Qifa Nabki

Shortly after Najib Miqati became prime minister of Lebanon early last year, he went on Marcel Ghanem’s venerable political talk show, Kalam el-Nas.

Marcel asked him to respond to his opponents’ critique that he was not “Sunni enough” to assume the post from which Saad Hariri had been unceremoniously ejected by Hizbullah and its allies. Miqati responded with a hysterical tirade… Continue reading »

I got an email about a planned march in support of proportional representation (PR), which will take place in Beirut on May 13. In a way, conditions are ripe these days for Lebanese civil society groups to push their agenda for electoral reform because: (a) the issue is front and center again, and (b) because … Continue reading »

I have finished the dissertation that I’ve been writing and which has lately kept me from blogging more often Forgive me It was onerous So long And so dense

As it so happens, there are other things one can do with a camera phone during a revolution besides filming gun battles. I recently arrived late to a very good party, the party of Jiim Siin’s brilliant and wickedly satirical monologues about the Syrian uprising. Recorded on an iPhone by an anonymous Syrian fellow living … Continue reading »

It has been said that CNN first achieved international prominence during Gulf War I, and that Al-Jazeera captured the attention of the West during Gulf War II. Is it too early to suggest that YouTube be crowned the leading news source for the Syrian revolution? Dip into my Twitter feed at any given moment, and … Continue reading »