overcome. This is clear when it comes to the lack of a leftist ‘ideology’, program, or clearly articulated political, economical, and social alternatives.

The crisis of the left is perhaps synonymous to the crisis of democracy; their ascendancy to the status of domination, institutionalization, and namely to the State itself, was the foundation of their collapse. While the form taken by institutionalized communism in the Soviet Union was the first instance of its collapse, liberal democracy’s present status as an oppressive and socio-economically unjust institution (exemplified by the direction taken by the United States’ internal and external policies) is arguably the first instance of its demise.

The common criticism against the left is, first, that it is divided into radically opposed forces and second, that it lacks a palpable solution. One of the debates stirred up by the coming American presidential elections is the choice of which strategy must be adopted in order to redress liberal democracy. In other words, what must the Democrats do? Debates about the role of the left in dealing with internal economical policies, the welfare state, war, pollution and poverty in the world seem to be taking place in a parallel world of theory, in the safe distance of academic discourse, and in disregard to the structural transformation of discourses of resistance and namely the spectacular rise of the religious both in parallel with, and in opposition to global capitalism.

In an insightful article in the London Review of Books, Slavoj Zizek addresses the responsibility of the left in providing a viable strategy that can counter the growing force of capital.

Resistance Is Surrender
Slavoj Žižek
One of the clearest lessons of the last few decades is that capitalism is indestructible. Marx compared it to a vampire, and one of the salient points of comparison now appears to be that vampires always rise up again after being stabbed to death. Even Mao’s attempt, in the Cultural Revolution, to wipe out the traces of capitalism, ended up in its triumphant return.
Today’s Left reacts in a wide variety of ways to the hegemony of global capitalism and its political supplement, liberal democracy. It might, for example, accept the hegemony, but continue to fight for reform within its rules (this is Third Way social democracy).
Or, it accepts that the hegemony is here to stay, but should nonetheless be resisted from its ‘interstices’.
Or, it accepts the futility of all struggle, since the hegemony is so all-encompassing that nothing can really be done except wait for an outburst of ‘divine violence’ – a revolutionary version of Heidegger’s ‘only God can save us.’
Or, it recognises the temporary futility of the struggle. In today’s triumph of global capitalism, the argument goes, true resistance is not possible, so all we can do till the revolutionary spirit of the global working class is renewed is defend what remains of the welfare state, confronting those in power with demands we know they cannot fulfil, and otherwise withdraw into cultural studies, where one can quietly pursue the work of criticism.
Or, it emphasises the fact that the problem is a more fundamental one, that global capitalism is ultimately an effect of the underlying principles of technology or ‘instrumental reason’.
Or, it posits that one can undermine global capitalism and state power, not by directly attacking them, but by refocusing the field of struggle on everyday practices, where one can ‘build a new world’; in this way, the foundations of the power of capital and the state will be gradually undermined, and, at some point, the state will collapse (the exemplar of this approach is the Zapatista movement).
Or, it takes the ‘postmodern’ route, shifting the accent from anti-capitalist struggle to the multiple forms of politico-ideological struggle for hegemony, emphasising the importance of discursive re-articulation.
Or, it wagers that one can repeat at the postmodern level the classical Marxist gesture of enacting the ‘determinate negation’ of capitalism: with today’s rise of ‘cognitive work’, the contradiction between social production and capitalist relations has become starker than ever, rendering possible for the first time ‘absolute democracy’ (this would be Hardt and Negri’s position).
These positions are not presented as a way of avoiding some ‘true’ radical Left politics – what they are trying to get around is, indeed, the lack of such a position. This defeat of the Left is not the whole story of the last thirty years, however. There is another, no less surprising, lesson to be learned from the Chinese Communists’ presiding over arguably the most explosive development of capitalism in history, and from the growth of West European Third Way social democracy. It is, in short: we can do it better. In the UK, the Thatcher revolution was, at the time, chaotic and impulsive, marked by unpredictable contingencies. It was Tony Blair who was able to institutionalise it, or, in Hegel’s terms, to raise (what first appeared as) a contingency, a historical accident, into a necessity. Thatcher wasn’t a Thatcherite, she was merely herself; it was Blair (more than Major) who truly gave form to Thatcherism.
The response of some critics on the postmodern Left to this predicament is to call for a new politics of resistance. Those who still insist on fighting state power, let alone seizing it, are accused of remaining stuck within the ‘old paradigm’: the task today, their critics say, is to resist state power by withdrawing from its terrain and creating new spaces outside its control. This is, of course, the obverse of accepting the triumph of capitalism. The politics of resistance is nothing but the moralising supplement to a Third Way Left.
Simon Critchley’s recent book, Infinitely Demanding, is an almost perfect embodiment of this position.* For Critchley, the liberal-democratic state is here to stay. Attempts to abolish the state failed miserably; consequently, the new politics has to be located at a distance from it: anti-war movements, ecological organisations, groups protesting against racist or sexist abuses, and other forms of local self-organisation. It must be a politics of resistance to the state, of bombarding the state with impossible demands, of denouncing the limitations of state mechanisms. The main argument for conducting the politics of resistance at a distance from the state hinges on the ethical dimension of the ‘infinitely demanding’ call for justice: no state can heed this call, since its ultimate goal is the ‘real-political’ one of ensuring its own reproduction (its economic growth, public safety, etc). ‘Of course,’ Critchley writes,
history is habitually written by the people with the guns and sticks and one cannot expect to defeat them with mocking satire and feather dusters. Yet, as the history of ultra-leftist active nihilism eloquently shows, one is lost the moment one picks up the guns and sticks. Anarchic political resistance should not seek to mimic and mirror the archic violent sovereignty it opposes.
So what should, say, the US Democrats do? Stop competing for state power and withdraw to the interstices of the state, leaving state power to the Republicans and start a campaign of anarchic resistance to it? And what would Critchley do if he were facing an adversary like Hitler? Surely in such a case one should ‘mimic and mirror the archic violent sovereignty’ one opposes? Shouldn’t the Left draw a distinction between the circumstances in which one would resort to violence in confronting the state, and those in which all one can and should do is use ‘mocking satire and feather dusters’? The ambiguity of Critchley’s position resides in a strange non sequitur: if the state is here to stay, if it is impossible to abolish it (or capitalism), why retreat from it? Why not act with(in) the state? Why not accept the basic premise of the Third Way? Why limit oneself to a politics which, as Critchley puts it, ‘calls the state into question and calls the established order to account, not in order to do away with the state, desirable though that might well be in some utopian sense, but in order to better it or attenuate its malicious effect’?
These words simply demonstrate that today’s liberal-democratic state and the dream of an ‘infinitely demanding’ anarchic politics exist in a relationship of mutual parasitism: anarchic agents do the ethical thinking, and the state does the work of running and regulating society. Critchley’s anarchic ethico-political agent acts like a superego, comfortably bombarding the state with demands; and the more the state tries to satisfy these demands, the more guilty it is seen to be. In compliance with this logic, the anarchic agents focus their protest not on open dictatorships, but on the hypocrisy of liberal democracies, who are accused of betraying their own professed principles.
The big demonstrations in London and Washington against the US attack on Iraq a few years ago offer an exemplary case of this strange symbiotic relationship between power and resistance. Their paradoxical outcome was that both sides were satisfied. The protesters saved their beautiful souls: they made it clear that they don’t agree with the government’s policy on Iraq. Those in power calmly accepted it, even profited from it: not only did the protests in no way prevent the already-made decision to attack Iraq; they also served to legitimise it. Thus George Bush’s reaction to mass demonstrations protesting his visit to London, in effect: ‘You see, this is what we are fighting for, so that what people are doing here – protesting against their government policy – will be possible also in Iraq!’
It is striking that the course on which Hugo Chávez has embarked since 2006 is the exact opposite of the one chosen by the postmodern Left: far from resisting state power, he grabbed it (first by an attempted coup, then democratically), ruthlessly using the Venezuelan state apparatuses to promote his goals. Furthermore, he is militarising the barrios, and organising the training of armed units there. And, the ultimate scare: now that he is feeling the economic effects of capital’s ‘resistance’ to his rule (temporary shortages of some goods in the state-subsidised supermarkets), he has announced plans to consolidate the 24 parties that support him into a single party. Even some of his allies are sceptical about this move: will it come at the expense of the popular movements that have given the Venezuelan revolution its élan? However, this choice, though risky, should be fully endorsed: the task is to make the new party function not as a typical state socialist (or Peronist) party, but as a vehicle for the mobilisation of new forms of politics (like the grass roots slum committees). What should we say to someone like Chávez? ‘No, do not grab state power, just withdraw, leave the state and the current situation in place’? Chávez is often dismissed as a clown – but wouldn’t such a withdrawal just reduce him to a version of Subcomandante Marcos, whom many Mexican leftists now refer to as ‘Subcomediante Marcos’? Today, it is the great capitalists – Bill Gates, corporate polluters, fox hunters – who ‘resist’ the state.
The lesson here is that the truly subversive thing is not to insist on ‘infinite’ demands we know those in power cannot fulfil. Since they know that we know it, such an ‘infinitely demanding’ attitude presents no problem for those in power: ‘So wonderful that, with your critical demands, you remind us what kind of world we would all like to live in. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, where we have to make do with what is possible.’ The thing to do is, on the contrary, to bombard those in power with strategically well-selected, precise, finite demands, which can’t be met with the same excuse.
Note
* Verso, 168 pp., £17.99, May, 978 1 84467 121 2.
Slavoj Žižek is a dialectical-materialist philosopher and psychoanalyst. He also co-directs the International Centre for Humanities at Birkbeck College. The Parallax View appeared last year.

Lebanese Interests: Democracy

2007-11-11T13:10:00.000+02:00

Some preliminary statements:
- There are no such things as objectivity, neutrality, or impartiality.
- An analysis is never apolitical; every analysis carries within it a political standpoint that favors one force over the other.
- Critical analysis is usually set to favor the dominated/resistant standpoint.
- Every argument entails a counter-argument, not the potentiality of a counter argument.

The Lebanese presidential elections are on the doorstep. Consecutive failures of diverse international, Arab, and internal initiatives to get over the political deadlock in the country, have left the French initiative with little hope of success. Nonetheless all the attention is on the outcome of the coming days. However, there is a greater and more dangerous dimension to the crisis in this fragile country: a social, political, and sectarian polarization that opposes two irreconcilable discourses. Great controversy arises every time one writes about Lebanon. One reason is the extreme polarization, a factor that perturbs dialogue and puts in place two mutually eliminating opinions that diverge on a deep structural level.

One cannot look at Lebanon or at the Middle East in general while disregarding the impact of colonial power and the dynamics of power relations. The initial disagreement between the two prevalent discourses in Lebanon is their look at the role of colonial power. This division is extended to the whole dynamics of Arab politics and inter-Arab conflicts. On the one hand, there is an opinion that grants the dominant Other (the ‘democratic West’) a benevolent role on the path towards freedom. In this discourse freedom is synonymous to liberalism. Here one must differentiate between two notions of liberalism: economical liberalism, and social liberalism. The one can exist without the other, and often do (an example of economical liberalism that is far from being a social liberalism is Saudi Arabia, and most of the Gulf States). In Lebanon the proponents of this discourse are divided between those who adopt liberalism in its double sense and those who are great opponents of this model and rather opt for economical liberalism linked to social conservatism. On the other hand, there exists the opposite opinion that attributes to the Other (the ‘colonial West’) a malevolent role that blocks the path towards freedom. In this discourse freedom is synonymous to liberation. Liberation is a democratic rather than liberal aim. Nonetheless the two can coexist.

The strategies differ greatly between the two camps. The first one, represented by the 14 of March forces and Fouad Sanioura’s government, is set in the greater discourse of what the American administration recently termed “Arab moderation”. In other words these are the proponents of the subjugation to the West as both an economical and political stabilizing choice. The argument of this group is that ‘we’ are too weak to oppose the powerful Other therefore must acknowledge this position by adhering to its interests and politics. Democratic choice in this case becomes synonymous to the adherence to the Other’s values rather than to the popular majority’s choice (here the example of the Palestinian elections and the victory of Hamas are easily compared to the Lebanese case). The second group, represented by the opposition, namely Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement, is placed within the category termed “terrorist” by the same American administration, and represents the forces that oppose the Other’s domination. The interests of the Other are seen as the main destabilizing factor because they are in contradiction with the interests of the popular majority. In other words, the subjugation to the other is seen as a long term destabilizing factor and the cause and effect schema is inverted. Economical and political stability can only be achieved through the neutralization of the Other’s interests – thus through conflict with the Other. The self is not seen as weak, rather it is empowered and represented as capable of liberation and of defeating the Other (in here the Hezbollah discourse notably during and after the summer of 2006 war provides a good example).

However, the notion of liberation is not so much an idealistic aim as much as it is a strategy of resistance that seeks first and foremost to become dominant. Here history provides examples of liberation movements who sought the support of great dominant powers in order to oppose another dominant power. The Soviet Union’s relations with liberation movements all around the world is the most salient example. This dynamics of power reflects the role of Iran in the current Lebanese situation, whereas a common enemy provides the ground for a support that is different in its economical and political groundings from the traditional unilateral colonial model. In other words, the discourse of the opposition considers that Iran’s role in the Lebanese crisis cannot be seen as the mirror image of that of the United States of America or of Europe. Nonetheless, it is in no way a moral action, nor is it disinterested; rather, Iran’s interests are seen as momentarily intersecting with those of the opposition forces inasmuch as it refuses the same Other’s interests. In other words, the opposition discourse pretends that whereas the West’s interests are structurally opposed to those of the majority of the Lebanese population, Iran’s interests are momentarily convergent to those of this majority. However, these converging interests are not structurally convergent, on the contrary, in the normal course of things these interests will be, like those of the West, structurally divergent.

This opinion can be inverted, and one can substitute Iran for the West and reciprocally. In fact, this is exactly what the government’s discourse does. It pretends that the interests of the West and those of the people converge momentarily, while those of Syria (the ‘colonial Other’ in this case) and Iran are structurally divergent. This, perhaps, is equally true and is certainly the basic reflection of the radical polarization of the two opinions. However, there exists one solution to define the interests of the Lebanese population, and that is to let it speak. In other words, democracy pretends to represent the interests of the people by giving the people the right to decide where their interests lie. The only viable solution for the Lebanese deadlock is to let the majority speak about its interests and choose, directly, which discourse represents its interests.

Democracy 101

2007-11-09T03:41:00.000+02:00

The United States of America in its efforts to educate the third world countries on the workings of democracy has threatened to sanction anyone who opposes or destabilizes the government of Fouad Sanioura in Lebanon. In other words democracy is the complete adherence to a government without the possibility of opposition. Any act of opposition is against democracy. It seems that totalitarianism is not so different than democracy after all. Stalin would have been proud of the little George Bush.

Economy

2007-11-07T13:53:00.000+02:00

While the populace in the wretched country is drowning in petty and naive discussions about whose sect is more virtuous and whose is more sectarian, no attention is paid by the citizen to the economy. As many theories of politics, society, and power suggest, the economy is a factor that has far wider influences than on mere financial issues. Economy does not simply regulate the flow of money, budgets, and living standards. It regulates the political system, social interactions, and the forms of conflicts.

In Lebanon people are too preoccupied with disgraceful and retarded polemics about whose leader is more corrupted, or whose leader can be called more names. This refers specifically to the governmental forces in their approach to any criticism, where it is shocking to see that for the last two years there has not been a single scientific answer to the budgetary deficit, the excessive social, economical and security problems, and the growing popular opposition to the current situation. On one hand the government disregards the massive popular support of the opposition (which in the smallest accounts has reached 55 percent of the population) and, in an utmost undemocratic stance, rejects half its population as being ‘Pro-Syrian’ (as if this is a crime in itself). On the other hand the government fails to understand, or neglects the fact that the growing opposition is not simply political, but has a considerable and increasing economical motivation due to surreal economical policies this government keeps adopting making the Lebanese economy one of the most phenomenally failed in the world.

It is unfortunate to see that those who are the most affected by the economical policies of the neo-liberal Sanioura government (and Rafik Hariri before him), are their staunchest supporters. While the people become poorer due to an absurd taxation policy (where the poor pay taxes to the rich bank holders, making those profit from the growing interest on the public debts), they become more dependent on the charity of the rich governing political class. Paradoxically this is how the feudal system works; peasants are exploited by the landlord becoming more and more dependent on him.

What is pitiful is the defensive discourse adopted by the supporters of the government. These are divided into two levels: one is the class that is profiting from the economical system, namely rich investors, bank owners, and the bulk of the corrupted political class who is still part of the government (others who are no longer profiting from the corruption are now in the opposition), the second is a growing poor class who adopt a discourse that defends the government on mainly sectarian grounds.

The political crisis in Lebanon cannot be solved unless the economical crisis is addressed. In other words a radical and complete reviewing of the economical system has to be undertaken.

Georges Corm provides an insightful analysis of this issue in a 2 part article published in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar.

Part 1
Part 2

Fragments 2

2007-11-02T14:20:00.001+02:00

1. As part of the great efforts spent by the American administration to prevent any foreign interference in Lebanese affairs and especially the forthcoming presidential elections, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned the Lebanese government about giving any concessions to the opposition. Of course the warning came along with a description of what the future president must and must not do, and the acceptable program he/she can be allowed to pursue. One might think that these flagrant statements of a foreign Secretary of State are blatant interferences in the affairs of Lebanon and more specifically in the presidential elections. However, the American interference is aimed at countering any other interference; therefore it is not interference but a gesture of good will, not to mention that we Lebanese people boast about our cosmopolitan attributes, so no one is foreign anyway. Moreover everyone should know that it was us who asked the American administration to interfere as we had asked the Syrians to interfere before that, and the French before both. This, after all, is crucial to the protection of the Cedar Revolution and its “Freedom, Sovereignty, Independence” slogan.

2. Beirut MP Ammar Houri is the first disciple of Mufti al-Jozo. In a compelling work of argumentation he proposed a new vision of justice and philosophy of law. In a very telling statement Houri inverted the principles of justice while simultaneously shattering the principle of separation of powers. The Beirut MP who lacks any political experience, not to mention any juridical or political knowledge, was shocked by Nasrallah’s “insistence to consider the accused innocent until proven guilty by the court”. Of course Mr. Houri is apparently too busy to watch American movies on television, where he can learn that this is exactly the principle of justice, namely that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. The good aspect of this ignorance is that it means the MP is too busy to watch TV, hopefully devoting his precious time to the service of the people. Furthermore the MP added that “considering the accused innocent implies that Israel is the only accused party.” Of course this reflects the Bush-like view of the world as a dichotomy of good and evil, where there is always only two choices, the third choice is inconceivable; the frame of reference of the new MP does not include the notion of third choice. However, the great addition to the philosophy of law that al-Jozo’s disciple was kind enough to make in public is his insistence that a judge cannot rule the accused innocent even though there is no physical proof since there is a clear political conviction that they are guilty. In other words what the MP who apparently lacks the minimum knowledge about the structure of political power and the basic principle of separation of powers (which a 15 year old kid should know about if he/she attends school and pays attention to the teacher) is suggesting is simple: the judicial power is subjected to the beliefs of the political power, be it legislative or executive. What he is suggesting is that people as ignorant as him should have the power to exercise justice; if this happens it would give a new meaning to the expression “justice is blind”.

No comment

2007-11-01T15:50:00.001+02:00

Translation: "Jaajaa is out, Aoun is back, Sanioura has become greedy, Lahoud is staying, I am leaving, and the car is for sale."

Fragments

2007-11-01T15:46:00.000+02:00

1. We Lebanese people suffer from a severe aversion to dealing with our own crimes. There are two images. The first one is that of a ‘modern Lebanese young lady’ smiling and cheering while brandishing an army flag. Around her, there are more modern young citizens all proud of their national army. They believe in the moral superiority of their army. The young Lebanese soldiers imitate their American counterparts; they act like stars; they are wearing sunglasses. The first error in this image is its focus on the soldiers coming back home, rather than on the battlefield in the aftermath of a long combat and on the victims of the combat. It reflects the images of the American soldiers coming back home while disregarding the crimes they committed during their voyage. We do not want to see the destruction, the violence, and the crimes our young soldiers committed. The second image is that of a wall. The room is full of debris; war has certainly passed through this house. Some toys are on the flour; they are burnt but still conserve some colors. A sentence is written on the wall; it is racist, violent, and reflects great hate for the people who used to live here. It was written by a soldier. In Palestine, Israeli soldiers and more commonly settlers, often leave racist statements on the walls of buildings they storm. In Iraq, the same practice was reported. Racism and hate and their expression on walls are features of occupation. Occupation is the act of occupying someone else’s land by force and armed presence. In Lebanon, the army acted as an occupation force while on its own soil. The Palestinian camps are another country, or so it seems. It seems that Palestinians are occupied even when they are not in their own country. They are an occupied people without a land. It is known that nationalist fervor prevents self criticism.

2. It seems that the casting for the new colonizer has started. The selection committee will be formed by a number of high ranking Lebanese leaders as well as the highest religious authorities. They will define the new colonial power that will be in charge of the country for the coming decade or so. There are many applicants: Americans and Iranians are the most prestigious, Syrians and French are counting on their experience, Saudis are bribing everyone, and the Israelis are too shy to apply.

3. Is it possible to acknowledge occupation without acknowledging the legitimacy of resistance against this occupation?

4. It is hard to convince people that they are racist when they actually are racist. When one is racist one does not acknowledge the fact that those he/she is racist against are actually equals and can therefore be victims of wrongful racism. Black people had been persecuted for centuries without it being seen as ‘wrong’; rather it was ‘normal’ for them to be inferior. Political correctness no longer allows such explicit racism against black people; however, it is now ‘normal’ to represent Arabs and Muslims as inferiors.

5. It seems absurd that in the [civilized and democratic] West it is legitimate and common for one to openly support an army going to war, but illegitimate and excessively radical and violent to support guerrillas that oppose this army. It seems that even naming them resistance is a radical political statement.

Loving Peace

2007-10-11T00:16:00.000+03:00

The United States of America – the world’s own dirty Harry – announced a peace conference that would be held in autumn. The hopes are not high, however, diplomacy seems to be alert and in preparation for a possible achievement. Of course this achievement will not be peace in the Middle East; this is no longer a strategic goal for the big players.

Ever since the conference was announced the judges are preoccupied in determining who is with peace, and who is blocking the course of peace. Of course Syria and Iran are the main suspects in the “against peace” case, while Israel is the peace loving one.

I find it hard for a human being blessed with a minimum of brain capacities not to see the paradox and the hypocrisy in the Western stance towards Israel, not to mention the blatantly arrogant Israeli one.

Since this peace conference had been announced Israel has committed every crime, gesture, and utterance that blocks any eventuality of peace in the Middle East. To cite just a few of these crimes and assaults we can start with the most obvious:

Israel did an air-raid against a Syrian target, regardless of the target this is an illicit act, that has no possible justification (the ridiculous accusation that the target was a nuclear facility the North Koreans are building is far fetched, especially that there was no radioactive contamination in the aftermath – any excuse, any, does not justify the attack). Israel declared that it will not discuss the Golan Heights in the peace conference, in other words it does not want to discuss peace with Syria (even though Syria is supposed to be the “other” party in any peace agreement), but of course Syria is to blame (for whatever reason, but then again who needs reasons, Syria is Arab so it is wrong). Yesterday Israel confiscated large areas of Palestinian land (the excuse is that it is for “military reasons”, of course “military” cannot explain its reasons because then it becomes “military secrets” – see the news about the American court’s refusal of dealing with the case of a man who was kidnapped in Europe, sent to a secret American prison in Afghanistan, tortured, held captive for more than 5 months, and then released because it turned out it was a mistake. The man sued the US government but the case was refused in the US because it might reveal State secrets about secret prisons, and therefore might affect national security. How does concealing a crime (secret prisons and torture) becomes a licit way to fight another – unlawfully I might add – will remain a mystery for me.). This confiscation divides the West Bank into two parts (so now the Palestine of the future will not consist of two divided parts – Gaza and the West Bank – but of three, maybe now Fateh and Hamas will have to find a third party to take over the third part, and thus form a third “legitimate” government). Israel, who accuses Palestinians and “non-moderate” Arabs of not respecting their commitments, had made a commitment to the US in 2005 that this project of large-scale settlements in the West Bank will be cancelled.

Nonetheless, and despite all these “unimportant” actions, Israel is the peace loving country in the Middle East, the “only democracy” in the Middle East (of course a racist democracy where the State is basically an army without uniform, building an Apartheid, killing civilians, and having the largest prison in the world in Gaza, but these are also unimportant details), and the innocent victim that is unable to defend itself because of aggressive neighbors such as Syria.

The problem is that saying Syria is worse is simply irrelevant.

Al-Jozo, a philosopher of the 21st century

2007-10-08T20:39:00.000+03:00

The Mufti of Mount Lebanon, Sheikh Mohammad Ali al-Jozo presented a philosophical and analytical breakthrough. This man who is known for insightful analysis and shrewd vision has once again presented a challenge to modern political philosophy. Needless to say that the previous words are in the domain of irony if not sarcasm, however, when a religious authority steps on every logical foundation and allows itself to become a dysfunctional tool of regression, one no longer knows whether to laugh or to drawn in tears.

A translation of al-Jozo’s propositions could be the following: “referendums are a Syrian tradition that the regime uses in order to falsify the people’s will in choosing the President where there is no freedom and no democracy and no human dignity. (…) Referendum is a word that expresses the confiscation of the people’s will to choose the ruler they want, this is why we would hate it if this word would be used in Lebanon, for the sake of preserving the dignity of the Lebanese individual and his freedom. (…) The real allies of the United States are the Syrian and Iranian regimes, because Syria hasn’t shot a single bullet against Israel since it occupied the Golan, and Iran hasn’t fought a single war in defense of the Palestinian people. (…) If Syria did not commit the crimes in Lebanon then it is its allies in Lebanon who did.”

These fragments can certainly become basic materials for the study of argumentation. Teachers might find great uses of such a strategy of argumentation if not for its complete contradiction and irrelevance then for its ridiculous pretence of making sense. However, there is another deeper aspect to al-Jozo’s propositions, one that reflects an intellectual and epistemological current that is gaining ground around the world.

Let us start with the first theme: referendum. It is obvious that the Mufti (who, in Islam, is supposed to have analytical and hermeneutic skills that enable him to read and interpret Koranic texts) has no familiarity with political terms. In fact I would even say that he is unable to make the distinction between the notion of referendum in politics, and the actual use of it in specific time and place. When one says that “referendum is a word that expresses the confiscation of the people’s will to choose” one is defining referendum in exactly its opposite meaning. This alone should send the respectable mufti back to mufti school with emphasis on the study of the political structure in Islam but also republican systems. In fact if anything referendum is what empowers people and enables them, and them alone, to choose. In Lebanon however, the communitarian structure, or one should assign to it its real name, the racist structure, does not recognize people as having equal representation rights. To put it more lucidly, the right of the community is more important than the right of the individual. In this sense people must not have equal rights because there are more Shiites than there are Sunnis, and there are more Muslims than there are Christians, and since the individual is a priori seen as representing his/her community’s interests and not his/her own or his/her national interests, elections are seen as a flaw in the system and not as the source of power. In other words, elections are what unfortunately has to be formally held but essentially neutralized. The role of an election law in Lebanon is paradoxically not to assure the equal representation of people but exactly the opposite. A good electoral law is the one who prevents the equal representation of all people regardless of communities and preserves the conflicting interests of these communities. To put it more bluntly, electoral laws in Lebanon have the role to postpone – without preventing – civil wars, or organize them in an economically profitable pattern that can satisfy the interests of the ruling class in the prevalent community or communities. Here, one wonders about the human dignity and freedom of choice al-Jozo is talking about, and one wonders even more about the interests this cleric seeks to satisfy, since by definition the interest of the clerics in Lebanon are conflicting with those of the individual. In this sense the designation “people” refers less to the common people in Lebanon and more to the religious class al-Jozo belongs to.

The second proposition is “The real allies of the United States are the Syrian and Iranian regimes, because Syria hasn’t shot a single bullet against Israel since it occupied the Golan, and Iran hasn’t fought a single war in defense of the Palestinian people.” This insightful geopolitical analysis has in fact foundations which might surprise some. It could be said for instance that during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union were allies even though the term War designates animosities between the two opposing blocks. However, this statement expresses the mutual benefits that both conflicting parties reaped from this Cold War. In other words, both the United States and the Soviet Union depended on their opposing force in their political, economical and military expansion. But a common interest does not automatically engender alliance; in fact it is very common for opponents to have a common interest without being close to forming an alliance. Al-Jozo’s simplistic and naïve (not to judge the underlying reasons for this accusation at this point) geopolitical analysis reflects the real meaning and implications of this statement. Al-Jozo’s function as a Muslim cleric imposes on him some rhetorical presumptions. The fact that he is addressing Muslims for whom the United States and Israel are the intrinsic image of the Other, means that he must compete in his hostility towards this other with Syria and Iran who represent a different strategy of resistance (if al-Jozo’s strategy can qualify as resistance). Accusing the two countries which have assumed the role of open confrontation – at least political one – with Israel and the US of being in fact their allies is a weak attempt to show himself as the real force of resistance against these structural enemies. This discourse of fake resistance, or as Marx calls it “false consciousness”, is the cornerstone of an old strategy of the traditionalist Arab regimes namely what is now called the “moderates” (this is not a strategy the Arab regimes have a monopoly on, in fact many post-colonial regimes notably in Latin America used the same strategy towards the US). The starting point of this strategy is a complete subordination to the dominant power, in this case the US. The aim is the preservation of regimes that are unable to provide a real resistance or liberation from neither the neo-colonial domination nor a real development for their societies and economies. This aspect of the Arab relations to the dominant West is not recent; in fact it exists at least since the first post-colonial governments when the opposition between the revolutionary states (who overthrew their collaborationist and incompetent governments) and the traditionalist ones were fervent at the times of Abdel Nasser. The aim of these regimes, notably Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq (until the revolution), was to oppose any force of liberation that might put in danger the interest of the ruling classes in their respective countries. In this sense if the choice is between preserving a limited power over their country that comes only with the country’s subjugation to the colonial powers, the plundering of its resources, and the blockage of its development on one hand, and a revolutionary liberation movement that can liberate these countries from foreign domination but also from local regimes on the other, then the choice was the preservation of the regimes on the expense of liberation. The same dynamics are present now. It is inconceivable to look at Saudi Arabia for instance as a force of resistance or liberation, or Jordan, or nowadays Egypt. If anything these are the locust of colonial hegemony in the Middle East and are an intrinsic and fundamental part of the structure of colonial domination along with Israel and other less influential countries. A strategic analysis that takes in consideration not only common interest but correlating strategies, show that the undeclared allies of Israel and (declared allies of) the US are the “moderate” Arab countries, namely Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, and the Arab Emirates. Al-Jozo is of course part of this whole discourse of “moderation” whose main strategy is the “false consciousness” of being the enemy of Israel while in fact being agents of the colonizer.

Finally, al-Jozo’s third proposition, “if Syria did not commit the crimes in Lebanon then it is its allies in Lebanon who did”, is a relevant example of what post-modern justice is about. Like the concept of preventive warfare, preventive judgment takes place within the system of values which surpasses the fundamental axiom of modern judicial discourse: one is innocent until proven guilty. Needless to say, this undermines the whole structure of justice, regardless of one’s convictions and opinions. The Bush doctrine of preventive war found a great success within part of the Lebanese society, namely those, like al-Jozo, who are certain of Syria’s responsibility of the assassinations in Lebanon. The problem is not the conviction itself but the way it imposes itself as absolute truth and rejects any other conviction and any possibility of rational discussion. There is no need for logical discussion (despite the fact that material evidence do not exist), in fact there is an aggressive refusal of any form of discussion in a puritan, dogmatic manner; any other opinion is a participation in the crime and an act of blasphemy. This structure whereas power equals justice disregards all the foundations of freedom of speech and thought. One can no longer have a different opinion; the only possible “freedom” is the freedom to agree with the more powerful. Al-Jozo’s certainty does not even need to be accompanied with a logical analysis; the fact that he believes this is true is enough for this to be true. Truth is no longer a logical examination, a debatable notion that is never absolute; truth is a dogmatic, religious belief and any disagreement with this Truth is a blasphemous act that must be punished. The very act of skepticism which was at the basis of philosophical investigation is no longer tolerated. The paradox is that this dogmatism is part of the bigger discourse that promotes democracy, human rights, and freedom while at the same time destroying their theoretical and epistemological foundations. Al-Jozo in this perspective can be assimilated to the new discourse of values spreading all over the globe; he is a philosopher of the 21st century revolution of democratic fanaticism.

Power and ethics

2007-10-05T23:07:00.000+03:00

How can one overcome the logical dilemma in the relation between power and the values it carries? Does power have the legitimacy to change rules, to twist logic, and to neglect consistency? If it does, isn’t it a “regression” towards the law of the jungle; towards anarchy?
Some people, especially in the “Democratic West” have the general tendency to avoid such ethical questions, or at least ask them from a different viewpoint. Such questions threaten their moral grounds and the very foundations of their society’s moral supremacy. In other words such questions reveal the real beneath the beautifully presented illusion of freedom and human rights. Once the cover is gone one cannot but observe the means by which this seemingly moral authority is exercised: force and domination.
There are very few, if any, fundamental differences between the way human societies functioned during the “pre-modern” times and the way they do in the present. In other words domination, power, force, and violence constantly shape the way people and societies interact. If anything, what changes is merely the way this force is exercised (not as in with violence or without; force and authority are always violent) and the moral grounds on which a discourse of power presents itself, the constituents which makes it discourse and not simply force.
Some of those who do believe in the goodness of man, and Liberal Democracy (as it is applied in the West) as the achievement of human societies throughout the ages (of course human societies here refer to Europe and its ramifications, as the monopoly of Justice, History, Science, and Evolution), often fall into denial when observing the atrocities this system had to commit in order to bring peace and freedom to their quarters. In other words they refuse to look at the “non-democratic” countries as being of their own making, as the cornerstones, the masterpieces of Human Rights and Democracy in the “West”. This is no accusation of corruption to leaders, or absolute evil to people and civilization, or injustice committed by misleading or mislead men in power; it simply is the natural course of things; it is an economical, strategic, and epistemological need.

What We need is a spectacle. Herds of uncivilized people screaming for freedom and democracy (in the way We understand them) as if these were the basis of their human nature, people who are summoning Our assistance to fulfill their dream of finally achieving the status of real men and women, of “westernized” primitives. This is the image needed to sustain the discourse of supremacy, to sustain Our colonial superiority. What the “West” expects from the “Iranian society” is this “normal”, “natural”, but “suppressed” outburst of real emotions when “all Iranians” will be Free to express their desire for a western way of life, their desire to become like Us. The implicit message of the Western discourse about Iran is that if Iranians were human beings (since the anti-racist political correctness imposes that they are) they must act like human beings, they must act like Us. If they were left to their real selves women would tear off their chadors, men would discover the wonders of homosexuality, and everyone will look towards the West with amazement and submission.
The underlying universalism of Human Rights and Liberal Democracy discourse denies any representation of Freedom and Rights which is different than its own representation of these concepts. Its overt tolerance for “multiculturalism” and “diversity” fundamentally denies this right to be different. Difference must be within the set values, it must be different within the set barriers of conformity to what we understand as “Good”. Within this framework anything that does not conform to these values becomes Evil, it becomes abnormal, an intrinsic and absolute otherness so perverse that it drowns itself consciously in the abyss of absolute destruction. This is the structural role of the image of the terrorist. The terrorist is not a “normal” human being subjected to similar passions, emotions, and hopes. The terrorist is a structurally different being: he represents the very otherness of Us. His violence must be gratuitous and inherent because it is directed to Us. His words must be silenced because he accuses Us of creating him. His words must be seen as absurd madness because they threaten the very foundations of Our moral superiority. The terrorist is a notion that is, ironically, the very opposite of the notion of human rights. In other words, the notion of terrorist specifically deprives a human being of its humanness; it justifies our exclusion of the terrorist from the “Human group”. In other words we are all humans and we all have claim to human rights except those We call terrorists, in other words except those who resist Our domination.

Liberation and Resistance

2007-10-01T20:57:00.000+03:00

In his weekly article in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, the Palestinian thinker and former member of the Knesset Azmi Bechara wrote about the need to establish a distinction between resistance movements and liberation movements. The issues in question in such an attempt are clearly, among others, the culture of colonialism and its current representation, the strategies of resistance, the processes of identity building in the context of a re-assertion of a dominant self that can represent itself independently from the dominant power, and the means through which one can achieve a self-representation which implies the role of media in its broad sense.

As Bechara remarks, the Arab region is bursting with movements of resistance against the growing patch of American colonialism. However, these scattered factions and randomly organized groups do not all qualify for the term liberation movements. In fact, one can go as far as saying that the large majority of these groups are far from having a liberation thought. The cliché in physics is that every action engenders a reaction. This reaction is initially an automatic one, a thoughtless physical reaction. Resistance in this case is the normal, natural reaction that defines the act of resisting the action exercised against the initial stagnation. It has no other goal than to resist; it exists by virtue of the action against which it is acting. A resistance can have different justifications, moral grounds, strategies, organizations, techniques, and so on, but as long as it is only a resistance it has no further project that the one of resistance and in this sense is dependent on the force it is resisting.

For a resistance to be called a liberation movement it has to have a further aim, one that goes beyond resistance. A liberation movement is one that has a project that starts once the resistance is accomplished, once it is no longer a resistance. In other words, it is a movement whose existence is not dependent on the force that is being fought; rather its main activity starts once this force is defeated, once resistance is accomplished. One can also express the difference in the following sentence: while resistance organizations take resistance as their aim, liberation movements see resistance as a means; and while a resistance movement is not necessarily one of liberation, a liberation movement is necessarily one of resistance.

Ever since the Arab world was subjected to direct colonialism there appeared a number of liberation movements, some were on a regional or Arab level, others stressed on local, provincial levels. Each of these projects was articulating and representing an identity of resistance for which liberation meant that it can finally represent and express itself as an independent identity. Needless to say all these projects of liberation have failed dramatically and very often, tragically. This failure includes both the Pan-Arab movement (Nasserism and Baath) as well as those country specific liberation movements. Not so recently, political historians and analysts of the Middle East have started noticing the rise of Islam as the new engine of liberation and resistance movements, while in earlier times ideals of cultural and ethnic nationalisms or leftists ideals of socialism and communism were predominant. In other words, some say that Islam has taken the place of former Arabist, leftist, or national movements of resistance as the bounding imagined identity and ideal of the resisting group. Islam has assumed the role of the dominated culture that seeks liberation and self representation. This of course does not imply that Islam constitutes an identity as such or that Islam defines a pre-existing group or a clearly articulated ideology of resistance. It simply means that different narratives of resistance are using different interpretations of Islam as the common factor that constitutes the group; however, all these narratives are using Islam as their main principle.

The paradox of Islam as resistance movement can be looked at in the shadow of the dominant power’s interests. The paradox appears when we consider that Islam as a resistant force constitutes a positive factor for the American colonialism while Islam as a liberation movement constitutes a threat. This sentence cannot be relevant if we do not look at the war against terrorism as the new pretext of colonialism. In other words, if there was no terrorism – or resistance – there would be no colonialism. The causality is here inverted, it is no longer the presence of the colonizer that engenders resistance, it is the very threat of this resistance that justifies the creation of its cause namely colonialism. This is certainly a historical fallacy, however it remains discursively relevant. In other words it is not to say that colonialism started as a reaction to terrorism – or resistance – since it had been continuously present for the last century, but that the discourse of the new American colonialism denies its previous presence in the region and inverts the cause and effect (by choosing a different starting point for the causal events in the region, and a different historical narrative). Thus the very name terrorism justifies the colonial narrative of history.

Terrorism is a thoughtless act, where the perpetrator lacks any sense of cause; it is an absurd and gratuitous act of evil (a return to the Ethical judgment, the dichotomy of Good and Evil). By using the term terrorism instead of resistance one can no longer ask why is this terrorist committing this crime (causal questioning), since by definition his only purpose is destruction; this is where the discourse of terrorism inverts the cause and effect of historical events and gives them a new meaning where colonialism becomes an act of self defense against a blind evil, making the very act of resistance (terrorism) a favorable act for the narrative of the colonizer. Any strategy of resistance must aim at getting out of this deadlock.

As long as resistance is in this context favorable for the dominant power, and liberation is not, the challenge of resistance movements in the “Islamic” world today is to establish liberation projects that can form a basis for a real independence. In other words it is to articulate an identity that opposes the gaze of the dominant power; an identity that does not constitute itself as the mirror image of the dominant other. Thus any liberation movement based on Islam has to interpret Islam in the best interest of the group in the present historical context and not as a mere reaction to its other.

Human Rights, liberal economy, and the ruthlessness of capital

2007-09-30T16:11:00.000+03:00

A short article by Khaled Saghyeh made the parallel between two ‘minor’ events, the kind that usually occupies, if anything at all, a corner in the ‘other news’ section. The first one is about a certain Khalil Zwein, an elderly man who had been the barber and the newspaper salesman of Gemeyzeh for decades. His shop was evicted by the forces of development, the ambitious Lebanese State who is trying to keep up with the world progress. He shot himself in the head with a 9mm gun.

The second event takes place in Egypt, in a town called Kom Hamadeh. The forces of the State were on one of these missions to liberate occupied territories. In other words the police was going to evict a family which had constructed a house 20 years ago on a land that was owned by the State. The tools by which this act of progress will be carried out are the famous bulldozers. One cannot fail to see the parallel between the Egyptian State’s use of bulldozers to destroy their citizens’ homes and the same famous tradition in Israel. Certainly, those who wrote the Arab Peace Initiative were smiling when – and if – they saw this incident. A family stood in the way of the bulldozer pleading and crying. The bulldozer wiped out the house taking with it a mother and her child. If it wasn’t for the headline saying this story takes place in Egypt, anyone would have thought it was in Israel.

Who said progress is humane? Progress is merely human. The common confusion of two shifts in human life is erroneous. On one hand we have the abstract notion of moral progress that many like to believe achieved its highest goal with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and on the other we have liberal economy and the power of capital. The problem is that the two are in fact linked. If anything the human rights declaration gives the very justification of its violation. It is not a defense of human rights as much as a new system of values that is directly linked with the new system of power. One has to separate the ideal notions of morality that can be found in any text (religious for instance) and the structures of power relations that these notions entail. In other words, one can look at Christianity either as an innocent and virtuous message that pushes people to love each other or as the foundation of the Church which would be the representation of how such ideal notions are applied in terms of domination and power. The same goes for any system of values, from religious texts to political utopias. This is in short the inverted – real – meaning of Human Rights; it is not the right of those who have none, but the right of those who already have them, to control those who don’t.

The very idea of progress has been a haunting one for human civilization and thought. It might be more characteristic of that era called “Modernity” expressed more clearly in the discourse of “Enlightenment” where we clearly see a claim of progress accompanied by pretences of a universality of values, morality, and truth. The apex of these claims was its application in the context of colonialism, what the French – one of the leading centers of Enlightenment thought – called “Mission Civilisatrice”. The Dynamics of power and economy were equally playing a central role in this process of universalizing the Other. However, it was at the same time that the European Enlightenment model collapsed – when the Second World War broke – that another universal framework had to be put in place: The Universal (sic) Declaration of Human Rights.

Whether liberal economy and the Universal Rights of Capital are now the substitute of those of the Human, is a debatable assertion. However, when we look at events such as those described at the beginning of this text, the issue becomes more lucid. The conception of human rights which as Hanna Arendt so pertinently remarks is “based upon the assumed existence of a human being as such broke down at the very moment when those who professed to believe in it were for the first time confronted with people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specific relationships – except that they were still human.” (The Origins of Totalitarianism p.297). In other words human rights once met by those who were only human – who had lost all other means of existence, the refugees – collapsed. These humans, stripped to their “bare life”, or as Agamben calls them Homo sacer were precisely those who were not treated as humans.

As Zizek puts it, in his Parallax View (341):

“So, to put it in Leninist terms: what the “Human Rights of suffering Third World victims” actually means today, in the predominant Western discourse, is the right of Western powers themselves to intervene – politically, economically, culturally, militarily – in Third World countries of their choice on behalf of the defense of Human Rights. A reference to Lacan’s formula of communication (in which the sender gets back from the receiver – addressee his own message in its inverted – that is, true – form) is absolutely relevant: in the reigning discourse of humanitarian interventionism, the developed West is, in effect, getting back from the victimized Third World its own message in its true form. And the moment Human Rights are depoliticized in this way, the discourse about them has to resort to ethics: reference to the prepolitical opposition of Good and Evil has to be mobilized. Today’s “new reign of Ethics”, clearly discernible in, for example, Michael Ignatieff’s work, thus relies on a violent gesture of depoliticization, of denying the victimized other any political subjectivization. And, as Rancière pointed out, liberal humanitarianism à la Ignatieff unexpectedly meets the “radical” position of Foucault or Agamben on this depoliticization: the Foucauldian-Agambenian notion of “biopolitics” as the culmination of the whole Western thought ends up getting caught in a kind of “ontological trap” in which concentration camps appear as a kind of “ontological destiny: each of us would be in the situation of the refugee in a camp. Any difference grows faint between democracy and totalitarianism and any political practice proves to be already ensnared in the biopolitical trap.” (Jacques Rancière, Who is the Subject of the Right of Man)”

History and Interpretation

2007-09-24T19:28:00.001+03:00

“All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation. (…) Such disagreements are the stuff out of which historical writing is made and from which historical knowledge derives. For interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is in interpreting, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place. In this sense, all interpretations are what might be called situational: they always occur in a situation whose bearing on the interpretation is affiliative. It is related to what other interpreters have said, either by confirming them, or by disputing them, or by continuing them. No interpretation is without precedents or without some connection to other interpretations.” Edward Said, Covering Islam, (154-5)

The study of history, as a methodology and not as a discipline, is a constant effort of representation. What Said describes as the inevitable interpretation, is this act of representing facts or data. To avoid any misunderstanding of this provoking sentence, it might be of use to articulate it differently.

The inevitable act of interpretation, as the only possible knowledge about human society, does not refute the existence of facts or data. On the contrary, one should assume that as long as there is interpretation there must be facts and data to interpret – these are the objects of interpretation. However, it is also deducible that these facts cannot be articulated as facts; they cannot be assimilated into our system of knowledge as mere facts. These facts take place outside the realm of language, and the act of interpretation is, precisely, their translation (with the obvious loss and gain) into a symbolic structure which can be either written language, images, sounds or any other system. In the lacanian structure, these facts are the unattainable object of desire whose specter is overwhelming but impossible to take form within the symbolic structure of our consciousness. In order to “see” this specter, we try the best we can to give it a form by using the symbolic structure of our language – this is the act of interpretation – but we are never able to “see” it. The best we can achieve is a poor compensation that nourishes the unending strive to fulfill the desire to attain this lost specter of the real.

In his book, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx writes about the small-holding peasants, a mass of people who live in similar conditions without, however, entering into manifold relations with each other. This group of people whose very mode of production – their raison d’être, without which they would not form the group in the first place – isolates them from one another. Therefore, Marx writes, “they are incapable of asserting their class interest in their own name. (…) They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. Their representative must at the same time appear as their master, as an authority over them, an unlimited governmental power which protects them from the other classes and sends them rain and sunshine from above.” (Emphasis added)

If we look at this relation of power and representation as a metaphor that can apply to the relations of power in the context of knowledge and interpretation, the small-holding peasants, by definition unable to represent themselves, are the facts which by definition are unable to appear to us as facts, and thus unable to represent themselves. The representative, the one who must represent them, is the interpreter, the authority that can provide a meaning, an articulation, and visibility to these interpreted facts. In this case it is not the facts that are presented to us; rather, it is the interpretation which is the only accessible knowledge we have of the unattainable facts, an interpretation which is in a constant movement: a mobile structure that pertains to the dynamics of translation as described by Derrida in his concept of Différance (See Jacque Derrida, Difference in Translation, and, What is a relevant translation), where the meaning is constantly differed and multiple without at any moment being a copy of the original which itself does not have a meaning in itself, but a series of meanings that appear by a similar act of interpretation which makes historical knowledge as described by Said both necessary and impossible.

(to be continued)

Privatizing Death: on the new paradigms of war

2007-09-19T20:13:00.000+03:00

In our consumerist and post-capitalist world it is easy to see violence becoming a service provided by private companies and no longer part of the public sector only (think about the monopoly on violence as described by Max Webber in Politics as a Vocation). War had become a commodity for quite a while now. This issue has been widely discussed by scholars and journalists alike, tracing its roots in the history of modernity and often seeing it as an outcome of the revolution in military industry in the 19^th and 20^th century. War is an investment; it provides new markets not only for military goods, but also for re-construction services. Moreover, it can be argued that a war, if well fought, can also provide domination and further resources that can in turn expand the industry and the market. These paradigms are connected to modernity and have been widely acknowledged by modern thinkers as early as Machiavelli. War in these terms concerns the economical sector of industry and the trade of physical goods.

The paradigm shift occurs in the post-colonial age. Post-colonialism refers to the end of the paradigm of European domination over what will come to be known as the third world. The end of this era and its specific strategies of representation and control of the other brought forth another dominant power rather than the empowerment of the other. The bourgeoning power had to replace the dying discourse of European colonialism. It must be noted however that the “educational” or “civilizing” aspect of French colonialism is lately being reformulated by the American model of imperial domination using the term “democratization” or “liberation”. This new paradigm of imperialism was in part a product of a new mode of global economical relations. The era of thought and politics that came to be known as postmodern, can be seen as denoting some of these new economical dimensions of the world and the representation of reality. Non-Physical goods dominate over modernity’s industrial goods; Marx’s commodities take a whole new dimension. It is useful to recall the objet-petit-a that Lacan talks about as that unnamable aspect of the thing that triggers desire, this illusory excess in the object or the other that transforms it into an object of desire and gives it a value beyond its useless appearance – objet-petit-a is what is left of the Real after the transition to the Symbolic; objet petit a is a surplus meaning, a surplus of jouissance; it is the object of desire which we seek in the other. In the postmodern age the desire often looses its object and becomes itself the object of its own desire.

The translation of these terms in the specific case of postmodern colonial wars and the shift from the paradigms of European colonialism is simple. While during the age of colonialism war was an industrial goods that was still within the State’s monopoly on the violence exercised outside of its territory (and certainly within it), during the current colonial paradigm war is no longer an industrial goods, rather it is a commodity, it is no longer an item (military products) but a service. This transition reflects the economical transition from economies based on industry to economies based on services. Iraq provides a relevant example. The war investment in Iraq concerns at least four layers of economical interest: 1. The military industry’s trade of military goods 2. The contractors investments in reconstruction 3. The oil supply and control over strategic geographical outposts and 4. The private security companies providing their protection services to those in charge of the three other layers of interest. The role of private security companies is to protect strategic and vital structures and among others the United States Embassy in Baghdad.

These companies provide one thing: services. The service in this case is killing, or in better marketing terms, protection. The exercise of violence is no longer solely related to the State’s monopoly over it (the army) but is, like all the other sectors of economy, privatized. Among the news from Iraq was an “incident” which will never be called “terrorist” when the Blackwater private security company in charge of the protection of the United States Embassy in Baghdad opened fire on civilians and killed a debatable number of them. The sanction was a threat by the Iraqi government to revoke the company’s license. This license in crude terms is simply a license to kill.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/17/iraq.main/index.html

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/checkpointbaghdad/archive/2007/09/17/are-contractors-above-the-law.aspx

Prologue

2007-06-18T09:56:00.000+03:00

It seems impossible to ensure a narrative of what Lebanon is going through, at least it is so if one is coveting a classical narrative structure, what is informally referred to by journalists as a ‘simple story’. “It is complicated”.

Explosions blazing, bullets shrieking, all through the hot and humid air of the northern Lebanese coast have become the natural sound-scape to be heard daily. It is the fifth week already of this all-too-national battle against the nation’s mysterious common enemy – that no one wants to see as common – and for the last two weeks the end has been scheduled ‘in the coming hours or at most days’. Who are these people ‘we’ are fighting? Many answers or none at all. They are nothing less than the Enemy; everyone’s enemy. But each is looking for a different enemy, so they are nothing at all.

It is a slow and steady slide towards a bloodshed of another kind; the bloodshed that will revive the ‘war of others on our land’, of these momentarily unaware brothers killing each others unknowingly, but with no regret. These are the all too known lines of our innocent history, the one we seek to believe in; it was ‘them’ who disrupted our enjoyment and our state of bliss. In Lacanian, they stole our ‘real’, and left us trapped in the deadlock of the ‘symbolic’, seeking, tirelessly, to fulfill a desire to go back to our natural state of innocence and peace. Have we ever loved each other? We never care to look at our history to find the obvious answer: No.

It is Saturday night. The new portraits – with comments – of the newly ‘martyred’ MP have overwhelmed the walls of the city as customs entail. History and facts are easily dismissed when death is involved. The late MP has redeemed his crimes by dying; only his new symbolic values are to be remembered. More than three days have passed since that purgatory explosion that makes all those who die pure and innocent martyrs. It seems as if sudden death erases the past in memory and replaces it with a future-directed memory.

In the Barometre, that relic of a pub in Hamra, crowds are too big to fit inside. Dozens of living bodies are packed outside the entrance having their drinks standing or sitting on the stairs and wherever it is possible to improvise a seat. One looks around, and for a glimpse of time, life seems to be going on as usual, as if the very notion of normality still exists in this country of unexpected-as-normal. That everlasting myth of the Lebanese ability to sustain shock and ignore instability and violence seems to be true for that glimpse of time, in this fragment of space. But not for long, the city is empty, it is out of tune. Driving around, or walking, one can smell worry, or even sometimes fear.

It is Sunday afternoon. Three rockets have landed on the other side of the borders, in this piece of land whose very name is polemic: northern Israel or occupied Palestine. These are no-one’s rockets; found but never lost. On the highway that stretches from the South to Beirut, the traffic is suffocating in the direction of the city. The over-crowdedness of this ominous road is not due to an excessive number of passengers, but to security measures. Closed roads, and thorough checks mix with the seasonal heat to create that all too familiar scene of refugee columns heading north. These are not refugees however. Going North in Lebanon has recently become the direction of danger. In one day in the south I heard more than five times the same conversation: “are you going to Beirut from time to time?” “No I stopped going there, it is too dangerous”. This conversation would be held next to the rubble of a destroyed house, victim of last summer’s war. Last year’s dangerous space is this year’s safe one.

And then the night comes with its dark surroundings and its political talk shows. Heads start talking of future, past and present. Discomfort is ever-present and seems to extend its everlastingness towards future tenses. There is more to come.

Température

2007-05-16T00:42:00.000+03:00

La fièvre s’investie scrupuleusement sous ma peau. Une sensation de fragilité incarne mes nerfs sensoriels. Prudemment je laisse passer les minutes, sans rendre compte de l’inéluctabilité du corporel. La biologie surprend la pneumatique, et je me laisse aller dans des idées qui ne sont pas les miennes, ou qui sont uniquement les miennes.

Sa peau est froide, elle respire doucement. Ma peau est chaude et mes poumons en hâte. Je la regarde dans le noir ; tout semble immobile à part sa peau. Tout le mouvement de l’univers semble se rassembler sur cette surface douce et ondulatoire. Je la caresse. Elle est là.

Des fois je me sens seul.

Le soleil se lève de l’autre coté de la terre, et la nuit tombe. Je regarde dehors. J’ai un rendez vous avec le sommeil que j’ai peur de rater. Je me laisse engloutir dans des songes que j’oublierai.

If I was the 'terrorist'

2007-04-19T18:23:00.000+03:00

When speaking about 'terrorism' as the absolute form of otherness, it is inevitable to consider to whom it is other, who defines terrorism and upon which systems of value. In other words, it is necessary to look at who is the self in the equation. Terrorism is the other for an imagined notion of self (imagined community) that can be called 'western', that is if we follow the division expressed in media language in general. The 'western' is what media describes as western. The example of terrorism is useful because of the explicitness and the prior treatment of this issue in both academic and journalistic domains. It thus offers an explicit example of the possibility of applying the Lacanian paradigm on group identities.

My aim is to look at this paradigm in the opposite way: to look at the 'terrorist' as the self. And here terrorist is used metaphorically to designate any notion of otherness expressed by dominant political forces be it colonial powers or the [democratic] 'West'.

During the 50s and 60s, President Nasser of Egypt was portrayed in the 'West' as a ruthless dictator that threatens the international interests in the middle east and sometimes the world. In the 'Arab world', however, he was being hailed as the savior of the Arabs, the one that will bring back the lost glory [of the real]. Nasser, for his Arab followers, was the one who would fulfill the desire of the Arab nation.

How the myth of Nasser was formed in the minds of Arabs, and how his narrative of identity was articulated and received can be read on two levels. First, as the emergence of a discourse in a specific moment of history, as a discontinuity that can be understood by using a Foucauldian methodology (more details later) of historical analysis and what it entails on the different levels of analysis: genealogy, archaeology and strategy. In other words, it is an investigation of the conditions under which this specific discourse surfaced in this specific time. Second, on the level of discursive strategies of the narrative itself, by looking at how it articulates myths of identity and constructs the 'national Thing'. In other words, in the second level the lacanian paradigm of identity formation can be applied in order to elucidate the mechanisms by which self and other are defined and how these give form to the imagined community's image of itself [or how it represents itself].

The decline of Nasser's narrative and the discourse of Arab nationalism was followed by the present rise of a new discourse: Political Islam, or what is - to come back to the notion of terrorism - called by the 'western' (other from the standpoint of the terrorists themselves): Islamic fundamentalism or, simply, terrorism. In Foucauldian terms, this historical moment could be read as a discontinuity, as the emergence of a new dominant system of values and therefore could be subjected to a similar two leveled analysis: tracing the discontinuity and analyzing the mechanisms of identity formation of this new imagined self.

Following the methodological work of Foucault on the Archeology of knowledge and the study of discourse formations, my investigation of two moments of modern Arab history questions why these specific discourses were dominant at these moments of history and not others (39). [Using Zizek's political reading of Lacan, I will then look at the strategies used by these discourses to articulate and sustain the image of the group's identity in relation to the notions of self, other and desire as a force that moves a nation - 'enjoy your nation as yourself'.]

How can the conditions of formation of the Arab national narrative be traced in a genealogy of a discourse of identity carrying a system of power/knowledge and values that shaped different levels of social order in the post-colonial Arab nation-states? and how can one describe the emergence of this discourse as a discontinuity that pertains to specific changes in the balance of power within and outside the Arab territories? Another important aspect of the research is tracing the emergence of a different discourse - or system - some decades later that represents another discontinuity within the same dynamics of resistance against an exterior dominant other: Political Islam (in two distinct articulations: Hezbollah and Al Qaeda). The question posed is whether the two discourses - or three - pertain to the same system of knowledge and power or if a rupture occurred in the transition from Arab nationalism as the dominant political identity in the psyche of Arab peoples, to Islam as a political propeller for the rejection of the imperial other. These discourses rely on similar objectives, namely opposing the domination of an external other (political, cultural, and economical) and are mechanisms of resistance to an alien discourse of the imperialist other. Foucault's methods of analysis can offer another perspective on the formation of a global phenomena, 'islamic terrorism' and its strategies of domination and resistance, away from pure political readings, historical continuities, and anthropological investigations. The analysis must therefore elucidate the meaning of key terms in these discourses such as terrorism, Islam, Umma, 'Arab world', and others, along with a consistent investigation of the conditions of emergence of each discourse.

Of lack and national desire

2007-04-18T20:13:00.000+03:00

In lacan the process of self formation, self being an illusion of the subject's unity, is modeled through a constant exposure to notions of otherness. The other shapes the self on its image or in opposition to it. Self is therefore a sum of others that is unable to be conscious of its multiplicity and fragmented essence. The other in this paradigm is no other than the self's own projection (a mirror image). The other exists only within the self, even though it is by becoming conscious of the exterior (the world of others) that the self enters the symbolic order. The hate or admiration directed to the other thus pertain to emotions directed to the self's own mirror image in its Danaides-like effort to fulfill its desire (and the fundamental Lack which nourishes the desire) to regain the original state of fullness and completeness that was lost with the entry into language and the symbolic order: the Real (the neo-natal state of nature of a child before it achieves the sense of separation between itself and the world of others - the Symbolic).

As Lacan so fatally proclaimed "the Real is impossible", but it is this real that constantly drives and motivates the everlasting desire for jouissance (or enjoyment as Zizek calls it). The enjoyment depends therefore on an a priori notion of Lack that can never be fulfilled (in Freud the notion of lack appears in his description of castration).

Enjoyment is seen as having existed in the prior time of fullness, or the real (a state indescribable through language) but subsequently stolen by the hated other, thus transforming the other into the reason of the non-fulfillment of the self's desire. This strategy of the subject can be formulated as follows: it is not that desire can never be fulfilled (again), but it cannot be fulfilled because of the other; the real is not impossible but it is the other that is preventing the access to it. Thus, an eternal circle of desire and lack motivates the strategies of enjoyment.

What if we were now to transpose this paradigm of an individual's self formation to a political order of group identity formation? What if the group was to become the self? If we were to rethink Benedict Anderson's notion of 'Imagined communities' as an illusion of a common image of selfhood shared by a group, it would be possible to see in this description the Lacanian illusion of unity upon which the self's very existence depends. The community's fantasy - like that of the individual Lacanian subject - is that it is one unified entity. (in Tarrying with the Negative, Zizek offers a constructive critic of Anderson's theory and argues that nationalism does possess a certain real kernel that is the very idea of it: the national 'Thing' exists as long as the community believes in its existence).

If the group is the self, then other groups are the others. In Zizek's political reading of Lacan, nationalism - and the nation - have the role of organizing the community's enjoyment; the nation has to fulfill its desire for the real. The community already takes the attributes of the 'enjoyment-seeking self'. In the case of ethnic or, as I will argue, political tensions, the possession of the national Thing is always at stake. The other is accused of stealing our enjoyment, and the hate directed to the other for an excess of enjoyment or a peculiar and perverse enjoyment are part of a desire to re-gain the state of fullness [of the nation] before the destructive intrusion of the other (and the entry of the nation into the symbolic order).

At this point some clarifications are due. The other is accused of stealing our enjoyment and depriving 'us' from a 'state of nature' (the Real) when the nation was able to satisfy its desire (or more pertinently when desire did not exist since there was no Lack, and desire is a consequence of lack, a desire to fill the lack). The other becomes the perpetrator of this un-fulfill-able lack. National myths always invoke a better past - a mythological past that is inaccessible in its 'true' or 'real' form since it can only be described through language (a golden age only accessible through fantasy - nationalist fiction can offer a pertinent illustration). This mythical past of the nation, the state of nature and completeness of the national Thing, is the real, lost once we enter into the symbolic order and become subjected to the limits of language (the world of others). The lurking idea of a lacanian real in national myths appears in narratives of a lost past - lost because of the intrusion of the other by stealing 'our' enjoyment. The other is to blame. However this past does not refer to a past time as much as it refers to a promise of future, to the very essence of desire as a desire to fulfill a lack (lack entails past), or to restage a past - that has never really existed - in a constantly escaping present. In other words, the desire can only be fulfilled in the future, and therefore can never be fulfilled.

Of Madness and Terror: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2007-04-17T22:34:00.000+03:00

Through his analysis of the history of Madness, Foucault's madman represents the necessary negative according to which the attributes of the reasonable man can be defined in a given society or better yet in a given system of power. As long as normality can only be defined in opposition to its pathological disorder, the madman becomes the only proof of the reasonable man's sanity. The madman's identity - as mad - is thus imposed on him by a superstructure, be it psychoanalysis, psychiatry or other institutions that have the power and authority to judge who is a madman in different moments of history ( Michel Foucault, Histoire de la Folie a l'Age Classique).

Madness becomes a necessity for any notion of normality. The madman functions as a Lacanian other, a negative image that helps sustain an illusion of unity and an image of the self consistent with the demands of the dominant system of power/knowledge. The political value of madness in society mirrors another 'pathological disorder': terrorism.

The mechanisms through which the terrorist identity (as the negative image of the non-terrorist) gets formed are similar to those of the madman's both in terms of there subjection to the dominant discourse (medical in the case of madness, and perhaps political/cultural in the case of terrorism) and in terms of their role as proof of the self's sanity or normality in accordance with the dominant system of values. The terrorist becomes a 'constitutive other' (Slavoj Zizek, Parralax View 258).

Like madness, terrorism is always negative otherness; the self is never terrorist, nor must it be mad. Following Zizek, and his reading of Lacan, nationalism, and it would be possible to extend the definition to include any form of identification to a group, is a domain of eruption of enjoyment into the social field. The aim of the nation becomes a given community's organization of its enjoyment through myths of identity (national myths). The other - the terrorist in this case - is rejected for his excess of enjoyment ('he wants to steal our enjoyment. By ruining our way of life.') and/or for his access to a secret, perverse enjoyment. the terrorist could be the object of hate for either his excess of enjoyment, or his strange and inaccessible way in which he organizes his enjoyment (Slavoj Zizek, Tarrying with the Negative 202-3).

However, the other is no other at all; he is an other that forms part of the self; otherness exists not in exteriority it is rather interior. The other is in me. The implication of this is that the hate expressed towards the other's enjoyment is nothing but the hate of the self's own enjoyment. But what if, as Lacan's notion of Lack so clearly implies, we have never possessed the enjoyment allegedly stolen by the other? The refusal to admit this traumatic fact constitutes a central pillar of any myth of group identity; enjoyment always exists in our past. Terrorism as the absolute otherness, and the absolute hate directed towards it, are the concealment of hate directed by the self to it's own enjoyment. The excessive and symptomatic use of the word terrorist to describe the absolute other thus pertains to a protective field - or a defense mechanism - preventing the self from recognizing its 'self' in the image of this hated other; an illusion that transforms the mirror the self is gazing at into a window it is looking through.

Painting: Rene Magritte, Le Faux Miroir

Of terror and courage: Brave Faye in Guantanamo

2007-04-09T20:17:00.000+03:00

Perhaps us Arabs are unaware of the cultural differences in terms of terror. Perhaps courage as well is culture specific. Dignity, however, is certainly so.

One should pause in order to look closely to the British Marines episode. A story that quickly became an epic of [failed] heroism and honor amid a virtual war between the “West” and Iran.

The captured/liberated soldiers have been given the right to sell their story (as opposed perhaps to selling the story of the event itself). Faye Turney already did. She is now “Brave Faye Turney” in the pages of the Sun. Brave Faye’s story is surprisingly titled “My Terror”, as if this recurrent word – terror – and its derivatives – terrorism, terrorist – can be put aside when no human pieces are spread on a sidewalk in some city.

What terror did Brave Faye face during her 15 days of heroism? What extreme terror has she witnessed to be gratified with a headline on every internet news site? Certainly, one should presume, and perhaps even assume, that her terrifying experience has no equal neither in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Algeria, Egypt, Guantanamo, Abou Ghraib, nor in any of the morbid names media has rendered so infamous.

Brave Faye, a soldier but more importantly (or so it seems) a woman and better yet a mother (“with a career”), was brave enough to be captured by an Iranian patrol somewhere in Iraq or in Iran. Her first act of bravery (and here the notion of bravery has to be perhaps put into its cultural context, and subjected to debates in linguistic and perhaps in philology to define the concept behind the word) was to have been able to distinguish amid the tension of the moment when the Iranian boat was approaching hers, one of the Iranian soldiers “foaming at the mouth” for “he was so angry”. Brave Faye has many super-powers, and telescopic sight is not the best of them.

The Brave soldiers courageously complied with their capturers, without doing anything cowardly like resisting arrest. One should keep in mind that these are soldiers not civilians, not young innocent people in their hometown going to party in the local nightclub – these are men and women whose jobs consist partly of killing other soldiers. In Iraq the job is mostly killing civilians, or to be more politically [in]-correct, insurgents. These insurgents vary in age and gender from unborn children to 90 years old elderly. Soldiers, as nice as they can get, carry deadly firearms, not only as a souvenir from army training camps but as weapons to kill. An innocent civilian, in contrast, carries no firearm and has no uniform and has a job that certainly does not include killing other people in its description. This is a structural difference that Faye is perhaps unaware of, as are most readers of the Sun.

Brave Faye was subjected to the terror of her mind (inflicted subliminally by the wicked Iranians) when she convinced herself that the fact of being a woman amid barbaric men means she will be raped. So she was brave enough to hide her gender. These beasts-of-men are certainly – at least Brave Faye believed so – rapists in uniform (the 1^st brigade of Iranian rapists was perhaps written in English somewhere very far, that only Brave Faye could see). This episode of terror Brave Faye was subjected to should alone provide her with a medal of honor, for prejudice, racism and stupid reflections during non-combat situations. She was not raped. However as she recalls, the Iranian soldiers, when they discovered she was a woman were so shocked for seeing such a strange creature that the only thing they could do was point at her and say in a repetitive manner “woman, woman…”. Of course neither the Sun nor Brave Faye explained whether they were speaking in English (so that Brave Faye can understand), or in Farsi (and with Brave Faye’s knowledge of Farsi we were able to know what their words meant).

The first episode of Brave Faye’s epic of courage ends with a highly cinematic moment (the folks in Hollywood will be happy to know that much of the screenplay has been courageously done by Faye herself). “Shortly before we got to land, they began to blindfold us. One of the last things I remember seeing before my eyes were covered was our White Ensign flapping in the wind. That reminded me that I must stay strong and remain defiant.”

The story of terror does not end at this point; more horrific episodes are recorded in the dark pages of human history when Faye’s life is concerned. She also recounted that she was forced to take of her uniform – and to get naked. She was also questioned, and the questioners threatened her with a trial (the horrific investigators were not smiling and giving her foot massage as human rights so clearly dictate) for spying. The questioning of Faye was not pleasant enough, perhaps brutal words were used perhaps even a bad English accent was terrifying her (physical torture can be visible through medical tests – in case of any evidence I strongly doubt that the British authorities would have concealed it from the public).

The Iranian television Al-Alam broadcasted a reply to the soldiers’ allegations, showing them dressed in casual clothes, eating burgers, and playing table tennis, chess, and watching a football game between Liverpool and Arsenal (the game took place on the 31^st of March, 4 days before the release of the soldiers). These “lodging” circumstances can be considered better than those of many millions of “liberated” Iraqis, occupied Palestinians, and not-yet-liberated Iranians.

And then one thinks of the terror. What does it mean? I wonder if prisoners from Guantanamo will have the chance to get a headline like ‘my terror’, and if so will the readership understand that they were the ones subjected to terror and not the opposite (my terror as the terror I inflicted on my torturer – by screaming), or if the prisoners of Abou Ghreib will be able to recount how they thought they will be raped, or how they were, how they were forced to take of their clothes and then subjected to appalling procedures of democracy.

Us Arabs know nothing about terror, we understand it incorrectly, we think terror comes with oppression, war, domination and lately democracy, that terror is an act of visible violence inflicted in the purpose of being visible and frightening. But we fail to understand that terror is an attribute that can only be used to identify an act – apparently any act – done by a dominated in defiance of a dominant (lately it is attributed to those who have beards or are considered – pertinently or not – Muslims).

Brave Faye’s interview with the Sun can be found here:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007160262,00.html

A detailed report of the Abou Ghareib prison scandal can be found here:

http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/

Déraison ou de l’infaillibilité du non-raisonnable

2007-03-07T00:11:00.000+02:00

« Elle va s’éveiller d’un rêve noir et bleu

Elle va se lever de la nuit grise et mauve

Sa jambe est lisse et son pied nu

L’audace fait son premier pas » Paul Eluard, Médieuses I

Une ombre s’évade ; la lumière ne trouve plus son vide. Et puis apparaît un phénomène dé-constructif – un spectre intraduisible, le spectre de l’intraduisible.

Le temps s’érode au passage d’instants calculables, mais indéfinis. Dehors tout demeure tel qu’il fut à un temps imparfait ; dehors tout était toujours.

Regarde toi dans le miroir qui absorbe ta beauté ; une surface qui s’échappe aux caresses ondulatoires. C’est dans les incises de la visibilité inerte que l’écho dessine son simulacre.

L’homme qui s’éloigne s’adresse à la montagne avec des paroles défiantes : « toi qui ne vois que peux et toute chose, sauras-tu prêter ton corps au grondement d’une beauté invisible ? » Avec patience, il attendra la réponse. La montagne s’incline en silence ; la réponse ne viendra pas.

Sous les draps de tes yeux se couchait paisiblement, l’imperceptible fantôme d’un passé différent. Soudain tu fermes les yeux, et les draps découvrent l’intimité d’un temps précédent qui passe toujours dans mes veines.

« Et par grâce de ta lèvre arme la mienne » Paul Eluard, Médieuses VII

Photo : Bekaa Ouest

«لنَقُلِ الإنسانَ الخالد في عقْر دار اللحظة»

2007-03-03T15:52:00.000+02:00

أنسي الحاج

اشتدّت الغيابات وباتت أقرب إلى الوجه من العين. قبل جوزف سماحة ـ الذي خسرته الصحافة العربية كلها ـ مي غصوب، ناشرة الضوء. قبل مي، سعاد نجّار، عرّابة المسرح اللبناني الحديث، حيث يكاد معها يُقال: وراء كل ظهور خفاؤها. قبلها، ناهدة فضلي الدجاني، قارئة الشعر ذات الصوت الأحلى مما تقرأ.
تتعرّى الأيام مخيفةً كهياكل أشجار الشتاء. لم يكن بأحد شيء. كان الأمس مطمئناً. ليته يصبح بالإمكان البقاء في الأمس.
الربيع، بعد انقضاء ربيعٍ ما، يُمسي حمّال كآبة. لا يَضْحك إلّا للأفواج الطالعة.
هذه هي الحياة، يقولون. تبّاً لهم ولها.

لا الغياب ولا الحضور. فسحة ثالثة. سكينة تَغْلي باللهو.

اثنان رفعا الكتابة اليومية في الصحافة اللبنانية إلى مستوى الإعجاز: ميشال أبو جودة وجوزف سماحة. الكتابة اليومية المحيطة، التحليليّة والمتكهّنة، الأشبه بمدرسة جذّابة تُدْمنها. الاثنان قارئان لا يَشبعان. الاثنان راهبا صحافة. الاثنان مزيج من التواضع والنبوغ. ميشال أبو جودة اخترع أسلوباً. جوزف سماحة اخترع أسلوباً. لم يشبه أحد منهما أحداً. الاثنان مزيج من الرصانة والسخرية. المقال الآخر. المقال اللاذاتي، المتعالي على الذات بصورة لا تُصدّق. الامّحاء وراء القضايا. وراء الموضوع. مغادرة الإنشاء الأدبي نهائيّاً من أجل المعنى، المعرفة، الحَدَث. ذهب كلاهما في نكران الأنا إلى حدّ إمكان القول إن مقالاتهما خالية تماماً منها. كلاهما لبناني مسيحي عربي علماني لا تستطيع أن تجزم بمدى «إيمانهما» ومعناه الحقيقي. على حدود العَبَث. منتهى الجدّ في الكتابة وعلى حدود العبث في الحياة. الحياة عندهما هزّة كتف.
كان سعيد فريحة أظرف كاتب أسبوعي. وإسكندر الرياشي أظرف كاتب على الإطلاق. وجورج نقّاش أخطر مبتكر معادلات لفظيّة. وفؤاد حداد أَعَبْقَر الجميع. وفؤاد سليمان ينزف في كل كلمة قشعريرة. سعيد تقي الدين يقدح قَدْحاً. كامل مروّة يخطف خَطْفاً. رشدي معلوف فنّان المعلّقين... ميشال أبو جودة وجوزف سماحة جاءا من الطرف الآخر وأحدثَ كلّ منهما غربة كبرى عند معتادي مطالعة المقالات الغنائية والتوجيهيّة والخطابيّة والعصبيّة. غربة هي النكهة الأولى لكل ثورة.
من أصعب ما يكون أن يكون الكاتب عربيّاً ولا يدور كلامه على ذاته. من أصعب ما يكون أن ينتصر على الذاتيّة ويظلّ نضراً. من أصعب ما يكون أن يكون نضراً وموضوعيّاً وموسوعيّاً ورصيناً في وقت واحد كما كان ميشال أبو جودة وجوزف سماحة.

يكتب سماحة مقاله أشبه بالمطالعة القانونية. شواهد ومعلومات يقودها ذكاء حادّ يقدّم معطياته إلى القارئ بلا تفخيم. أبرع محامٍ لا عن القضايا المظلومة فحسب بل عن القضايا الخاسرة وتلك الداخل نجمها في غيوم داكنة. الأستاذة الجامعية فادية حطيط كتبت أنها أوكلت إلى مقال سماحة اليومي مهمّة تنشئة ابنها سياسياً، فهي تثق بتعليمه القومي أكثر من أي مرجع آخر. عنده البرهان العقلي لا الإرهاب الفكري ولا اليباس المتجهّم. يقف بارتياح أمام «التعليم» المضاد. يبيّض وجه الأهل حيال أجيالهم الجديدة.
الكتابة اليوميّة في الجريدة موهبة خاصة، وقد تنوء بها أكبر الأقلام، ولا عبرة للموهبة الأدبيّة ولا للعبقريّة الفكريّة. أدباء القرن التاسع عشر الأوروبي غازلوا الصحافة، ومنهم من غاص فيها، مثل فكتور هوغو وبلزاك وبودلير. ولكنْ كأدباء. طه حسين وتوفيق الحكيم ونجيب محفوظ كانت لهم مكاتبهم في «الأهرام» وسواها، لكنهم لم يتعاطوا إلّا نشر قصصهم ومقالاتهم الموسميّة. الذاكرة تحفظ شعر الأخطل الصغير وتنسى مقالاته السياسية في «البرق». أمين نخلة سيّد القلمين كان يتعذّب قبل أن يتمكّن من كتابة خبر صحافي ولو عن نفسه. المعلّق اليومي عقل يحترق في المساء وينبعث من رماده في الصباح. لا يعرف تلك اللذة الهالكة إلا من يعانيها. ألمع معلّقين يوميين خلال نصف قرن من الصحافة اللبنانية، ميشال أبو جودة وجوزف سماحة، لم يكترثا بطبع كتب لهما ولو أنهما اقترفا واحداً أو اثنين. الحياة تُختَصر في يوم. في حدث. في تلك الأعمدة. القاعدة هنا هي الفناء لا البقاء. التعليق اليومي ذروة تُطوى يوميّاً. دورة الفراشة حول الضوء. دورة الهرب المتواصل من الذات. الأدباء يكتبون للمستقبل. المعلّق اليومي يكتب لجوعكَ الآن، يُضرم لهيب المناسبة. المعلّق اليومي فيلسوف المناسبة الراضي بزواليّته. وإن مارس شعريّة المناسبة، كأحيان مع أبو جودة في مداعبات خاطفة، أو مع سماحة رغماً عنه في إيحاء متقشّف، فتلك تكون عفو اللغة وعفو المناسبة. لا تستهدف التطريب ولا التصفيق.
لا أحد يعرف من هو ذلك الشخص العميق المتواري في جوزف سماحة. المختفي كل يوم رغم الكلام اليومي. رغم العلاقات مع الأقربين والرفاق. رغم التواضع. لغز الرجل الواضح. جاذبيّة من لا يُغري. سلطة رافض السلطة.
من أنت أيّها الرجل؟
تجد في مقالات جوزف سماحة «ربّما» و«لعلّ» و«قد» على عدد الجمل. ولو جاز له لوضع «ربّما» قرب توقيعه.

قلّما نكتب إلاّ عن أنفسنا. يرحل الراحل فنرثي أنفسنا، نعرض ذكرياتنا معه. حتى الأحياء قلّما نكتب عنهم حين نكتب عنهم. نكتب عمّا يثيرونه فينا. نستظلّهم لنثير غبار صدورنا. الراحل يرحل فنحتفل ببقائنا. الحياة أشدّ وحشيّة من الموت.

القادر على بعث الحياة في الأشياء حوله فتستضيء معانيها الغافية، هذا الشخص يستوفي صفات الخلّاق، وإن كان لا يدري. وإن كان قرويّاً بسيطاً. منعش الأشياء هو في مرتبة صانع الحياة، ومن يعرف شخصاً كهذا ليتمسّك به تَمسُّك الأعمى بدليله.

فاضلْ بين شخصين تَخْسَرْهما معاً.

كلّ ميت قتيل. قَتْل مباشر وقتل غير مباشر. قتل مضرّج بالدم أو بالسمّ أو بالخنق وقَتْل مجهول الفاعل والمعالم. الموت ليس قتلاً لمحبّي الميت فحسب بل هو قتل للميت. هناك من يَقْتل من يموت وما يموت. الموت لا يلقي القبض بدون أمر. الآمر ليس بالضرورة سماء أو جحيماً. ولا بالضرورة مجرماً أو عصابة أو دولة. ممكن أيضاً أن يكون الآمر مجموعة عوامل (بغض، حسد، بيئة معادية، وحدة، ظلم، قَرَف، إلخ...). ليس هناك موت بريء. كلّ موت قَتْل. الواضح منه والمستور. أحياناً تتآمر مع القاتل ظروف تمنحه الغطاء، كحادث السير أو انفجار الدماغ أو السكتة. الشيخوخة نفسها جريمة مدبَّرة. كلُّ حيّ قتيل.

ثمّة من كان يُولَد لحظة ذلك الموت. نحن نتغنّى بالحياة والحياة تتغنّى بنفسها.

أكبر مساعدة للحزين هي التي يقدّمها له النرجسي دون أن يقصد. انشغال النرجسي بنفسه قد يبلغ أحجاماً أسطورية تغدو النرجسية معها كوكباً يَشْرق، غولاً يَبتلع من يصادف. ويجلس إليك النرجسي فيأخذ أَحمالكَ من حبّه لنفسه لا من عطفه عليك. يأخذ أحمالك ويرميها فوراً وراء مرآته. لا يَشعر بأحزانك لذلك يُنسيك إيّاها. مرآته التي لا تريه إلاّ صورته لا يمكن أن تريك صورتك إلى جانبه ولا حتّى وراءه. سوف تذوب في مرآته أنت وهمومك ذوباناً تامّاً. وستشعر بالراحة. وستشعر بالامتنان لشخص لم يقدّم لك إلّا فرصة الإعجاب به.

«نحن الذين قد يموتون يوماً، لنَقُلِ الإنسانَ الخالد في عقر دار اللحظة». (سان جون برس).

من يعرف مدى تأثير الأمّهات على الرجال الذين يوجّهوننا؟ من الأم التي تغيب باكراً فتعقص الوجود، إلى الأم التي تجد نفسها فجأة وحيدة مع صغارها، فقيرة، جبّارة، تعلّم الابن ما لا يُعلّم. والدات الملوك الحقيقيين. قلب القلب. أمّهات الأرض.

قُلْ: أنا هو العبورُ وطنكَ لا يَكُن لكَ وطنٌ غيري.

عدد السبت ٣ آذار جريدة ألأخبار

a-percevoir

2007-03-03T06:03:00.000+02:00

« Le panoptique est une machine à dissocier le couple voir-être vu : dans l’anneau périphérique, on est totalement vu, sans jamais voir ; dans la cour centrale, on voit tout, sans être jamais vu. » Michel Foucault

Je regarde ; je est agent d’un acte physiologique. Je vois ; je est sujet.

L’événement est extérieur. Il se présente à moi, il est phénomène. L’événement est extérieur. Il s’empare de mes perceptions et je m’y soumets. L’événement est ; il m’impose un raisonnement.

Lorsque je me trouve face à la nécessité de raisonner, ce ne sont pas les méthodes qui définissent – seuls – la nature de ce raisonnement, mais les objets que le raisonnement doit concevoir. Je contemple. Pourtant l’extériorité de l’événement me contrarie à procéder par hypothèses. L’événement est étranger, il est l’étranger ; l’autre.

L’hiérarchie – non coloniale – des degrés de savoir place – peut être – le savoir à un degré supérieur à l’opinion, qui est, elle-même supérieure au préjugé. Mais la foi n’est elle pas ce degré supérieur de savoir ; n’est elle pas l’équivalent du savoir ? Ce n’est pas la foi qui est savoir, mais le savoir qui n’est que foi.

L’événement se présente à moi. Je m’y soumets.

L’extériorité implique la perception. Sans extérieur – ou notion d’extérieur – la perception n’est plus. Percevoir – perce-voir – n’a de sens que lorsque voir se dirige vers l’extérieur. L’extérieur n’existe que lorsqu’il est perçu. Mais ceci est simple à apercevoir.

Tentative d’un hommage

2007-02-26T22:40:00.000+02:00

Mais qui était il? Mais qui était il pour moi ? Peut être cette question sera plus correcte par rapport à la réponse. Après tout, comment pourrai-je savoir qui il était ?

Lorsque par hasard ou par volonté je me suis trouvé dans une école de journalisme, j’étais, comme je le suis toujours, sceptique envers tout ce que normalement on appelle media. D’autant plus, j’étais difficilement convaincu que la presse procure de l’information. L’information c’est autre chose, pensais-je. L’information ne se présente pas comme tel. Je me rappelle que ce qui me procurait une certaine motivation à poursuivre ce domaine, dans son aspect épistémologique, était rien autre que les éditoriaux de Joseph Samaha dans le quotidien libanais Assafir à l’époque.

Je me souviens aussi que lorsqu’il s’absentait, je me sentais toujours légèrement perdu, en manque de quelques mots.

Lorsque j’ai quitté le Liban pour venir à Amsterdam, le quotidien était mon seul rapport avec un pays difficilement compréhensible. Chaque soir a part le samedi, j’interrompais toute activité pour lire le nouvel éditorial dés que, vers 1h du matin, il apparaissait sur la page Internet. Je le lisais avant que le journal dans sa forme physique se retrouve dans les kiosques de la rue Hamra. Lorsqu’il a quitté Assafir, pour une période transitoire avant de lancer son nouveau journal Al akhbar, je me suis trouvé perdu encore une fois.

En été, je retournais au Liban, à Beyrouth, pour retrouver une guerre d’un mois sans un mot de Joseph Samaha. Ce n’était que le jour du cessez le feu que le nouveau journal Al akhbar apparu – la victoire était désormais double.

Je me souviens aussi que lorsque j’ai choisi mon sujet de doctorat, ce qui me procurait un fil conducteur à mes idées dans leur rapport politique n’était rien d’autre que les analyses approfondies de Joseph Samaha. Ce serai peut être une lecture non appropriée, ou bien qui ne reflète pas les intentions de l’auteur, mais après tout l’auteur est mort selon la réplique fameuse de Roland Barthes, et cette fois l’auteur est mort vraiment.

Ce qui distingue Joseph Samaha de tout autre journaliste arabe au moins, ce n’est ni courage, ni dévotion, ni moralité, mais raisonnement. Il est le seul journaliste, sinon il n’est guère journaliste. Joseph Samaha est ce que j’aime toujours l’appeler : un journaliste Foucauldien. Dans son analyse ce n’est pas l’événement comme tel qui supporte l’argument, ou bien la qualité « réaliste » de l’événement, plutôt c’est l’abstraction de l’événement en ses forces constituantes qui détermine la pertinence de l’argument.

Il était un des rares analystes qui ne se rapportent guère à la théorie de la conspiration pour justifier un manque de compréhension. Toute chose à une raison, et tout rapport est un rapport par intérêt, et tout intérêt est compréhensible.

Son analyse politique, ou ce qui peut même être appelé sa théorie politique se porte sur des fondements irréfutables au moins dans les méthodes et les stratégies discursives journalistiques et politiques. Une théorie fondée sur une base épistémologique, philosophique et morale ferme : un post-Hegelianisme léger, une relecture de Marx en termes postmodernes, une méthodologie d’analyse Foucauldienne et un esprit qui incarnait la dévotion académique d’Edward Said. Il était aussi engagé dans une cause Palestinienne de libération, Libanaise de créer un état, et Arabe d’engendrer une renaissance intellectuelle.

Ma tristesse est sûrement égoïste, comme toute tristesse peut être. Je ressens une angoisse et un regret. Qui me réconfortera lorsque les choses deviennent trop compliquées ? A qui pourrai je espérer présenter ma thèse une fois finie ? Ce n’est pas l’auteur seulement qui est mort, c’est aussi le lecteur.

Ce soir je n’attendrai pas le journal, désormais je lirais le journal le matin.

2007-02-26T14:10:00.000+02:00

«جو لو بو»: زاوية في قلبي انطفأت

2007-02-26T14:08:00.000+02:00

سحر مندور

قال لي يوماً: كلما ناديتني «سماحة» رفّ قلبي.
ومنذ ذلك الحين، لم أعد أعرف كيف أنطقها. أخاف أن أقولها مرة من دون أن يرق قلبه لها، فأرتبك. قرّرت أن أنهي تردّدي، ورحت أناديه: «جو لو بو». هكذا، بالفرنسية، «جو الوسيم».
يقف فجأة في اجتماع التحرير في جريدة «السفير»، يوم كان رئيس تحريرها، ويخرج على عجل ليجيب على هاتفه الخلوي. كنا نظنّ، نحن المجتمعين هناك، أنه تلقى اتصالاً من وزير أو زعيم ما. في إحدى المرّات، اتصلت به وقت الاجتماع، وأجاب. فاكتشفت حينذاك، أنا ووسام سعادة، أنه يجيب على اتصال وسام وعلى اتصالي مثلما يجيب زعيماً، أو وزيرة. أو ربّما، كان يتحجّج بنا، وبأي وزير وزعيم، ليهرب من اجتماع إلى موعد غدائه الثابت، عند الواحدة والنصف ظهراً.
جعلني صحافية وجعل خالد صحافياً. منحه ملحقاً ومنحني، من دون سابق إنذار، وظيفة. مرّ بمكتب «الشباب» الذي كنت أزوره في «السفير» وطلب منّي دخول اجتماع. ضحكت للنكتة، لم يضحك هو. أظن أنها لم تكن نكتة. أدخل الاجتماع. يقول لي: أنت موظّفة هنا، أين تريدين أن تكتبي؟.
أغرمت به كما تغرم المراهقة بأبيها. عشت «أوديب» معه طويلاً وكنّا نضحك، أنا وإياه، من أوديب الذي حلّ متأخراً. أبي بعيد عني، هو كان قريباً، وبخجل من العواطف يريحني. يمنحني المال كي أسافر، يحتضنني كل صباح في «السفير»، ويأمرني بقراءة صفحات وصفحات انتقاها لي مما يقرأه يومياً قبل العاشرة صباحاً، ثم يطلب لي القهوة.
اغتيل سمير قصير، هرعت إلى مكتبه لأحتضنه. لقد فقد صديقه. قلت له: ماذا ستكتب؟ هزّ برأسه مثلما يفعل دائماً، تاركاً للحاضرين حرية فهم مغزى هزة الرأس هذه. أمرته: سترثيه، أنت صديقه. قال: لا أعرف كيف، لا أعرف. وكتب في اليوم التالي افتتاحيته التي شرح فيها فكر سمير، ولم يقل في الحب وفي الوداع أكثر من ثلاث كلمات: «سمير قصير، زاوية في القلب انطفأت».
سماحة، أمس، زاوية في قلبي انطفأت.
كنت أغني له: «كل البنات بتحبّك»، وزهير يضحك دائماً من قدرته على إشعار أبشع البنات بأنها ملكة جمال. أعرف أنّه أشعرني بأني أجمل صحافية في العالم. ظننت أني سأقلب باريس رأساً على عقب يوم قررت الهجرة إليها. هو قال لي ذلك. ولم أفعل. عندما عدت إليه، أخبرني أنّ باريس لم تعد عاصمة الصحافة العربية في الغرب. بمعنى آخر، أقنعني بأن باريس، شخصياً، لا تستأهلني. وأنا صدّقت.
على فكرة، هو لا يتكلم كثيراً في العواطف. لكنه يهز رأسه، ولكل هزة رأس معنى. قد يستنكر، وقد يغري. قد يؤكد وقد ينفي. قد يحيي وقد يميت. هزة رأسه هذه شهيرة. تماماً كـ«بربسة» الكلام التي لا يُفهم منها حق ولا باطل، لكنها لغته في التعبير عن ارتباك يفهمه كل من يعرفه، ونضحك.
نتنافس على إغرائه. وإحدى الطرق إلى قلبه تمر من الكلمة. يؤسّس جريدة ويفتتح صفحات وملاحق. يلقي أفكاره وعلى السامعين التقاطها والركض مباشرة إلى التنفيذ. لن يلاحق فكرته وكيفية تنفيذها. يلقيها، بكرم، فحسب.
زعلت منك كثيراً يوم تركت «السفير» ولم تخبرني. لم أكن وحدي، كثيرون زعلوا منك. واجتمعنا وبكينا، تماماً مثلما اجتمعنا أمس في جريدتك وبكينا. يوم الاستقالة، قال كلٌ منا: كيف لا يخبرني أنا؟ هذا كان شعور كل محرر وكل موظف سنترال وكل عامل استقبال فيها. شخصياً، لماذا لم يخبرني؟! كل منا يشعر بأنه مميز في علاقته به. لكن جوزف يرحل من دون أن يخبر أحداً. يهرع إلى الخارج ويقدم استقالته. تماماً مثلما فعل أمس، عندما ذهب إلى لندن ومن هناك، استقال للمرّة الأخيرة.
لم أكن أعرف أننا متعِبون إلى هذا الحد. أعرف أن البلد مقزز والحال مهترئة. لكن إلى هذا الحد؟!
يا رجل! أشعر باليتم. الفتاة التي أخبرها أبوها أنها تصلح للكتابة، فقدت عيناً تسعى لإبهارها، لقطف إعجابها، لمباغتتها بالجميل، وبالأجمل منه.
فإن أنت أبهرت جوزف سماحة، يمكنك أن تستريح في مجدك إلى الأبد. روحك لن يسعها كوكب. وإن لم تعد هذه الروح تتمتع بجوزف تبهره، فهناك خلل ما سيصيب المستوى العام بالتأكيد. هناك مرجعية حادة وعصرية لن تصفق لك أو تلومك. هناك تخلّف سيصيب كلمتك.
قالت ضحى إنّها عندما عرفت بالخبر لم تجد لك بيتاً تقصده، بل جريدة. جرائد. ومكاتب كثيرة يُترك بابها مقفلاً بعد رحيله عنها. مكاتب لا يشغلها أحد، ولا يجرؤ أحد على أن يشغلها، بعد رحيله عنها.
قلتُ له: أنت تحب «حزب الله» لكن أنا، أنا لا أريد أن أتحجّب!
ضحك وقال لي: أحارب كل من يفكر أو يحاول أن يحجّبك.
يناقشك في السياسة حد الثمالة، لكن، يضيع منه الكلام في أي شأن آخر... باستثناء الطرب طبعاً. ويتمايل من نشوة السكر على أنغام عود أو على صوت فتاة مغرمة به.
صور كثيرة تباغتنا وماض بات ماضياً لأنك رحلت عنه يهجم إلى الرأس دفعة واحدة ليمحو صورة الموت عن وجهك. بشرفك، هيا، امسح رأس كل منا بيدك مداعباً. هزّ برأسك. تمتم كلماتك غير المفهومة. قل: بسيطة، بسيطة. انصحنا بقراءة تحليل نُشر في صحيفة فرنسية، واكتب قراءة في الخبر تطوّعه لذهننا، فكفكه، حلله، أمعن فيه تشريحاً وربطاً. لا تترك الخبر لنا، نكتب عنه، نحاول فهمه، فنحن لا نزال في طور التعلم، نحتاج إلى عين مثل تلك التي تزيّن وجهك. بشرفك، لا تدع الأخبار عرضة لأقلامنا. وهذا الخبر تحديداً، لا تلقِه هكذا في وجهنا!
يا الله! تلك مصيبة لم نعد نمتلك جوزفاً يعبرها بنا.
تبقى لي كلمة واحدة أريد أن أقولها لك من قلب انطفأت زاوية الشغف فيه: أحبك، جو لو بو.

عدد الاثنين ٢٦ شباط جريدة الأخبار

مثل جملتك القصيرة

2007-02-26T13:59:00.000+02:00

رشا الاطرش
هكذا ينسحب المهذّب. هكذا، يقرر أن ينام.
سماحة... «جو الجميل»، كما كنا نسميه، نحن «الجيل السفيري الجديد»، الذي كان جديداً، يوم عاد إلى الجريدة رئيساً للتحرير في العام .2001 غالباً ما ينبهر المرء بما هو أبعد من متناوله. لكن جوزف، كعادته، يبتدع للمفاهيم سياقات له وحده. فها أنت تنبهر بشكل يومي، بصحافي يصنّف الأول عربياً، وليس فقط لبنانياً. أيقونة، ولك أن تمازحها. أن تقول لها صباح الخير بشكل «عادي». مكتب تخرج منه مقالات تهز بلداً، تلهم قادة، وتملأ ملفات أرشيفية ـ فردية ومؤسساتية. هذا المكتب مفتوح لك، وللأكبر ومنك والأصغر. لفنجان قهوة تُروى معه طرفة، ولاستيضاح في الفلسفة والسياسة.
كان بعضنا يعرف «رئيس التحرير» من قبل، والبعض الآخر ما زال في مرحلة السّحر. سحر «أبو الزوز». يوسف (مع التشديد على ضم الياء)، إذ ثمة من حاول «تعريب» اسم الرجل الذي لا يليق به سوى اسم ذي رنّة عربية. «الأستاذ». هذه الكلمة لم نناده بها يوماً. هذه الكلمة لم يكن يحبّها. لعل جوزف هو الشخص الوحيد الذي يجعلك تشعر باللقب، وزناً، ولا تستعمله. إن «الأستاذ» الصامتة تعني أنك كل يوم تسجّل نفسك في مدرسته، ولا تريد أن تفوت لحظة سانحة من دون أن «تسرق» منه فكرة، وجهة نظر، محاججة، لمعة، وحتى نكتة.
جوزف.. لا أسمع الآن غير ضحكتك. كم كانت تشبهك، تماماً مثل جملتك القصيرة. جَهورية تطلقها على طريقة طفل نعبده. قهقهة شقاوة، لمارد يعمل في الطابق الرابع، «معك»، أنت الذي ما زلت تتلمس معاني السياسة والثقافة والإعلام وحتى العلاقات الإنسانية. أنت الذي تود لو تبقى أبداً تلميذاً شاطراً ما دمت تجلس مع جوزف.
المعلّم تلازمه طبائع الخجل. يترك باب التقرّب منه موارباً، وعليك أنت أن تقتحم عالم الرجل بمعرفتك. رغبة صعبة. ليس لأنه يضع بينه وبينك حواجز العمر والتجربة أو حتى اسمه الذي يبرق. فتلك بالنسبة إليه سواتر سرابية. يقنعك، ولا تقتنع، أنها موجودة في عينيك وحدك وأنه لا يرى لها في الواقع أساساً. صعبة رغبتك في أن تكون ظلّ جوزف، ولو لبرهة كل يوم، لأنك تخجل أكثر منه. فهو سماحة وأنت تريد أن تنهل من نبعه. هو سماحة. لكنك لن تسامح نفسك لو أنها ضيّعت عليك فرصة أن تجاوره. فتخطو، أول ما تخطو، باتجاهه، متأبطاً سؤالاً. ولا تلبث أن تتحول إلى نثرة من حديد تلتصق بالمغناطيس الأكبر ولا تريد أن تفكّ.
«أبو الزوز»... سؤال أخير: كيف نقول «على السطر» بعدما وضعت النقطة الأخيرة؟

جريدة السفير

حـزن كأنـه المـوت

2007-02-26T02:47:00.000+02:00

وسام سعادة
أي غرور أن تكون أنت الباقي على قيد الحياة؟
وأي جشع ان تكون أنت وحدك الحق وأنت وحدك القابض والقائم والعابث بأوجاع الدنيا؟
وأي سخف أن تكون أنت وحدك الراثي، والمرثية لا تتوجه بها لأحد غيرك؟
وأي عقم أن تسعد بعد كل ذلك بمرثيتك وتزنها بالعاقلة أو بالبيان؟
مع ذلك يحاصرك الغرور والجشع والسخف والعقم من كل جانب الآن. الصدمة يزول مخدّرها بسرعة، وإذ ببطاقات مريبة تتسلّل الى بدنك وتجعله خارقاً للطبيعة.
بدءاً من اليوم صرت حرّاً؛ وحشاَ لا يشبه أحدا من ولد آدم؛ وحشا لا تلاحقه العين التي لاحقت قايين؛ وحشا لا يقول له الرّب إني لن أتخلى عنك لكني لن أتركك، على نحو ما قالها ليشوع بن نون. بدءاً من اليوم صرت حراً تماماً. ما عاد ثمة آخر سواي. ما عاد ثمة آخر أكتب اليه. ما عاد ثمة آخر يعلّمني الكتابة. ما عاد ثمة آخر يستوجب القراءة. ما عاد ثمة آخر يقرأني.
بدءاً من اليوم صارت اللعبة في غاية السهولة. أكتب لنفسي. أقرأ ما أكتبه لنفسي. أساجل نفسي من مَعين نفسي. أكتفي بالآخرين مناسبة أو ذريعة ليس أكثر.
بدءاً من اليوم سهلت اللعبة كثيراً. لكنها هزلت. ما عادت مسلّية ولا نافعة. صارت ضرباً من ضروب الحرام. حرية بكل ما في الكلمة من تفاهة. حرية وحده الله ينجينا منها. وحده الحزن ينتشلك من جحيم هكذا حرية.
وحده الحزن يحرس الذاكرة، يطعمها ويؤويها، يفتحها على المقبل من أيام.
وحده الحزن يعقّم الصلوات، ويلتقط من طبقاتك الصوتية تلك القهقهة المتعذرة حالياً، وتلك النبرة التي ليس مثلها نبرة، وذلك الحياء، أو تلك المسؤولية.
وحده الحزن يؤجل فريضة البكاء الى غد، ودوافع التفكير الى بعد غد.
وحده الحزن ينبهك الى أن الساعة ليست مناسبة لكل هذا الهذيان. وحده الحزن يعيق اللوعة والكلمات. يفتش مواكب الكلمات. يطرحها أرضاً، يأمرها بأن تختن بعضها البعض، ثم تمضي الى حال سبيلها.
فالحزن على جوزف سماحة، ليس كالحزن على سواه.
إنه كالإله النصفي بالنسبة الى هذه الصحافة اللبنانية، ذاك الذي رحل. ليس فقط لأنه أفضل ما يُقرأ فيها. بل أيضاً لأنه أفضل من يَقرأ فيها، وبالدرجة الأولى أفضل من يقرؤها هي، يوماً بيوم، ومنذ عقود.
والمشكلة مع جوزف سماحة ليست أنه أبكر في الترجل ومغادرتنا. المشكلة أنه أبكر في صياغة وصيته في كتابه الشيق، «سلام عابر: نحو حل عربي للمسألة اليهودية». فكان عليه أن يزاول فعل الكتابة طيلة ثلاثة عشر عاماً من بعد وضعه لهذه الوصية.
ولعلّ الوفاء لجوزف الآن يمرّ بالضرورة بإعادة قراءة هذه الوصية، ومناقشتها. فمن خلالها يمكن أن نمسك بعقال كل مقالات جوزف سماحة منذ السبعينيات الى اليوم، كما السلسلة، رغم كل التعرجات والنقلات والمنعطفات.
ان جوزف سماحة الصحافي قد مات، وثمة فرصة أكيدة الآن لاستقبال المفكّر جوزف سماحة، كأهم المواصلين لما أطلقه ياسين الحافظ من مراجعة نقدية حضارية في الصميم. وربما كان علينا المساجلة من موقع جوزف سماحة المفكر ضد جوزف سماحة الصحافي، أو بالعكس. لا همّ، لكن من هو المؤهل لهذا العمل؟ ومع من يكون النقاش بعد الآن؟
على من تقرأ المزامير؟ رحل آخر الإنس. والجن ليسوا يشفعون لنا بعد.

جريدة السفير

باسمِ الحُفنَة...

2007-02-26T02:35:00.000+02:00

زياد الرحباني

إن الله يحبّ جوزف سماحة. فلقد قرّر سبحانه أن ينجّيه البارحة، من أعراض وأحقاد العديد من العديدين. خطفه كالبرق من بين كل المتربّصين به. إن الله يحبّه، فهو يعرفه جيداً، وللرفيق جوزف مكانةٌ عنده. يعرفه ويخاف من أعدائه عليه. يعرف أنه لا يحتاط، وأنه ضد التدابير الأمنية الشخصية والمرافقين، يعرف جيداً كم هو مستهترٌ أحياناً بحقّ نفسه، فأخفاه عن السمع والأنظار.
أعدّ له ميتَةً شهمة، مختزلة خاطفة، خصّه بميتَةٍ بليغةٍ ولائقة، بعيدة عن وحُولِنَا العارمة، طالعةٍ من وسخنا المتراكم اليومي، النهاري الليلي اللامتناهي لا بحولِهِ فكيف بدونه؟ مات ميتَةً يسمّونها منذ قديم الزمان الأفضل الأرحم: ميتَةَ ربّه... بكل نظافة، بكل تجرّد. ميتَةً ليست حلوة بالتأكيد لكنها، سيّدةٌ، حرّة، مستقلّة! لا مجهولَ من زمرهم ليُدّعى عليه فيها، ولا مشبوه. لا يدَ لجانٍ عميل، لمتطرّفٍ درزيٍ، مارونيٍ أو سُنّي، لا يقرأ وإن قرأ لا يفهم. لا إصبعَ «لِنِسٍّ» من أكثريتهم حاقدٍ عليه... لم ولن يَبْلُغَهُ، فقد رحل. غدره الرفيق جوزف خلال ليلة البارحة، فنكّد عليه المتبقي من حقده على مدى الحياة، وأفشل بالمختصر كل محاولات التخلّص منه.
أساساً، فربّهُ سبق الجميع، ورحل به من على الطريق العسكري في جنح الظلام. ربّهُ يحبّه، قلتها لكم وأكرّر، ربّه يحبّه ولو أنه كفَرَ مرّةً، لو أنه كفَرَ مرّات. فالربّ يا إخواني قادرٌ على أن يحبّ الكفار كما المؤمنين. بل إنه يفضّل الكافر الطيّب النظيف المعطاء على المؤمن الآخذ الآثم الشرّير... وها قد أفلت الرفيق جوزف سماحة منهم ولكن منّا أيضاً في فجر 25 شباط. فما العمل الآن؟ ما العمل «الآن هنا»؟ كما كان الرفيق يُعَنْوِنُ افتتاحيته في «السفير». لا توجد ميتةٌ حلوة بالتحديد، كما أنه في المقابل لا حياة حلوة بهذه السهولة. وستشحّ حلاوتها كثيراً دون شيوعيٍ أصيلٍ عنيد.
أنا لستُ حزيناً في هذه اللحظات، «الآن هنا»، أنا غضبان، وخائف بعض الشيء. أمّا الحزن فلا... سأحزن لاحقاً مع بعض أصحابه الحزينين. إن أعداءنا، يا حفنة المتبقين، يا حفنة الشيوعيين النضرين النادرين، يا بعض الباقي من أصابع اليدين، وهذا ما يخيف، إن موت الرفيق سماحة يستنفرني فَلْيَستنفرْكُم!... إن أعداءنا يدورون حولنا كلّما استطاعوا. إنهم مصمّمون باقون، إنهم يحاولون يحتشدون، ولم يبقَ لديهم ما يهوّلون به منّا على أعراضهم ويخيفون الأطفال، سوى أننا: سوريّون، أفغان، طالبان، وفرس. سوى أننا كارهو لبنان، حاقدون على الحياة فيه، مجرمون واستشهاديون، آكلو متحضّرين، سيستولون بعد تطيير المحكمة الدولية، على السلطة ويحكمونهم. وعلينا أن نواجه هؤلاء دون الرفيق سماحة. نحن أضعف في هذه اللحظة لأننا خسرناه، فنحن سنواجههم بدونه. الحزن والانهيار الآن، قاتلان. لا! نَفَسُ جوزف طويل وقد تنفّسنا عمراً معاً، وحَّدْنا الأنفاسَ قبل الأهداف، وهذا وقت التنفّس المثالي العميق والطويل.
في نهاية هذا الأحد الماطر الشاهق، أؤكّد لك يا رفيق، أنك زدتَني تأكيداً، أنَّ ما نحن مؤمنون به، هو مستقبل الإنسان اللازم وهو الصحيح ولا يصحّ غيره. في هذه اللحظات لا أعرف ما هو الرابط بين موتك وبين ارتفاع مستوى تمسّكي بالتزامي، لكنني سأعرف لاحقاً. فلهذا علاقة بالعقل والعقل الهادئ، والقناعة دوماً أقوى من العقل. فكيف “الآن هنا”؟ كنّا نفضّل، كنّا وما زلنا نعشق أن تكون معنا يا جوزف في طريقنا المتبقّي، لكنّكَ ذهبْتَ، لكنّكَ... ذَهَبَ. ماذا نفعل؟ إن الأعمار بيد الله، لكن النصر بأيدينا. فَنَمْ عميقاً ولا تَخَفْ!

عدد الاثنين ٢٦ شباط

موتٌ كموتكَ قَتْل

2007-02-26T02:32:00.000+02:00

بقلم أنسي الحاج

كنتَ كثيراً على قلب الظلام المحيط. الجوقات الموحَّدة تضيق بالمنفردين. البيئة تعاقِب، يعاونها الموت المستهزئ. صنوان. الموت ضَحْل ومملّ كالبيئة، كالسلطة. يتكافل وإيّاهما في القتل. موتٌ كموتكَ قَتْل. ليس لك وحدك بل لصحافة، لقارئ، لصديق، لأمل.
كثيرون مثلي يقولون الآن: ليتنا لم نعرفه.

***

الصحافي اللاشخصي أصبح شأناً شخصيّاً لكل قارئ. أنجح محامي القضايا المظلومة. مطالعاته اجتهادات أمام جمهور متناقض في مسائل تمشي معظم التيارات عكسها، وتنتهي المطالعة بإقناع «الأعداء»، أو على الأقل برمي الشكّ في نفوسهم. شرط أن يتوافر لهم حد أدنى من الشفافية. ذَكَرَ مرّة في إشارة إلى صديق له «من الفريق الآخر»: «قلت له: أنت وأميركا غلبتمونا في كل شيء. تغصّون بهذه المساحة الصغيرة الباقية لنا ننتقدكم فيها؟». جوزف سماحة هو الصحافي الآخر، نقيض ما اعتادته الصحافة العربية. هو صحافي التحليل والمعلومات وهي صحافة التوجيه الوعظي المباشر. لم يكن يختلف في شيء عن معلّقي كبريات الصحف الأوروبية والأميركية غير كونه يكتب بالعربيّة. هو صحافي الثقافة الشاملة والعرب صحافة الأيديولوجيا والخطابة. بقعة ليّنة في مساحة متحجّرة. شمولية متواضعة كشمولية المعلّمين. سخرية نبيلة، مترفّعة، عفويّة، مفاجئة وسط رصانته كمفاجأة طفولة تَخْرج فجأة من كهولة. رأسُ جيل من الصحافيين اللبنانيين غيّروا وجه الصحافة العربيّة وخرّجوا تلامذة لا يزالون يغيّرونها نحو الأحدث.
منتهى اللاقمع في ممارسته رئاسة التحرير. الأكثر ديموقراطية بين جميع من عَرَفت. كان يقول لمن يستشيره في ما يكتب: «اكتب ما تريد، حتّى لو كان ضدّ سياسة الجريدة». حين تفرغ من قراءة مقاله يُخيّل إليك، لكثافة ما فيه من علم ومعلومات ولقوّة التركيز وبراعة الحجّة وابتكار المعادلات التعبيرية، أنه سيمرّ وقت قبل أن يستجمع قواه ويكتب المقال التالي. ولا يكاد الصباح يطلع حتى يأتيك باللاحق أدسم من السابق.
«أكثر ما أُدْهَش هو حين أقبض راتبي آخر الشهر. أقول في نفسي: «يا رجل، لماذا يدفعون لك؟»، فليس عندي أمتع ممّا أعمل في الجريدة. أنا من يجب أن يدفع لهم».
أو يقول، هو الذي يصل مع الصباح وينصرف مع الفجر: «كلّما ذهبتُ إلى البيت شعرتُ بالذنب».
أيّها الراهب العلماني البريء من أيّ تعصّب، أيّها الرقيق المعتذر من ظلّه، السخيّ بصداقة لا يضاهي صمتَها إلاّ فاعليّتُها، تكدّستْ فيك الوحدة حتّى فاضت. تكدَّس فيك حزن الأرض تحت نقاب الابتسامة. ليس الجهلُ ما يَقْتل بل المعرفة. المعرفة، الوعي، حدّة وعيك، كلّها تَنْقل الموت. موت المرهَفين. كل شيء يَقْتل المرهفين، وأنت من سادتهم.
والفراغ الذي تتركه لن يملأه إلاّ الشعور أكثر فأكثر بفراغك.
أنسي الحاج

عدد الاثنين ٢٦ شباط

Jospeh Samaha (1949-2007)

2007-02-26T00:01:00.000+02:00

Les mots se noient dans un silence assourdissant.

Joseph Samaha, journaliste, éditorialiste, écrivain, analyste, et penseur Libanais, est mort ce matin à Londres ; une crise cardiaque. Désormais c’est le silence qui s’écrit sur les pages d’un journal - des journaux. L’analyse politique n’est plus. La politique retombe dans l’incompréhensible. Il n’existe plus de réponses à des questions nombreuses. L’encre sèche sur une page inachevée. Beaucoup de larmes écrites seront insuffisantes. Ce n’est pas de larmes que l’écrit à besoin pour briser le silence de sa conscience, de sa raison, et de son existence.

Le sourire sagace dans le miroir de ses mots se transforme en une photo imprimée là où elle avait toujours existé sous une forme textuelle - sémantique. Un noir engouffre la première page, le deuil est certain, il est même sincère. Le noir ne s’agit plus d’une tradition symbolique, ou d’un choix contingent, c’est plutôt un noir symbole d’obscurité, de l’absence d’une lumière savante et non-esthétique.

Joseph Samaha ne se métamorphosera pas en martyre ; il ne s’incarnera pas en photo souriante sur la façade d’une ville aux murs surpeuplés ; il ne se révélera pas dans une sonorité rhétorique qui adresse les grands nombres. Il sera simplement, une idée minoritaire, une mémoire intraduisible, et des mots dans une archive qui échappent à l’oubli.

Adieu chère page de mon quotidien, adieu chères mots irremplaçables, adieu à cette « ligne rouge » que tu traces chaque matin.

5. De la responsabilité, la culpabilité et la mémoire

2007-02-18T00:25:00.000+02:00

Te souviens tu de l’histoire ? Non, pas l’histoire, mais l’Histoire. Te souviens tu donc de l’Histoire ?

C’était depuis longtemps, j’étais jeune, j’étais même enfant. L’enfance affranchi la responsabilité ; être enfant c’est être irresponsable. Je ne veux pas m’en souvenir.

Mais pourtant tu étais, puisque tu étais enfant. Tu as vu ; tu as vu, avec des yeux d’enfant. Peut être que les yeux, eux, ne changent pas, ne grandissent pas ou même ne sont jamais enfants, innocents ?

Les yeux ne sont jamais innocents : voir, apercevoir, concevoir, recevoir, mouvoir, avoir, pouvoir, devoir. L’innocence c’est l’oubli ; il n y a pas d’innocence dans la mémoire, dans voir.

Et maintenant que tu n’es plus enfant, te souviens tu du présent ? Vois tu ?

Le présent c’est ce qui échappe constamment à la mémoire. Moi j’ai toujours oublié le présent, et à présent pour voir je ferme toujours les yeux ; je regarde, mais je ne vois pas.

Et la mémoire, t’en fais quoi de la mémoire ? Lorsque le passé se présente, tu ne te sens pas coupable de ne pas le recevoir ? De ne pas accomplir ton devoir ; de voir ?

Non. Le devoir fait partie de la mémoire. Et moi, je n’ai pas de mémoire ; je ne vois pas la mémoire.

Mais pourtant tu cherches à posséder ma mémoire. Dés lors que tu ais ma mémoire, tu dois voir mon devoir. Vois-tu ?

Mais posséder n’a rien à voir avec avoir. Si je cherche à posséder ta mémoire, ce n’est pas pour l’avoir, ni pour la voir. Pour la regarder peut être, mais non pour en faire ma mémoire. Je la regarde pour pouvoir l’oublier. C’est précisément pour effacer le devoir que je veux posséder ta mémoire, la re-présenter.

Mais cela effacera ton devoir ; mon devoir, lui, appartient uniquement à ma mémoire et y est inscrit dans elle, et elle en lui. Une mémoire ne peut se posséder, elle peut seulement être eue. Et avoir, dis tu, ce n’est pas posséder. Vois-tu ?

Mais j’ai dis aussi que le présent échappe à la mémoire ; que l’oubli est mon seul présent. Que je n’ai pas de mémoire – de devoir.

Et au passé, m’oublieras tu ? Pourras-tu me revoir ? Serais-tu capable de me voir, ou coupable de pouvoir voir ?

Mémoire

2007-02-18T00:22:00.000+02:00

Devoir

2007-02-18T00:08:00.000+02:00

Voir

2007-02-17T23:59:00.000+02:00

2007-02-17T23:50:00.000+02:00

"les souvenirs tristes entre les amis"

2007-02-17T23:23:00.000+02:00

Photos: Beirut southern suburbs, august 2006

4. Portrait

2007-02-07T01:03:00.000+02:00

1. Ce n’est pas la violence. Ce n’est point l’existence abolie. Ce n’est même pas le vide infligé. Ce n’est pas, non plus, la couleur rouge abondante.

C’est le bruit, le son, et les vibrations. Une idée s’empare de mon être, pour des instants elle domine tout mes sens. Je m’y soumets.

L’absurde n’est pas un autre mot pour désigner l’impossible, l’irréel ou l’alogique. Par contre, l’absurde est un excès de réel, un plus-que-possible, un trop-logique. L’absurde est un sur-réalisme poussé à l’extrême.

2. Plus loin, verticalement, circule une machine fatale. Mon corps, ici bas, lui est vulnérable ; étant matérialiste en ce domaine, mon âme aussi. Ma volonté m’échappe, et ma conscience ne m’appartient plus. Le bruit est celui d’un destin volontaire. Une autre volonté qui détermine l’existence de la mienne.

En ces moments là, lorsqu’on ressent la puissance extrême de la machinerie de guerre, ce n’est point une peur qui surgit. C’est plutot une idée qui hante l’esprit d’une telle sorte que tout les sens s’inclinent devant la conscience. Je suis l’idée. A ce moment precis, l’absurde devient le réel, et reciproquement. Je peux subir la réification de l’idée de l’inexistence, du vide, et de la non-volonté (ou la volonté de Dieu) d’une façon immédiate. Je ne suis plus maitre de mon destin, l’idée elle-même est abolie (présupposant que je ne l’étais jamais). Je ressens mon incapacité, certain diront faiblesse.

3. La mort n’est point. Dés lors qu’elle est elle n’est plus. La fin de la mémoire, et l’incapacité de se souvenir. Y a-t-il autre chose que la mémoire ?

La mort c’est la négation de la vie ; ou la vie celle de la mort. Chacune ne peut exister sans l’autre et avec l’autre simultanément. La question persistera toujours.

Ne reste que la mémoire. Mais la mémoire, c’est quoi ?

4. À certains moments, le temps se retire. Il s’enlace de l’infaillibilité du mouvement. Le réel ainsi se métamorphose en virtuel ; le présent devient souvenir. Le souvenir hante la vision.

Je retrouve mon passé dans les ruines du présent. Je me regarde dans le reflet de murs inutiles. C’est ici que tout commence.

Photos: Bent Jbeil (Liban Sud)

2007-02-07T01:01:00.000+02:00

2007-02-07T01:00:00.000+02:00

2007-02-07T00:54:00.000+02:00

2007-02-07T00:29:00.000+02:00

3. Sens et directions, ou de l’impossibilité de l’orientation

2007-02-05T02:26:00.000+02:00

Une étendue terrestre peut être. C’est un chemin comme tous.
Le mouvement est immobile ; il contemple le temps qui le consomme.

L’autre m’habite. Je n’ai pas de demeure, ou bien je cherche ma demeure. L’autre ne viendra pas, ou bien m’attend il. La route s’évade ; je la perds des pieds, et des yeux. Ma rétine me trompe; je lui pardonne l’infidélité. Désormais une forme rectiligne me tourmente ; elle simule le sentier vers quelque chose, ou autre chose.

Il y a toujours une entrée. Mais une entrée, pour être entrée, implique nécessairement la possibilité d’une barrière. Une entrée, ou une porte, est porte par opposition à une barrière qui n’est pas porte, ou entrée. C’est à travers cette non-barrière que l’acte d’entrer peut être accompli. Sans la barrière on reste dehors. Mais la barrière est barrière précisément tant qu’entrer est impossible. Tant qu’il y a barrière on reste dehors. Les deux ne peuvent coexister simultanément. Qu'est ce qu'une porte?

Dehors il n y a que moi. Et moi est seul.

Photos : Bekaa ouest, Beirut, Beirut, Bent Jbeil

Pro-specting : Street war in Beirut

2007-01-26T01:45:00.000+02:00

It is hard to retract, to disengage, and to disregard.

At certain moments of time a distortion happens and consciousness represents future rather than past. Certainly, present remains as it is: an illusion of simultaneity, or yet the shadow of an impression.

At times, history becomes pro-spective. These instances are haunting and fearful.

Snipers in the blue skies of Beirut; the image is rich with connotations for those who know or remember the non-civil war of Lebanon. It is hard to think about the street war of Beirut without the ever present sniper. It is this mysterious character who, in his fundamental invisibility, is ever watchful: a prophet-less god.

Had a sniper wrote a book it should be said that it is divine.

Regardless of motives, justification and higher reasons, one thing cannot be denied. Today was a clear call for a civil war. However, the originality of the event lies in one specific aspect of it. Once radical skepticism is moved aside, one must conclude that a government has used militias to maintain order, oppose its opposition or to substitute for its army and armed forces. Automatically the question raises itself; how can a government claim to refuse any arms that are not within the state while its popular forces themselves are using such arms?

However this is far from being the issue at this point. Until otherwise proven by documentation, logic and evidence the events of this afternoon in Beirut are a clear act of dictatorship. When a group of people in a country that preaches democracy, is organized in a clear battle plan to “defend” the government the least to say is that this is a blatantly unlawful act. The decision that is made is clear: no matter what the Lebanese government has to remain standing. It now has the international support to carry out force to keep its “democratic existence”. The mirror of history shows us the Latin American dictatorships. It also shows us in the background the image of the Shah of Iran, a man who was the idol of the world and the devil to his people; the exquisite dictator.

Today on al-Arabia, a Saudi owned satellite news channel, the headline was simple: gun fights between Sunnis and Shiites in Beirut. It is now necessary to distinguish information from entertainment. It is more important to distinguish fiction from reality. If in the minds of the retarded Arab masses and the faraway western viewers, it is easier to understand an event when represented as such, we are looking not to news reporting but to adaptation. It is now clear that a conscious decision is being carried out in the Middle East, some call it conspiracy and the word has been so often used that it has acquired some form of an ironic sense. Therefore, perhaps it should be referred to not as conspiracy but as strategy. The amount of distortion necessary to get to such a headline is so considerable that in any journalistic institute it would instantly be called falsification. It is clear that all the happenings in the Middles East are being tainted in the media with the simple storyline: Sunni against Shiite.

The War might be imminent. What would this war be? How will it be fought? And who will fight it? These are the questions that are now haunting.

Photos: Some shots of the democratic forces of the Lebanese government.

2. Horizontalisme

2007-01-24T20:13:00.000+02:00

Lorsque le temps et l’espace se confondent, apparaît le voyage. C’est une histoire d’amour d’un autre genre. Une rencontre impossible entre deux êtres simultanément étrangers et familiers.

Le temps est espace ; et l’espace temporel. Le voyage c’est moi ; et moi je m’évade à chaque instant spatial.

Un trajet se présente à moi, je laisse mes yeux s’éloigner. Le voyage est interminable. Jamais n’a t il de destination ; c’est une suite perpétuelle d’horizons qui dissimulent une infinité d’illusions improvisées.

Photo: Marjeyoun

2007-01-24T19:54:00.000+02:00

Photos: de haut en bas: Nabatyeh, Karaoun, Marjeyoun, Bekaa Ouest

2007-01-24T19:42:00.000+02:00

Photos: Bekaa Ouest, Liban

1. Nature morte

2007-01-19T00:00:00.000+02:00

Déconcerté par les attributs inévitables des trajets multiformes, le temps s’arrête pour s’observer.

Cet arrêt est parfois nommé oubli, mais souvent, ceux qui subissent volontairement les charges de la conscience, nomment tel phénomène mémoire.

L’espace est captif. Le spectre d’un souvenir lui tient compagnie. La mesure de toute chose n’est autre que la persistance d’une mémoire quelconque.

Photos : Liban, Bekaa Ouest (Aamik)

Argumentation

2006-12-04T02:40:00.000+02:00

I was watching an interview with the “living martyr” Marwan Hamadeh, the minister of communication and the survivor of the first episode of the assassinations series in Lebanon since 2004. Some months before the assassination of Hariri, there was an attempt on the life of Hamadeh, a faithful ally of Jomblat, his life was spared, perhaps not his mind however.

Apart from all the repetitions in his discourse, it was striking to listen to the arguments he used. The simple task of repeating these arguments is itself a refutation:

The opposition is the Hezbollah. Others do not constitute any popular weight.
Some in the opposition seeks the return of Syrian domination, but certainly not Hezbollah nor Amal
The return of Syrian domination is impossible.
It is not acceptable for a government to be deposited by the people. These ways are not democratic.
The only constitutional force which has the power to deposit a government is the parliament.
14 of march (the popular movement which started by depositing the former government of Karameh by calling for demonstrations) freed Lebanon using democratic methods.
The demonstrations carried out now are against democracy.
The power of any government has to come from its people
The independence forces – which are fighting foreign support and interference – have to resist the overthrow of its independence and democracy. The government has to protect the choice of the people from any force that is not from the people. (in this case it is the people that is against its own choice and the government has to protect the freedom of its people from – strangely – no one else than its people)

These 9 statements were recited in no more than 6 minutes. The incapacity to discern the contradictions in these statements is symptomatic of severe mental malfunction.

De la rhétorique

2006-12-03T14:46:00.000+02:00

Afin d’éviter le jugement il est souvent utile de procéder par description. Ce que certains peuvent nommer une crise au niveau épistémologique dans le discours politique actuel (non au Liban mais en termes généraux, peut être peut on parler ici d’un système mondial), se dévoile en partie dans la rhétorique. L’intérêt de regarder de prés la rhétorique se résume en deux points. Le premier est que la rhétorique en tant qu’elle est un conflit doit être basée – et cela à priori – sur un système qui définit la réussite d’une stratégie ou sa chute. En d’autres termes, tout discours dés lors qu’il cherche à exercer sa domination sur un autre, est simultanément entrain d’imposer un système de savoir, et donc des vérités. Mais afin d’atteindre l’idéal qu’il prêche il est nécessaire d’agir selon les vérités du système dominant actuel. Le discours dominant serait en guise de défendre ses vérités et les maintenir, le discours résistant, lui, serait en guise de la déconstruire en usant les contradictions dans le discours dominant lui-même afin de proposer ses vérités en échange. Etudier la rhétorique d’un discours agit comme étape pour définir les systèmes de vérités – ou de savoir – belligérants. Le second point est la valeur absolue de cette étude, notamment celle de la stratégie. Les stratégies sont donc misent en valeur. La stratégie étant une discipline qui traite des objectifs et des moyens, implique ces deux notions comme présomptions. Il est donc nécessaire de critiquer une stratégie selon la relation qu’elle propose entre son objectif et les moyens/méthodes qu’elle propose pour l’atteindre : Donc en termes de ses propres définitions. C’est finalement ces définitions elles mêmes qui sont l’objet de telle étude, puisque ces définitions sont elles mêmes partie indispensable des systèmes de savoir et des forces en conflit.

L’un des problèmes du discours dominant actuel, dans sa représentation politique, est l’usage des technologies d’information (ou informatiques) pour substituer à l’argumentation. En d’autre termes, la représentation – ou doit on dire l’illusion – de toute chose ne nécessite plus un fondement réel mais sensationnel/esthétique. C’est le langage de la fiction et des narrations filmiques. Il faudra toujours se souvenir que ce que nous envisageons comme une médiation du réel (journalisme et information) et ce à quoi nous réagissons esthétiquement (fiction et art visuel), suivent la même médiation. Les deux formes de savoir dérivent du même objet ou de la même forme. Les systèmes de vérités actuels - dans le domaine politique – se rapprochent, pour ne pas dire sont déjà ainsi, des stratégies esthétiques. La rhétorique à présent simule la justification simpliste des stratégies filmiques. Cela est visible au moins à deux niveaux principaux. D’abord dans ce qui est du manichéisme et du simplisme moral, le bien absolu et le mal absolu, la morale est ainsi. Et ensuite dans l’inconsistance avec les lois naturelles. Cela peut être formuler d’une façon différente : l’action précède la justification, et l’action justifie la justification. La justification est une nécessité pour l’action dans les récits filmiques, elle n’est pas une condition mais un résultat. Souvent l’action diégétique et sa justification dans la diégèse ne nécessitent pas une consistance avec la démarche de leur équivalant naturel. Ceci est vrai dés lors que la nature est toujours le référant, ou bien qu’il existe un lien référentiel entre les deux « mondes » diégétique et naturel. Ces deux mondes qui pour Schopenhauer seront eux même médiés, et sont un degré semblable de représentation. C’est peut être l’un de ces deux systèmes de savoir et de vérités qui prend la relève. Le conflit est à présent entre ces deux systèmes de représentation. En termes idéologiques peut être, c’est un conflit entre illusionnisme et réalisme. Les deux pourtant usent des mêmes outils mais pour transférer des stratégies différentes et des vérités contradictoires. C’est l’usage de la technologie qui est ici au centre du conflit.

Drapeaux et totalitarisme

2006-12-01T03:27:00.000+02:00

La question est purement existentielle. Ou peut être touche t elle à la politique.

Un gouvernement qui s’impose comme le seul représentant d’une population qui le rejette. La phrase semblera certainement fausse pour un observateur externe. Mais elle représente la contradiction qui est au cœur de la crise libanaise. Une grande partie de la population libanaise, pour ne pas dire la majorité, rejette son gouvernement. Le gouvernement répond par affirmer qu’il représente la totalité des libanais.

Deux solutions se présentent : la première que les libanaise sont uniquement ceux qui soutiennent le gouvernement et donc ceux qui opposent ce gouvernement ne sont que des traîtres. Bien que le gouvernement lui-même accuse ces mêmes gens d’user le mot traître contre lui – pour une illustration de l’usage de ce mot comparer son usage chez deux figures : Saad el Hariri et Hassan Nasrallah (le premier affirme explicitement que l’opposition est formée de traîtres « antom al khawana », le second accuse le gouvernement d’être une poupée américaine sans jamais user le terme « traître »). Le résultat est contradictoire bien que ceci ne change rien au « fait » que c’est l’opposition qui est accusée d’user ce mot. Comme le monde peut être absurde parfois.

La seconde solution est que ces gens qui demandent explicitement la chute du cabinet simplement n’existent pas. La démonstration qui aura lieu demain n’est donc qu’un mirage. Cette solution cède la place à une nouvelle contradiction au cœur du discours du gouvernement Libanais, celle de la démocratie. C’est une contradiction dont les droits d’auteur appartiennent au président Bush. Mais le gouvernement Libanais a acheté les droits pour les quelques années à venir. La contradiction est dans la phrase absurde qui dit que tout mouvement populaire, n’importe son ampleur, n’est qu’un complot pour détruire la démocratie Libanaise dont ce gouvernement est l’unique représentant. C’est égal à dire que même si la majorité des Libanais opposent ce gouvernement cette majorité du « démos » s’oppose à elle-même. Ces deux phrases iconiques du gouvernement Libanais annoncent une transformation du système démocratique libanais en une copie des démocraties de 99%. Un gouvernement qui malgré sa population représente toute la population : lire dans cela le régime de Assad en Syrie. Le gouvernement Libanais, selon une dynamique Lacanienne peut être, désir devenir l’Autre. Ou bien dans une lecture Freudienne, le gouvernement Libanais souffre d’une crise Oedipienne, il veut se procurer de l’image du père (la Syrie), la même image qu’il portrait comme le mal absolu.

Le problème est social peut être ou simplement intellectuel puisqu’il existe des gens de l’autre coté de l’écran qui croient à ce que le gouvernement dit. Il y a des gens qui placent les propos du gouvernement libanais au dessus de la logique. Ce que Sanioura, le premier ministre, dit – même s’il contredit toute règle de logique – est un degré supérieur de savoir. Ce choix de croire aveuglement, découle soit d’une incapacité intellectuelle, causée par une surexposition au totalitarisme des partis traditionalistes libanais, ou simplement n’est point aveugle. La seconde explication est probablement la plus logique. Ceux qui choisissent de croire Joumblat, le « Roi du parti socialiste » depuis que son père est mort (Joumblat qui est le monarque d’un parti qui porte le nom de progressiste socialiste, et qui est probablement le plus grand maître féodal au Liban, a l’audace de critiquer un autre parti pour le culte de la personne et pour le manque de démocratie dans ce parti.), par exemple lorsqu’il dit que la Syrie est notre ennemi depuis le début de la guerre civile, sont les même qui le croyaient lorsqu’il disait que la Syrie est notre allié naturel. Dans les deux cas ce n’est pas la vérité qui importe mais la capitulation au maître. Après tout ce n’est pas un Liban qu’ils cherchent mais leur pouvoir dans ce Liban, un pouvoir qu’ils imaginent toujours opposé aux « autres » Libanais.

A présent c’est un retour au ridicule du drapeau que notre gouvernement envisage ; les stratégies d’anesthésie populaire par l’usage de symboles lyriques. De nouveau ce sont des slogans sensationnalistes qui retrouvent leurs rôles. Des phrases dépourvues de sens concret : la vérité, la paix, le Liban, le drapeau, la liberté, l’indépendance, la solidarité. Tous ces mots qui n’ont point de sens sans une définition claire et un programme pragmatique pour les atteindre, sont bien sur dans la main du gouvernement. La formule banale et ridicule dit : si vous êtes avec le gouvernement, vous êtes avec toutes ces notions, ou bien, si vous êtes avec toutes ces notions donc vous devez soutenir le gouvernement. Voilà en deux mots le totalitarisme comme il est définit dans toutes les œuvres du 20^e siècle. Il existe une seule vérité, un seul chemin et tout autre chemin est une tricherie.

Les gens ont une tendance à oublier que les régimes totalitaires ne se présentent pas comme tel, au contraire tous les régimes totalitaires se présentent comme des représentant légitimes de leur population. Staline ne disait pas qu’il est un dictateur, au contraire il appliquait le même contresens que le gouvernement Libanais, seulement avec plus de raison. Le paradoxe emblématique est celui des monuments qui fussent construis – par force – pour commémorer le pouvoir du peuple, lui-même dépourvu de pouvoir. Le peuple – opprimé – doit construire des monuments pour commémorer sa liberté inexistante.

Le principe de la gouvernance dans les systèmes républicains démocratiques est que le gouvernement est responsable de l’économie, la société, la sécurité et la représentation. Il est responsable devant son peuple. Ce n’est pas le gouvernement qui choisi le peuple pour qui il est gouvernement, mais le peuple qui choisi son gouvernement. C’est cette différence fondamentale que le gouvernement libanais ne réussi pas à comprendre.

In-human nature, or the un-naturalness of the human

2006-11-24T04:33:00.000+02:00

It is perhaps a peculiar phenomenon to perceive the overwhelming violence of the Iraqi civil war, or whatever one can name the routine of massacres of Iraq, on a daily basis without making the inevitable link between the reality of the images and our own. It is true that the images, for reasons that pertain to the agenda of each medium, have mostly passed to the late sections of the news. However, Iraq remains a perpetual story, an epic of confessional violence. Iraq does not represent backwardness, or yet a story about that ancient time when humans were violent. It does not reflect a pre-modern era. Iraq is a precursor. It is the post-modern state par excellence. What we are looking at thinking that it is a reflection of our history is in fact a glimpse towards our future (for Lebanese citizens this sentence should invoke a palpable meaning).

If capitalism is not a different formal representation of the law of nature, then nature would be totalitarian. When discipline becomes the ultimate sin, society collapses. The over- reproduction of humanity – what is often named civilization – is conditioned by an organizational element: the social pact. This pact can be named more accurately a synthetic form of organization (or government). A relation of domination and resistance that organizes the act of violence (or more accurately that determines what is an act of violence), by doing so, simultaneously becomes defiant to the law of nature. Humanity, by developing its own laws – laws that are aimed at legitimizing its reproduction beyond the limits of its surroundings, namely nature – gives a new definition to “fittest”. The fitness of the human unit becomes determined by the systems of knowledge that are defining the acknowledged reality at a certain time, in a certain place: A synthesized system of judgment which derives from a present balance of powers.

It is perhaps the initial absence of purpose that makes the eternal metamorphosis of these systems of knowledge possible. Laws always have an implied purpose, a higher good to which the regulation aims: normality, or ideality. When one compares humans to animals (while keeping in mind the relation between both), it is hard not to see the superiority of the later. The ultimate goal of human civilization is reproduction, or sustainability (the proper term would be over-reproduction). That of human thought is, however, truth, purpose, or better yet justification. It was Schopenhauer who saw the masochistic animal in the human subject. The only act of love, he asserted, was to reject the desire of reproduction.

It can be said that humanity’s goal was essentially the justification of its self-consciousness by achieving a conscious application of the laws of nature – or by finding “superior” ones in what it would call society. It is when God dies, that Pleasure – or Jouissance – takes its place. Pleasure is however itself similar to Law, regardless of all the contradictions that such a comparison would arouse, at least in its rejection of nature. It sets the limits of normality and eternally seeks an impossible object of pleasure: a new god. Yet, it is the persisting sense of emptiness that prevents the subject of ever becoming itself. The subject thus internalizes the illusions that he has made or others have (the wonders of communication) about life. The subject is lost in the abyss of auto-justification: he seeks a purpose for being; an impossible argument to reject nature. And what is to accept nature for a human but the unconceivable act of self-destruction?

When one looks at Iraq one should witness the ultimate achievement of human justification: the model society of the future. This is the post-modern society (or if one insists on defining post-modernity differently, then it would be called the historical moment that comes after modernity).

Painting: Cage, forêt et soleil noir

وطن؟

2006-11-22T03:30:00.000+02:00

جاءت بدفتر وقلم: بابا ارسم لي وطناً. الوطن لا يُرى قال لها. تحجبه الجموع الهائجة. الوطن وهم يفلت منا مرّة أخرى. فيه أبطال بقدر ما فيه خونة. الوطن مستودع بارود، كل عابر سبيل بوسعه أن يرميه بعود ثقاب (مشتعل). تكتّل مصالح وتحالف بارونات، وتآلف طوائف ومافيات. مرتزقة وضحايا. عملاء وشهداء. قتلة (لا نعرفهم) وقتلى (يقودون المسيرة).
نظرَ البابا الى الصغيرة، فلاحظ من استدارة عينيها أنّها لا تفهم. لا يهمّ. الوطن يصنعه التلفزيون لا كتب التاريخ. وطن من الزمامير والجنازات، والدواليب المطاطيّة المحروقة... الوطن برج بابل. “قرطة عالم مجموعين”. ونخبة لامعة تمارس البزنس والعلاقات العامة، وتتقن اللغات. وتمتلك أجمل السيارات، وباسبورات من شتّى الألوان.
الوطن؟ منتجع اصطيافي، يتيح زيارة أرض الأجداد، وتذوق مأكولاتهم وتقاليدهم الأصيلة. كاباريه لكل الأحبة والجيران “بابه مشرّع عَ الميلين”. آه، الوطن هو “القضية”. كدت أنسى القضيّة، قال. كان ينظر الى مكان غامض.
“القضيّة” ذريعة لكل أشكال الفساد والفتنة والتسلط. الوطن عصبيات وانتهازيات لا تحصى. قطعان من العميان يسوسهم قراصنة ومصاصو دماء وعملاء مزدوجون. جنازات وصراخ. كذب، كذب، كذب. وخوف. وطن الخوف. خديعة كبرى. وطن من المخدوعين. الوطن هديّة مسمومة، كنت أتمنّى أن أجنبك إياها يا حبيبتي. نظر إليها، كانت تبتسم برقّة. مضت الى أخيها: لا تصدقه. البابا زعلان، وحين يزعل يبالغ في تشاؤمه ويضخّم الأمور. أنا واثقة بأن الوطن شيء آخر.

بيار أبي صعب, الأخبار عدد الاربعاء ٢٢ تشرين الثان

« De l’insoutenable légèreté de l’être »

2006-11-22T02:44:00.000+02:00

Il y a des instants, où l’on s’arrête pour regarder, avec des yeux d’observateurs, un extérieur que l’on croit ainsi. Ce sont des instants atemporels. Des instants par manque de termes, et atemporels par le fait qu’ils s’opposent au passage linéaire du temps.

C’est peut être une re-génération de la perception du présent, qui, est toujours sans jamais vraiment exister. Le présent est un passage, peut être atemporel lui aussi, qui résiste toujours à son mouvement.

Un doute totalitaire et une anxiété orpheline s’emparent de mes capacités raisonnables : un dilemme intellectuel peut être, ou bien autre chose. Comment agir, lorsqu’on refuse de croire à notre raisonnement ? La question est une formulation limitée du problème. Comment penser, lorsqu’on refuse de croire à notre raisonnement ?

Je regarde devant moi et je vois un feu. Je ferme mes yeux et ne reste qu’insécurité, incapacité et exile.

Le futur est une idée, une simple formulation, ou bien une perception induite. Il est réel tant que l’idée est vraisemblable.

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Identité et moi ne sont pas la même chose. Identité est moi, mais moi n’est pas identité.

Je me demande si l’idée de l’identité a toujours existé. Si la réponse est négative, alors je me demanderai puisque l’idée n’existait pas, si l’identité elle-même existait.

Question fausse si identité est moi.

L’identité est une stratégie, une force, mais aussi une forme axiomatique.

Soit-t-elle groupe, idée ou communauté imaginaire toujours l’affect s’implique.

Il existe des fois lorsque moi doit être sans identité.

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« Dira-t-on que nous substituons un fantôme à un autre, que les fables de l’age d’or valent bien l’éternel présent auquel nous songeons, et que le moi originel, fondement de nos espoirs, évoque le vide et s’y ramène en fin de compte ? Soit ! Mais un vide qui dispense la plénitude ne contient-il pas plus de réalité que n’en possède l’histoire dans son ensemble ? » Cioran, Histoire et Utopie

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Peinture : Marcel Duchamp, Autoportrait en profile

How to become a martyr: a guidebook

2006-11-21T23:54:00.000+02:00

It is perhaps a prologue for the next Middle Eastern war, or more specifically the next Lebanese war. The new “martyr” is the copyright holder of the “quantity and quality” theory. He is also the heir, not anymore, to the throne of the Phalanges party in Lebanon, a premature politician and a law graduate who was curiously the minister of industry.

Tires are burning in front of the Phalange headquarters, people are angry, and emotions are running high. It is a recipe for a nice little war.

It is easy to simplify, and easier to oversimplify. The assassins were already identified, moments after the news of the assassination; it is the Syrians for some, Bashar el Assad personally for others. Of course when asked about proof all would reply with the same rhetorical answer: “isn’t it obvious?”

Of course the answer to this rhetoric question is simply No, it is not obvious. In fact it is far from being obvious. If the act of declaring the obviousness of something is enough proof, then why does one need trials and investigations? Many assassinations, in fact most of them, have obvious features. Most of political assassinations are thought over in order to conceal the perpetrator; at least the one who plans the assassination has to take 5 minutes to think about how to conceal his/her identity. The obviousness of a crime does not make it solved. And when this same obviousness is far from being so, then the one who sees the obviousness of it knows more than those who do not, and thus has the duty and responsibility of presenting the FACTS that make it so.

The sequence is however more complex. If one wants to know, or at least seeks to know a certain truth, one must analyze the context and the conditions as well as the motives.

If it is, as common legal sequences consider, the profiting party that is firstly suspected, then one must start here. If a rich old guy gets killed, his children are certainly suspects. The motive is always central to discovering a crime.

The supporters of the “obvious” analysis are clear on that point, the motives are:

To stop the international court for the assassination of Hariri
To kill enough ministers in order for the cabinet to collapse
To kill all those who oppose Syria
To help Iran in defending its Nuclear program

Refuting these claims can be done briefly:

The international court is already agreed upon (not in words, but in action). The fact that the legal details are being discussed does not mean that it is possible for anyone – even if will exists – to stop the proceedings of this court. The only thing anyone can do at this moment is to discuss the details of the court, but the court itself is going to be formed.
This solution for collapsing the cabinet – a declared goal of the opposition – was actually supposed to be done, more convincingly, in tomorrow’s demonstrations. In fact this assassination has actually halted, at least delayed, the calls for the cabinet to resign. In fact the assassination has the exact opposite effect.
This is far from being a realistic strategy of any system, even the Syrian one.
This is simply ridiculous.

Tomorrow or the day after was supposed to be the day of demonstrations for the opposition. The assassination, to say the least, has changed these plans. The assassination in a way or another has succeeded in doing what 14 azar diplomacy did not succeed in doing, namely prevent the demonstrations. It also made it clear that any popular movement will now transform into riots. In fact this assassination has given a reason for the government to take over the streets itself. I will not be surprised if taking over the streets will have for title the resignation of the President of the Republic. If this happens it is not easy to imagine that it was indeed the Syrians that actually killed the young Gemayel.

Lebanon has become an important factor in both American and French foreign affairs. It is not easy to imagine that they will easily let go their “democratic success”. That is they will not easily allow the democratic expression of the opposition from undoing what the Cedar revolution has established. In short it is not in the interest of neither the opposition neither Syria (for once) to have a civil disturbance in Lebanon. Once such events break in Lebanon it would be easy to transform the UN troops stationed in the south of the country into an international force that governs the whole of the country and with a mission statement to disarm the armed factions, namely the Hezbollah.

It is also of great importance to look at other intriguing factors which should not be so easily undermined or looked over:

Some days ago Samir Jaajaa announced imminent assassinations of ministers in the cabinet; his information must have come from somewhere and must have had at least a foundation. When one has “information” about possible assassinations it is not a small bird that comes from the window and tells one that a minister is going to be assassinated and Jaajaa automatically believes this bird because it is a trustworthy bird. Things are more complicated than that. The one who told him so must have had information and this information is vital. It was also the American spokesmen who backed these claims. They had intelligence reports that assassinations will be help against the cabinet. These reports must have content and therefore must have proof. Of course this proof was never supplied.

Last month there was another intriguing incident, one that did not acquire the attention it should have acquired. It was the case of the gun-silencers caught heading to the American Embassy in Lebanon. The same weapons – at least in form – were used for today’s assassination. Three gunmen armed with rifles with silencers killed Gemayel. The American Embassy had declared these silencers were used for air-guns (air guns do not need silencers as far as I know). The case was dropped in silence.

The assassination was held in the crowded region of Sin-el-Fil a Christian suburb of Beirut, it is highly populated by supporters of the Lebanese Forces, the same party Jaajaa leads. The gunmen disappeared. They must have gone somewhere.

If one is to go back in history, or to the very near history, assassinations of the sort were a trademark of the Lebanese Forces that Jaajaa had taken over in the mid-80s. The case of Dani Cham’oun and Tony Franjiyeh are a small sample.

It is not to say that it was Samir Jaajaa who killed Gemayel son, but to point out to some other factors apart from the anti-Syrian opinions of Gemayel.

Now the roles are turned. The government calls for demonstrations, and the opposition is at home. In tactical terms the assassination seems like a successful move by those who support the government whoever these might be.

De l’homme, de la nature et de l’adulte

2006-11-15T04:28:00.000+02:00

Jamais n’avait il put se fier au fonctionnalisme que l’humanité s’ait inventer pour elle-même. Il ne pouvait pas se concevoir comme une fonction dans un système non-naturel. Ce ne serai pas la même chose peut être, si ce fonctionnalisme était identique à celui des animaux. Les animaux sont dans cette classification supérieurs à l’homme. L’homme est un animal avec des défauts de fabrication.

La persistance de la question première, de la recherche d’un sens à tout cela, est la dernière étape à franchir avant d’atteindre l’age adulte (adulte serai dans ce cas l’état du sujet qui se dissout dans le système, qui devient le système). C’est ce qu’en termes moins rationnels pourrait s’appeler renoncement, ou capitulation à la vérité apparente en cet instant.

Les adultes sont ceux qui ne sont définis que par le système qui les nomme ainsi. Les adultes sont la représentation la plus pure d’un système de savoir. Ce sont la résultante. Ils ne sont jamais ; ils deviennent toujours, des esclaves perpétuels de systèmes en constante métamorphose.

Ce n’est pas facile de les voir pourtant. Souvent on peut chercher un adulte toute notre vie, et finalement le trouver dans nous même. Mais lui, il cherchait constamment l’adulte en lui-même, de peur que cet adulte ne soit faufilé vers son intérieur. Il construisait des mécanismes de défense – des mécanismes anti-adultes.

« L’infaillibilité des lois de la nature offre – quand on part de la connaissance du particulier, et non de la connaissance de l’idée – quelque chose qui nous dépasse, et même qui parfois nous semble terrible. » Schopenhauer, Le Monde Comme Volonté et Comme Représentation, 178.

Peinture : René Magritte, Le fils de l’homme

Peace, non-violence and conscience

2006-11-14T20:26:00.000+02:00

Peace. Non-violence. Conscience. Three overwhelmingly present terms in the discourses of the big majority of groups aiming to end conflicts.

The errors in these narratives are blatant. These appear at first in the presumptions that the narratives depart from. Peace is seen as canonical, as an intrinsic part of human nature. Peace equals normality, war equals exception. History however shows the exact opposite.

The fact that these groups are calling for the conscience of people – that is to show them facts (violence and its evils) and expect them to react “consciously” about it, expecting people to reject violence as an inevitable evil in the platonically-good-by-nature human – gives their message an aspect of education slightly similar to the rhetoric of the French colonialism: educating the savage people of non-civilized countries on the virtues of the French Enlightenment.

Another point would be the universalized meaning of violence. Violence becomes any act of aggression. Violence becomes a universal moral judgment. One often forgets that violence is a social construct, it is violence because it is defined as so. Acts that are labeled violent in a certain social, cultural or civilization-al context are not necessarily so in another. There is no act that is inherently violent – even the most atrocious of acts.

Peace, however, is this state of being when belligerent forces reach a certain balance. This balance is not equality, or rarely so. Peace and war are two terms that depend upon each other. There is no peace without war, like there is no war without peace – of course in linguistic terms. Peace is therefore a position whereas the power relations reach stability. Peace is imposed not chosen. Peace must be a necessity; it needs to be sustained by interest and power. This does not imply violence in the simplistic meaning of the term – at least not necessarily. This implies strategy. Peace is a strategic goal, and needs strategies that will make such a goal a necessity for both conflicting parties, a necessity that is at the same time in their interests.

Calling for the conscience of people is not the best of strategies. As Nietzsche so explicitly puts it, humanity is violent by nature. “Without cruelty there is no celebration: this is what the long history of man teaches us.” (Translation is unfortunately mine – La Généalogie de la Morale, 71)

Non-violence if it is to become a strategy of resistance must go further than to target the conscience of people. It must use non-violence as a force, not as a rejection of using force. Non-violence must substitute the force of weapons with one that is stronger, more imposing. Non-violent struggle is a struggle that is equally aimed at overcoming a system. It is a struggle that should – rather it must – become more disrupting than armed struggle. And in a more proper use of the word violent, it must become more violent than violent struggle.

Painting: Caravaggio, David with the head of Goliath

Retour à la politique

2006-11-13T23:39:00.000+02:00

Je me demande depuis quelques temps ce que Foucault aurait dit s’il lisait les nouvelles politiques libanaises. Aurait il toujours utiliser le terme politique de la même manière ? Aurait il bien pu défendre sa notion d’énoncé et de visibilité comme étant les conditions du savoir ? Une chose est certaine c’est bien le primat du pouvoir sur tout savoir. Le primat des rapports de forces sur les relations du savoir.

Comment un individu spéculatif, et théoriquement doté de la faculté qu’on appelle souvent pensé, fait-il pour re-construire les propos des « 14 Azar – ou Mars » pour former un sens, n’importe lequel?

Pour un peuple qui se croit le plus intelligent du monde – ou au moins du monde arabe – il est étrange comment il se gouverne. Peut être c’est uniquement une intelligence spéculative aussi.

Dans la condition ou il n’existe point d’universalité, ou de savoir indépendant des conditions qui le rendent possible, l’engagement lui-même devient conditionné par les relations de savoir et les rapports de forces préexistants dans l’instant historique ou le sujet lui-même se trouve.

C’est donc hors du royaume de la morale que le jugement s’effectue ; c’est dans le domaine de la stratégie, peut être, qu’une réponse puisse exister.

L’engagement est donc toujours historique, ou mieux, historicisé.

Le but étant un changement des rapports de forces préexistants, il est donc nécessaire d’opposer les forces dominantes, ceci dans ses deux représentations, visibles et discursives. La résistance dans ce cas est toujours sous le risque de se trouver faisant partie – même si avec l’apparence d’opposer – du système qu’elle cherche à bouleverser. La résistance doit donc découler d’un dehors, bien que ce dehors ne peut être totalement dissocié d’un certain rapport au-dedans. En d’autres termes, toute résistance doit découler d’une force résistante externe au système dominant. Simultanément elle peut user des stratégies de résistance qui sont internes au système opposé. Deux possibilités peuvent être dérivées dans ce cas. La première de saisir le pouvoir sur le système, et donc garder le système dans sa forme discursive ou visible (ou les deux). La seconde est de changer le système lui-même. C’est aussi possible d’articuler la même idée autrement : saisir les mécanismes créateurs de vérités, ou bien changer les mécanismes selon lesquels les vérités sont crées.

Le choix de passer vers une nouvelle strate du savoir, ou bien stimuler le commencement d’une nouvelle strate, présente des problème au niveau théorique principalement : c’est l’extériorité à ce système qui est toujours problématique.

Il est bien nécessaire – si le but est de construire le Liban sous la forme d’une nation – d’inhiber un changement fondamental dans la structure. Ceci dit, La structure sociale, la structure politique, et la structure discursive.

C’est là que la liberté devient synonyme de la résistance. On devient libre dés lors qu’on reconnaît notre condition d'esclave, et c’est uniquement en ce moment que nous pouvons aspirer à devenir maître (la liberté dés lors qu'elle est reliée à la fonction du maître, devient synonyme du pouvoir - car le maître lui même n'est pas "libre" de l'esclave, ou plus libre que l'esclave en termes existentiels). Tout pouvoir découle des deux pôles, résistant et dominant. Le pouvoir est dans un sens leur résultante. La liberté est donc le bouleversement des rôles de maître et esclave. La liberté n’a donc d’autre sujet que le pouvoir. Ce n’est pas une liberté mais une position de domination. La liberté perd dans ce cas son sens éthique, elle n’est pas une condition métaphysique de l’existence. Il n'existe pas de liberté sous un sens différent que le pouvoir – le libre arbitre.

Peut on séparer le désir de la liberté et la volonté de pouvoir? Peut on les regarder comme deux désirs distincts l’un de l’autre ?

Lorsqu’une population, un groupe ou même un individu cherchent à se libérer d’un pouvoir qui les assujettisse, est ce la liberté qui les meut ou bien la volonté de pouvoir?

Les luttes de classes ne sont elle pas des luttes de pouvoir plutôt que des luttes pour des droits ? Le droit n’est il pas lui-même définit par le pouvoir qui le nomme ainsi, et donc dés lors qu’on cherche à « prendre » nos droits, ce n’est qu’une autre façon de dire qu’on cherche à redéfinir le pouvoir afin de définir nos droits - créer des vérités? Ceci n’est pas a condamné. La volonté de puissance n’est dans aucun cas à juger moralement. Elle est un constituant de tout sujet. C’est une condition première de la vie, ou même du temps.

Lorsque les classes ouvrières a l'aube de la révolution industrielle se sont révoltées, leur lutte était pour le pouvoir et non pour la liberté (bien que les deux buts se croisent souvent – peut être même doivent se voir comme un seul but). Prendre le pouvoir, c’est prendre la suprématie sur les énoncés et les visibilités qui en dérivent. C’est donc exercer notre liberté – notre dominance – sur un dominé.

Les luttes ouvrières, comme toute autre lutte, une fois abstraites, et vues comme vecteurs dans un diagramme, perdent leur aspect idéologique.

Les idéologies qui meuvent les révoltes sont dans ce cas rien que des représentations contingentes d’un désir de pouvoir, d’une volonté de puissance. Une idéologie est une résultante d’une convergence de systèmes de savoir, de rapports de forces et de techniques discursives et non-discursives qui se trouvent possibles à un certain moment dans un certain espace. Ce sont une rhétorique qui crée des vérités.

Ce n’est pas en guise de les juger que ceci est utile. C’est encore moins pour les réfuter comme révolutions factices. Puisque effectivement tout pouvoir est ainsi par vertu d’une résistance à ce pouvoir, et toute révolution a pour but de redresser les rapports de pouvoir préexistants, c’est donc possible de critiquer les idéologies de résistance selon un fonctionnalisme abstrait. Il n y a donc que la stratégie qui puisse agir comme critique.

Supporter une idéologie n’est pas identique à y croire – c’est par contre croire à la rhétorique de cette idéologie comme apte à assumer la position de domination. C’est un choix, non une conviction.

Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cell in a Model Prison in the U.S.A., 1975

Pronoms personnels

2006-11-10T20:24:00.000+02:00

Il y a une seule phrase que le sujet peut prononcer ; une seule phrase qui simultanément affirme sa subjectivité tel elle est définie par les principes de la solitude, et paradoxalement s’oppose à l’impossibilité de la rencontre de deux sujets dans leur solitude réciproque.

Dans « Le Voleur » (Louis Malle, 1967), Jean-Paul Belmondo prononce cette phrase.

« Il n y a qu’à toi que je puisse dire que je suis seul ».

C’est avec cette phrase que la rencontre est possible, sans qu’elle soit elle-même rencontre. C’est – par nécessité de la définir – la seule forme de l’amour, non comme principe sentimentale, mais comme relation intersubjective ; elle est la seule relation possible.

L’amour est donc l’expression de son impossibilité logique. Il est l’état dans lequel un sujet affirme sa solitude, non pour lui-même mais pour autrui, ainsi prenant conscience de la présence d’autrui comme sujet; affirmant sa subjectivité sans pour autant pouvoir y accéder. C’est semblable à la foi de Kierkegaard, ou bien même à ce que Buber appellerai la relation Je-Tu.

L’autre, être indéfini qui existerai uniquement par son inexistence, est le seul à qui je puisse dire cette phrase. Si au cinéma l’autre puisse prendre forme, et devient souvent représentable, dans le domaine extra-diégétique l’autre est toujours une image, diégétique peut être, d’un désir inlassable et inextinguible. C’est lui-même l’objet du désir comme le définit Lacan.

Il vagabondait toujours à l’extérieur de lui-même ; il semblait reproduire une perception emprisonnée dans une multitude de consciences. Il cherchait un je. Dés lors qu’il se trouvera à la première personne du singulier, il ne lui resterait qu’à prononcer une phrase, une seule. Le fait de la prononcer, le croyait-il, était suffisant pour accéder à l’autre. Peut être se trompait il, peut être pas. Mais pourtant reste à trouver un je pour la prononcer.

Photo : Henri Cartier-Bresson, Volcan de Popocatpetl, Mexico

Quelques remarques à propos du fédéralisme, ou Critique positive de la fédération:

2006-11-09T01:34:00.000+02:00

Un nouveau nom a apparut sur la carte politique du Liban, quoique en miniature, mais non sans importance emblématique. Loubnanouna (notre Liban), le nom lui-même est peut être mal choisit, bien que cela ne soit pas vraiment une raison pour rejeter le projet. Notre Liban, désigne le singulier – un seul Liban. Le Notre par contre désigne un groupe de je unis sous un nous. C’est donc un seul Liban pour un seul groupe, un seul nous. Cette remarque prendra sens à la fin de mes propos j’espère.

Le groupe de Loubnanouna trouve une nécessité pour fédéraliser le Liban, c’est un désir qui existe depuis la création du Liban et n’est qu’une idée – peut être des plus logiques – pour résoudre les problèmes qui sont à la racine de cette « partie du monde arabe ».

Le fédéralisme est certainement un mode de gouvernement profitable pour nombreux états, il est par contre susceptible de présenter des problèmes plus que des solutions. D’abord il faut avoir en esprit que le fédéralisme au Liban a acquit une connotation séparatiste et communautaire, et a été rejeté (à mon avis faussement – et ceci ne signifie pas que j’en suis un supporteur) comme destructif. Pourtant la théorie qui s’applique dans un laboratoire, ne s’applique pas toujours en dehors du laboratoire.

Le fédéralisme se fait sur une base culturelle, religieuse, géographique ou politique (ou autre). Au Liban toute fédération, à cause de son aspect inévitable dans la conscience de la société (des sociétés dois-je dire), prendra la forme (même si non- officielle) d’une fédération communautaire. Le problème se pose donc suite à la répartition géographique des communautés libanaises – chaque fédération aura une identité communautaire, sans être vraiment homogène. Alors deux possibilités se présentent, la première que les minorités dans chaque fédération soient dissoutes dans leur entourage, ou bien que ces minorités se trouvent aliénées (l’exemple de l’Inde et du Pakistan n’est pas très encourageant, l’expulsion et la violence sont donc des choses à considérer, et anticiper).
La fédération implique la division des ressources, et cela dans un pays centralisé comme le Liban est assez complexe. Il faut se mettre d’accord sur une division et plus important, trouver des divisions soutenables économiquement.
Il faut aussi tenir en considération les aspects économiques qui dérivent (la délocalisation des habitants, le chômage, le mouvement économique des populations entre les fédérations et ses implications sociales)
Il faut aussi tenir en compte que toute fédéralisation du Liban est facilement transformable en une autre forme de domination extérieure, une division du pays en de zones d’influences étrangères géographiquement limitées (mais également sinon plus conflictuels). Ceci dit diviser le Liban en fédérations est une recette possible pour une nouvelle guerre « non-civile ». Parier sur la conscience sociale et politique de la société libanaise n’est pas une décision bien considérée. Démontrer qu’on puisse appliquer tel projet de fédération sans que tel projet devienne le nouveau thème des reportages sur le moyen orient (je vois déjà un titre dans les journaux français, La guerre des Libans), est une nécessité pour soutenir tel projet. Pourtant dans « le meilleur des mondes possibles » la fédération est effectivement une solution profitable peut être pour le Liban. Mais hélas on ne vit pas dans un laboratoire, et la fédéralisation du Liban ne signifie pour aucune communauté libanaise la fin de ses soucis (ni l’isolation de la question Palestinienne, ni de l’Iraq, ni de l’Iran, ni de la Syrie, ni de la France, ni des Etats-Unis, ni de l’Arabie Saoudite, et la liste continue), au contraire c’est le contraire qui est probable, et plausible. Imaginons juste pour une minute l’image de tel projet en termes politiques : Une fédération supportée par l’Iran et la Syrie, qui est juste à coté d’une autre sous la direction indirecte de l’Arabie Saoudite, Une troisième qui borde les deux ou les Etats-Unis et la France participe activement au bonheur de la population en leur apprenant la démocratie (et la diplomatie), une quatrième qui, plus proche de la Syrie que des autres fédération géographiquement, choisira une alliance stratégie avec le pays voisin, une cinquième peut être, ou peut être même une sixième, mais l’image est claire, c’est la carte de la prochaine crise du moyen orient.
Pourtant, le dilemme se pose, pour avoir une fédération saine, il faut avoir une stabilité politique, ou géopolitique interne et externe qui pourra soutenir la division et après la division. Mais si on a cela les raisons pour la fédération auront déjà disparues. Peut être faudra t il commencer par résoudre les problèmes qui font que la fédération est nécessaire, pour finalement ne plus en avoir besoin. Il est possible d’argumenter que la nécessité de la fédération est la condition même de son échouement. En d’autres termes, si il y a un désir de fédération il y a aussi les semences d’une guerre.

Photo : La couverture d’un journal publié par Loubnanouna – traduction : « Le Liban, une station enracinée pour le train des conflits ». C’est bien cette affirmation qui est paradoxalement le contre argument pour la fédéralisation.

http://www.loubnanouna.org/

Human errors, or, The human stain on war technology

2006-11-08T19:36:00.000+02:00

It is not a novelty, nor is it an exaggerated use of power. It is simply another incident that, for journalistic reasons, has occupied a privileged place in the news agenda.

Perhaps few have noticed that Gaza is burning yet again. Some would relate the last Gaza operation to the defeat of the Israeli army in Lebanon; the army is seeking to regain some of its authority by going back to the “inside”, namely to the Gaza backyard.

Like all the massacres that are big enough to impose a justification from the Israeli army spokesmen, Beit Hanoun’s massacre had the privilege of getting a story, and a reason. Those who died, rather those who didn’t will have some form – even if questionable – of explanation for why those who died did.

The soldier was sitting in his post on a hill. He could see Gaza and perhaps Gaza could even see him, a brave soldier following orders, an example for the youth who in turn will be sitting in his place once he will be dismissed from service. He mistook his target.

Modernity, in its technological form, has given humanity the gift of accurate weapons, the wonders of smart bombs and high tech weaponry. That is of weapons which are, if free from human interference, able to kill mercifully, justly, and inevitably. Unfortunately the human factor is an inconvenience for these machineries of justice – or at least this what one has to understand from the Israeli discourse of justification, and the same goes for the American one. Sometimes, like this time, or many times before, a soldier can miss the target. This is called human error, and it justifies the crime, since after all it was an error.

A guy was sitting silently in the shadow of the nightly sky. A gun extended from his hand gave him the attributes of a lurking killer. The stars were shy and the moon never goes out alone; it was dark. A shadow appears, indistinguishable; the man cocks his gun and aims at the moving form. The gun fires, and a mass of human flesh drops. The man goes nearer to his victim. Under the soft light coming from the nearby window he sees a stranger, dead and soaked in a reddish liquid. The dead body is not who he expected it to be; he mistook his victim for another one. A human mistake where the weapon is innocent; and the killer’s only guilt is that of misaiming. The question that poses itself is simple: is this man a criminal or not?

To kill people in a war is apparently normality; it is after all a war. In the old ages one of the strategies of war, was fear. To scare the enemy by demonstrating the immense violence that can befall on him; spectacular violence it could be called.

One of the strategies of the Israeli army, until proven otherwise by something else than the recurrent human error justification, is random killing. Or perhaps I could even go so far as to say deliberate killing of women and children.

Today’s score is relatively limited: 18 killed and approximately 45 injured. Needless to say the killed are mostly children and their mothers.

Logo-solus

2006-11-08T02:12:00.000+02:00

Le fondement même de la perception, la capacité d’un sujet à prendre conscience d’un phénomène est la conceptualisation de ce phénomène – de ce fait le langage. Conceptualisation implique mémoire. Mémoire implique temps. Néanmoins, le phénomène perçu n’est pas extérieur au sujet, ou bien en d’autres termes, n’appartient pas à un registre extérieur à la perception du sujet.

Le phénomène est une représentation dont la condition est le sujet, et ne peut exister sans le sujet de la perception. C’est ici que Schopenhauer exprime la relation, ou plutôt la non-relation sujet-objet. Telle relation ne peut être considérée ; elle est une présupposition fausse. Le monde n’est accessible au sujet que comme représentation. Cette présupposition – ou condition première – peut aisément induire une autre : Le monde n’est accessible qu’à travers le langage.

Ce que la perception traite comme objet, n’existe qu’en différance. C’est le fait qu’il est nommé qui, à priori, désigne l’absence de la chose nommée. Il ne peut y avoir chose dés lors qu’elle est nommée. La différance est dans ce cas un passé, qui ne peut être, et n’a jamais été, présent. C’est la condition première, c’est ce que Lacan désigne comme l’ « autre ». L’autre est l’objet de tout désir ; l’autre est une absence qui par vertu d’être ainsi devient la seule condition de la présence, ou de la conscience. En termes linguistiques l’autre est ce qui donne sens à un mot par différance. Il est par vertu de son absence.

Ce qui pour Schopenhauer constitue le sujet peut bien être assimilé à ce que Lacan appelle le langage. Le sujet de Schopenhauer est prisonnier de son caractère. Le sujet est aussi solitaire, il cherche l’autre sans jamais pouvoir l’atteindre, car l’autre ne peut exister qu’en représentation propre au sujet. L’accessibilité de l’autre n’est qu’une illusion. L’autre est donc toujours une illusion d’un autre, il n’est accessible qu’a travers la représentation et donc fait partie du sujet lui-même – par son absence il détermine le désir du sujet. C’est ceci qui exprime l’inévitabilité de la solitude. L’homme – ou le sujet – est un être, par nature, solitaire. Il est prisonnier de sa subjectivité, captif de sa faculté d’apperception, et assujettit par les limites du langage.

Cette absence, ou bien cette solitude intrinsèque de l’homme n’est dans son fondement qu’un attribut du langage. La solitude est le produit de l’incapacité du langage à transférer (ou traduire) l’absence de laquelle le langage dérive- en d’autres termes, le langage est incapable de dépasser son état de langage, sa structure de différance. Il est incapable de signifier au-delà de lui-même, il est incapable de signifier autre que lui-même. Et en termes intersubjectifs, il est incapable de se traduire. Le langage ne fait référence qu’à lui-même ; une mise en abyme inévitable et introvertie.

C’est ici que Wittgenstein se trouve utile ; apprendre un langage c’est aussi apprendre des lois et des systèmes et c’est à travers ces conventions qu’une forme limitée de communication puisse exister, sans pour autant atteindre un degré supérieur de signification. La signification ne se fait que dans le système et ne fait référence qu’au système lui-même. La chose-en-soi par contre est toujours inaccessible sinon inexistante – au moins pour le sujet logocentrique. Wittgenstein décrit un système intersubjectif ou la définition d’un jeu de langage est la seule possibilité d’établir une communication limitée entre deux sujets qui se conviennent à jouer ce jeu selon des règles prédéfinies. L’autre devient sujet dans la limite où il participe au même jeu, sans pour autant pouvoir dépasser les limites d’un certain jeu.

Pourtant la solitude persiste.

Peinture : Max Ernst, Arbre solitaire et arbres conjugaux

Islam et politique

2006-11-06T16:46:00.000+02:00

Ce qui a survécu de l’identité arabe est une image, juste une image, ou bien deux. La première d’un dictateur aux cheveux teintés d’un noir artificiel qui s’éclate en slogans dans une court de justice, ou d’injustice (tout dépend de notre position morale). La seconde, celle d’un héritier qui cherche inutilement à consoler un principe de Pan-Arabism depuis longtemps abandonné avec celui de préserver un pouvoir sur ce qu’il appellera - en termes de ses théories - une province.

C’est dans la mort qu’ils trouveront la seule renaissance. Une renaissance illusoire, et peut être même inutile. La mort transforme toute personne en martyre potentiel.

Cette image prête à la pitié, pour une idéologie qui, comme ces deux défenseurs, est depuis longtemps matte. Le dernier scintillement était depuis déjà 40 ans. Depuis 39 ans l’opacité occupait déjà les esprits.

Une image disparaît et une autre prend sa place.

Même les principes néo-marxistes de l’idéologie de Nasser, ou même du Baa’th, n’ont pas réussi à engendrer une conscience de classes. Ils ont donc échoué à faire le minimum des nécessités d’une révolution.

Il est hélas trop tard pour corriger les erreurs de ce discours, et il est hélas le tour d’un autre, plus complexe, qui se dégage d’une identité religieuse.

Il n’existe pas nécessairement une dichotomie entre la conscience de classe et la religiosité. Bien sur Marx pourra contredire ce constat. Mais néanmoins, il faudra trouver une condition nécessaire pour défendre tel constatation, et ceci se trouve dans la place qu’occupe la religiosité dans la représentation du moi politique dans un certain discours. C’est ici que l’Islam est dans la nécessité de reproduire son identité politique d’une façon qui puisse reformuler le principe de la multitude en termes politiques et non religieux.

Le modèle Libanais ici est un cas d’importance, bien que loin de l’importance normalement attribuée à ce modèle. L’islamisme libanais qui se dévoile dans le discours du Hezbollah est le candidat adéquat pour démontrer la possibilité de joindre un discours religieux avec une conscience politique qui adopte la multitude dans la sphère politique – et c’est la diversité de la société libanaise qui la condition de possibilité d’une telle transformation. En d’autres termes, démontrer la possibilité de joindre religiosité et conscience de classe. Le succès d’un tel modèle signifie en partie que l’Islam politique peut réussir à s’évader de la domination du regard de l’autre, et peut en termes simplistes, se séculariser, ou bien pour être plus précis, se politiser.

Paysage

2006-11-05T14:47:00.000+02:00

C’est un vide. C’est le vide. Je regarde devant moi, la porte observe mon dos. Une surface rougeâtre, et nuancée en formes rectilignes, se dévoile sur ma rétine. J’attends inutilement. Elle est autre part, peut être même nulle part.

Je détourne mon regard. La persistance de la mémoire est le principe premier de toute conscience. La persistance de la mémoire me gouverne. Je me soumets tel un bon esclave.

Lorsque la peau n’effleure que les molécules flottantes de son entourage gazeux, les semences de la mémoire bourgeonnent instantanément. La solitude apparaît bientôt.

Peinture: Giorgio de Chirico, The Awakening of Ariadne

Homo-solus

2006-11-03T20:04:00.000+02:00

Et puis c’est pourtant simple la vie. Elle est simple dès lors qu’on ne cherche pas à se rendre compte de son existence. Ce sont ces concepts, ces mots, qui désignent des choses qui n’existeront pas sans les mots qui les désignent, qui sont à la source de toute considération de la vie comme vie.

Sans langage, sans mots, l’homme ne sera que semblable à ce qu’il désigne animaux. Sans langage, le bonheur est possible. Car c’est par le langage que toute description de ce qu’est bonheur est possible.

La solitude est elle aussi une chose linguistique. Chose et mot ne sont pas simplement définis. La solitude est linguistique, comme tout état de conscience.

Le langage ne peut se satisfaire. Il cherche la dualité sans jamais pouvoir l’atteindre.

C’est dans cet éternel cycle de conscience que je me trouve. Une solitude qui cherche une autre, pour peut être s’annuler ou se contredire. La solitude ne peut exister en paire.

Schopenhauer propose un caractère mécanique à la vie. Elle est mouvement. Elle « oscille, comme un pendule, entre la souffrance et l’ennui. » Dans ce système la vie elle-même, son existence, présuppose la solitude. Pourtant la solitude ne présuppose pas l’unicité, et c’est peut être même le contraire qui puisse être dérivé.

Je n’est qu’une illusion. Je est un moi solitaire qui cherche à s’unir avec lui-même.

Peinture: René Magritte, Tentative de l'impossible

Conjugaison

2006-10-21T13:50:00.000+03:00

Souvent lorsque la phénoménologie tombe dans l’inconsistance, ce sont d’autres facultés qui prennent le relais. Peut être serai-ce la même faculté – dissimulée en d’autres - peut être ne serai-ce pas une faculté.

Toute question a un point de départ. C’est une présupposition de quelque chose, ou d’autre chose. Toute chose n’est elle donc pas chose par rapport à autre chose ?

Et puis le temps se déchoit à son image ; il décompose la durée, elle devient instants, moments, ou parfois même histoire. C’est à cet instant que le bruit imperceptible de la question se trouve en face du visage inaudible de l’histoire – ou plutôt de l’Histoire.

C’est bien ironique quelque part de voir que l’homme a une tendance acquise ou innée de vouloir croire au présent. On veut posséder le présent avec la même ardeur qu’on investi pour posséder le passé. Cela est vrai pour l’homme comme individu et pour l’homme comme groupe. Les individus cherchent la mémoire, les groupes, eux, l’histoire.

Il n y a pas de mot sans passé ; il n y a pas de sens au présent. Pour être, un mot a besoin d’histoire. C’est l’histoire qui crée les mots et c’est par les mots qu’on crée l’histoire. C’est un cycle d’inexistence, fatal et nécessaire.

Image : Man Ray, Indestructible Object

Météorologie

2006-10-01T22:24:00.000+03:00

Et puis lorsqu’il s’avère que la pluie est prochaine, ce sont les grains de sable qui se précipitent à l’accueillir.

L’attente est toujours pour une coïncidence ; c’est une forme de vagabondage introspectif, un vagabondage qui se proclame inconscient, inconditionnelle, et fixe.

C’est pourtant le regret qui détermine la plupart des actes. Le regret dans sa forme la plus volatile est une condition qui préoccupe l’acte imparfait – dans le sens où l’acte n’atteint pas sa destiné – en d’autres termes tout acte.

Dans la vie, comme dans l’amour, l’acte est uniquement un potentiel qui n’atteint jamais la forme requise par son image. C’est une attente, nourrie par l’espoir et tuée par les conditions réelle de l’existence – souvent nommées ‘réalité’ ou ‘vie’.

Le poète, comme tout être hypocrite, nourrit l’illusion de son identité par des images propres destinées à soi et des images sociales destinées à autrui. Il est pourtant celui qui donne aux mots une valeur qui surpasse le langage – et dépasse la langue. Les mots deviennent une condition propre, une fin dont l’ordre est souvent esthétique mais jamais scientifique.

Quelques choses

2006-09-15T15:24:00.000+03:00

A travers des minutes qui passent, et devant l’inéluctabilité de la durée, je contemple les métamorphoses diverses de ma présence mondaine. C’est un acte répétitif, un acte qui simule le mouvement pendulaire du temps. Je constate souvent mes vices et mon incapacité ; je constate de même mes faiblesses.

Quelque part entre le son d’un avion militaire et l’explosion d’un obus, j’ai perdu ma volonté. Elle était à mes cotés depuis des années et des mois, mais un jour parmi les 33 jours, elle est partie. Le matin je me suis réveillé et mon bras ne toucha que vide ; même pas une lettre, même pas une explication.

Moi par contre est parti volontairement.

Cela fait plus ou moins 2 ans que je suis sous l’égide d’une illusion d’un pays – une communauté imaginaire, une nation précoce. Je me retourne chaque jour pour chercher une guerre que je ne peux vivre sans. Je pense aux sons des avions qui passent lentement à travers les cieux, un son qui signifie la vie pour ceux qui l’entendent et la mort pour ceux qui le subissent.

Le pire n’est jamais réel, ce n’est qu’un fantasme nécessaire pour cacher le réel, lui même pire.

Le monde à besoin de définitions. Lorsque la logique n’est pas commune et les terminologies disputées, la dialectique ne peut se traduire en mots et en actes. Comment prouver aux positivistes l’erreur de leur chemin ? Comment démontrer un contresens sans être, soi-même, pris par un contresens ?

‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’.

La certitude de Socrate n’est elle pas aussi incertaine que l’incertitude ? N’est ce pas donc un cercle vicieux ?

Hier à la maison on a discuté du principe de contradiction, est ce une méthodologie ou une doctrine ? Et si c’est une méthodologie, comment donc peut on définir une contradiction hors d’un certain contexte – qu’est ce qui fait le fait qu’une chose soit contradictoire ? N’est pas impossible de dire qu’une chose est contradictoire sans mettre cette chose dans un contexte précis qui définira la contradiction – la contradiction n’est elle donc pas elle même relative ?

Chaque discours porte en lui le système qui détermine la contradiction de ce discours. La contradiction est donc déterminée par le discours qui la porte et ne peut existé, comme principe ou comme doctrine, hors d’un système. Comment donc peut on définir une contradiction ? Qu’y a t il en commun entre les contradictions de tout systèmes ?

Cette chose commune est elle une forme absolue de raisonnement ? Est elle une fondation stable de la critique – n’importe le contexte ?

Lorsqu’on défend un discours, comment peut on donc juger les arguments ? N’est ce pas par le principe de la contradiction du discours lui même ?

Il nous faut des définitions communes. Les définitions sont intrinsèques au discours. Il nous faut aussi des choses non des objets.

Heidegger dans son étude du mot ‘thing’ ou ‘ding’ – chose – a trouvé que la racine étymologique du mot signifie aussi dans un nombre de langues germaniques et scandinaves ‘assemblée quasi-juridique’. Une chose pour être chose doit être une assemblée d’autres choses. Un objet par contre, est un objet par vertu de n’être pas chose, d’être en manque d’assemblage. La critique cherche t elle la chose dans tout objet ? Ou bien la chose derrière tout objet ?

Les objets n’existent pas en dehors du sujet qui détermine leur état d’objets, et le sujet n’existe pas en dehors des choses.

A sign of life

2006-09-14T18:41:00.000+03:00

It is strange to be faced with lack of communication. Since I arrived to Amsterdam I have been cut off from the internet. It is not a necessity of life nor is it the only way to communicate but habit has a strong influence over one’s modes of expression. I have not stopped writing but I have stopped being read. It is somehow like the freedom of expression in our hypocritical world – you can express yourself but there is no one who listens.

As I was sitting down in the computer lab in the university of Amsterdam I decided to write this short message maybe as a call for patience to those unknown individuals who would read my blog, or as a way to tell myself that soon enough I will be publishing my thoughts, encounters and more importantly the everlasting ordeals of this piece of land some people call Lebanon.

For now the very short summary of the happenings is a new war, one of words, which seems to be carrying on the goals of the military one that has failed. A crisis of logic and an insult to reason appears to be conducting the discourse of the Lebanese government. I will not develop this statement further and leave it for a latter time, however, in today’s edition of Al-Akhbar, a new Lebanese daily, Joseph Samaha makes a good presentation of the crisis that faces the discourse of this group. Every argument carries in itself an explicit contradiction.

The End?

2006-08-15T17:07:00.001+03:00

Finally it was on the 33^rd day that the war was to end – ironic perhaps. Of course many still do not believe it ended – myself included – however one thing is over and it is the daily menu of air raids all over Lebanon. 8am was the hour zero and some hours before the last massacre was to be committed just to remind those who thought they can forget the savagery of the Israeli air force. Before 9am many refugees had packed their few belongings, their hopes, themselves and their loved ones and were heading back to their villages where they might find some trace of their homes. Many had no gas to be able to get there, so – like myself – they lingered behind watching the long trails of cars going south. It was frustrating not to be able to go. The traffic was exceptional since the highway was destroyed; people had to take side roads which sometimes are found to be blocked by some earlier air strike. The journey towards Tyr would take something like 5 hours (it usually takes no more than 1 hour and a half).

The main danger was in the form of cluster bombs left behind by the Israeli army; until now 2 people died and 7 were wounded because of incidents of the sort. And another danger is the potential Uranium pollution in the Suburbs of Beirut since yesterday’s bombing (the most violent during the war) was attributed to a potential enriched Uranium weapon, tests are however still to be carried away to confirm or not.

It was somewhat surreal to see the morale of those who were heading south – hands out of the car drawing the victory sign, and the everlasting cheer to the resistance and its Siyyid. Those who found their homes in rubble did not cry, they would say ‘all for the sake of the resistance, we can rebuild stone but we cannot rebuild dignity”. It was an overwhelming atmosphere of pride that one can witness in the streets of Beirut and more so on the way south. At night we went out like always to the Barometre, this leftist pub in a small alley in Hamra street. It was crowded like expected and we had to sit on the table outside like many others. Every now and then a convoy of cars horning and cheering for the Hezbollah would pass on the street nearby and the drinkers sitting outside like ourselves would run towards the street and raise their glasses and voices to those passing in their cars – the V sign was to unite them.

The whole night convoys like these kept passing all over Beirut. Today I woke up early and went to the Suburbs with my camera and a friend. We stopped the car somewhere close and carried on foot. The spectacle was breathtaking. The moment you cross to the Suburbs you can look for a building that still has traces of glass but you will find none. That was the entrance; we were far away from the real disaster. Moments later here it was: a square that used to be composed of some 7 10 floor residential buildings was now nothing but a huge whole. Books, toys, pieces of cloths were scattered all around the dusty ground. Those who used to live here were searching for remainders of there belongings amongst the rubble. They were not devastated, they were joking, saying that this is where I used to live and I gave it for the resistance – ‘all for the sake of the resistance’. A sentence I heard so much these last days. In his speech yesterday the Siyyid promised those whose houses were destroyed that they will get enough money to rent an apartment for 1 year and to buy furniture for it, until their houses are rebuilt. Those who had their houses partly destroyed will have a visit from the party’s engineering department to start the restoration process starting today. Indeed teams of Hezbollah volunteers were found everywhere in the Suburbs working on taking out the rubble and cleaning the damage that struck our own little Hiroshima.

We latter went to check our friend’s house which was supposedly destroyed; she was now in France. We arrived to the crossing, and the smell which filled the whole region until the edges of Beirut was so heavy that one could see the damage before one’s eyes would. Her street was no longer there; it was turned into a pile of rubble, maybe 5 or 6 buildings were completely liquidated around it we could not even know were the building was. Smoke was still going out from under the broken concrete.

As I was walking in yet another of those highly hit areas, I looked at the floor and found a magazine that survived the blast of the building nearby, it was open on a page where the title ‘the history of the Arab Israeli conflict’ appeared. I looked at the burnt edges of the page and then at the grounded building in front and saw the perfect illustration of this conflict.

It is perhaps impossible to describe with words or images the destruction that is found around the Suburbs, however it is even more impossible to describe the sentiments that one can grasp while walking among these people who are the ‘supporters of terrorism’, all of them working together, celebrating a victory that did not come without a price of blood and fire. ‘All for the sake of the resistance’ today I understood that this slogan is not only about words.

Some of my photos from the Suburbs:

Photos from the Suburbs

2006-08-15T16:59:00.000+03:00

Photos from the Suburbs

2006-08-15T16:46:00.000+03:00

Photos from the suburbs

2006-08-15T15:54:00.000+03:00