photo beirut

The Egyptian Uprising in Photos - Updated February 7th

I lived in Cairo for nine months in 1989-90, where I attended the American University of Cairo, just off Tahrir Square. I remember watching the amazing popular protests against corrupt leaders in Eastern Europe at that time and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Now I am mesmerized and inspired as Egyptians bravely rise up against the 30-year repressive regime of President Hosni Mubarak.

Although the government pulled the plug on the Internet in Egypt on January 27th, there are photos of the current protests and gatherings online and not just from the major news organizations. I'm sure there will be many more later -- I'm anxious to see what my friends and aquaintances have to share when they come back online.

Here are some different sources of photographs that I am finding illuminating. I'm not compiling anything comprehensive, just a selection that I will update as I find more unique sources.

My goal is to show you some of the creativity, civic-mindedness, sense of community and solidarity amongst the very broad range of Egyptians involved. I'm avoiding the usual dramatic conflict shots you can get from the big media sources, and the overly romantic, iconic ones too.

Personally, I'm much more interested in the on-the-ground texture and feel of these events, the moments in between the dramatic images, the way ordinary people are making their voices heard.

"A protester carrying a banner: 'Leave you thief! Mubarak should be tried in front of an international court.'" (Hossam el-Hamalawy)

Hossam el-Hamalawy - Hossam is an Egyptian journalist and photographer, whose photos of labor organizing and protests I used for the Solidarity Center's publication "The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt," written by Joel Beinin. (Read this piece, Egypt at the Tipping Point?, by Beinin that puts the current uprising in historical context and explains the importance of a decade of labor protest movement organizing in preparing the way for today's events.) You can also read a January 27th interview with Hossam on Al Jazeera English.

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January 29 or 30, Tahrir Square (Timothy Kaldas)

Timothy Kaldas - I especially like this one of protesters picking up trash -- pointing out the real civic pride and sense of community that seems to be a hallmark of the gatherings. He also took a great series of photos of protesters on February 6th reading newspapers in Tahrir.

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February 4, "Day of Departure," in Tahrir Square, reading the news (Camilo Gomez-Rivas)

Camilo Gomez-Rivas (a Middle East history professor at AUC) has been in Tahrir Square taking photos of the many different kinds of people who are engaged in the protests. He has so far posted photos from February 4th here on his Flikr page. Here are his photos of the February 1st March of a Million, and from January 30 and 31st.

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Protesters in Tahrir Square on February 6, 2011. (Matthew Cassel)

Matthew Cassel (a Beirut-based photographer represented by Polaris, who also writes for Electronic Intifada) is posting photos on his blog too. There are strong portraits, moments of quiet determination, and images of people making their voices heard in different ways.

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Greeting people as they enter Tahrir Square after passing through security, February 6. (Mohamed Elshahed)

Mohamed Elshahed has also been photographing inside the square. You can see his photos on Facebook, in an album titled "People vs State." They capture the really wide range of people and the creativity, passion and joyfulness of many. Most of his photos are visually stronger than the one above, however I like this one for the sense of unity and support it conveys.

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Ed Ou -  A young freelancer who just arrived in Cairo, who says he is concerned to shoot not just hard news but also people living life through this momentous time. I like the top shot because it shows the protestors themselves taking photos with their phones. And something I haven't seen before -- women in Zamalek participating in a neighborhood watch.

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Leil-Zahra Mortada is compiling photos of women protestors on this Facebook page. She is not the photographer and while I don't generally like using photos without crediting the photographer, I think in a case like this, where the regime is using repressive tactics to limit communication, it is acceptable.

Representing the Middle East: Looking for the everyday

This past week I participated in an interesting "webinar" about stereotypes in photographic representation of the Middle East through Open-i, which is an online photojournalism education network. Some of the audience members are involved in a World Press Photo course for photographers in the Middle East and North Africa. The other presenters were Alexandra Avakian (National Geographic photographer) and Laura Junka (photographer and PhD student in cultural studies in London). Rula Halawani (photographer based in Jerusalem) was to be there too but unfortunately couldn't attend. Paul Lowe (former Magnum photographer, now with Panos) was the organizer and moderator.

My comments revolved around how in order to understand something of the politics of photographs we need to know how they are constructed by various political, social and cultural processes. I also mentioned how photojournalism over the past 50 years or so has come to more and more emphasize the dramatic moment, the emotional story, and artistic framing and composition.

The problem with this I think is that the quieter moments, the mundane, the everyday, are often left out. But it’s on that level of daily life where the big political and structural forces of oppression, poverty, discrimination, or occupation, affect most people.

Even if we are not in positions to affect the structure of forces that produce the stereotypes, we can still promote the creation of new and different photographic work and find ways to help audiences, teachers, and editors appreciate different visions and visual styles, like Alexandra, Laura and Rula do.

I think Rula  was effective in showing this with her project "Intimacy” where we see the hands of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers handling ID cards and bags at checkpoints.

She doesn’t show faces or dramatic interactions, strong emotions or conflict. She captures the daily, normal tensions of living under occupation, which I think says a lot more about most Palestinian’s lives than photos of boys throwing stones, as important as those are too. Rula's project confronts stereotypes because the images don’t fit into the standard conventions of photos of the Middle East.

Alexandra's photo of a man selling fish in Gaza in 1993 while an Israeli soldier jumps out of his jeep to chase stone-throwing Palestinians also gets at what I'm talking about.

Caption: Gaza City, Gaza, July 1993: A man sells fish while an Israeli soldier jumps out of his truck to chase Palestinians who had been throwing stones. Credit: Alexandra Avakian

Normal life continues during conflict, as seen here, but is often not depicted. This photo is not about contrasts or surprising juxtapositions. We can see from the man's demeanor that this is just a part of trying to live life in Gaza. Israeli military actions were ongoing and closely intertwined with daily life for Palestinians. Alexandra told us that most of the photos in her new book Windows of the Soul: My Journeys in the Muslim World, were rejects -- not used at the time. They are complex and layered, maybe too much so for the prevailing conventions, especially in the late 1980s through the 1990s.

Laura spoke eloquently about the difficulties of photographing Palestinians as neither terrorists nor victims. She spent the summer of 2003 taking photos of Palestinians at leisure as a way to get beyond these tropes. But at the same time she was careful to point out that violence and occupation were still always part of everyone's lives and evidence of that lingers in the photos. She explained that in this photo of a family at the beach there are layers of important information that are only available through explanatory captions.

Caption: Summer at the beach in Gaza, 2003. Credit: Laura Junka

The family has borrowed this tent from their neighbors who received it from the Red Cross when their house was bulldozed by the Israeli government in retaliation for one son's involvement with violent resistance to occupation. Knowing this adds a whole new dimension to the scene, creating a poignant and complex sense of joy mixed with sorrow.

The emphasis in photography of the Middle East is usually on conflict and contradiction, on up-close confrontations between individuals. And of course, as in most photography, there is an emphasis on depicting people.

But there are other visual modes to powerfully depict realities the region. For example see a double page spread in the most recent issue of Middle East Report where we used photos of road blocks by Dirk-Jan Visser.

 

Blocked by Dirk-Jan Visser.

Here is the text I wrote to go with the photo sequence:

"Foregoing the usual depiction of Israel and Palestine as a site of dramatic confrontations between individuals, Dirk-Jan Visser has chosen instead to reveal a more mundane and insidious aspect of Israeli power. Photographing some of the more than 500 road blocks throughout the West Bank in a repetitive and neutral style, without the embellishments of unusual camera angles or clever compositions, these seemingly innocuous places add up to a typology of obstacles, attesting powerfully to an extreme disruption of Palestinian life."

Although stereotypes and conventions of depicting the Middle East are still a problem, I do see more and more photographers pushing the boundaries, looking for new visual styles. Some are also finding ways to visualize structural political problems (the road blocks typology is an example) and to expand the repertoire of images of the region in order to more fully represent the multiplicity of people's identities and experiences.

Misdirected gaze in Jerusalem

Yesterday's New York Times ran an article by Isabel Kershner, "Real Estate Shopping Is Used as Political Theater on Jerusalem’s Contested Ground," accompanied by this photograph by Jim Hollander of EPA.

Caption: New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, center, led a delegation during a cornerstone ceremony in the settlement of Nof Zion, in Jabel Mukaber in East Jerusalem on Wednesday. Credit: Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency

Hollander does an admirable job of highlighting that this is a media stunt for Assemblyman Hikind's constituents back home by including the crush of reporters and photographers clustered around him and his delegation. Hikind would likely have preferred a close-up shot framing him as rugged pioneer (note the casual jacket instead of suit and tie) against the rolling hills and Old City of Jerusalem he has so deliberately placed in the background by his choice of position. Choosing to let the strong, warm toned  sunlight fall directly on his face, rather than cast his face in shadow by standing at a different angle, accentuates the sense of righteousness. Hollander punctures this intensely crafted scene by using a wide angle lens to reveal the structure around it -- the media for whom it is staged.

However, the New York Times, despite referring to Hikind's political theater in the title and using a photo that reveals the stage, still plays into the politician's hands. He (plus his point of view) has successfully become the center of the story both visually and in the text.

The Times could have resisted this misdirection of our gaze away from the core issue of land use. For example, the article mentions the Israeli practice of demolishing Palestinian homes for lack of extremely rare and hard to get building permits. The Times had access to striking photos of homes demolished in a Jerusalem neighborhood just the day before. I found a number of good photos in a quick search of agency websites, especially by Menahem Kahana of the Agence France Presse, such as this one.

Caption: Palestinian girls stand amidst debris after Israeli municipality workers partially demolished their family house which was built without municipal permission in the Arab east Jerusalem neighborhood of Whad Kadum on November 17, 2009. Credit: Menahem Kahana/AFP

A photo of the settlement, Nof Zion, in the Palestinian neighborhood of Jebel Mukaber, would have been another good choice that would help inform viewers of the reality of settlement growth. This photo from the Jerusalem Post website's article on Hikind's visit reveals the fortress-like housing that has already been built in Nof Zion.

Credit: Ariel Jerozlimski

The newspaper's website did add a couple of photos by Rina Castelnuovo that were not in the print edition. However, they underplay the demolitions, while more informative images about the toll demolitions take on families were available from the photographer and elsewhere.

This is the photo from the NY Times website.

 

Caption: Palestinians attached a flag to the rubble of a demolished house in East Jerusalem on Wednesday. Credit: Rina Castelnuovo

Another shot of this house by Castelnuovo is available through the agency Redux. (I won't show it since I didn't license its use.) The one on the Redux website shows much more of the house. The angle is not so dramatic and the sky not so blue (it was likely taken from the opposite side of the house) but the effect of dispossession is stronger because the house is recognizable as a dwelling rather than, as in this photo, an indistinct pile of rubble slipping out of the bottom of the frame, and quickly out of our consciousness.

The NYT website includes a second photo that downplays the demolition of Palestinian homes by showing  neighbors watching in a detached manner, as if this was an unimportant incident. But the photo isn't really about the neighbors or about any of the residents, it's about their laundry.

Caption: Neighbors watched in East Jerusalem as a Palestinian home was demolished. Credit: Rina Castelnuovo/NYTimes

It makes an interesting photograph, but conveys little information about the event and its meaning -- just as a staged photo op by Hikind and his group reveals nothing about the actual politics of territorial control and spatial domination.

Apartheid and Beyond - new issue of Middle East Report

The latest issue of Middle East Report is now available. Below is the blurb about the contents. Subscribe to Middle East Report or order individual copies at MERIP’s website. Included in the issue is a photo essay on road blocks by Dirk-Jan Visser in addition to the usual great work by talented photographers.

Middle East Report 253  Winter 2009

APARTHEID AND BEYOND

“Apartheid” is a word bomb. It explodes upon the page, laying bare memories of the regime of racial discrimination that prevailed in South Africa until 1994. So it was no small thing when the South African Human Sciences Research Council issued a report in 2009 concluding that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is a “colonial enterprise that implements a system of apartheid.” The winter 2009 issue of Middle East Report, “Apartheid and Beyond,” asks what it means that such language is gaining currency and whether it holds promise for bringing peace to the strife-torn land of Israel-Palestine.

As political geographer Oren Yiftachel demonstrates, it is increasingly difficult to speak of separate political systems in the country, a state of Israel “side by side” with a Palestinian proto-state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. Rather, settlements, bypass roads and walls are creating one Israeli system of rule from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. But different groups of people living under that system have very different sets of rights and prerogatives. Anthropologist Julie Peteet traces the genealogy of the comparison between the post-1967 occupation and South African apartheid, finding in the differences between the two experiences reason to look for a new language to talk about Israel-Palestine.

One key difference is in the realm of labor: Whereas in white-ruled South Africa, the country’s economy was built on the backs of black workers, Israel is no longer dependent on the toil of Palestinians. Economist Jennifer Olmsted measures the growth of unemployment in the Occupied Territories and explains why the jobs have disappeared. There is also severe inequality within Israel, as Monica Tarazi shows in her essay on the dispossession of the Bedouin of the Naqab. Global protest against these inequalities is increasingly taking the shape of calls for various types of boycott. Ursula Lindsey reports on the efforts of Egyptian intellectuals to enforce a cultural boycott, as well as “anti-normalization.”

Also featured: Nazanin Shahrokni inquires into why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not known as a friend of freedoms for women, nominated three women as cabinet ministers; Rola Abimourched investigates working and living conditions for migrant domestic workers in Jordan; and more.
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Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a progressive, independent organization based in Washington, DC. Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the implications of US and international policy for the region.

"Humanising Photography"

The Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies at Durham University in the UK organized a conference called "Humanising Photography" September 25 - 27, 2009. At some point I think they will be uploading audio recordings of all our presentations if you'd like to listen.

On the way there, as I looked over a newspaper full of daily news photography I wondered what photojournalism would look like if we turned our attention away from individuals and their immediate responses (away from the emphasis on capturing gestures and expressions) and instead focused on political and social processes and power relations. In the 1930s it was the new technology of 35mm cameras, such as the Leica, that enabled photographers to get up close, to photograph without being seen, without flash, to capture candid shots of people. The philosophy of humanism also emphasized the importance of the individual. It is hard to imagine photojournalism any differently, but I think the convention of focusing on individuals suits the staging and arranging of events for the camera that occupy a lot of a daily news photographer's time and also creates a certain narrow view on the world that blocks understanding of the deeper political forces at work. Prodding my thoughts was David Campbell's interesting essay "Constructed Visibility: Photographing the Catastrophe of Gaza."

I don't have an answer, but I think it's worthwhile to imagine a new style of photojournalism. Photos of individuals will always be important, especially for inspiring people to care about the costs of various politics and policies. But I'm interested in what role photographs can play in illuminating causes not just the consequences. (Campbell shows, for example, how the photography of the war on Gaza in January 2009 problematically created Gazans as simply potential recipients of humanitarian aid and was not able to show how Gaza is a place in permanent catastrophe, not just periodic breakdown.)

I presented a paper at the conference that describes a major style within photojournalism. Perhaps it is useful to analyze older, dominant styles, and to think about how they have become entrenched, in order to imagine new ways of depicting the world.

In my presentation I argued that there is a particular visual style that has been distilled and promoted by the famous agency Magnum Photos (not necessarily invented by it) especially from its founding in 1947 into the 1970s. Using high drama, abstract narrativity, artistic expression and documentary realism, the style creates coherent, orderly compositions that seek to comment on the "human condition" in an abstract, general way. They do this by emphasizing expressions, gestures and action which add up to a story that implies something important about human society is being revealed by the photographer. I think this style has deeply influenced what we consider to be exemplary photojournalism and so is now mainstream. (There is also a newer mode within Magnum, which emphasizes fragmentation and disorder and is more explicitly "arty.")

Here are some examples. Remember, I'm trying to describe the style of a group, not of these individuals.

[Robert Capa]

[Jean Gaumy]

[Raymond Depardon]

[Philip Jones-Griffiths]

After describing the historical circumstances of its development and the style itself I discussed what I think are the implications for this way of depicting the world. To be very brief, I suggest that it creates images that make broad statements about the human condition that ultimately obscure more than they reveal about politics or society. These abstract narratives flatten the world into banal truisms (such as statements about the horrors of war or the tragedy of poverty), limit diversity and pluralism in representations and gloss over the specifics of how politics or society operate. This style of depiction is the product of a certain moment in time, adapted to the needs of a particular (European) institution and molded by specific social forces.

Though it needs more study, I also suggest that this style of photojournalism participated in presenting the developing world as a region in need of development and humanitarian intervention (by Western industrialized countries) in the early post-WWII era, without taking into consideration the complex wishes or needs of the targeted population.

All in all, although the photos produced in this style are stunning and incredibly well crafted, I think this style is not well suited to the way we live now. We need new visual modes that correspond to how we experience the world as increasingly complex, multi-dimensional, and interconnected.

At the conference there were roughly three groups of people presenting work -- photographers, NGO workers who use photography as a tool, and academics. As primarily a photo editor/critic I suppose I overlapped the categories. The photographers were interested in how their photographs might influence people or express their own experiences, the NGO people were concerned with how photography can be used to empower marginalized groups (and they self-reflexively interrogated some of the issues that arise when Western groups attempt to effect change in the developing world), while the academics were generally addressing the question of what work photographs do (for example, how they are able - or not - to testify to human suffering, how they "bear witness," how they are used and reused for national or political purposes, what they reveal when examined decades after being taken and how their meanings shift over time and through different contexts of use).

A thread that kept emerging was the question of the relationship between aesthetics and politics (most explicitly discussed by Mark Reinhardt). The notion of affect surfaced a number of times. Mark (a political theorist) asked what particular aesthetic strategies induce what effects, what emotions. He noted that the problem with provoking sentimentality is that makes feeling primary and political structures secondary or invisible.

Eugenie Shinkle discussed certain examples of landscape photography that appears more and more in the context of humanitarian photography because it addresses the human costs of conflict and environmental degradation through the marks and scars on the landscape, not by depicting individuals. (I think this type of photography may be one way forward in crafting new styles of photojournalism -- think of Simon Norfolk, Sophie Ristelhueber, Edward Burtynsky.) Here are some examples, both of Israeli road blocks in the West Bank:

[Simon Norfolk]

[Sophie Ristelhueber]

Eugenie made the point that the aesthetic overlays the cognitive and the affective (brings together thought and feeling is how I understand that). So, she asks, what kind of affect is being created in these landscape photos through their particular aesthetic and what kind of political response do they provoke? She suggested empathy, a shared sense of belonging, and a linkage between the global and local. It was unclear what exactly about the photos created these responses. That is why, I would argue, it is important to look at the formal elements of photography (composition, design, use of light, form, framing, etc) in addition to political, social and historical context.

There is much more I could write about the ideas brought up at the conference, and clarifications I could make in my argument about a Magnum visual style, but this post has gone on too long already!

alternatives to disaster photographs

Wandering around the web this morning I spent some time reading a call for papers for a conference at Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies called "Humanising Photography". (Proposals by photographers, scholars and humanitarian workers due Dec 19th.) The associate director of the center (at Durham University in the UK) is the geographer David Campbell, who has written quite a bit on the representation of war, famine and disaster. Two projects he was involved in are on the web: Imaging Famine and The Visual Economy of HIV/AIDS.

While I appreciate analysis of images of famine and disaster and how they shape the way the public understands the world (Africa in these cases), I am usually more interested in exploring the alternatives to these depictions. It seems to me that contemporary photojournalism is gradually expanding its visual language to incorporate new visions and ways of seeing that go beyond the simplistic, decontextualized, isolated close up image of an emaciated or suffering individual. (See some of the newer members of Magnum Photos like Jonas Bendiksen for example.) However, the most interesting photographs for complicating our perceptions of a place or a people or a situation seem to be those embraced by the art world.

In that spirit, here are a few artists I stumbled across this morning who create representations of places that go beyond the stereotypes and cliches of the mainstream media.

The curator/photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi addresses this issue directly in a short, interesting interview about the Bamako 2007 photography biennial (in Mali). He put together a smaller exhibit of photography, "Spot On: Bamako 2007," from the biennial at the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) in Berlin. (If you're in Berlin the exhibit is on now until January 11, 2009.)

Check out work by artists from all over Africa (including North Africa and Egypt) by going to the Berlin exhibit website.

Here's a taste.

Sammy Baloji

Baloji makes collages of colonial era photographs incorporated into present-day landscapes. As the exhibit explains: "...in order to understand the present, he reads the traces of the past. He finds such traces and signs in the architecture of Congo’s state mining company. Once the Gécamines stood for the richness of the Belgian colony and the extraction of copper and cobalt was the backbone of the Congoles economy. Under Mobuto’s regime, however, this sector of industry was run down because of the lack of investments and the dictator claimed the profits."

Mouna Karray

"The industrial and harbour city of Sfax, Tunisia, is the home town of the artist Mouna Karray. Since four decades, a series of political decisions has led to the point that public places in Sfax have gradually become non-accessible areas without any function. The remains of these places, redefining the image of the urban landscape, are shown by Mouna Karray in her series Murmurer."

Another artist I found this morning is Ahmed Mater Al-Ziad Aseeri, from Saudi Arabia. He is also a doctor and has incorporated x-rays into his work.

Mixed media on paper, 152 x 102 cm

He explains: "It is designed to be like the opening pages to a religious text. But much larger. Originally the craftsmen would always spend a great deal of time on these pages. They’re the first thing you see. Instead of a traditional geometry I have printed two facing X-ray images of human torsos. I prepared the paper using tea, pomegranate, coffee and other materials traditionally used on these pages. By using them you ensure that when you come to paint onto the paper it will have an extraordinary luminous quality – the paint will truly shine. And that’s what I want to do with this piece, to illuminate. I am giving light. It’s about two humans in conversation. Us and Them. Dar a luz. So many religions around the world share this concept of giving light, not darkness. It is one religious idea that has reached mankind through many different windows."

60 years of the Universal Human Rights Declaration - photo slide show

Oeil Public, a French photo agency that I like to use for excellent photos of the Middle East, has a poignant and compelling slide show commemorating 60 years of the UN's Universal Human Rights Declaration. As you might imagine, from a photojournalistic/documentary agency, the photos almost all show violations of (not respect for) human rights. It's powerfully done. I rarely sit through online slide shows, but this one was riveting (the music adds a sense of urgency). Just click on the link above and it will start up.

One of the photographers whose work appears in the slide show is Karim Ben Khelifa, whose photos I use occasionally for Middle East Report, and who focuses on Islam and the Arab world.

Starting Again

This blog is changing from one focused on my year in Beirut to one that will still be about photography, but will revolve around my life in Baltimore. It will continue to feature my photography and my writings about photography (with occasional diversions).

So, rather than starting a whole new blog, I am going to continue posting in this particular bit of cyberspace, but the blog's name will change (once I think up a new one). You'll always be able to find it at this web address, regardless of its name.

Thanks for visiting!

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I saw the movie "4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days" the other night. It's by a Romanian director, Cristian Mungiu, and depicts a few days in the life of a woman helping her friend get an illegal abortion in 1987. It is unrelentingly bleak, but mostly well-crafted and compelling. [Nicolae Ceaucescu, Romania's ruler from 1965 until his overthrow in 1989, had outlawed birth-control and abortion in 1966 in an attempt to increase the population.]

Although I enjoyed the storyline, I also found the little details of life under that authoritarian regime very interesting and familiar. In 1990 I took a trip to Turkey and Bulgaria with some friends from Cairo, where we were living. Bulgaria's communist leader had only very recently been removed by opposition forces and later in 1990 the Communist Party gave up the reins of power and free elections were held for the first time since 1931.

But when we were visiting there was still a shortage of food in shops, we could get very little at the few restaurants, pro-democracy protests were still being held and the general look and feel of most places we visited was institutional and bare. It wasn't all desolate, though. In Sophia we randomly met a man who spoke English and we went to visit his mother and sister's young daughter at their flat in an area of colorless high-rise apartment buildings. Inside the flat was a whole different world. It was warm and vibrant, they offered us what must have been precious fresh oranges, chocolates and some homemade fruit liqueur. For a glimpse at what we saw, here are a few photos from that trip.

US in the Middle East

The longer I live in Beirut the harder it is to see the place as a visitor from the US would see it. But the other day, while attending some panels at the Beirut Media Forum, I heard a talk by the smart and informed journalist and press critic, Michael Massing who was visiting for just a few days. [He often writes for the New York Review of Books, which is where I have read his critiques of US press coverage of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and later of coverage of the war itself.] He has spent time in Iraq but had not been to Beirut before. His talk explained the various impediments to reporting from Iraq –- non-Arabic speaking journalists, violence restricting their movements and interactions with Iraqis, the embed system of tagging along with American military units leading to isolation from other points of view, and lack of trust in Iraqi sources. I appreciated the talk, even though most was nothing particularly new especially if you've read his work, because I like straightforward analysis of how journalism works and what that means for readers’ understanding of the world.

Massing’s concluding point was also interesting. He explained that in order for a story to be told it has to be recognized as a story by the journalist, then the editor, and lastly it must fit within the bounds of what the public is willing to hear and tolerate. The location of these boundaries is something he has been noticing more lately. All societies have boundaries of what’s acceptable or not, but this part is distressing to me as he described the US public as still largely affected by an atmosphere of “fear, distrust, and xenophobia” since September 11, 2001.

Massing mentioned that the US is still very isolated from Arab views. For example, US cable companies don’t carry the new Al Jazeera International, which is in English. At the beginning of the talk he had admitted that seeing Beirut made him realize how misinformed he was on the situation and the city itself. I later asked him what surprised him. He had a couple of examples. He explained how he had taken a walk around the neighborhood of Hamra and from its appearance had assumed it was the Christian part of town, which he had been led to believe was more Western than the Muslim areas of Beirut. He was surprised to learn later that Hamra is not the Christian area but a mostly Muslim neighborhood. And when he was given a tour of the southern suburbs (Dahiyya) where Hizballah is the most popular party and has its various offices, he noticed that not all the women are swathed in black and there aren’t mullahs on every corner (he was poking fun at the stereotype too, I doubt he really expected that...did he?).

Also surprising to him was the effect of US support for the current majority (called the March 14th forces) in the Lebanese government. He seemed surprised to learn from people here how the US does not support compromise with the opposition (which is led by Hizballah). He said that the US stance of no compromise seems to stem from its “with us or against us” mindset and black and white definition of allies and enemies in the Middle East.

I too find this very frustrating. The more the US marginalizes, undermines and refuses to deal in any way with forces such as Hizballah and Hamas or countries like Iran and Syria the more their supporters and others will resist anything to do with the US. Any US support of democracy, human rights, NGOs, arts and education in the region, for example, then becomes tainted by this one-sided position and renders everything the US does here suspect and partisan in many people’s eyes.

One way for the US to do things differently is to interfere less directly (especially in the use of military force) and reduce the sense of threat that those not supported by the US in the region feel. By allowing the broadest range of voices and giving the region as a whole a sense of security and autonomy, internal forces can more freely work out new social and political relations on their own terms.

Now for something entirely different -- a new graffiti image on Jeanne D'Arc street of the French character from the book The Little Prince.

The words say "come to my heart."

[Here's the original Petit Prince, drawn by the author of the book, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in 1943.]  

Lebanese politics

One reason I find Lebanese politics difficult to follow is that it seems obvious no one is telling the truth. Besides verbally attacking each other, politicians here talk often about finding a compromise between the main factions or they say things aren't as bad as they seem. The news constantly reports that various leaders are planning to meet and talk things out. And yet, none of that ever makes the slightest difference, the crisis continues or worsens. In the Middle East Report Online article titled "Rallying Around the Renegade," Heiko Wimmen describes the system as a "Byzantine political game, whereby decisions and distributions of spoils are supposed to be worked out behind impenetrable smokescreens of lofty principles and diplomatic cant." This is definitely how it appears to me.

As the article points out, the traditional leaders (and a few newcomers) don't want this system of back room dealing to change. However, those in the opposition do. Their motives might be just as self-serving, but they talk about increasing transparency in the system and combating corruption and nepotism. I can see the appeal. This situation also reminds me that I read recently that much of the civil war (1975-1990) was a battle between those who were defending the status quo and those who wanted reforms and a non-sectarian system. Much is different now, and perhaps that sort of dynamic is usually present in civil conflicts, but still it strikes me as eerie.

Wimmen's excellent article is primarily about Michel Aoun and his Free Patriotic Movement. He describes Aoun's history, appeal and popularity and discusses why he is now aligned with the Hizballah-led opposition and despised by people in the ruling March 14th coalition. Along the way he illuminates how Lebanese politics works (or rather, doesn't) and why the country is in such a stalemate now. Very worthwhile reading.

Anyhow, I'm not a political expert of any kind, so my comments are necessarily simplistic. Read the article.