Locating Beirut

This part of the world is boiling. Arab spring this, Arab spring that, and everyone has an underpinning theory and outcome scenarios.

Locating our strange and terrible ciTy in the middle of this murky regional state of affairs is intricate. We hold our breath with every burning tire and we summon the gods of composure to bestow upon our fellow ciTizens the gift of intelligent speech. Above all, we keep hoping that the very little we have built so far would not be allowed go up in flames.

Thorny is the road to democracy in this part of the world, which makes us stand out as quite unique in the region: an imitation democracy, a society indulging in the practice of representative government, but utterly inexperienced in the founding principles of such a system.

The lack of job opportunities, the continuous brain drain, unemployment, no sustained economic growth, the underworld of nepotism and corruption, the ever thinning middle class layer, the debt fueled political system - all of which will never provoke an upheaval of the masses. We have our safety valves: guaranteed freedom of conscience, of thinking, of expression, of gathering, of association, of movement – all to a large extent - and of entrepreneurship. Under the feeble cover of democratic practices lies a terrible economic and socio-political dejection. But the grassroots have enough safety valves to let the steam off.

Why Lebanon will never be Egypt

I came across the summer 2011 issue of Bidoun and it opened a chapter. Rarely do I keep last year's publications, but this one was still around as obstinate as the Arab Spring. Flipping through it, the content unfolds in a series of articles, with small headers in bold print: “Egypt is not Libya, Egypt is not Tunisia, Libya is not Egypt, Egypt is not Gaza, Egypt is not Iran, Iran is not Egypt (yet), Jordan is not Tunisia, Libya is not Iraq, why Algeria is not Egypt, Syria is not Egypt or Libya, etc.”

And Lebanon is Lebanon. Do we answer the ancestry question as being Lebanese, Arabs, Middle Eastern, Phoenicians? I ask. Is the latter even an ethnicity to associate our cultural identity with? The closest we are to a population census is a wavering figure between 3.6 and 4 million. If we are indeed 4 million, then there are 4 million ways to being Lebanese. That is why Lebanon will always be Lebanon.

What about March in the ciTy?

Twice celebrated on women’s day, and mother’s day. Besides the commercial hype of the latter occasion, what about the woman? 

4:1 ratio, competing for the scarce male counterpart; nose job; Botox dolls; confetti outfits; glittering heels; fallen; virtuous; elegant; fashionable; libertine; libérée; conservative; sexual; faithful; unconventional; sexy; fragile; beautiful; modern; superficial; committed; feminine; oriental; and the list could go on. But beyond the universally obvious: she is half the world and larger than life. She is powerful but unaware of how powerful she is. Forgetful or oblivious of that, she sometimes asks to be empowered or treated equally, with unfinished “we can” slogans. SHE has yet to discover the great power she owns:  that of raising the generations that will rule one day, the generations that will shape the future of this region. How ambitious is that. I ask.

Only Lebanon: suffering from SLS syndrome?

The Suffocating Lack-of State (SLS) syndrome is not yet at its most acute stages. Only Lebanon, or the illusion of democracy? Surrounded by devastating totalitarianism, stifling dictatorships, debilitating monarchies, consuming extremism, enlightened fundamentalism, and what have you. Only Lebanon, a true democracy by regional standards, with incapacitating SLS syndrome: a de-facto dictatorship, where ciTyzens are incapable of influencing the decisions - or lack of, for that matter - affecting the quality of their lives. State builders for social foundations and economic reform - where are you? I ask.

Are we stuck in 1984?

With the promise that technology would set us free?

In a recent AdAgeDigital article, 3D Modeling, Wifi Sensors, and Augmented Reality, are three new technologies with the potential to ‘change the way we shop (full article). Guest blogger Jad Sarout shares his POV (Point Of View) of on the matter - no pun intended, just a free standing opinion under the new-tech sun of our strange and terrible ciTy.

Jad says: “Interesting, but in my opinion these ‘new technologies’ are not capable of changing how we behave towards shopping unless they play the game by the new rules: free access and free sharing of information without control or censorship. For example, 3D modeling will remain, at best, able to attract attention as a novelty, unless it gears towards social sharing. I was once commissioned for a 3D clothes modeling project. This was the single selling point. A mentality where you build and sell your own investment story to your consumers. But in increasing numbers, they don't care where you put your money. Build a genuine story with your consumers, and let them do the work. Just look at Google. They don't need to market. They just release great products, users  do the rest. Google, of their own confession, spend a huge sums for a faster Internet, because the easier it is for users to interact, the better Google's sales. So instead of spending on marketing, they invest in their users. Everyone wins. CDs didn't change the way users behaved towards music; Myspace did. Better ads didn't change the way consumers reacted to online product shopping; customer reviews on ebay did. What will mutate the way we shop is users generated content, sharing, and free access to information. I might be wrong. Future will tell.”

And the Macintosh ad is still vivid in my mind, when Apple came with the promise that “1984 won’t be like 1984”. As marketers go back to the drawing board trying to understand how new technologies will shape the way consumers shop – are we still stuck in 1984? I ask.

11 Reasons why Santa quit his Job

My wish list to Santa this year:
1- less nepotism (aka wasta)
2- less bribe and forgery
3- more Foreign Direct Investment
4- less sectarian mind sets
5- less political tribalism
6- more citizenship
7- less drugs for the youth
8- less attacks on girls on our ciTy streets
9- less littering and polluting
10- less delinquent driving habits
11- and no tearing down of the Theatre de Beirut...
And that's when it occurred to me that Santa might quit his job. Since many young at heart still believe in the magic of this season, let me not rain on their parade.
Season's Greetings and best of health to you and yours!

My country is not ambitious

A boy soldier billboard campaign on our ciTy streets in anticipation of our nation's Independence Day. The big message that came across from my point of view: my country is not ambitious. Anything can be branded. If we agree on that premise, and on the basic definition of branding being the process of creating a defined image at mind level, then our national Independence Day campaign is the illustration of a country running out of intangible attributes. Try giving into the exercise of making the sum of the parts that define what my country stands for and you will face the question: is it about time our institutions started hiring brand managers. I ask.

Who's the King?

As we become digital citizen, the King has been dethroned. Content is the new King. A breeze of content will blow on our ciTy streets next week, carrying us from Social Media Week to TEDxBeirut. Six days of pure brain candy. Our ciTy awaits in anticipation, and so do I. The power of knowledge sharing and ideas that stretch the mind: I believe both to be change drivers that can start a movement. Thumbs up to the people behind those events. Hopes up for our ciTy.

To Brand or Not to Brand?

That is the question.  W.Drentell rightly states "the symbol for a country should not be created by branding experts" (full article 'My country is not a brand': http://tinyurl.com/3dctvp2); but a nation needs a perceived image if it is to rise to the global radar. Some countries in the region have started getting in the game by investing behind acquiring foreign brands, or simply by initiating the brand building process in-house. Top of mind: Qatar Fifa 2022 World Cup is a giant leap forward on the national image brand building front. At the other end of the scale is the prevailing short sighted quick-buck mentality on our ciTy streets. We are simply at odds with the long term process of building intangible assets - let alone their potential economic contribution. Some brave companies have understood the positive ripple effect that strong brands can have on a nation’s wealth creation, but common practice in our strange and terrible ciTy remains at that other end of the scale: short sighted quick-buck mentality. Out of habit? Out of practice? Out of the game, is where we stand, and highly unlikely of becoming a hub of anything in the foreseeable future. What is our nation's perceived image? And is that how we want to be perceived? I ask.

Gregarious Gluttony

Some kind of never ending gregarious gluttony. All that which makes Beirut ciTy so vibrant and kicking can also render it very imposing, it's people very invasive, judgmental, and always in your face. And our ciTy is alive by the spirit of a people whose ultimate liberation is Carpe Diem, seizing the day and plucking off the eyes of tomorrow. Is there absolutely nothing wrong with that? When I come to think of the potential beneath all that raw energy, I am bewildered. One look at the outdoor media scene and you realize the kind of chaotic state of life we are living in and buying into. Is there absolutely nothing wrong with that mayhem? A perfect case study of branding anarchy. I need some headspace.

Can't live with it, can't live without it!

Have you ever come across such mixed emotions about our strange ciTy?  When we're around, we can hate it; when we're away, we crave for it. We take root wherever we lay our hats, and from there we long for homecoming. Not really knowing what it is that we miss. So we say it's the weather, the nightlife, the social fabric, the people, the culture, and when we run out of valid explanations, we say it's "the vibe" that we miss the most. We yearn to return, to visit, and sooner than later we can’t wait to leave. On our way out, we are happy to go but sad to depart. We love it and we hate it. We can’t live with it, and can’t live without it. Our ability to relocate, fit, mesh, and outshine, has always been a mystery to me. Are we compelled to adapt faster out of necessity, wit, and geopolitical circumstances? Or could it be that we learned to grow our roots above surface and our anchors are simply turned inward? Hence, we simply take our roots elsewhere. This is where we come from. This is where we belong.

Spring is here

The season that conceals our ciTy’s greatest flaws is here. Spring. A time of revolutions; some whole, some forsaken, and some attempting to burgeon. Springing into a revolution is the hardest part of life in our ciTy. After many past and failed attempts at claiming our freedom, we shyly demanded secularism. How can a people fight servitude without ever having lived FREE? I ask. A people not  afraid to stand out, however terrified to stand up. Let’s not do it by the facebook. Revolution 2.0 springing from the grassroots, from the youth, from the future – is way out of our league. Could this be one of our ciTy’s greatest flaws? Spring is here.

Homo Digitalis

I couldn’t help but catch a lasting glimpse of those beautiful pine trees, so representative of our local landscape, as a wave of Russian cold caught up with our land last weekend. And then, another wave is catching up with our ciTy, on a more digital front. This is the year of “social media” and we shall be ON. We modern humans, look back to our ancestors the Homo sapiens, as we become the new ‘Digital Natives”, all the more technology dependent and connected, paving the way to a new species. Are we the next Homo Digitalis?

Truck Culture

How many times have we come across those branded truck backs with painted symbols and text, but hardly ever wondered where this practice came from… an expressive tradition rooted in superstitions and speaking to our deepest apprehensions. Stuck in traffic behind our truck driver, I thought of him travelling distances to earn a living, carrying painted eyes and seemingly entertaining sayings on his vehicle, to shield it from wicked minds and envious eyes - although collecting more insults than envy on the road, nowadays. Whether in the colorful signs, or the messages, or even in the names given - dallou3ah being my favorite - he is transmitting folklore on his truck back without knowing it: a Truck Culture addressing our deep psychological fears of loosing against the odds; which makes us human - all too human - hence the basic need to protect what we own, and to protect our own by warding off ill will. And so, we reach out to knock on wood, cross our fingers, wish one another to 'break a leg', or paint an open blue eye or a khamsa on a truck back. Just like our truck driver on the ciTy streets, we all carry Truck Culture.

Hope and Dream

Two words: Hope and Dream. Everyone, everywhere, needs to hope and to dream. Isn't that true? There are cities under the sun where it takes one to hope harder and dream stronger; places left to their own devices, and vices... Beirut ciTy is such a place. It takes fortitude to be willing and able to hope and dream when all around us points differently, everyday, in our strange, beautiful, and terrible ciTy. My fellow citizen have fully wrapped their minds around this reality. We must have figured out a long time ago what our survival entails, hence our resilience and willingness to hope beyond our own expectations and dream, everytime. Be it what it may, at this time of the year, I will spare you the cliche greetings of the season. I will wish you instead two words, that someone close to my heart recently offered me in beautiful backlits, now hanging as a ray of light in my hallway, a beaming reminder: to keep the Hope and carry the Dream, always within. And as within, so without; I wish you Hope per chance to Dream, and Dream to always have the will to Hope. Pass it on, it is worth the while.

Time, and again

It has been such a hectic month and time simply flew, again... as it always does, so efficiently. And as we keep wondering where it went, repeatedly, we promise ourselves to get better at managing it, and time again flies, and we keep wondering where it went, so foolishly. But this time, I decided to stop asking myself where time went, or how fast, because time is fundamentally measurable, and constant. However, as exact and unwavering as it is, Time defines us in so many variable ways. Some say Time is the ultimate healer of wounds; I call it forgetfulness, but does it heal?? When painful (or not) conscious becomes subconscious eventually vanishing into oblivion, and we are relieved... we are forgetful creatures on a survival roller coaster and Time is our ally to move on. Time is also the glaring reminder that there is a future which must be planned for, which must be anticipated with all its endless possibilities such that we are prepared and our survival guaranteed, time and again. We can try to ignore Time, in a moment of absolute passion, yet we awaken confined within its ticking boundaries realizing how vain our quest has been. Time is not just quantifiable, it has a real presence in our lives. Isn't it futile to want to manage such vastness? try to tame that all encompassing presence? I take Time on my side as a constant reminder that there is hope, in all the little walks we go on - which become our life journey. Therefore, I shall take all those little walks yet to come, with time on my side.

Deformation is a skill

Asperity, one of those versatile words defined as 'roughness' in a climate, 'harshness' in a tone, 'severity' in a temper, 'ruggedness' in a surface ... surfaces touch at their asperities, those uneven rough edges that deform when pressure is applied, when there is overload. Deformation. We have almost mastered that skill, at every level. At a glance one can see that we are becoming predatory, and growing comfortable in our ways. Beirut, at times, is a city that makes you violent against your will. What is driving the people of this City? Overload- of everyting, and the list is tedious ... so you name it. The good, the bad, and the worse. Not to forget the overload of talent. A talent to astonish the world, and yet we have chosen the road to deformation. It does take talent indeed to master that skill.

Hamra parade

If you really get to know Hamra, you fall in love. It's not just another special part of the ciTy, it's that kind of place that leaves its mark on you. It is an energy, an attitude, the kind of place loaded with past, present, and future. My last date with her was on Friday 10th, but my story with her dates back. I will pause for the sake of rememberance: my Hamra generation is in another time zone, with places that fueld ideals and inspried my youth; places that are no longer, like Modca and Chez Andre - but places come and go, and afterthought, everything shifts, everyone changes, so why do we expect you to stay the same? Just being sentimental, just push play -->

So cheers to my Hamra, to the free and wild at heart, and cheers to everyone else's; to those who love you, to those who love you less, to those who don't know what they are missing, and even to those who simply don't care. Greet the people of the ciTy on your streets, and safeguard your free spirit; do not bail out on us, we need what's left of us in there.

Beirut, lighthouse of the Orient

In the middle of football fever, I would like to raise a different flag: that of our fading collective memory...
What a nation chooses to remember - or not - shapes its identity: the legacy to the coming generations.
We all have personal memories stored in places where they can be retrieved - or not - and then there are public memories that we studied in history class and mostly forgot by the time we graduated. But unlike 'dead' historical facts that we find in books, our collective memory is organic and dynamic. It is the sum of shared and meaningful remembrances that live and evolve through time, and that are entrusted from generation to generation to be nurtured, safeguarded and bequeathed.

Let me tell you where all this started. I had a work day away, and driving through the congested arteries of the City to the meeting venue, I came across the posted sign which reads "Beirut, lighthouse of the Orient". A message that opened many sweet spots in my mind as only Beirut can... and suddenly stroke me harder than the sun. Are we living up to this claim? Are we as a people sustaining the collective memory of Beirut City for its lighthouse to glimmer for generations to come? I was saddened not to find in me a forceful YES as an answer.

What is the collective memory of our nation? What represents it? What monuments do we choose to build, restore, or safeguard to commemorate our legacy... other than malls and rooftop bars. Do not get me wrong. I am a big fan of shopping and rooftop bars, and clubbing in general as underground as it may go. I am an adamant believer that they contribute in meaningful ways to the identity of our City. But I also firmly believe that they are not to be our only legacy. We ought to leave behind what else we stand for.

The Beirut Souks are the latest indicator of the ill-being of our collective memory. There is absolutely nothing wrong in displaying a modern and luxurious facade, especially when we are very good at it. We have the talent, the taste, and the cut for luxury and glam - we were drawn that way - but there is absolutely everything wrong in losing sight of the authentic Beirut - Souks are missing Beirut's authentic soul.

Another alarming indicator of this ill-being is the UNESCO considering the delisting of the Qadisha valley from the international heritage. Besides the historical, religious, and touristic dimensions of the site, it is an authentic location which symbolizes the cultural richness of the region. It is a living national heritage: there lies its infinite value.

The sad truth is that beloved Beirut has been going through a collective memory crisis for much too long. Will the posted sign outlive the meaning of its message? We need a collective memory project.

That being said, I go back to football fever and raise the Spaniard's banner against all odds: La Roja deserves to go down in sports history tomorrow.

Belts

When I took this picture of belts on display during a walk down the ciTy streets, I did not understand what had attracted me to it back then. With retrospective, I realize the similarities with the spirit of our ciTy and its people: crowded, colorful, diverse, overlapping. And like those belts, we're all hanging in there.