Monday, January 08, 2007

Lebanon: The Definition of Greed and More Greed

So let us look at the scenario one more time (sadly):

The "opposition" and the "government" reached a stalemate. The Seniora government is proceeding with Rafiq Harriri's grand plan which is to integrate Lebanon to the World Trade Organization. Only glitch with such a scenario, Seniora is using the conference of Paris III (which was supposed to be Beirut I btw) to by-pass the "opposition" and place Lebanon at the mercy of the transnational corporations and the US administration.

The Opposition is angry not because of the concept of 100% free market and US imperalism; on the contrary, Aoun disagrees with Seniora on almost on everything except his economic plan (which I find rather plain stupid). AMAL wouldn't oppose it because they can get a share out of the state owned corporations via privatization. What Seniora's move made the "opposition" angry is that they will not a juicy share of the cake.

Worse, Seniora is making use of the bi-polarity for this advantage. He always made use of this division in order to intigrate Lebanon within the WTO. Now, with the bi-polarity extremely charged, he actually proceeded with the plan. Such a plan, which can be regarded as Step I, is being moved by half of the politicians while the "Opposing" half already welcomed such a platform. Seems they never heard of the obligatory 5 years forceful plan to privatize an institution. They just want their profit out of it.

Last year, Azur tagged the (then) Beirut One as a reform plan. Whoever read Seniora, Salami, or Azur's plans regarding the entry of Lebanon to the WTO, he/she would be surprised that the fate of nation is given a minor tag called "Reform Item".

The Funniest of all are the Democratic Leftist Movement clowns, who support the entry of Lebanon to the WTO. One of their members told me that "I prefer to see a Shell running the electricity ministry rather than AMAL/Hezbollah" I replied "Shell were responsible for the brutal execution of 7 Nigerian activists in 1995", he said no matter, better than those. (Still wonder where the heck Leftism exists in those clowns).

This country has nothing but greed and more greed. If the opposition are going to escalate (which they are as their demonstrations are useless while Beirut is proceeding mostly with its day-to-day business gradually), they are escalating it for a different reason. Aoun wants to discuss having the 1/3 in the Lebanese government in Paris III rather the dangers of intigrating Lebanon in the WTO.

Some advocates call to go down to the Down Town demonstrations to oppose a "Zionist" government, ironically the leaders of the Down Town demonstrations do not mind to be part of the WTO.

No Country of the Third World enjoyed any benefits from the WTO, rather starvation, increase in class difference, and so on. Welcome to Lebanon 2007.

MFL

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds like some encouraging news.

I really don't know about the subject and why joining WTO would end Middle class (and its consequence)..

Can you elaborate on this please? or put some sources?

Anonymous said...

Well The Dangers of the WTO has been presented by the mainstream media at all, and everybody should know how dangers this organisation could be. Same things goes to everything related to the dangers of globalisation, witch we don't here about in our media, where we only see the good things, and i feel that none of our media outlets has taken the time to explain just what does it mean
Liliane read this: http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/latest/wto10.htm

As for what you said MFL i agree with you 100%, it seems that the whole country nowadays is being run by capitalist pigs. Somebody must out an end to this shit, a new front should be organized, it should be formed of people who think a bit farther then how to fill their pockets, someone who actually have some values, if only?

Anonymous said...

Dark0, most importantly it should be what is the anti-thesis of this fiasco we are living: Secularism.

If somebody will tell me AMAL or Lebanese Forces are secular, then that would be the joke of the day.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link Darko.

Would anyone listen to a secular front?

Anonymous said...

well, here me and Dark0 would disagree, but for me the whole situation is class struggle whereby the leaders already dominated their masses sectarian manner, and hence class awareness is far still (unlike Latin America for example)

Anonymous said...

i don't get, why should we disagree, i totaly agree with your assesment of the situation. And that's why i proposed the 'Front' idea, i think you should have a secular front, witch one of it's main goals is to raise the public awareness about the real problems that we face this day.
As for the public reaction to a secular front, and if anyone would listen, i think that if we set clear objectives for the front, something realistic that can be achieved, then we can hope for a good result.
I'm really serious about this MFL, i want your honest opinion, do you think that a front like that could work?

Anonymous said...

i don't get it, why should we disagree, i totaly agree with your assesment of the situation. And that's why i proposed the 'Front' idea, i think we should have a secular front, and one of it's main goals is to raise the public awareness about the real problems that we face this day.
As for the public reaction to a secular front, and if anyone would listen, i think that if we set clear objectives for the front, something realistic that can be achieved, then we can hope for a good result.
I'm really serious about this MFL, i want your honest opinion, do you think that a front like that could work?

Anonymous said...

I tend to agree with the unified front of secular forces, but the problem is the secular parties are too weak to be a leading striking force, even if combined. Each camp recruited a secular party.

Based on my experience, whenever we tried to do a secular front, the individuals drifted towards 8th or 14th of March.

The Social Movement (الحركة الاجتماعية) tried to establish a secular group in universities but remained crippled, while the Secular Conference never really got enough attention on the matter.

A lot of radical and secular NGOs are active as well, but their problem is that they are stuck with the fiasco of changing Lebanon from a social perspective without dwelling on the political which I do believe both ideologies of ours Dark0 find it illogical.

The last to really work was the Lebanese National Movement (without AMAL) when the PSP under Kamal Junblatt, OCW under Mohsen Ibrahim, LCP under George Hawwi, and SSNP under Ina'am Ra'ad was an effective front. Junblatt refuted the syrian proposal in 1976 which was minor reform to make recruitment 6:6, but was refuted by the National Movement because it did not abolish Sectarianism.

The remainder of the Unions were dismantled by the Syrians to preserve Harriri's plan (at its early stages) and afterwards to demolish secular organs to oppose Syrian presence in order to limit it with the Christian parties.

We have a long road, but in all cases we have to start from scratch and below (emancipating from below).

My disagreement is on the long run and perspective :), that does not mean I am not willing to get my skull bashed one more time for a secular front.

MFL

Anonymous said...

Can anyone provide me with the national movement anti-sectarian program?