Perspectives I

Alastair Crooke at an AUB lecture: Armed resistance way to open up real dialogue

Crooke: West is using language that is not meant to mediate but 'erode the Islamists' identity'

A long-time mediator between Islamist groups and the West and a former MI6 agent told an AUB audience on Thursday that armed resistance is the only logical response to the West's refusal to engage with Islamists with respect .

Alastair Crooke, the founder of Conflicts Forum--an international movement which engages with Islamist groups--and a former MI6 British intelligence agent who organized unofficial talks in 2005 between the United States/Europe and Hizbullah, Hamas and other Islamist movements, said that the West is currently using language with armed Islamist groups that is not meant to mediate but "erode, undermine and weaken the Islamists' identity."

"In this context, what should the Islamists' response be? The only way to deal with this is to resist. And resistance, armed resistance, may be one way to open dialogue," he said. "Ultimately, you need to refuse dialogue to get dialogue."

Crooke: Islamists' experience now is sumilar to that of blacks and civil rights movement

"Otherwise, if Islamists give up their arms before negotiating, then what do they have left to negotiate over?" he said. "There has to be pain from walking away from the negotiating table, in order for dialogue to be meaningful and successful. You need respect in order for negotiations to succeed."

Crooke gave the example of when Americans sat down with the Viet Cong to dialogue in the late 1960s, noting that the Viet Cong did not renounce violence before they reached a solution.

Crooke presented his views during a lecture entitled "Talking with Islamists: An overdue task or an exercise in appeasement?" Organized by the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs on January 17 in West Hall's Auditorium B, the lecture attracted a packed audience, a number of whom sat on the window sills of the room. Crooke's talk is the second of the Bill and Sally Hambrecht Distinguished Peacemakers Lectures at AUB, bringing ten prominent international mediators to AUB and Beirut over the coming two years to share their experiences with the AUB community and conflict-resolution practitioners and scholars in Lebanon and the Middle East.

IFI Director Rami Khoury introduced Crooke as an expert with a 30-year record history of dealing with armed groups and engaging with Islamists. Crooke is also a former special Mid-East adviser to European Union High Representative Javier Solana and was involved in facilitating various Israeli-Palestinian ceasefires during 2001-2003. Crooke was also instrumental in the negotiations leading to the ending of the siege of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. He has direct experience of conflict over a period of 30 years in Ireland, South Africa, Namibia, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Colombia and has coordinated several hostage negotiations. Crooke has written dozens of articles and contributed to television productions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, political Islam and insurgency.

Crooke found parallelism between the West's approach to Islamists and its attitude towards blacks in the past, noting that Islamists are now demanding to be seen as human beings just as blacks did in the civil rights movement.

Crooke argued that the West's insistence on considering Islamists as untrustworthy, with no real and meaningful ideology is deeply rooted in colonialism. The language most Westerners use imply that when Islamists say they support democracy they don't mean it, but when Westerners do, it is sincere, he said.

The West is using language to empty the power and identity of Islamists. "This is not accidental," he said. "It is done to paint the Islamists as superficial, with nothing meaningful to say, and to make them look repellent and to turn the West against them."

But in fact, Islamists don't want to eliminate Western thinking, said Crooke. "They are offering a critique of Western society. It's not a critique of the Enlightenment but of what we've turned the Enlightenment into," he said.

Crooke argued that the Islamists are challenging the view of Western modernity, by saying that focusing only on individualism and materialism actually diminishes the individual, whereas focusing on the progress of the community promotes human values.

Although Crooke acknowledged that not all Islamists are interested in engaging with the West, he noted that those who do constitute "about 95 percent of Islamist groups: the mainstream and moderate ones, such as Hamas and Hizbullah."

"We need to escape from our conditioned thinking," he added. "Unless there is a moral awakening in the West, it will remain unchanged, conflict will continue, and no real dialogue will take place."

"Sadly at this stage, the West still cannot hear the other, and dialogue is still premature," he said. "So the only way is to continue refusing dialogue on these terms." --AUB

tags: crooke, aub, dialogue, lecture, lebanon, beirut, lebanese, american university of beirut

-finkployd- Lectures on Blogging Beirut

a friend came up to me once and said, "Don't EVER give your car to the Valet!"
"I've seen them parking the cars, and it's something straight out of the World Rally Championship... except it's your car they're tearing apart."
"They'll climb on sidewalks with a Bentley, zoom through dirt roads with a Mini Cooper, and park on stairways with Mercs..."
"They'll drive your car the wrong way down a one way road, they'll double, triple, quadruple park... oh and did I mention, the majority of them are not insured, and your insurance DOESN'T cover them."
"They'll never admit to hitting, scratching, or breaking your car..."
"They'll never admit to 'stealing' something from your car, even though they'll take your spare tire from the secure underground parking of the infamous Phoenicia Hotel..."
"Oh, and they own all the sidewalks, stairways, alleys, and chimneys in Beirut... so don't bother arguing with them when they tell you that empty PUBLIC spot is theirs... cause they'll scratch your car when you're not around."

so here I am passing the message along to you

oh and did I mention they park on sites marked "National Cultural Heritage"
(see Gemmayze Stairs below)




tags: beirut, lebanon, valet, parking, gemmayze, stairs

-finkployd- Valet Parking on Blogging Beirut

this message goes out to:
LEBCOM (Lebanese E-mail Advertising [spamming] Service) & Societe Nada N. Nehme (NNN)

Have you No Shame?

A couple of hours after the tragic Assassination of General Francois Suleiman, I received this E-mail from the above accused:




E-mailed by LEBCOM




an advertisement for products offered by Societe Nada N. Nehme




sent only a few hours after the Assassination of General Francois Hajj

----- Original Message -----
From: NNN (3M)
To: NNN (3M)
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 1:59 PM
Subject: Explosion… Prevent Tragic Consequences

* This email was sent by LEBCOM to 25000 Companies + 30000 Personal Lebanese Users


tags: tragedy, brigadier, general, francois hajj, haj, blogging beirut, lebanese, lebanon, assassination, car bomb, baabda, municipality, 3m, michel suleiman, head of army, lebanese president, capitalizing, societe nada n. nehme, lebcom, perverted, sick

-finkployd- Sick People & Corporate Ethics on Blogging Beirut

it's raining. it's been raining for a week now. i like rain.
i was headed for an evening cafe on sassine, achrafieh.
parked a little off sassine as traffic was horrendous. got out of the car, closed the doors, folded the mirrors (someone's got a knack for swiping my mirrors), opened the umbrella and started walking towards my destination.
it was a short walk, a few hundred meters.
and then it struck me, the lingering smell of deep fried chicken.
last i had a whiff of that was in manhattan, new york - but then again, that was in the you ess of a where deep fried chiken was born.

but there it was, and it lingered on and on, no matter how much i sniffed at it - you know when you smell something and you start sniffing, sniffing yourself, the trees, the air, the buildings, the existential sniff a la is that me or is it really out there - it simply wouldn't go away.
so i thought to myself, since when has achrafieh smelled like deep fried chicken?

finally, i made it to my destination and lo and behold, just off sassine square there's a KFC (massive and new).
now i have tolerated billboards popping up on every flat surface, but this... this overwhelming deeeeeeep fried chiken is just, well, overwhelming. and it literally blankets all of sassine and everything for a hundred meters in all directions.

i wonder how long the residents will take it.



ahhhh the lovely perfume of colonel sanders.


tags: kfc, kentucky fried chicken, lebanon, beirut, lebanese, achrafieh, sassine, scent, perfume, smell, stench, deep fried chicken, colonel sanders, finkployd, fink, photo, picture, image

-finkployd- it sure stinks in achrafieh

there's this newly opened pub (snatch), slash nightclub slash hole in the wall slash joint with a stage serving drinks and bites with a projection screen and music for entertainment, that provides the BEST SERVICE in town tailored to FAT COWs... this is not a cheap jab at overly overweight obese double-seat airline occupiers, but rather a sincere recommendation for anyone who wants to lose weight - GUARANTEED!

you see, snatch has this fantastic policy of always clearing your table BEFORE you actually finish your dinner:

so there i was, enjoying a salmon tartare i had just ordered - it wasn't particularly bad - when a good song came on. i looked at my half empty plate (half full for you optimists out there) and thought to myself, i'll go dance off the first half and come back for the second. so i made my way to the dancefloor, just a few meters from my table, shook my blubber for a couple of minutes, and then returned to my table to find it spick and span - not a salmon bit in sight!

waaaaaaiiiterrrrr i called (or rather gestured).

fink: where's my salmon
waiter 1: it's gone
fink: i know it's gone, but the question is existential in nature, "why did it go?"
waiter 1: because noone was at the table
fink: actually, if i may correct you, this lad over here (points to half buzzed friend on the table) was at the table
waiter 1: well then why didn't he stop us?
fink: cause he's focusing all his energy on staying on his two feet
fink: and then, since when is it the customer's responsibility to keep an eye on the waiter?
waiter 1: well it's gone!
fink: then you need to go and find out what you're going to do about it

exit waiter 1
....
enter waiter 2 (buff waiter)

waiter 2: what's wrong?
fink: my salmon took off
waiter 2: isn't that your problem?
fink: not to the best of my knowledge, after all i wasn't manhandling it or anything
waiter 2: you weren't at your table
fink: someone was at the table
waiter 2: tough luck! what do you want me to do?
fink: i want you to fix it
waiter 2: that wont be happening, it's your problem
fink: you do realize you're losing a customer
waiter 2: leave then
fink: great - now get me your manager

exit waiter 2
...
enter manager (giddy blond who just happens to be a brunette)

manager: what's wrong...
fink: bla bla
manager: so what do you want me to do?
fink thinks for a few seconds... should i ask her to dance naked on my table?
fink comes back to reality.
fink: actually, the only thing i really want is for one of you to admit that you're wrong


tags: snatch, gemmayze, pub, very bad service, awful service, do not go there, beirut, lebanon, lebanese, waiter, manager, fink, finkployd, gemmayzeh, achrafieh

-finkployd- SNATCH SUX on Blogging Beirut

Due to popular demand, and a general interest in the welfare of the Lebanese Judicial System, not to mention the welfare of the character and soul of Beirut, I'm posting a documentary once aired on the now defunct MTV Lebanon, along with a Legal Analysis of the St George Hotel & Yacht Club VS Solidere Case.

Part One (1/4)



Part Two (2/4)



Part One (3/4)



Part Two (4/4)

Robert Fisk: The scar of Hariri's murder will never heal in Lebanon

Published: 01 June 2007

They were handing out white roses where the bomb went off. On 14 February 2005, ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri was killed there and the 20ft bomb crater has remained a scar on the surface of Beirut history ever since.

But yesterday, as the Lebanese learned that there would indeed be a United Nations tribunal to condemn his killers, the crater - from which vital evidence was removed by Syria's friends in the security services - was filled in and the road resurfaced and the flowers handed to motorists by young men in T-shirts bearing Hariri's portrait.

He was smiling in the picture. But would he have had much to celebrate yesterday? True, the UN Security Council invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter to create a special international court to try the suspects in Hariri's murder but the very fact that the Lebanese government could not formally request the court spoke volumes about its own impotence.

With its Shia ministers missing, the Hizbollah opposition to the government is dismissing the whole affair as a charade and accusing the UN of interfering in the sovereign affairs of the Lebanese state.

Syria, whose security apparatus remains the principal suspect, roars quietly over the border. Will there be a price to be paid for this tribunal? Probably.

Clearly, George Bush will be pleased because he has long ago lined up President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in his sights. Not long ago, receiving Lebanese visitors in the White House - and this a 100 per cent accurate quotation from the horse's mouth, so to speak - Bush announced that he was "going to hang Bashar by the balls". The problem, of course, is that Mr Bush is in no position to do that. Indeed, it is the army of Iraqi insurgents who appear to have Washington by the balls and it is Mr Bush who may need President Assad's help to relieve this terrible pressure. For at the end of the day, Syria and Iran are the two countries which the US needs so it can extract itself from Iraq.

So Lebanon can be betrayed again. Certainly, the government of the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, is of less importance than the lives of US troops in Iraq. And the UN line-up on Wednesday night was equally interesting. Qatar and South Africa abstained from the UN vote, mainly because they have substantial business interests in Syria. The Russians and the Chinese are all too well aware how fragile the political and military situation is in Lebanon; the Chinese have a unit in the UN force in the south of the country, a peacekeeping army that is increasingly dependent on the Hizbollah militia for protection. With the battles continuing around the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp in the north, Lebanon is moving ever more dangerously towards the kind of precipice of which its politicians always warn. In reality, the Lebanese nation is now in a parlous state, so delicate that the Hariri tribunal - of such great import in the aftermath of the 2005 murder - now seems almost irrelevant.

Hariri's son, Saad, described the tribunal's creation as "a great victory for all of Lebanon" and visited his father's tomb in the centre of Beirut after the news from New York. Yet we still do not know where the tribunal will sit, how many judges it will have or what powers it will have invested upon it. Firecrackers echoed through Beirut as Hariri's supporters celebrated but someone threw a hand grenade near St Michael's church in Galerie Semaan on Wednesday night. And in the early summer heat of Beirut, roses always wilt. --SOURCE (The Independent)

tags: robert fisk, hariri, beirut, murder, lebanon, syria, bush, bashar, tribunal, un

-finkployd- Fisk on BloggingBeirut.com

Seems a Lebanese Blogger accepted an invitation to Israel.

Although I commend him for his Courage, I doubt he realizes that there's a fine line between Courage and Stupidity.

For his sake, I hope nobody reveals his identity (currently known as 'M').

here's the article about his visit, from Haaretz

Twin cities
By Yoav Stern

On the first day of his stay in Tel Aviv, M., a Lebanese blogger, found himself on the promenade not far from Jaffa. "Jaffa was supposed to be ours, an Arab-Palestinian town. I thought to myself, 'Why the hell did I agree to come here?' but then I turned north toward the Tel Aviv port. I sat in a modern pub and had a glass of wine. There I felt at home," he said.

M. is a man in his twenties who was born in the United States, to where his parents had immigrated in the 1980s during the Lebanese civil war. He would visit his family every summer in Lebanon, and five years ago he decided to go and live in Beirut where he found work in the communications field. M. has been writing his blog, in English, for several years. He wrote live from the demonstrations following the murder of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri as well as during the recent war in Lebanon, and provided his readers with personal impressions of the atmosphere in Beirut.

He recently came to Israel for a visit of several weeks as the guest of the Burda Center for Innovative Communications at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. During the visit, he promised to participate in writing a "good neighbors" blog (www.gnblog.com) in which Israeli and Arab bloggers participate, but his virtual connection with Israel began even before the war. M. examined the Israeli blogs in the wake of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declarations in favor of wiping Israel off the map. He wrote about this to his Lebanese audience and got many responses from Israeli surfers. A virtual community of Israelis and Lebanese was created, but it disintegrated during the war. According to M., the community consisted mainly of Israelis with right-wing tendencies and of Anglophone origin, but after the war in Lebanon there was a change - Israelis for whom English was not a mother tongue began visiting the Lebanese blogs and responding to them. Among the regular visitors one can find, for example, "Amir from Tel Aviv", "Yohai" and others.

During his visit to Israel, M. met up with many of his virtual friends and foes. He says most of them are from the political extremes - he met many more Jewish supporters of Hadash or Yisrael Beiteinu than members of the Labor party or Kadima. He mulled over many times in his mind whether to come to Israel. For some of his readers, particularly the Shiites, a visit to Israel implies loss of legitimation and credibility. But M. was curious and decided to accept the invitation.

So how does Israel seem in the eyes of a Lebanese? M. says he was amazed mainly by the poverty he encountered in Israel. "You have to understand, in my imagination Israel appeared to be like Jouniya [an affluent town north of Beirut - YS]. I didn't imagine there was any poverty here at all, that there were beggars at the intersections or the Western Wall. In Lebanon there is no such thing; there you can see Mercedes and Lamborghinis on the roads. There is no doubt that the Lebanese perceive Israel differently from how the Israelis see themselves. The Israelis think everyone wants to attack them and that they are weak, while the Lebanese believe that Israel is stronger than it actually is."

M. himself is a Christian, but it takes time to get information on this from him. It is not accepted practice in Lebanon to ask someone so direct a question about so sensitive a subject despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that one's communal affinity plays so large a role in Lebanese society. "There is a different way to know," he says. "First you ask about the family name, or the parents' names. Most of the names are clear and give away the ethnic affiliation, but if that doesn't help, you ask the person where he comes from. There are very few cases where you are left without an answer."

These days M. is busy writing in his blog about the tense situation in Lebanon, about the growing fears of the man in the street, about the suspicions and the emigration of young people of all ethnic origins. He recently wrote: "My work requires me to travel abroad frequently, and every time I return to Lebanon I find fewer and fewer friends are still here." Nevertheless, he says, Beirut is still full of places of entertainment, restaurants and coffee shops, and he says it is very similar to Tel Aviv. "The proximity to the sea and the openness of people in Tel Aviv certainly remind me of the atmosphere in Beirut," he says, "the behavior of the Tel Avivians, too. But when I went into a pub here and a friend said to me that everyone sitting there had probably taken part in the last war in Lebanon, I felt a chill go over me."

tags: israel, lebanon, lebanese, haaretz, tel aviv, beirut, israel war, lebanon war, burda center, ben-gurion university, negev

-finkployd- Courage and Stupidity on BloggingBeirut.com