Mosbah al ahdab biography of christopher
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Originally printed in The Independent.
No parking. Is anyone fooled? When the Lebanese MP Antoine Ghanem was assassinated last week, the cops couldn’t – or wouldn’t – secure the crime scene. Why not? And so last Wednesday, the fog came creeping through the iron gateway of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s town house in Beirut where he and a few brave MPs had gathered for dinner before parliament’s useless vote on the presidential elections – now delayed until 23 October. There was much talk of majorities and quorums; 50 plus one appears to be the constitutional rule here, although the supporters of Syria would dispute that. I have to admit I still meet Lebanese MPs who don’t understand their own parliamentary system; I suspect it needs several PhDs to get it right.
The food, as always, was impeccable. And why should those who face death by explosives or gunfire every day not eat well? Not for nothing has Nora Jumblatt been called the world’s best hostess. I sat close to the Jumblatts while their guests – Ghazi Aridi, the minister of information, Marwan Hamade, minister of communications, and Tripoli MP Mosbah Al-Ahdab and a Beirut judge – joked and talked and showed insouciance for the fog of danger that shrouds their lives.
In 2004, “
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"Christopher Hitchens: The Chalkwhite Man Teaches and Preaches
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Ongoing Post on Protests in Beirut/Lebanon (Jadaliyya Co-Editors in Beirut)
Beirut, 10:57 pm, Friday 8 November 2019
The last eight days have seen a major reinvigoration after a relatively short lull in the energy of the Lebanese protests. Students, teachers, and professionals mobilized in ever-greater numbers, making demands that are both specific and broad. Importantly, many of the protestors are organizing more loosely, in their neighborhoods as well as within and between different organizations. Previous organizing, around public space, military retirements, general amnesty, and citizenship law, have found renewed urgency and new publics.
Various groups called for vast protests and a show of force and unity last Sunday. That day saw a large feminist march from the national museum to downtown Beirut, where it merged with the an even larger protest underway. Sunday was the second largest protest in downtown Beirut since the beginning of the movement over three weeks ago. The feminist march included demands for women to be able to pass citizenship to their spouses and children, a unified personal status law, and the end of sectarianism and its patriarchal structure and ideology. The chants included insisting on women’s bodily integrity and freedom in public, a focus on cl