Head of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea endorses founder of the Free Patriotic Movement Michel Aoun for the Presidency of the Lebanese Republic: This isn’t history in the making, as everyone has kept repeating over and over again. This is yet another history of failure and yet another failure of history…
Three Years and Counting: Looking Back and Looking Ahead, in Pictures
It has been three years already: Eye on the East has still not run out of things to say because Lebanon and the Arab World has never been so full of things to talk about. But since 2011, it has been each and every one of you, the readers, followers and supporters that have helped in keeping this going and made it worthwhile…. And for that, I thank you all.
Continue reading “Three Years and Counting: Looking Back and Looking Ahead, in Pictures”
Beirut will never surrender, but…
They say that Beirut is a city that will never surrender, but what if everything that keeps life together in it is slowly disappearing, gradually being torn apart? Continue reading “Beirut will never surrender, but…”
The Sheikhs Get Down to Business
In what came as a rather unexpected move, member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) listed Hezballah on their never-heard-of-before list of terrorist organizations for its involvement in Syria alongside the Assad regime, while threatening to take action against its members/sympathizers and their assets in the Gulf. Continue reading “The Sheikhs Get Down to Business”
Triumphant over Who?
“That Hezballah (Party of God) shall be triumphant” (فإن حزب الله هم الغالبون) as their slogan says. But triumphant over who?
The Politics of Finger Pointing
“We just want to remind people, for those who don’t know what is secularism, secularism doesn’t mean being against God, secularism is just the separation between religion and state, secularism makes all citizens equal before the law with the same rights, secularism leads us from confessionalism to citizenship.”
(Closing remarks on satirical show “CHI NN” on Lebanese Al Jadeed TV, February 4, 2013)
With raging discussions on a new electoral law and civil marriage in recent weeks, the role of religion has once again been brought to the mainstream political debate. The role of religion in politics and our daily lives is certainly nothing new in Lebanon. Continue reading “The Politics of Finger Pointing”
Battle of the Beards
In the aftermath of the events in Saida last week, pitting Sheikh Ahmad Al Assir in direct confrontation with Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the only thing that I could think about was my next blog post. I came up with what I believed was the best title for it, as used herewith[1]. However, I seemed unable to fill the post with anything other than the usual, yet always valid, criticism of the absurdity of Lebanese politics and the way we always seem to swiftly move against the current of modern times (so much so that we could earn yet another pathetic Guinness record for it).
