March 31, 2009

The Swastika and the Water Ski

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, March 14 | Tags: , , , |
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hitchensChristopher Hitchens has penned a riveting account of his drubbing in Hamra forVanity Fair. Previous articles sponsored by the Lebanon Renaissance Foundation were either rife with errors or somewhat off-message,  so Hitch’s piece comes right in the nick of time and proves that you really do get what you pay for. Here’s his opener:

“As Arab thoroughfares go, Hamra Street in the center of Beirut is probably the most chic of them all. International in flavor, cosmopolitan in character, it boasts the sort of smart little café where a Lebanese sophisticate can pause between water-skiing in the Mediterranean in the morning and snow-skiing in the mountains just above the city in the afternoon. “The Paris of the Middle East” used to be the cliché about Beirut: by that exacting standard, I suppose, Hamra Street would be the Boulevard Saint-Germain.”

A lesser journalist may have been able to work the old chestnuts about waterskiing and the “Paris of the Middle East” somewhere into the word count, but Hitch thrillingly pulls it off in the first paragraph! Can there be any doubt that we are witnessing a master at the height of his powers?

Here’s his description of the March 14th (2009) rally:

“Almost nobody displayed any religious emblem, and even the few who did were usually careful to put it next to the ubiquitous cedar-symbol flag of Lebanon itself. Women with head covering were few; women with face covering were nowhere to be seen. Designer jeans were the predominant fashion theme. Eclectic musical choices came over the loudspeakers. The average age was low. Nobody had been bused in, at least not by the state. Nobody had been told to leave work and demonstrate his or her loyalty. You get my drift.”

Indeed. It was Lebanonapalooza. My only critique of this paragraph is a stylistic one: I would have liked to see Hitchens make a stronger connection between his sartorial observations and the overall message of the demonstration. For example, he might have said: “Just as the luscious bosoms of Lebanon’s spritely maidens did spill out of their clingy tanktops — unconstrained by any cronish medieval garb — thus did the true spirit of Lebanon break free of its bonds and expose itself to me in all its naked glory, etc….” Something subtle like that.

By the way, has anyone else noticed that the name of the Lebanon Renaissance Foundation does not translate so felicitously in Arabic? I can imagine that the choice of the word “Renaissance” was probably meant to channel the “rising-from-the-ashes” trope, “Phoenix/Phoenician”, etc. but at the end of the day, the Arabic translation would have to be Mu’assasat al-Ba`th al-Lubnani (i.e. the Lebanese Baath Foundation). Whoops.
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February 26, 2009

Michael Young Comes to Hitchens’ Defense

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon | Tags: , , , |
[52] Comments 

michael_young_140x140Michael Young, opinion editor of the Daily Star, has an interesting op-ed today (“On Not Debating Christopher Hitchens”) about Hitchens’ visit to Beirut and the lecture he gave, entitled “Who are the Revolutionaries In Today’s Middle East?” In the article, Young sets his sights on a surprising target: the audience at the lecture, the majority of whom were students at the American University of Beirut. From Young’s perspective, Hitchens’ talk was a sad exercise in throwing pearls before swine, such was the ingratitude and boorishness of his interlocutors:

“You could distil his argument down to one sentence: The Arab world is better off without Saddam Hussein, and the US, alongside the true “Arab revolutionaries”, is responsible for this outcome. Instead of addressing that point, many in the audience resorted to the oldest of rhetorical subterfuges: When you don’t like an argument, change the subject; which only tended to show how we in the region seem incapable of engaging in constructive self-doubt about our own affairs.”

I was at the lecture, and while I might agree with Young about the lackluster quality of most of the questions, I think he does a disservice to the intelligence of most of the attendees when he accuses them of failing to lap up whatever slop Hitchens threw before them.

And slop it was, if we are being fair. Christopher Hitchens is a deeply learned man and one worth listening to on a great many subjects, but his performance at AUB that night was one that a younger version of himself would have brilliantly and mercilessly eviscerated. The subject matter at hand – the moral prerogative of interventionism, the role of the United States in overthrowing dictatorships and spreading democracy, the utter bankruptcy of the Arab nationalist project, the oppressiveness of various theocratic movements, etc. – are all worthy and serious themes for debate. And this is precisely why I was so disappointed to hear Hitchens make his case, because he did it so poorly and childishly. Rather than laying out a thoughtful and carefully-reasoned answer to the important question of what it means to be a revolutionary in today’s Middle East, he waxed on endlessly about Kurdistan, Walid Jumblatt, Kurdistan, head scarves, gas chambers, and Kurdistan. It was a flashy, overbearing, and jingoistic performance that really fooled no one. Except, surprisingly, Michael Young.

The problem with the lecture was not its thesis (“The Arab world is better off without Saddam Hussein, and the US… is responsible for this outcome”), but rather Hitchens’ unwillingness or inability to outline the corollaries and conclusions that derive from it. Should Middle Eastern revolutionaries pledge themselves to the cause of the United States even when it does not act “in the defense of universal liberal values”? What about in the vast majority of cases where it acts in direct opposition to those values? Does the acceptance of Saddam’s deposal validate the means by which it was achieved, and exonerate the mistakes made in the course of the war effort? These were not questions meant to evade Hitchens’ thesis; rather, they constituted one invitation after another (consistently rejected and evaded by the real master of rhetorical subterfuges in that room) to make his case for an America-centered theory of Middle Eastern revolution.

At one point in his article, Young argues that Hitchens is one of the few Western public intellectuals to confront the burning question that has faced the left in recent years, namely:

“If a tyrannical leader is abusing his own people, is it the duty of the left to confront him in all ways possible, including force, because that may be the only course open in defending human rights and human liberty, even if this requires depending on the United States for its success?”

A valid question, but a naïve one? After all, in how many cases can leftist revolutionaries depend on the United States to confront tyrannical and abusive leaders in our region? No one made this point more convincingly and thoughtfully than Rami Khoury, who argued that while many people would agree with Hitchens about the failure and oppressiveness of the existing state system, they cannot count on a muscular and principled stance against tyranny from the United States in the vast majority of cases. The entire hall erupted in applause when Rami made his point. Hitchens’ response? A sulking one-liner about moral equivalency.

Mr. Young, Christopher Hitchens did not come to Beirut to debate anyone. He came to make a spectacle of himself on the streets of Hamra and in the newspapers. There are many eloquent and sensible advocates of the United States out there; the Lebanon Renaissance Foundation shouldn’t confine itself to an opportunistic and glib ex-communist who “once wrote a book with Edward Said.”
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February 19, 2009

The Experts are Coming!

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, March 14 | Tags: , , , , , |
[22] Comments 

15marchLawrence Osborne was part of the media junket flown to Lebanon last week by the March 14th lobby in Washington. Along with Christopher Hitchens and Michael Totten (and Charles Krauthammer, for all we know), he was brought in to observe the big rally and presumably to collect enough soundbytes to drizzle in his writings over the next few months. Why March 14th thought that a travel writer and wine connoisseur who knows little about Lebanon would be an effective propagandist is puzzling. Were they hoping that he would manage to slip in a few cheery mentions of Siniora, UNSCR 1701, and the Hariri tribunal in an article about the effects of the Andean snowmelt on the acidity of Chilean cabernets? No, it seems that Osborne felt he had it in him to try some political commentary on for size. Here are some choice tidbits:

We walked all along the Corniche first, passing the war-ruined Holiday Inn and the new Dubai-style condo towers of Waffic Sinno: children carrying flagpoles bigger than themselves, old women with faces painted red and blue, teenage girls in blue hats crying “Saad! Saad!”–the name of Rafiq’s son, now the anointed hero of what has come to be called the “March 15 movement.”

M15, huh? A felicitous slip of the pen? (The impressions throughout the article do have an Ian Fleming-ish cast to them). Aww, who can keep all these Marches straight? I mean, there are two after all.

Beirut is a schizophrenic city these days. Driving along its coastal roads near Juneirah it looks like Genova or Nice.

I’ll tell you what happened here. I’m fairly sure that Lawrence meant “Jounieh”, but couldn’t be bothered to reach for his guide book to figure out how to spell the name of the town with all the Bulgarian strippers, so he played a little fast and loose and mixed it up with Jumeira, i.e. the island in Dubai in the shape of a palm tree. Hence, Juneirah. No big whoop.

Like the denizens of an Evelyn Waugh tale, the “March 15 movement” is opposed by the “March 8 movement” of Islamicists, and ubiquitous armed checkpoints keep the two Marches apart. The Beirut papers that weekend reported Nasrullah’s opinion that his men now needed “air defense weapons,” and as Hezbollah’s power rises, there is a feeling among the non-insane citizens of the city that bad times could return at any moment.

Fast forward to June 2009, where March 8th wins a slim majority in Lebanon’s parliament. Lawrence’s expert conclusion: over 50% of Lebanon’s voters are not only Islamists, they are also insane.

But later that night, three of our “scoop” brigade–Jonathan Foreman, Michael Totten and Christopher Hitchens–got involved in a street brawl with some thugs of a Syria-loving skinhead party called the SNPN after Hitchens rather gallantly insulted their swastika flag.

Yes, you know, the SNPN, arch-enemy of the M15 movement, with its headquarters in Juneira. The Syrian Nazi Party errrr… Nationalists? Whatever. M15 tells me they’re good-for-nothin’s and I believe them.

We tore up to the Shuf at 120 mph in SUVs, forcing people off the road and blasting horns. These are the most blood-soaked foothills on earth, a maze of valleys and pinnacles that make up the feudal mystery of Mount Lebanon… [Jumblatt] offered me the wine he helps make on his estates, Chateau Kefraya.”Socialist wine,” he murmured, since the party he heads is officially called the Progressive Socialist Party. The party isn’t very socialist, and the wine wasn’t very socialist either–it was perfectly international, though.

Mmmm, yes, blood-soaked foothills, feudal mysteries… our stock in trade. By the way, Lawrence, everybody who drives up to the Shuf does it at 120 mph, forcing people off the road and blasting horns. You weren’t getting preferential treatment. And would it have killed you to throw in a subtle segue from “blood-soaked hills” to the pungent terroir of Chateau Kefraya? That would have been sweet.

On the one hand, I’m glad that there’s someone in Washington spending money to bring opinion-makers to Lebanon. I just wish that they were doing it in a slightly less boneheaded fashion. I mean, who am I to quibble with a strategy that has wine writers pressing the flesh with Geagea, Jumblatt, and Chalabi? On the other hand, if anybody who’s anybody in Washington is taking this stuff seriously, they will have to conclude that Lebanon is caught in a struggle between two diametrically opposed movements: one that is a combination of insane Nazis and Islamists, and the other that is somehow a Lebanese extension of British military intelligence headquartered near a floating island in the shape of a palm tree.

Memo to March 14th: The 2005 vintage seems to have been a beaujolais nouveau. It’s held up fairly well but it will soon be undrinkable. If you’d let Lawrence meet anybody else, he would have discovered that for himself.

Update: The errors in the Forbes article have been corrected.
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February 18, 2009

Christopher Hitchens Gets Beaten Up In Beirut

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon | Tags: , , |
[6] Comments 

hitchensI went to hear Christopher Hitchens speak at AUB tonight. Before leaving work, I called my friend S. to see if he was still planning on going. He picked up the phone and said: “Did you hear?

“What?”

“There’s a rumor that Hitchens got beaten up by SSNP thugs in Hamra a couple of nights ago.”

“Is it true?”

“Don’t know. Angry Arab had a thing about it.”

Curious to see Hitch with a black eye, I headed over to the lecture which was entitled: “Who are the Revolutionaries in the Middle East Today?” The auditorium was crowded when he showed up, sans signs of SSNP punishment. He launched his talk by explaining that his real topic would be “The Ironies of History,” and proceeded to wax philosophic about the dangers of moral equivalency, the evil of Hasan Nasrallah, the greatness of Bush, the incoherence of religion, the need for secular nationalist revolutionaries, the white man’s burden, etc. It was signature late Hitchens: an arch and pompous parody of himself.

Elbowing my way to the front of the crowd after the talk, I managed to ask him whether the rumor was true. Had he, in fact, been beaten up in Hamra by the secular nationalist revolutionaries of the SSNP? It was, Hitchens confirmed. “They broke my glases, tried to break my finger. They roughed me up.”

Ironies of history indeed.

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