Consumer Society

Marvels, made to measure

by Executive Editors
written by Executive Editors

Expensive tastes are exclusive ones — why spend thousands on an identikit interior when your home can be one-of-a-kind? But beyond the diamond-encrusted couches and Arabic-embroidered rugs hand-woven to order by Nepalese craftsmen, the trend for tailor-made interiors opens up exciting possibilities in design and enterprise. Executive takes a tour of some of Beirut’s creative companies in the business of fulfilling dreams clients didn’t even know they had.

“I don’t like the word creativity,” says architect and designer Karim Bekdache, sounding at odds with the sun-filled furniture showroom behind him, crammed with mesmerizing concoctions in wood, glass and steel. “I think [design] should answer a real need, and then it can be completely wild and you can call it creative, or it can be completely invisible — but for me, creating something completely invisible or completely wild is the same.” Trained in France and working mostly in Lebanon and Europe, Bekdache does not worry about imposing a particular architectural signature on a project. Being at the top of your game as an architect or designer isn’t just about the ‘wow’ factor. As luxury consumers globally are cutting back on flash statements in favor of projects with personal meaning, Bekdache seeks a sort of synthesis where clients, if the process goes well, feel that they are the ones who defined the work.

Bekdache gives the example of a project in Gemmayze whose owner was making the move from the mountains to Beirut. Based on this background, Bekdache commissioned the famous French botanist Patrick Blanc to create a vertical interior ‘green wall’ inside the property, a self-sustaining structure made entirely of plants and mosses. “It’s about installing something in the house that gives meaning,” he explains. Then, “there’s an inside relation between the client and the house.” Horrified by the spectacle of so many design catalogues of endless, stultifying choices, Bekdache has learned to bypass the books and magazines predicting the latest trend. “This is the meaning of modern for me,” he concludes. “Not to imitate, but to keep on going, further than you did the last time.”

Let there be light

When it comes to local companies who can realize unconventional visions, Bekdache has high praise for lighting design and manufacture firm .PSLAB. He describes their approach as “very very courageous and daring. It’s incredible… they throw away all the catalogues of all the possible spotlights in the world, and then you come to them and say ‘I need a light for this space,’ and sometimes they really get beyond this stuff and start telling you how the architecture should be.” .PSLAB, unlike any other lighting company in the region, design and manufacture all their products in-house, giving them total control of their exclusive ‘haute couture’ approach. For them, the specifics of a given space define the lighting, rather than the lighting imposing a mood on the space. Their contemporary, industrial chic products are crafted by teams of in-house artisans and never re-used on the same market; an approach that has won them devotees as far apart as Parisian design darling India Mahdavi and Beiruti architectural rock star Bernard Khoury.

.PSLAB compare themselves to a five-star hotel, where the customer’s needs define their experiences and where each experience can be completely different. This synthesis of forward-thinking design, controlled production and sophisticated client relations is a complete service that puts .PSLAB ahead, not just of other lighting companies, but also of many other ‘bespoke’ design services. 

High-class problems

High-end, high budget projects will often involve an unusual attention to structure and detailing. Architects like Bekdache might lower a ceiling or find a way around an awkward hallway, which ultimately will increase the value of a property that has been sculpted into its best possible form. But there are some challenges that need the expertise of master designers and craftsmen — a niche demand that Karim Chaya and his partner Raed Abillama stumbled upon in 1997 when they began the projects that led to their company Acid, specializing in architectural detailing. Chaya, who jokes that the team are “detail nerds,” explains: “We started becoming known as the ‘mission impossible’ company — whenever there was something difficult, strange, unresolved, out of a dream, they would come to us, a company that will take the headache out of [it].” From staircases, to lifts, to made-to-order wall cladding (such as in the new Downtown café, Grid, that glows pink and gold from sets of copper mesh screens imported from Turkey), Acid have built their reputation on “quality and sensibility above all,” an uncompromising stance that brooks no opposition over the amount of time it takes to do a thing properly — principles that have landed them commercial projects like Lanvin and Joseph boutiques worldwide.

The artisanal skills that Acid often relies on originate in the “back alleys in Bourj Hammoud,” of which Chaya says “the most valuable thing that I have acquired since we started is that network. Good people we can work with and who have the same ideas.” Far from throwing out the skills of generations of craftsmen, Acid is one of the companies keeping them in business, playing an intermediary role between the metal smiths, carpenters and leather workers and the off-the-wall requirements of high-end clients.

“What I got from my father as a heritage… we changed completely. Instead of accumulating more stock from all over the world, we did the contrary”

The business of bespoke

A more classical approach to customized interiors offers clients the opportunity to have total control of the design of luxury items — a methodology that is revolutionizing some local businesses. Opened a year ago in Ashrafieh, the United Kingdom’s Rug Company has developed a bespoke service that complements its already elite range of rug designs created by the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen. Existing designs can be adapted in myriad ways, while the customer controls the colors and the silk content of the weaves, which range from around $500 to $3500 per square meter. But the premium service sees clients designing their own patterns, such as their name in Arabic calligraphy, which are then tried and tested on screen before being sent to Nepal, where teams of expert weavers take up to a year to produce the finished product.

Serge Nalbandian of Nalbandian Textiles offers similar services, having personalized rugs for Elie Saab and had his Tibetan weavers produce a pop art Superman number. He has also redesigned his family business around customization, with the company abandoning its history of trading antique Persian carpets and preferring to give clients what they want — pieces for the home that are about immediate pleasure, without re-saleable value.

“What I got from my father as a heritage… we changed completely,” he says. “Instead of accumulating more stock from all over the world, we did the contrary. What the customer needs, we can provide him with.” The new year will see a giant state-of-the-art screen installed at Nalbandian for the sole purpose of giving clients a multimedia customization experience. “There is no longer a way of investing in your decoration as an heirloom,” says Nalbandian. “It fits in your house, you live with it for the time that you’re enjoying it and this is it.”

Extreme dreams

Enjoying the moment can take many forms. “I’ll be the executor of your dreams,” smiles Vick Vanlian — and he should know, being responsible for creations including a diamond-strewn sofa. Like Serge Nalbandian, he developed his family business, Galerie Vanlian, in response to customer demand for the high-end customized items that now make up 50 percent of his business. This led to Envy, his three-floor Downtown boutique — a mind-boggling collection where there isn’t one object that doesn’t glitter or gleam or clamor for attention. Vanlian is aware of his celebrity cachet as a successful and distinctive young designer; a further gloss on custom projects, which always bear his characteristic signature.

As such, Vanlian excels at realizing flamboyant visions, from a ‘famous singer’ who requested a room designed around 150 pictures of herself, to a Saudi prince’s pleasure chamber. Working through an intermediary, Vanlian received instructions for it. “[The client] called it the massage room, but it was the sex room… it had a round bed in the middle with four stages on each corner, with dancing poles and big screens and in the middle a big cage that could come up and down… nicely put together for a porn movie, basically.” There will always be mileage — and a lot of fun — in being known for making any dream come true.

“It’s not easy because when you have custom-made designs you have to create all the time”

Made in Lebanon

None of these dreams come cheap, of course. Maria Halios started her own furniture gallery in Mar Mikhael last year, producing limited edition and bespoke pieces, after demand for customization necessitated her own working space. She points to a pair of hoop-like metal sculptures with finely textured surfaces. “Imagine that I have to do them a centimeter smaller,” she says. “Molds are required. Each mold costs a fortune and because you cannot have the same dimensions in another house, you basically throw the mold in the garbage. So you invest in a mold that is supposed to produce a hundred pieces, just for one piece — the cost is huge.” The cost of a dining table can jump from $5,000 to $15,000 if you want to be sure no one else has it.

Yet these are the prices you have to pay to keep ahead of the neighbors — a popular pastime in a high society as small as Lebanon’s. But Lebanon is also an exciting hub of creative talent with a distinct price advantage over Europe. Halios, like most of the companies mentioned here, works with clients overseas who are happy to undercut designers offering similar services in more developed markets.

Yet aside from the business of pursuing the most exclusive clients around, a genuine commitment to originality at all costs is at the heart of these projects. Halios fingers an origami-like paper maquette, the first stage in creating an intricate table of angular interlocking pieces. “I never imagined the beauty that could come from a mock-up like this,” she says. “It’s not easy because when you have custom-made designs you have to create all the time. It’s not like you create two collections a year and then you forget about it.”

Far from a cynical exploitation of the fantasies of the super-rich, these companies are challenging themselves, and the industry as a whole, to keep evolving the practice of made to measure design.

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Economics & Policy

Avoiding collateral damage

by Sami Halabi
written by Sami Halabi

A friend in need is a friend indeed, or so the saying goes, but when sticking up for your confidante means you find yourself in a heap of trouble, companionship can be more of a liability than an asset. The accord between Lebanon and Syria, as with any old couple, has seen its ups and downs, yet no matter how precarious the politics ever were, the economic bond between the two has kept the Levantine neighbors’ fates intertwined, especially when it comes to banking. 

“It has always been the case because there was no private banking sector in Syria and they are still at an early phase in terms of techniques,” said Elie Yachoui, dean of the School of Business Administration and Economics at Lebanon’s Notre Dame University. “The Syrians have always done their transactions in Lebanon and gone back to Syria. It’s nothing new.” 

What is new, however, are the widening sanctions being imposed on Syria by those near and far, as its economy and foreign currency reserves continue to buckle under international pressure. The United States, the European Union and Turkey have all recently imposed new sanctions on the Syrian government, its central bank and prominent members of the business community [see table]. The Arab League initially mirrored the moves in November after an initiative to impose similar sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, was leaked to the press. In theory, these sanctions were seen to be the most effective against the regime as most trade with Syria goes to its neighbors: close to 60 percent of its exports are to Arab countries. But the league’s sanctions were more or less declared dead on delivery. 

“They said they were going to freeze the Syrian government accounts but they allowed the Syrian government to pull 75 percent of the accounts before the decision was made,” said Yachoui. “They say they want to sanction the Syrian central bank but then allow Syrian expatriates to send foreign currencies back to Syria. So from one side you sanction and from another you nourish.” 

Ibrahim Saif, specialist on the political economy of the Middle East at the Carnegie Middle East Center think tank, agrees that the sanctions will have limited effect, “For the simple reason that those countries that seem to be very adamant about imposing the sanctions are not the countries that can effectively do it.”

As Executive went to press the Arab League was wavering and the list of sanctions was removed from the league’s website in December. Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi even released a statement last month denying that a ban on air travel would be implemented, given that discussions were ongoing between the league and the Syrian regime. 

“Many countries will not be applying [Arab League sanctions] and even [regarding] the countries that want to apply them, we don’t really know if they have the know-how and logistics to implement those measures,” said Jihad Yazigi, editor-in-chief of The Syria Report. “So in this sense they are not extremely meaningful.”

The ones that bite

The sanctions that are proving consequential are those coming from the West that pressure Syrian access to foreign currency, such as a ban on Syrian oil exports to Europe. Already the Syrian pound has lost some 25 percent of its value since March and an emergency reserve fund used by the Syrian central bank to prop up the currency is dwindling. With gross domestic product estimates for 2011 forecast (depending on who you ask) to fall by some 20 percent and the Syrian fiscal deficit continuing to climb on the back of an increase in subsidies and civil servant pay, the situation has produced an economic exodus according to Yazigi. “Everyone’s plan now is not to do anything. For everyone, business is dead here, they are just managing. Those who can are leaving,” he said. 

As the economic migration takes place, Lebanon is finding itself under increasing international pressure to abide by Western sanctions. A visit by US Treasury Assistant Secretary for Terrorism Financing Daniel Glaser in November set off a renewed wave of fears in the banking sector, especially after “concern” over the dealings of Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) threw the sector into crisis mode earlier in the year. 

While the case of LCB and Syrian sanctions are not directly related, the fear that further action could be taken by the US over assistance to the Syrian regime is ever-present, even though “US sanctions do not directly obligate Lebanese financial institutions,” according to a US Treasury department official who spoke to Executive. 

“Lebanese financial institutions may be choosing to perform their own enhanced due diligence on transactions associated with Syria due to the heightened risk associated with that jurisdiction,” the official said. 

True or not, reports of sanctioned individuals attempting to use Lebanon as an outlet abound, and a battle  has kicked off between those seeking to dodge the sanctions and financial institutions looking to protect themselves, the sector and by extension, the country’s economy.

“Now we are afraid of another LCB issue,” said Paul Morcos, founder of the Justicia law firm that provides legal consulting for the banking sector. “They need a new scapegoat so that the new procedures they are asking for can be implemented. Since our banks have accounts with correspondent banks in the US, they should be afraid.”

Avoiding lists

Sanctions are based on what those in the business of complying with them call ‘the lists’. The most infamous of all is the US’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list. Companies placed on this list, or those who have dealings with persons on them, are effectively banned from dealing in US dollars and any banks that carry out transactions for such a person could potentially be sanctioned themselves. Banks have relationships with other intermediary American banks to deal in US dollars, which would act as the initial trigger for any US-imposed sanctioning of transactions. “The banks have to do their due diligence and not have accounts with people who are on the lists, because they have relations with US banks,” said the manager of a compliance unit at one of Lebanon’s major banks, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

Of course, anyone on a list would likely not be naïve enough to think they could waltz into a Lebanese bank and open an account. But using an intermediary, or setting up a Lebanese company that then would work with the Syrian government, could be ways around this, given that, in theory at least, “the sanctions are on Syria and not Syrians,” according to the compliance manager. 

“Banks don’t hold any accounts for people listed on the OFAC lists or other lists,” said Morcos. But those who deal with or front for sanctioned individuals is another issue: “We don’t know if we have [sanctioned accounts] or not,” Morcos added. 

Camille Barkho, manager of Amerab Business Solutions, a firm that provides products to help financial institutions protect themselves against US money laundering and terrorist financing regulations, confirmed that some banks are simply saying “no” to Syrian traders. “But it’s institution by institution and it also depends on the sect the bank belongs to. For one sect it’s okay and for another it’s not.” 

He stressed that in principle the OFAC list targets money laundering, terrorist financing and other financial crimes and not sanctions, which come under a wider US legal principle called a country ruling. Even so, banks still use the lists as the basis for compliance. 

Lebanon’s legal texts do not actually cover sanctions per se, given that banking secrecy can only be lifted on accounts under Law 318, which, like the OFAC list, covers financial crime and not sanctions. Under that law, the Special Investigations Committee at Lebanon’s central bank can remove secrecy and look into the account after the banks raise the alert. Even then, very few of these cases actually make it to court. “You have rare cases in the courts, very rare cases. Most of them are not tried for specific reasons, like the case does not apply under Law 318,” said Morcos. Indeed, according to the compliance manager, “The central bank has nothing to do with this — it is up to each individual bank to do its due diligence.” 

Given the uncertainty, many banks are taking measures that go beyond the text of the law by refusing to bank with those on the OFAC list as well as their relatives, close friends, business associates and so on, according to Morcos. And, according to Yazigi, many Syrians can no longer open up accounts in Lebanon and find it very difficult to conduct financial transactions even if they do not have ties with the regime. “I would not open a [Syrian national’s] account. I would advise other banks not to give themselves a headache and just not take the account,” he said. 

In theory, holding the accounts of sanctioned individuals should not pose a problem for the banks, as long as they do not move money through them, especially in US dollars. And of course there are ways around that as well. “If I am a Syrian and I’m sanctioned and I have money, I can easily get four people to set up a company and trade with China and do it all with cash,” said Barkho. “When you trade with lots of cash the banks start asking, but all you have to do is convince them that you are generating daily sales. The main point is that it is not money laundering because it’s not covered by Law 318.” 

Last month Executive called 12 Lebanese banks, both large and small, asking how they were dealing with accounts held by Syrian nationals. None of the banks responded.

Many ways to still move money

Those seeking to dodge the sanctions are likely to employ the same methods that money launderers do, given that these techniques have proven useful in the past. In essence, what those seeking to skirt sanctions will do is find ways to generate cash and obfuscate the origin of funds and to whom transfers are going. It’s up to the banks to monitor and report suspicious transactions.  

What launderers generally do is generate the illusion of as many cash sales as possible to justify their cash deposits. Supermarkets are a good way to do this, given the number of retail operations that take place in a single day. “What you can do is go to the supermarket and stand at the cash register and count the cash. But who is going to do that?” Barkho asked rhetorically. The only legal entity theoretically authorized to do so is the financial general prosecutor’s office, but the fact that the government currently has $11 billion unaccounted for on its books does little to inspire confidence that it will be able to keep pace with the launderers.  

Another tool used by launderers are pre-paid cards offered by banks where one can deposit cash on a card and then use it to withdraw money internationally, with some banks offering ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ packages. “Pre-paid cards are not customers, you don’t know them,” said Barkho. “Basically the banks are creating a tool for money laundering.” 

Executive, posing as a potential customer, enquired at one of Lebanon’s top banks about the buy-one-get-one-free offer and was told that it was indeed available. The bank said the second cardholder did not have to come to the bank or sign any paperwork and could give the card to someone else whenever they wanted. The card itself carried a daily limit of $5,000 and could be used internationally, said the sales rep. 

Covert conversions 

Since the LCB scandal, which allegedly involved a fair amount of currency conversion, the exchange sector has come under increased scrutiny from the central bank. 

Given that the Syrian pound has lost around 25 percent of its value since the uprising began, there is considerable pressure on Syrians to change their money into another currency or place it in a fixed asset. So far the Central Bank of Syria has taken several measures to limit this conversion, including closing dozens of exchange houses in Damascus, increasing the interest rates on deposits in Syria from 7 to 9 percent, reducing the amount foreign currency banks and Syrian exchange houses can give out to local residents from $10,000 to $5,000, as well as further limits on how much foreign currency can be taken abroad, especially in Arab countries. 

“It’s about the time when the foreign currency issue they are having and their injections into the market will not be adequate to protect the Syrian pound,” said the Carnegie’s Saif. “Already there is a black market for the Syrian lira. The more you witness of this the less likely you will see the resistance of the Syrian economy.” According to Yazigi, the Syrian pound was trading at roughly 60 pounds to the US dollar on the black market in mid-December. The official rate at the start of the uprising was around 47 pounds to the dollar. 

Lebanese exchange houses are regulated by Law 347, enacted in 2001, which declares that if they issue checks for more than $10,000 they must notify their affiliate bank, give the identity of the beneficiary and the purpose for issuing the check. Otherwise they legally have free reign and this simultaneously places pressure on and creates opportunities for, the Lebanese exchange market. Even so, most people believe that this avenue has been closing in recent months. 

“No one should think that millions of dollars a day are being exchanged at the exchange companies but there is nothing stopping someone with small amounts to exchange,” said Yachoui. “Today the borders are open. If someone brings in banknotes, especially dollars, in a suitcase and this comes into the market, there is no way to find out where it came from.”

Indeed what many Syrians are looking to do is change their money into fixed assets that hold value. “You either keep your money and pray that it is not going to deteriorate further, or if you have more money you buy real estate or invest in something,” said Yazigi. With the banking sector effectively closed off, and discounts on real estate purchases aplenty at a time when the market is cooling, this has become an increasingly viable option to place money.  

“If you are known to be a real estate promoter and I bring you $700,000 in cash and buy an apartment from you, you go and put it in the bank, they ask you where it came from, you tell them you made a sale, the bank is not going to ask more than this,” said Yachoui. “He’s not going to ask you who your customer is when you have hundreds of them.” 

Indeed, the compliance officer agreed: “Every bank is responsible for their accounts but we don’t have a crystal ball to see other accounts. It’s not your business to ask the nationality or the source of money of the other [third] party. The client is responsible. We flag it if there is much more cash than a real estate transaction would normally be.” 

Trouble down the road

As the Syrian currency and economy continue to take a beating and the uprising takes on new dimensions, Lebanese financial institutions seem to have chosen which side of the divide they stand on. In mid-December the Association of Banks in Lebanon announced that its members would fund the government’s contribution to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, something that Syria’s main ally and the accused party in the investigation, Hezbollah, has stated should not have happened. 

“At every moment, every instant and every second they [Americans] can do what they want with us. If there is a decision to do something to us, they do it. But right now there is no decision,” said Yachoui. “No matter what precautions the banks take, don’t think for one second that all the records are clean. They can always find a million reasons to take action, but for now there is no decision to do so. The target is not Lebanon, it’s Syria.” 

 

Reporting contributed by Youssef Zbib

 
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Comment

Why the government is paralyzed

by Sami Halabi
written by Sami Halabi

How many Lebanese members of Parliament does it take to make a mockery of the people they supposedly represent? At most 128 (the number in parliament), but it usually takes only two: one to propose and the other to oppose. When that happens, the country’s carpenters’ ears perk up, knowing that they will soon be called to build larger drawers in which to stuff heaps of new parliamentary committee minutes. 

As I write this piece there are about 340 laws waiting to be discussed and passed by the various parliamentary committees and subcommittees, only to reach the desk of one man who will decide upon the country’s legislative fate: Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. This year Berri will celebrate 20 years as the headmaster of the playground that is the house of Parliament. Regardless of what one thinks about his politics, his all-too-familiar snapping voice from atop the pedestal in Parliament seems to be the only thing the children below fear. 

While MPs are busy calling each other ‘dogs’ or comparing their compatriot’s respectability to that of their shoe, they still salivate over 10 seconds of Berri’s time to advance their particular piece of draft legislation and move it up his infamous list of priorities.  With such a backlog, one would think Parliament meets quite often in order to get through its to-do list. But since committee meetings are held in secret, it is little wonder that all contentious issues are sent to them to be ‘studied’. 

A walk past the empty and locked offices of Parliament shows how much our honorable MPs are slaving over the laws being thrown their way. Again to the carpenters’ delight, many of the 340-odd pieces of legislation are different drafts of the same law, proposed by a different MP or member of cabinet. The fact that the executive branch of government is even permitted to mingle in the affairs of the legislature is already an overt aberration of the constitution — which no one feels the urgency to apply anyhow. 

The constitutional deadline for passing a budget into law will expire at the end of last month, exactly when the ministers involved will take their annual vacation. MPs too will take some time off, which are the only date in their calendar that seems set, given that Parliament still does not have a yearly work-plan. Even if the budget proposal is approved by cabinet and reaches the newly renovated Parliament building, do not assume its halls will be bustling with activity. More often than not committee meetings, not to mention sittings of Parliament, fail to meet quorum. 

One of the few things Parliament did actually reach last month was its Internet quota, temporarily crashing the government’s online access. That may seem surprising, given that of 400-odd staff in Parliament it seems not one has the ability to digitize the content that their own institution produces — instead that is the task of a private company paid with public money. 

By the time anything gets done in Parliament it is almost always too little, too late; not that it matters anyway. There is little point in passing laws, given that ministers choose when to apply them, and when to issue their notorious ‘implementation decrees’. This executive cop-out makes certain a non-elected cabinet, controlled by the country’s sectarian overlords, maintains real control. What it also means is that MPs can focus on their private businesses until they are asked to rubber stamp an agreed-upon text in Parliament. On the way out the door, they can also collect their salaries — something they, and their children, will do for the rest of their lives. 

In such a state of affairs, it is little wonder that the institution that is meant to represent our democracy has become nothing less than a dysfunctional dictatorship. And now that the issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s funding is over, the parliamentary electoral law is likely to be tossed around in the media by politicians as their next ‘crisis’. But for the people who live in this country, where real incomes are falling and basic public services are lacking, the real crisis is that whatever the next electoral law or the next votes cast, the result will likely be the same: a body whose sole function is to give a vote of confidence to a non-elected cabinet. 

SAMI HALABI is EXECUTIVE’s Economics & Policy editor

* This article was changed to reflect the fact that the budget deadline passed last month.

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Society

Marvels, made to measure

by Ellen Hardy
written by Ellen Hardy

Expensive tastes are exclusive ones — why spend thousands on an identikit interior when your home can be one-of-a-kind? But beyond the diamond-encrusted couches and Arabic-embroidered rugs hand-woven to order by Nepalese craftsmen, the trend for tailor-made interiors opens up exciting possibilities in design and enterprise. Executive takes a tour of some of Beirut’s creative companies in the business of fulfilling dreams clients didn’t even know they had.

“I don’t like the word creativity,” says architect and designer Karim Bekdache, sounding at odds with the sun-filled furniture showroom behind him, crammed with mesmerizing concoctions in wood, glass and steel. “I think [design] should answer a real need, and then it can be completely wild and you can call it creative, or it can be completely invisible — but for me, creating something completely invisible or completely wild is the same.” Trained in France and working mostly in Lebanon and Europe, Bekdache does not worry about imposing a particular architectural signature on a project. Being at the top of your game as an architect or designer isn’t just about the ‘wow’ factor. As luxury consumers globally are cutting back on flash statements in favor of projects with personal meaning, Bekdache seeks a sort of synthesis where clients, if the process goes well, feel that they are the ones who defined the work. 

Bekdache gives the example of a project in Gemmayze whose owner was making the move from the mountains to Beirut. Based on this background, Bekdache commissioned the famous French botanist Patrick Blanc to create a vertical interior ‘green wall’ inside the property, a self-sustaining structure made entirely of plants and mosses. “It’s about installing something in the house that gives meaning,” he explains. Then, “there’s an inside relation between the client and the house.” Horrified by the spectacle of so many design catalogues of endless, stultifying choices, Bekdache has learned to bypass the books and magazines predicting the latest trend. “This is the meaning of modern for me,” he concludes. “Not to imitate, but to keep on going, further than you did the last time.”

Let there be light

When it comes to local companies who can realize unconventional visions, Bekdache has high praise for lighting design and manufacture firm .PSLAB. He describes their approach as “very very courageous and daring. It’s incredible… they throw away all the catalogues of all the possible spotlights in the world, and then you come to them and say ‘I need a light for this space,’ and sometimes they really get beyond this stuff and start telling you how the architecture should be.” .PSLAB, unlike any other lighting company in the region, design and manufacture all their products in-house, giving them total control of their exclusive ‘haute couture’ approach. For them, the specifics of a given space define the lighting, rather than the lighting imposing a mood on the space. Their contemporary, industrial chic products are crafted by teams of in-house artisans and never re-used on the same market; an approach that has won them devotees as far apart as Parisian design darling India Mahdavi and Beiruti architectural rock star Bernard Khoury.

.PSLAB compare themselves to a five-star hotel, where the customer’s needs define their experiences and where each experience can be completely different. This synthesis of forward-thinking design, controlled production and sophisticated client relations is a complete service that puts .PSLAB ahead, not just of other lighting companies, but also of many other ‘bespoke’ design services.  

High-class problems

High-end, high budget projects will often involve an unusual attention to structure and detailing. Architects like Bekdache might lower a ceiling or find a way around an awkward hallway, which ultimately will increase the value of a property that has been sculpted into its best possible form. But there are some challenges that need the expertise of master designers and craftsmen — a niche demand that Karim Chaya and his partner Raed Abillama stumbled upon in 1997 when they began the projects that led to their company Acid, specializing in architectural detailing. Chaya, who jokes that the team are “detail nerds,” explains: “We started becoming known as the ‘mission impossible’ company — whenever there was something difficult, strange, unresolved, out of a dream, they would come to us, a company that will take the headache out of [it].” From staircases, to lifts, to made-to-order wall cladding (such as in the new Downtown café, Grid, that glows pink and gold from sets of copper mesh screens imported from Turkey), Acid have built their reputation on “quality and sensibility above all,” an uncompromising stance that brooks no opposition over the amount of time it takes to do a thing properly — principles that have landed them commercial projects like Lanvin and Joseph boutiques worldwide.

The artisanal skills that Acid often relies on originate in the “back alleys in Bourj Hammoud,” of which Chaya says “the most valuable thing that I have acquired since we started is that network. Good people we can work with and who have the same ideas.” Far from throwing out the skills of generations of craftsmen, Acid is one of the companies keeping them in business, playing an intermediary role between the metal smiths, carpenters and leather workers and the off-the-wall requirements of high-end clients. 

The business of bespoke

A more classical approach to customized interiors offers clients the opportunity to have total control of the design of luxury items — a methodology that is revolutionizing some local businesses. Opened a year ago in Ashrafieh, the United Kingdom’s Rug Company has developed a bespoke service that complements its already elite range of rug designs created by the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen. Existing designs can be adapted in myriad ways, while the customer controls the colors and the silk content of the weaves, which range from around $500 to $3500 per square meter. But the premium service sees clients designing their own patterns, such as their name in Arabic calligraphy, which are then tried and tested on screen before being sent to Nepal, where teams of expert weavers take up to a year to produce the finished product.

Serge Nalbandian of Nalbandian Textiles offers similar services, having personalized rugs for Elie Saab and had his Tibetan weavers produce a pop art Superman number. He has also redesigned his family business around customization, with the company abandoning its history of trading antique Persian carpets and preferring to give clients what they want — pieces for the home that are about immediate pleasure, without re-saleable value.

“What I got from my father as a heritage… we changed completely,” he says. “Instead of accumulating more stock from all over the world, we did the contrary. What the customer needs, we can provide him with.” The new year will see a giant state-of-the-art screen installed at Nalbandian for the sole purpose of giving clients a multimedia customization experience. “There is no longer a way of investing in your decoration as an heirloom,” says Nalbandian. “It fits in your house, you live with it for the time that you’re enjoying it and this is it.”

Extreme dreams 

Enjoying the moment can take many forms. “I’ll be the executor of your dreams,” smiles Vick Vanlian — and he should know, being responsible for creations including a diamond-strewn sofa. Like Serge Nalbandian, he developed his family business, Galerie Vanlian, in response to customer demand for the high-end customized items that now make up 50 percent of his business. This led to Envy, his three-floor Downtown boutique — a mind-boggling collection where there isn’t one object that doesn’t glitter or gleam or clamor for attention. Vanlian is aware of his celebrity cachet as a successful and distinctive young designer; a further gloss on custom projects, which always bear his characteristic signature.

As such, Vanlian excels at realizing flamboyant visions, from a ‘famous singer’ who requested a room designed around 150 pictures of herself, to a Saudi prince’s pleasure chamber. Working through an intermediary, Vanlian received instructions for it. “[The client] called it the massage room, but it was the sex room… it had a round bed in the middle with four stages on each corner, with dancing poles and big screens and in the middle a big cage that could come up and down… nicely put together for a porn movie, basically.” There will always be mileage — and a lot of fun — in being known for making any dream come true.

Made in Lebanon

None of these dreams come cheap, of course. Maria Halios started her own furniture gallery in Mar Mikhael last year, producing limited edition and bespoke pieces, after demand for customization necessitated her own working space. She points to a pair of hoop-like metal sculptures with finely textured surfaces. “Imagine that I have to do them a centimeter smaller,” she says. “Molds are required. Each mold costs a fortune and because you cannot have the same dimensions in another house, you basically throw the mold in the garbage. So you invest in a mold that is supposed to produce a hundred pieces, just for one piece — the cost is huge.” The cost of a dining table can jump from $5,000 to $15,000 if you want to be sure no one else has it. 

Yet these are the prices you have to pay to keep ahead of the neighbors — a popular pastime in a high society as small as Lebanon’s. But Lebanon is also an exciting hub of creative talent with a distinct price advantage over Europe. Halios, like most of the companies mentioned here, works with clients overseas who are happy to undercut designers offering similar services in more developed markets.

Yet aside from the business of pursuing the most exclusive clients around, a genuine commitment to originality at all costs is at the heart of these projects. Halios fingers an origami-like paper maquette, the first stage in creating an intricate table of angular interlocking pieces. “I never imagined the beauty that could come from a mock-up like this,” she says. “It’s not easy because when you have custom-made designs you have to create all the time. It’s not like you create two collections a year and then you forget about it.” 

Far from a cynical exploitation of the fantasies of the super-rich, these companies are challenging themselves, and the industry as a whole, to keep evolving the practice of made to measure design.

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Economics & Policy

The downside of uprising

by Youssef Zbib
written by Youssef Zbib

When you walk into Al Haidari sweet shop in Khaldeh, 20 kilometers south of Beirut, employees will greet you with a smile and free baklawa, but the forced cheer belies a grimmer reality.

“We have 70 employees in our branch in Syria, but we had to make up for the huge losses we’ve suffered; this is why we opened this branch [in September 2011],” said Wassim Haidar Ahmad, owner of the shop, who declined to disclose figures about his losses. 

For 13 years Ahmad’s first sweet shop, in a small shopping center that included a pharmacy and supermarket only a few meters away from the Syrian checkpoint at Jdeidet Yabous–Masnaa, acted as the final stop for Lebanese travelers on their way back from Damascus. Since the start of the uprising in Syria last year, however, businesses like Ahmad’s that rely on the flow of passengers between Syria and Lebanon have suffered, with those in favor of the regime and those against both hit equally hard. 

Lebanese General Security failed to provide official data, but other business owners confirmed Ahmad’s claims of a sharp drop in the number of passengers and vehicles crossing the Syrian border.

“Business has been a disaster,” said Ghassan, owner of Sunrise supermarket and currency exchange office in Chtaura. Travelers usually make a stop in this town in the Bekaa to exchange money and fill out forms before driving the last half hour to Masnaa.

“Look at the square; on a day like today [Saturday] it should have been packed. Shop owners and families used to visit Damascus every weekend to get their supplies,” added Ghassan. “But since the start of the events in Syria people have been scared to go there, and prices of [Syrian-made] commodities are not that cheap anymore.”

Exchange of commodities between the two neighboring countries has suffered, but varied depending  on the border crossing according to data for the first three quarters of 2011 disclosed by the Lebanese customs directorate. The value of imports coming in through Masnaa on the international road between Damascus and Beirut decreased only 4 percent year-on-year, but the amount going through Qaa, which links the Bekaa to the turbulent Syrian city of Homs, has dropped by 44 percent. Other border crossings have seen minimal change: imports through the northern access point of Abboudieh decreased in value by 1 percent in comparison to figures from 2010, while the northern border point of Arida actually saw a 2 percent increase in imports year-on-year. Lebanese customs, which totaled LL2,207 billion [$1.47 billion] during the first three quarters of 2010, dropped to LL1,707 billion [$1.14 billion] year-on-year for the first three quarters of 2011, marking a loss of 22.4 percent. 

During the same period exports to Syria also fell, as their total value dropped 10 percent year-on-year. While the value of exports through Masnaa increased 2 percent, exports through Abboudieh, Arida and Kaa decreased 6 percent, 35 percent and 23 percent, respectively, according to Lebanese customs data.

Taxi blues 

Merchants and industrialists have not been the only ones to suffer from the crisis. A visit to Charles Helou taxi and bus station in Beirut, the main point of departure to Syria, helps explain why business has been slow near the border.  Customerless taxi drivers aimlessly pacing the sidewalk or playing cards have become a common sight. Mohammad Suleiman drives a fifteen-passenger minibus to Homs. When asked about his business, he said without hesitation: “You can see for yourself — zero.” 

“Lebanese passengers have been reluctant to travel to Syria since [Prime Minister Rafiq] Hariri’s assassination [in February 2005],” added Suleiman, in reference to the political tension that followed accusations of Syrian involvement in the killing. “But since the start of the events in Syria, I have barely had any Lebanese passengers at all.”

Guiragos Hagopian of Zeitouni Tour, which operates a shuttle service between Beirut and Aleppo, agreed that road travel to Syria has been hit because of the lack of Lebanese passengers. Three drivers who operate taxis between Beirut and Damascus, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave similar testimonies. They all concurred that their weekly trips to the Syrian capital have dropped by more than half since the start of the turmoil. One of them admitted that business during June, July and August, usually the peak season, was “dead”. 

“Whereas [before] I was able to arrange trips for my brothers and cousins, who are also taxi drivers, now I can barely find any for myself,” he added.  

An employee at a small taxi company in Beirut, who also wished to remain anonymous, gave a more positive account; he mentioned that the number of trips to Damascus and Jordan that his company organizes has not changed. Trips to Jordan travel through the province of Daraa, the first area to witness anti-regime protests in Syria. He admitted, however, that trips to Homs, the city in northern Syria that continues to witness intense demonstrations and military clashes, have dropped from six to two per day since October 2011.  But the change in the number of passengers has not affected the cost of travel since last year, according to several drivers who said that rising fuel costs prohibit them from bringing prices down. The fee-per-passenger in a sedan taxi from Beirut to Damascus still ranges between LL22,000 [$14.67] and LL25,000 [$16.67]. Similarly, a bus ticket from Beirut to Aleppo still averages LL20,000 [$13.33], according to Hagopian from Zeitouni Tour.

What road ahead

As Executive went to print, the situation in Syria had shown little sign of improvement, with satellite channels continuing to report daily killings in Homs, the countryside surrounding Damascus and elsewhere.  Until the situation on the ground is resolved, the taxi drivers, the shops and small businesses along their routes between Lebanon and Syria and the industrialists that depend on the flow of commerce between the two countries are unlikely to see their fortunes improve. The Lebanese press also reported that cargo shipments coming from Turkey have been delayed at the Turkish-Syrian border, causing them to take up to 10 days to reach Lebanon, compared to only three to four before the crisis started. This has forced some Lebanese traders to import Turkish-made commodities by air rather than overland, spiking transportation costs from $3.50 to $7.50 per kilogram. Ziad Bikdash, vice-president of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists, expressed his fear over what will happen to Lebanese exports if the crisis in Syria persists. 

“The roads [to Syria] are still clear, but many shipments through Syria have been delayed and we’re scared that merchants in Arab countries would eventually stop importing Lebanese goods,” he said. He added that bypassing Syria through maritime transport might raise shipping fees from something between one and a half to three times the original cost. 

“We’re trying to set up new markets in Europe, but we need the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to step in and appoint competent commercial attachés in each of our embassies there,” said Bikdash, though given the state of Lebanese bureaucracy, he doubts it will be able to come up with a cure to the loss of Syrian access any time soon.

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Society

Executive Insight – S2C

by Ramsay G. Najjar, Zeina Loutfi & Rany Kassab
written by Ramsay G. Najjar, Zeina Loutfi & Rany Kassab

Flying insults, throwing water, swinging chairs — spectacles more befitting a wrestling match or an episode of Jerry Springer than a political talk show.

While arguably no longer a novelty, the scene that unfolded live in front of thousands of viewers on a Lebanese television channel is symptomatic of the level of discourse (or lack of it) between politicians, not only in Lebanon but across the region as well. Indeed, a similar fistfight erupted on Jordanian television in the same week over opposing views regarding the situation in Syria.

In developed countries around the world, such behavior would almost certainly have ended their careers or relegated them to secondary roles. The fact that the two feuding Lebanese politicians were lauded (or at least not condemned) by many of their peers and a significant segment of the population shows how far the country is from reaching political maturity. It is time to redefine the attitude and conduct expected from elected officials and reassess the relationship between elected officials and their constituents.

Undoubtedly, scuffles breaking out in Parliament or between politicians are not limited to our part of the world. However, they do reflect the lack of substance and content in the discourse of our leaders, who try to overcome or compensate for shortcomings by appealing to the primal instincts, emotions and insecurities of their audience, playing on religious, ethnic or socio-cultural sensitivities, erupting in fits of anger as a means of projecting strength and establishing presence. 

The fact that politicians who remain poised and rational in communicating with their public are often perceived or portrayed as weak or unfitting for leadership is yet another testament to our skewed understanding of the role of a political figurehead, and the entrenched culture of revering the mighty but not necessarily the righteous. 

Furthermore, the often patronizing approach and tone of voice used by politicians in the region in communicating with the public is indicative of how broken our system is. There is a need for a complete overhaul in mentalities if we are to become a state where power is truly in the hands of the people.

Examples abound of the disequilibrium in the relationship between citizens and elected officials, becoming similar to that of employer/employee or even master/slave. While this comparison might seem particularly harsh, it remains true when considering that politicians seldom feel the need for transparency, making decisions and taking stands on matters without reverting back to their constituents or sharing relevant information with them, while expecting them to follow blindly.

Prior to the year-end holidays, members of the Lebanese government publicly stated that they were offering citizens a “gift” in the form of an increase in the minimum wage. Though intended as a humorous analogy, this choice of words reflects the condescending attitude of politicians vis-à-vis their electorate, whereby they depict what is arguably an earned right as an act of charity or a favor for which they expect appreciation and applause.

Accepting the norm

Yet the root of the problem lies elsewhere. It is the lack of understanding of the concepts of accountability and citizenship that encourage and perpetuate such a prevailing culture, in which politicians sometimes act God-like and expect unwavering loyalty and support, often offering nothing in return except a false sense of security or the occasional monetary or material reward.

But the state in which we find ourselves cannot only be attributed to the mindset or behavior of politicians, as we citizens are equally at fault, content with the status quo and refusing to actively work to change the equation, whether out of despair or because of personal interests.

Breaking what has become the norm requires establishing a new social contract that clearly defines the rights and responsibilities of citizens and the role and duties of elected officials. 

While a long overdue process, achieving this requires a concerted effort on educational and communication levels as a pre-requisite to raising public awareness of what citizenship entails. This, in turn, will begin to change mentalities and eventually lead to change on the ground.

Such a collegial and collective exercise will only bear fruit and allow us to celebrate our democracy, in practice and not in theory, once we admit that the system is broken and needs fundamental surgery, rather than a cosmetic makeover. 

Today, politicians are debating Lebanon’s parliamentary election law, with different parties proposing varying systems — ranging from proportional representation on one end of the spectrum to majority rule on the other. Though of key importance, the law will still amount to a band-aid rather than a vaccine unless mentalities change and voters realize the importance of the election process and the difference between casting a vote and electing a representative. 

The difference is similar to a one-night encounter and a committed marriage; in the former both parties go their own separate ways after the deed is done, whereas in the latter both are accountable to one another as long as the marriage lasts.

To this effect, as part of communicating to the public the new election law, the government and civil society organizations have a duty to educate voters on the meaning and importance of carrying out their civic duty of electing their representatives in a responsible manner. It must be explained that democracy can be a potent remedy against the practice of bribery and buying votes.

It remains that if we are to ensure that the Arab uprisings do not turn into recurring or perpetual unrest, politicians in the region have to realize that they can no longer afford to talk down to their constituents, while the latter also need to play their part in keeping their elected officials in check, holding them accountable for their promises and sanctioning them whenever they stray from their roles and responsibilities.

 

March 14 Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s former Prime Minister

 

 

The killer is Bashar Hafez El Assad

Fares Souaid, March 14 General-Secretariat Coordinator

 

 

Antoine Haddad, Democratic Renewal Movement

 

Samy Gemayel, Phalange Party

 

March 8 Michel Sleiman, Lebanese president:

 

I am with you… I am with you… I am with you… I am with dignity I am with sovereignty

Ibrahim Kanaan, Member of parliament and Secretary general of Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform Bloc:

 

Part of the contradictory and successive stances taken yesterday and today against the army remind of the book by Gérard de Cortanze, “L’Eloge du mensonge” (The praise of lies)

Nicolas Sehnaoui, Minister of Telecommunications

 

Najib Mikati, Prime Minister

 

And the rest… Rima Maktabi, Lebanese TV presenter

 

Nemr Abou Nassar, Lebanese comedian

 

Nadim Koteich, talk show host

 

Listen to the “Najib” (also meaning wise in Arabic)… The only sentence that occurs to me today… Shut up Najib…

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The Buzz

MEA’s dysfunctional family

by Zak Brophy
written by Zak Brophy

The dismissal last autumn of cancer-stricken Captain Joseph Ayat from the nation’s cedar embossed carrier, Middle East Airlines (MEA), reignited a history of discord that has been simmering at the company for more than a decade. This most recent incarnation of the dispute saw much of the fleet grounded for five days, with shards of acrimony among the workforce embroiling the upper echelons of the political establishment. What ostensibly started as a battle of principles between the pilots and their employer has rapidly escalated into a duel of much greater import regarding the integrity of management, the maturity of the union and where power really lies within MEA.   

The spark for the fire

Captain Ayat had served at MEA for 38 years, but with his license to fly temporarily suspended on October 21 due to his illness, MEA immediately terminated his position. According to the Lebanese Pilots Association (LPA), the manner in which this was done was in flagrant breach of the law, while the management counters that it was both in line with decades of precedent and, if not the letter, at least the spirit of the law.

Fadi Khalil, president of the LPA, says, “We want a sense of security for everyone. They have breached the labor law in this case.” The union argues that when the Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority (DGCAA) issues a temporary loss of license on medical grounds — as was the case for Captain Ayat — the pilot is entitled to a period within which he can carry out further tests and then have the case reviewed by the DGCAA. If this concludes with a final loss of license then the pilot is entitled, under Lebanese labor law, to two and a half months full pay and a further two and a half months half-pay before his employment is terminated.

Khalil claims, “In [Captain Ayat’s] case they didn’t give him time to do his medical checks to see if he could regain his license or not — as soon as they found out he had a medical problem they fired him.” What’s more, they contest that he was not granted the five months sick leave.

Captain Muhammad Aziz, who has been with MEA for 40 years and is advisor to the chairman, Muhammad Hout, argues that it was precedent that dictated when the management ended Captain Ayat’s service with MEA. “For the past 40 or 50 years, whenever a pilot was sick and his license was stopped, his service as a pilot was immediately terminated,” he says. And from a financial perspective he argues the company has paid what is due to Captain Ayat as dictated by the labor law, but that it was not delivered as a set severance agreement.    

See how deep the rabbit hole goes

Khalil argues it is actually this attitude of management that is the crux of the problem, with inflexible bosses the primary cause of labor actions that have struck the company over the past decade. He gripes that “management has had a practice for the past 10 or 11 years where they change things and they don’t tell you. Everything is by force.”

He stresses that the company cannot dictate, on what he considers to be a whim, how much and on what grounds severance payments will be made. “They said [the money] the company has paid is not because of the law but because they are nice… If this applies to Captain Ayat, what happens if another pilot falls ill? Do they want us to come and beg? No, we want them to apply the law.” 

Pressing their case, the LPA soon set about putting in motion the wheels for an industrial action — one that would quickly escalate out of their control. At a meeting of its general assembly on November 25 the LPA voted overwhelmingly in support of delaying by two hours all flights leaving Beirut Airport from 2pm that afternoon to 7pm November 27. When this did not push the management in the desired direction they escalated the action to a full 48-hour strike for all MEA flights leaving Beirut, starting at 10pm November 28.

With planes sitting idle on the runways, passengers seeking service elsewhere and losses racking up by the hour, the management’s ears were pricked. Within the first 24 hours of the strikes the two camps were back at the negotiating table and before the 48 hours were up the management had agreed to renege on their previous decisions regarding Ayat’s severance payments. However, according to the union, Hout insisted that this was pegged on three conditions: First, the pilots would have five days docked from every month’s salary until all losses incurred during the labor actions were recouped; secondly, they would have to promise not to threaten further strikes, and finally they would not present any further demands for benefits and concessions.

“[They] gave me three conditions to apply the labor law — I could not accept,” says Khalil. The union then embarked on an open-ended strike, pushing the altercation into intensified brinkmanship with both sides accusing each other of dirty dealings. In the end it took the intervention from the highest political echelons to bring a cease-fire to the labor war and the strike was ‘indefinitely postponed’ after five days, but not before the company was left with some $4 million in direct losses and the union frayed at the edges.

A soured past

While the emotive case of Captain Joseph Ayat’s dismissal was the kindling that ignited the latest firefight, the roots of the conflict stretch back more than a decade.

A grossly bloated company hemorrhaging losses, MEA was effectively nationalized in 1996 in a purchase by Lebanon’s central bank, Banque Du Liban (BDL), with the airlines’ losses peaking in excess of $86 million the following year. To this day the central bank owns 99.37 percent of MEA shares, though it remains registered as a private company and as such is governed by private company laws. 

Under the direction of BDL Governor Riad Salameh, a new management team was forged in 1998 with the current chairman, Muhammad Hout, at the helm. With the stability and authority that came with Salameh’s steadfast backing, Hout was tasked with devising and enforcing a fierce program of restructuring that won him few friends at the company. It is reported around 1,600 members of the inflated workforce were let go, and for the approximately 1,200 that remained contracts were redrawn and benefits slashed. LPA’s Khalil claims that, in total, around 42 privileges were affected including the pension, leave and loss of license schemes. And so it was that a new era at MEA was born, and with it the pilots’ strikes of 2004, 2008 and 2010 — all of which have led to negotiations in which the pilots have clawed back some of their lost benefits.

In this latest conflagration sparked by Ayad’s dismissal, the union has accused management of pressuring pilots by threatening to punish and even dismiss family members, though management ardently denies this charge. Conversely, the LPA has also been accused of forcing its members into line by threatening to remove union benefits, such as the medical cover offered by the LPA after their pilots’ insurance with MEA expires when they turn 60.

Khalil says that most of the pilots who broke ranks during the strike and flew for the company will be expelled from the union. He justified this saying, “The pilots who broke the strikes prolonged [them]. It gave the management the margin to negotiate for longer and it pushed it further to the point where people almost lost their jobs. There should be a penalty for this.”

He claims 23 of MEA’s 180 pilots took to the air during the strikes, which Aziz calculates kept the airline at around 43 percent capacity. Khalil says leeway is being granted to about half a dozen pilots, however, as the union permitted them to fly due to the pressure they accuse the company of putting on their families.

MEA is only too happy to extend a welcome to any pilots who leave or are expelled from the union, promising, in a circular seen by Executive, “The management of the company agrees to provide all the benefits to a pilot which may be lost in the case of his resignation from the syndicate or from any decision by the syndicate to arbitrarily expel him.”

Some pilots are now saying they don’t want to to fly with their colleagues who crossed the picket line. Furthermore, with the management courting pilots who have either left or will be pushed from the union, Khalil claims there is a battle underway for the loyalty of the pilots. “It is clear now who is with the syndicate and who went to the management,” he says. “It is 160 pilots who have stuck together, against around 20 who went.”

As a parliamentarian for the opposition Future Movement party who mediated with the unions back in 2001 and now serves as chairman of the Middle East Airport Services, Ghazi Youssef has a long-running and intimate relationship with Lebanon’s aviation industry. He eyes the industrial action initiated in late 2011 as a cynical maneuver by the LPA to extract more concessions: “The strike went on taking [Ayad’s case] as an excuse for further demands that they did not get in 2010. So they reopened the file that was meant to be done with. It was used as a pretense.”

Khalil denies this, saying: “In 2004, 2008 and 2010 there were strikes with pilots asking for better pay or rights but in this case the strike is just to support a colleague. It’s a humanitarian case. We don’t want any more money, just job security.” He then concedes, however, that “the trigger was Captain Ayat but it was an accumulation of actions from the management from 2001 to 2011.”

Demands on the table

The union is calling for an airport conditions of service manual, which lays out the rights, privileges, obligations and duties for the pilots. As things stand their employment criteria are scattered between a manual from before 2001 and a series of circulars and agreements since then. Khalil complains that the lack of a single reference means that management can act “on its whims”.

The management style of Hout and his “whims” has been a recurring bone of contention among staff and the unions, but it is something the chairman is unapologetic about. And to his credit, he has turned the company around. From net losses in 1997 of nearly $87 million, he had MEA back in the black by 2002 and by 2010 net profits had soared to $83 million. However, his obdurate and bullheaded style of management has drawn criticism from several quarters, where he is accused of not taking heed of his staff’s interests.

Aware of the censure leveled against him, Hout has been resolute in his role. During the recent strikes he refused to give any one-on-one interviews, but when caught in passing by Executive at the company’s headquarters he said, “We are all one family at MEA but everyone must know that I am the father of the family.”

Nabil Nicolas, a long-time MEA critic and a member of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) — party to the current coalition government — claims “the management style at MEA is dictatorial,” and whilst the LPA’s Khalil uses somewhat more diplomatic language, he says “they implement things by force, whether we like it or not.”

But, understanding the nature of management at MEA necessitates more than a personality assessment of Hout and his patriarchal disposition. He is ultimately responsible to, but enjoys the strong backing of, Salameh and the board of directors at the BDL.

“The problem is that Riad gave Muhammad Hout more power than he should have,” says Nicolas. “There is no general manager so Hout is both the chairman and the general manager. Is he supposed to make the decisions, implement the decisions and then hold himself to account?”

As for the board of directors flanking Hout at MEA, there are divergent claims about how informed and involved they are. “The board members rarely meet and don’t know anything. It is a one man show and everybody knows this,” quips Khalil.

Captain Aziz concedes that in the early days of restructuring this rang true, but he now sees the company as having moved from being in a “big war” into a period of “peace-times”. He argues, “[Hout] explicitly asks people to give their honest opinions and he doesn’t want people to just say yes, he thinks these kind of people are useless. Saying he is putting in place ‘yes men’ is one thing but saying he is putting in place people who believe in what he is doing is something else.”

Getting the fleet to fly again

With Hout still enjoying the unwavering support of the central bank, the security apparatus at the airport and significant political parliamentary blocks, he remained characteristically defiant as the labor action pushed on into December 2011. While the union appeared equally unprepared to beat a retreat it was, by Khalil’s admission, “looking for a way out”.

Despite the fact that the settlement for Captain Ayat had been resolved the two sides remained at loggerheads. With the management maintaining that it intended to penalize the strikers for the losses incurred during the strikes, the pilots refused to return to their cockpits. Both Minister of Labor Charbel Nahas and Minister of Public Works and Transport Ghazi Aridi then tried to bring the two sides to the table and broker a deal, with both attempts failing to bridge the impasse.

Further muddying the waters are accusations from the Future Movement’s Youssef that General Michel Aoun’s FPM party has been manipulating the LPA in a turf war with Hout. “There has been quite an underlying war going on between the Aounist movement and Mr Hout and MEA. It has been there for the past three years. Between now and then they [have tried to] take advantage of problems that occur in order to try and dislodge Mr Hout,” he says.

The LPA’s Khalil dismisses the accusations as “ludicrous”. Captain Aziz supports the LPA’s assertion that they are free from nefarious political motivations, but goes on to claim that they have been naïve for thinking a dispute of such considerable national importance could be kept isolated from Lebanon’s notoriously expedient politicians.

“Even if you start with a non-politicized action, it becomes politicized. I told the president of the syndicate before they started, ‘you have to go and see the politicians before you start’,” he says. However, as events unfolded it was the politicians that ultimately came to the union.

Entering the fifth day of the open-ended strike, the management threatened to fire 35 pilots if they refused to return to their posts. As pressure mounted on all sides to find a solution, Khalil was called for an urgent meeting at Aoun’s office. With the meeting ending and Khalil about to leave, Aoun took a message from one of his colleagues and then simply said, “It is over.” According to Khalil the FPM leader promised him, “You stop the strike and I guarantee you will not pay anything. Stop the strike and don’t worry about it.” Reassured by this pledge, the pilots announced they would resume flying as normal on midnight December 3.

So with the planes back in the air, the pilots still in employment and Ayat guaranteed his legally entitled severance package, it appeared the case was closed, but alas, few things are so simple in Lebanon.

With flying resumed as normal Captain Aziz distances the management from Aoun’s guarantee: “According to my knowledge, General Aoun said that he would speak to the company and ensure that the pilots would not be forced to pay for the damages incurred during the strike. But this is his promise. The company is still evaluating this to see [if it will meet it].”

But FPM parliamentarian Nabil Nicolas passes the ball back into the company’s court: “Michel Aoun took this decision based on a promise from Riad Salemeh… We will wait to see if Riad Salemeh honors his promise.”    

Still extracting punishment

As Executive went to print, half of the pilots had received deductions ranging from $300 to $1,500 from their most recent paychecks, according to Khalil. The pilots were not informed on what basis the calculations were made or if it would be a one-off occurrence. Furthermore, the union claims some pilots were still receiving letters threatening dismissal if they take part in further industrial action. While these actions are cause for consternation among the pilots, Khalil assures that this alone will not instigate a return to strikes or other industrial action.

With the fundamental tensions between the pilots and management still unresolved, Minister Aridi has invited the two sides back to the table. The pilots are still demanding a conditions of service manual, while the management remains stuck on “evaluating” the punishment to administer for last year’s strikes. Thus, whether Lebanon’s flag-bearing carrier can keep its fleet aloft is far from assured. As the Future Movement’s Youssef explains, “The embers are still burning and if you fan them the fire will start again.”

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Society

Q&A – Antoine Abi-Heila

by Ellen Hardy
written by Ellen Hardy

It all started with a 10-franc copy of “Madame Bovary”. Now Antoine Abi-Heila is ensconced at Bibliopolis, his appointment-only Aladdin’s cave of literary treasures in Beirut’s Ashrafieh neighborhood. A dealer, restorer and polymath, he spoke to Executive about his life surrounded by rare and historical tomes.

How did you succumb to the charm of the first edition?

It’s simple. In the 1970s, at the age of 18, I discovered that a contemporary edition of Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert was 10 French francs, and a new edition was the same price. So I preferred to buy the nineteenth century edition in a nice leather binding. I discovered [collecting] early. Books… can’t be compared to other antiquities or antiques. [They] concern the spirit, and the spirit is universal and timeless.

So the content is as important as the material value of the edition?

I compare this to — this is a stupid comparison, but anyhow — when a lady is very nice, beautiful and everything. She puts on makeup, she dresses herself elegantly. But when she makes love, she will be nude, so no use for jewels or makeup. The book is the same. The cover, the illustration, the binding are very important to give attraction, but the most important [thing] is the text in itself. I understand people who only want the text, but I don’t want an e-book. I want shelves, and I want to hold the material, to feel it, nice illustrations. This is to look for perfection.

You specialize particularly in ancient Arabic manuscripts. Are these the most popular items on the regional market for antiquarian texts?

Lebanese bibliophiles are in three classes. You have the people who are fanatic about their country and they want everything related to Lebanon, and [those] who want really landmark universal literature. The third category is the Islamic manuscripts and illuminated Qurans. I have discovered that Saudi businessmen, if they want to make a corporate present, can buy a manuscript for 10, 20 or 30,000 dollars. It expresses something as a social ritual. It means I am an intellectual, I am offering you a book and I consider you as an intellectual person.

You’ll soon be publishing your own historical discovery…

‘The Perfumed Garden’ [by Sheikh al-Nafzawi] is an erotic treatise written in early 15th century Tunis, in Arabic. Four hundred years later, in 1850, a young French officer discovered this manuscript and he translated it into French. He didn’t dare put his name on it, he used a pseudonym, ‘Baron R’. Five years ago, I discovered who Baron R was. I bought the original handwritten manuscript draft in Paris, and I found his name in Arabic. I went to the archives of the Defense Ministry in France with a name: General Jean-Baptiste Campenon. In his file I compared his signature, the script and his background. He was really courageous — it took 10 years for him to translate this from Arabic.

Is there anything in your collection that you’ll never sell?

I had a collection that I said I’d keep, but I sold it two weeks ago. This is a scoop for you… They are very important original documents relating to the conflict of 1860 in Lebanon between the Druze and the Maronites. [A French General] came here with instructions to punish the Druze leaders who committed massacres. This is the whole correspondence he had; for example, the petition sent to him by the widows of Deir El Amar.

For this period [there were no] original documents [in the public domain]. So I sold this to FNB bank [as part of the national] patrimony.

Are there any books or documents you still long to get your hands on?

I am particularly attracted to hand-written historical documents. Right now I am looking for [documents by] Stalin and Hirohito, the previous emperor of Japan, to complete [my collection of] all the antagonists of the Second World War. And Bin Laden, if I can find something by him, is important.

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Schooling Lebanon’s police

by Nicholas Blanford
written by Nicholas Blanford

How many times have you sat in a traffic snarl at a road junction in Beirut while a policeman who should be coordinating a free flow of vehicles leans against a dysfunctional traffic light, puffing on a cigarette and chatting to his girlfriend on his cell phone? Well, with a little luck that scenario could soon be a thing of the past if the Internal Security Forces (ISF) chooses to properly implement a newly introduced code of conduct. The little blue book, which is now required reading for everyone in the ISF, explains the obligations and ethical standards to be followed by all policemen. Written in English and Arabic, it includes subject headings such as professional duty, honesty and integrity, impartiality and discipline.

The code of conduct emanates from the United Kingdom and arose from a strategic overview of the needs of the ISF, conducted in 2008. Since the departure of the Syrian army from Lebanon in 2005, Western nations have taken an interest in providing assistance to the Lebanese security services. But, according to diplomatic sources, too much emphasis was initially placed on providing equipment and training on an ad hoc basis, often without coordination among donor countries. For example, the United Arab Emirates stepped in to build new police stations around the country, but the design was that of a private house or villa rather than a functional and secure base to receive and handle prisoners, interrogate suspects and conduct police work, according to the sources. How are you supposed to question a suspect if you have to take them upstairs to a bedroom office? The ISF should have been in a position of making requests to donor countries for specific assistance, rather than simply accepting whatever was given to them.

“The ISF leadership needs to tell donors what they need for the coming three years, so that the ISF can receive specific training and support for the priorities it has developed,” said a diplomatic source familiar with the code of conduct initiative. After conducting a private poll on public attitudes toward the ISF, the British embassy decided to sponsor a project drawing up a new code of conduct to address issues of accountability, internal discipline and professionalism. The aim is to provide a bedrock, if you will, on which physical equipment and training can be properly utilized. The ISF apparently took some time to absorb the importance of the code of conduct but have now embraced it, with senior figures indicating they intend to ensure it is followed through.

Among the possible future changes we could see in the ISF will be proper identity cards carried by the police and identity numbers worn on uniforms. At present, if someone is mistreated by a policeman, the person cannot register a proper complaint because the policeman’s identity is unknown. The ISF’s uniforms may also be replaced to decrease the military appearance of the current mottled blue-gray camouflage pattern. The M-16 and AK-47 rifles usually carried by the ISF could be swapped for automatic pistols, with the larger weapons held out of sight for emergencies. The number of women police officers is set to increase as well and there is talk of instituting a ‘bobby on the beat’ system, similar to the old British tradition of assigning a policemen to patrol allocated neighborhoods on foot to develop personal relationships and trust with the local community. 

Still, changing the way the police force operates requires a cultural shift, not just recommendations in a book. The machinery of Lebanon is lubricated by wasta (or connections), a sadly essential commodity that ensures things get done. But there will be no room for wasta to evade paying parking tickets or other illegal indiscretions if the little blue book is followed to the letter. The police will also have to adopt a proper public complaints system and develop a much sharper internal discipline system. There can be no more appeals to one’s zaim [sectarian leader] to escape disciplinary measures.

It is unquestionably a tall challenge. But the architects of the code of conduct program hope that the recommendations of the little blue book will gradually take hold within the ISF.

 

NICHOLAS BLANFORD is a Beirut-based correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and The Times of London and author of “Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel.”

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Red Alert

by Nadim Mehanna
written by Nadim Mehanna

Somewhere in a scarlet Ferrari factory in downtown Maranello,  Italy, there are some very smug engineers. Every year the luxury sports car brand unveils a raft of gleaming new models, launching technological breakthroughs that demonstrate the continued development of a much-loved marque and opening up yet more purchasing possibilities… And so now to the Ferrari 458 Spider, unveiled in 2011 at the 64th Frankfurt International Motor Show. The mid-rear engine V8 super car is a world first, featuring as it does a cabriolet roof without compromising the performance of a coupé, thanks to a fully retractable aluminum hard top roof and ultra-sophisticated engineering. By pushing the Ferrari frame ever further, the Spider is an invitation to drivers to combine luxurious, carefree lifestyles with some seriously sporty, aggressive driving that soft-top technology cannot support — a disappointment for some who already invested in the straightforward Italia coupé.

Stripping down from coupé to cabriolet in just 14 seconds, the Spider’s roof is 25kg lighter than a traditional soft-top, and is both quieter and more thermally efficient when closed. There has been no compromise on aerodynamics – the roof adds only 45 kg on the coupé and occupies just 99 liters of space, less than a soft-top. Sliding under a dramatic pair of buttresses behind the seats, the roof’s pieces flip 180 degrees and pile on top of each other, leaving plenty of luggage space.

The buttresses also channel air toward the grilles on the engine cover, maximizing the flow to the intakes, the clutch and gearbox oil radiators, as well as protecting driver and passenger if the car rolls over. The roof also brings the driver closer to that famous Ferrari sound, roaring out through 570 horsepower at 9,000 revs per minute (rpm), accelerating up to 320 kilometers an hour (km/h). The rear window can also be fully opened to enjoy the sound in coupé mode, and the same ‘window’ is an adjustable electric wind deflector positioned between the buttresses, ensuring efficient aerodynamics and reducing buffeting, enabling normal conversation even at speeds as high as 200 km/h. 

Under the hood, the Spider has everything in common with the earlier 458 Italia model, and delivers the same performance despite the technological challenges presented by the roof. Though no longer displayed under a glass engine cover due to safety reasons, the Spider is powered by Ferrari’s 2011 International Engine of the Year. Developed by F1 engineers, the naturally-aspirated direct-injection 4.5-liter V8 engine sprints from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds and from 0 to 200 km/h in 10.8 seconds. Ferrari also modified the throttle mapping and suspension tuning to accommodate the cabriolet form, and it is only traveling over very poor roads (like Lebanon’s, sadly) that the driver can feel a mild tremble in the chassis and some vibrations through the windscreen pillars.

While the Spider is proving Ferrari’s ability to forge ahead, the brand is also giving clients the opportunity to add some old-world style to their luxury. The new ‘Tailor-made’ program harks back to the glamour of choice offered to clients in the 1950s and 60s. Exclusive personal designers can customize models with a wide range of cloth trims, colors, finishes and technical materials within the Classica, Scuderia and Inedita collections, giving Ferrari fanatics worldwide the chance to put their own mark on a brand that’s staying ahead of the game.

NADIM MEHANNA is an automotive engineer and the pioneer of motoring on Middle Eastern television since 1992

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