Qifa Nabki
Lebanon
Aoun and the Future
A couple of years ago, shortly before the end of President Michel Sleiman’s term in office, I wrote an essay asking why Lebanon needed a President, given the relative powerlessness of the position. Here’s the payoff paragraph: Twenty-five years after Ta’if inaugurated Lebanon’s Second Republic and nearly nine years after the Syrian departure gave us a new, mysterious set … Continue reading
The Geography of Small Places
Hello, everyone. This blog has been a little sleepy for the past year or so, as I’ve wrapped up the long-running book projects that have kept me so preoccupied. With those now off my desk, I thought I’d try turning the crank and seeing if everything still runs here the way it used to. Here’s … Continue reading
The Death of Ideology and Beirut’s #YouStink Protests
Protesters from Lebanon’s #YouStink | طلعت_ريحتكم# movement staged a sit-in at the Ministry of the Environment today and vowed not to leave until Minister Mohammad Machnouk resigned from his post. The day ended with the police storming the building and forcing the protesters out. I’m not in Beirut at the moment, so I’ve spent the past … Continue reading
Dissolving Parliament is the Key to Lebanon’s Trash Crisis (and Everything Else)
In about an hour, downtown Beirut will be filled with angry protesters and jittery security forces. The “You Stink” demonstrations have grown in numbers, defiance, and ambition. In Lebanon, just like anyplace else, nothing succeeds like success. No longer content with a hasty fix to the trash collection crisis or even the proposed resignation of the Minister of the Environment, the … Continue reading
Lebanese Air Force Gets a Cessna With Teeth
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced the sale of a military aircraft to Lebanon. The plane is a trusty Cessna 208B Caravan, the “single-engined turboprop, fixed-tricycle landing gear, short-haul regional airliner and utility aircraft” that has cast fear into the heart of many a seagull over the beaches of Lebanon. Its gunmetal grey frame, silhouetted against … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…