Lebanon
Holding Syria Accountable, Though Selectively
With George W. Bush stubbornly insisting that the US is making “progress” in the “central phase of the war on terror” in Iraq, pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans in Congress figure it is time for phase three. Some think tankers want to train Washington’s gunsights on Iran, but next week Congress will reconsider a measure targeting Syria.
Mediterranean Blues
Under pressure to solve immediate economic problems, Middle Eastern countries seek to industrialize as quickly and as cheaply as possible. While developed countries around the world are very slowly adopting technologies and production methods that exert less pressure on the environment, Western industry at the same time sells its old, polluting technologies to less developed countries at cut-rate prices. Too often, the myopic drive for quick economic gains means that destruction is taken for development and deterioration for progress. Greenpeace and other international and local organizations are combating this mindset on several fronts.
Burning Trash
Women, War and Exile
Miriam Cooke, War's Other Voices: Women Writers on the Lebanese Civil War (Syracuse University Press, 1996).
May Ghousoub, Leaving Beirut (London: Saqi Books, 1998).
Emily Nasrallah, Flight Against Time (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997).
A Modern-Day “Slave Trade”
In what can be termed a modern-day slave trade, Sri Lankan women arrive in Lebanon only to find themselves abused, imprisoned, raped, hungry, defenseless and alone. Siriani P., 27, came to Beirut in a desperate attempt to save her family from a life of poverty. Just ten months later, however, she grabbed the first opportunity to run away from her employers.
Liberating Arnoun
This interview with student activist Hassan Marwany was conducted, transcribed and translated by Marlin Dick of The Daily Star in May 1999.
The initial spark for the liberation of Arnoun was a candlelight vigil and march from St. Joseph’s University to UN House in central Beirut, organized by the Tanios Shahin group at the university. About 250 people participated; they were later joined at UN House by students from the American University of Beirut, Notre Dame University and the Lebanese University. There, we heard the Federation of Democratic Students’ (FDS) invitation to go to Arnoun on Friday. [1] At first, the idea was simply to protest Israel’s occupation of Arnoun, not to liberate the village.
Beirut Dispatch
Two things one hears daily in Lebanon: The government is more corrupt than ever, and relations between people are becoming harsh. Let’s consider whether any correlation exists between government neglect and widespread individual survivalism. And let’s focus on highway transportation, where public policy and private use overlap.
If you offer to take a friend and her four children to the airport, you must drive because no one has rebuilt the country’s pre-war train system. Uncharitable tongues claim that the costly new highway system serves foreign construction interests and upper-class Lebanese at the expense of the wider public.
Two Faces of Janus
Eight years after the end of the war in Lebanon, the discrepancy between free minds and free markets is growing ever sharper. Since 1992, Lebanon’s billionaire prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, has been the individual most responsible for outlining an economic program for the post-war era. The prime minister has not hidden his admiration for laissez faire principles. In contemporary Lebanon, however, the free market is a most uncertain quantity.
