I promise to lay off March 14th at some point this week and go back to bashing Napole-aoun, but credit should be given where credit is due. The silly flag billboards all around Lebanon have been replaced by Future Movement electoral campaign billboards (coincidence?), and as Bech explains over at Remarkz, the results are often puzzling. Take a look:
The posters read, from left to right: (1) The future is where you will spend the rest of your life; (2) In order to know the future, you have to build it; (3) The future is promising, without a doubt. The third poster is the only one which permits a full analogical reading, producing “The Future [Movement] has promised, without a doubt,” alongside the literal “future is promising” message. It’s a little bit clunky and unoriginal, but I suppose it works. Maybe the Future Movement is ripping off the “promise” motif from Hizbullah in exchange for the latter having ripped off M14’s “clenched fist” motif.
There are several symbolic elements in play here. The famous Hizbullah logo has been purposefully faded behind the bold-faced “Lebanon”, alongside the party’s three “no to’s”: division, naturalization (of the Palestinian refugees), and emigration (of Lebanese to the diaspora). In the lower left-hand corner, the mandatory fist-cedar combination logo sits above the Hizb’s 2009 election slogan: “Resist with your vote”.
(I’m still trying to find a picture of Khomeini or Mughniyeh somewhere on this billboard, but I just don’t see it. I’ll keep looking though.)
Once again, honors must go to the FPM, who circulated this spoof of the Future Movement’s ubiquitous billboards:
Translation: “There is no future without change.”
Qifa Nabki 
You have to admit, it’s a tough elections, and they’re playing on witts instead of arms… thats progress in my view.
Posted by Jester theFool | April 8, 2009, 12:36 amI must admit, the political billboards are providing me with entertainment while im stuck in traffic. They all read: desperation,lack of imagination,recycled rhetoric and blah blah. Some are so simplistic, youd think the legal voting age was 12yrs. Re: FPMs tick in the box, while the centralists and the 14M are close together on one side.
Posted by Maverick | April 8, 2009, 1:09 amI just like to add, by far the cheakiest of the lot would be the Almaza ad campaign as you had pointed out QN in another blog.
It just knocks the wind out of the whole seriousness and directs you to whats most important.:)
Posted by Maverick | April 8, 2009, 1:18 amCan anyone really claim the clenched fist? I’m sure they plastered these things on Pyramids. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Kach_and_Kahane_Chai.svg
Posted by netsp | April 8, 2009, 7:12 amCan anyone really claim the clenched fist? I’m sure they plastered these things on Pyramids. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Kach_and_Kahane_Chai.svg
Usually it’s not a good sign.
Posted by netsp | April 8, 2009, 7:12 amQN,
Just sent you some LF sponsored images making the rounds by e-mail. Not sure if you’d seen them yet.
Posted by Johnny | April 8, 2009, 9:53 am