Late Lebanese legendary filmmaker Maroun Baghdadi once said, “I come from a world where, strangely enough, the image has difficulty in spreading. It’s a world that has problems with its own image.” He went on to say that in Lebanon and the Arab world, the image can be considered a taboo, complaining that he had been sometimes accused of giving a “bad image” of the region in his movies. “This excites me,” he lashed back, “and encourages me to transmit my message through images even more.” Continue reading “When looking back hurts, really hurts”
Live from Beirut, from the beating heart of Beirut
I thought there would be no words to describe what happened in the streets of Beirut yesterday, but there are. Continue reading “Live from Beirut, from the beating heart of Beirut”
It’s about Garbage and so much more
For once, and if only in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, the reality on the ground quite literally reflects the exact state of our country and its politics: garbage.
In fact, if it is hard for you to picture it, the tonnes of garbage piling up in and around our capital city are a perfect way to physically depict what corruption, mismanagement, monopoly, nepotism, patronage, clientelism and misuse of public funds does to a country: it is toxic, it affects everybody and may eventually kill everybody, just like the garbage will, the longer it stays on our streets. Continue reading “It’s about Garbage and so much more”
March 14 and the Myth of the Cedar Revolution
If March 14 2005 would happen again, I would be exactly where I was – in the middle of the chanting and exuberant crowds in Martyrs’ Square – when it all happened. It was history and I was part of it, along with thousands of others who gathered there. Continue reading “March 14 and the Myth of the Cedar Revolution”
Eye on the East 