Feature

The specter of Solidarity

by Executive Editors
written by Executive Editors

For the past four months, former workers have been staging a sit- in at the gates of the Future Pipe Industries (FPI) factory in Akkar, Lebanon’s underdeveloped northernmost region. FPI, a global manufacturer of fiberglass pipes announced in July that it would be closing the Akkar plant, citing adverse operating conditions.

But many of the factory’s 200 contracted workers, and up to 140 daily workers, are crying foul. They say that some of the employees, who are unionized, were so skilled that they were sent to some of FPI’s 10 other factories around the world to train others and that the company had just supplied the Akkar plant with new machines worth millions, suggesting that the factory was not losing money. The workers also claim to have been dismissed without proper consultation or compensation.

The more active members of the FPI union, having been left in a jobless limbo, are insisting that they will camp outside the factory, blocking the company from removing the machinery, until they have received adequate compensation or get their jobs back.

“I have six kids who are all in school, except one that works at General Security,” says Jamil Abou Chakra, 46, who had worked in the factory for 13 years. “We are willing to die or go to prison because we have nothing left.”

The unity of the former factory workers is far from absolute, however, as the company has actually hired a number of them as security guards to prevent the strikers from entering the factory.

Unions bygone

“Compared to [the union movement] before the war, you now have a miserable corpse of what it once was,” says Fawwaz Traboulsi, professor of politics and history at the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University, as well as the author of “A Modern History of Lebanon.”

Traboulsi was an activist in his day, mobilizing teachers and students and supporting the union movement in the 1960s and early 1970s when it was agile, energetic, increasingly powerful and largely independent.

Now, he speaks like a preacher who has lost his flock, obviously capable of passion and energy but no longer motivated to summon either. The unions he once championed are now husks of their former selves, weak, divided and in the thrall of sectarian political masters.

At the end of the 1975 to 1990 Lebanese Civil War, Traboulsi says that almost no one was interested in bolstering the trade union movement. Strong unions would slow reconstruction by demanding wage hikes and politically independent unions would be of no use to Lebanon’s sectarian leaders.

“[Former Prime Minister Rafiq] Hariri wanted docile trade unions, but more important than Hariri were the Baathists, the Syrian intelligence and the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party (SSNP), as well as labor ministers, who interfered very strongly in the trade unions,” he explains.

First off, a strong union movement is hindered by regulatory infringements on what should be — according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) — inalienable rights.

ILO Convention 87, established in 1948, reads: “Workers and employers, without distinction whatsoever, shall have the right to establish and, subject only to the rules of the organization concerned, to join organizations of their own choosing without previous authorization.”

The Lebanese government has refused to ratify Convention 87 under the pretext that doing so will allow the trade unions to become a direct reflection of the sectarian divisions within the country. But many of those interviewed for this article agree that this is the case despite not ratifying the convention. 

“In our mind it is already divided like this,” says Walid Hamdan of the ILO’s Regional Office for Arab States. Refusing to comply with Convention 87 allows the Lebanese government to deny public employees, including teachers, the right to organize into unions as well as to require every new union, strike or protest to be approved by the labor minister. And with much of Lebanon’s large-scale industry destroyed in the war, new unions that were formed after 1991 became smaller and more localized than their pre-war equivalents. The unions then became an extension of the country’s sectarian system.  “The period where thousands of people thought that their interests could be served by resorting to the trade unions was a pre-war phenomenon. Now, sects take care of people’s interests,” says Traboulsi.

The unions are now husks of their former selves, weak, divided and in the thrall of sectarian political masters

Politics in Akkar

Political interference is also one of the complaints of the workers at FPI’s factory in Akkar.  The company was founded by Fouad Makhzoumi, leader of the fringe National Dialogue Party, which has no seats in parliament. Most of the workers had formerly been supporters of the Future Movement before, they claim, they were either “forced” or “encouraged” to join the National Dialogue Party. The assertion of being forced to switch political parties, however, means little to the ILO’s Hamdan, who sees the whole ordeal as a weakening of resolve on the workers’ behalf, rather than a grievance to be included in the complaints.

“This is where the problem is. From the beginning I shouldn’t align myself with anybody,” says Hamdan. “I’m an independent entity and my only concern is how to best defend the interests of my workers.” After the strike began, the men had hoped to turn to the ruling March 14 coalition for support as the Future movement currently holds sway in the region with a majority of Akkar’s parliamentary seats — that was before August 6, when Makhzoumi held a dinner in honor of Future Movement leader, Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

The FPI workers now find themselves in the difficult position of being without a political patriarch interested in maintaining their support.

Woes of the workplace

The strikers claim that the working conditions in the plant were hazardous, with fiberglass dust constantly in the air and no masks or aspirators provided, causing respiratory problems, eye infections and even cancer.

“The fiberglass, while we are grinding it, makes a cloud inside the factory and makes infections in the eyes,” said FPI union president, Abbas al-Badan, 53, who worked at the factory for 12 years. At FPI’s Egypt factory workers have also accused the company of workplace malpractice, presenting a report in August to the Egyptian Attorney General claiming that the unsafe use of toxic materials in the factory resulted in a worker’s death.

FPI has called all of the Akkar union’s accusations “calumnious.” When contacted by Executive, FPI’s head of communications said the company would not grant interview requests. A written company statement on the matter reads: “The company holds since 2004, the International Organization for Standardization 14001 accreditation for its compliance with the strongest environmental requirements and is subjected to continual audit in this connection twice per year.”

But the workers argue that, in the case of Lebanon, inspectors were bribed and the factory management was given advance warning of inspections, giving them the opportunity to temporarily improve working conditions. Despite the many grievances of FPI’s workers, the strike has resulted in little progress since it began in July, and union experts are pessimistic about its success. The protest’s removed location limits media attention and the organizers have struggled to arrange more visible events in Beirut. And despite their efforts, the workers have not been able to gather in such numbers as to make a strong and un-ignorable stand.

But as the workers sit at the factory’s gate, taking shifts and waiting for a wave of public support they can only hope is on its way, they beg the questions: why are they doing it alone? And, if conditions were as egregious as they say they were for 15 years, why are they only just now bringing up the subject?

Systematic fragmentation and politicization of the trade unions as a whole have weakened them almost to ineptitude

State of the unions

The FPI union in Akkar is just one example of how systematic fragmentation and politicization of the trade unions as a whole have weakened them almost to ineptitude.  The natural place for the Akkar protestors to look for support would be up the ladder of the union system to the confederation. Lebanon’s General Labor Confederation (GLC) is the parent organization of all of Lebanon’s 52 trade unions, but the oddly unfinished lobby in the confederation’s building is not the only thing giving the organization a derelict air. The GLC suffers from structural defects that make it ill-equipped to help small causes like the strike in Akkar. The confederation, for example, does not require its member unions and syndicates to pay dues. Some of the wealthier sub-organizations do contribute, but Ghassan Ghosn, president of the GLC, says that it is impossible for the smaller organizations to do so, as they struggle to fund even their own operations.

The GLC is largely funded by the government and is included in the Ministry of Finance’s budget, as is the case in most countries.

“When the union movement depends solely on government funding, that can be used as leverage to pressure them here and there,” says ILO’s Hamdan. “If [they] don’t have other sources of funding then [they] lose [their] independence.”

Ghosn says even with government money, the GLC’s funding is inadequate. The GLC did provide the Future Pipe union with a lawyer to help in their efforts, but funding for further legal counsel or efforts to generate awareness through paid media are nowhere to be found.

Ghosn claims, however, that further funding is unnecessary in the case of the FPI workers. “Their problem is not a question of money. Publicity does not need money. The newspaper and other media is free,” he said. “Even if they have a lot of money they will not be on the level of Makhzoumi.”

Outside of individual union activities, the GLC also lobbies on behalf of all workers in Lebanon. In March, Ghosn and representatives from the GLC met with the Minister of Labor in order to present grievances regarding just taxation, social security benefits, and the provision of electricity and water.

It is these general demands that most frustrate Hamdan: “If I were in the leadership of the [confederation] one of my major priorities would be to have the right of all workers to associate and organize. They make only shy demands.”

The yearly meeting between the GLC and the Ministry of Labor yielded little results and meetings continued throughout the summer. A general strike was planned for June but Ghosn called it off in when promised a ministerial committee dedicated to GLC issues. He also said the GLC did not want to interfere with the tourism season. After months without progress, Ghosn threatened again in September to call for a general strike if his concerns were not addressed.

This is effectively the only card he has to play, but it has nowhere near the punch it would have had prior to the civil war. No general strike since the war has drawn the thousands of workers they used to. When crowds do form, they usually don sectarian colors and flags — whatever the real reason for the protest. The clashes and street battles between government and opposition supporters in May 2008, after all, began with a labor strike. A general strike might then be perceived as more a threat of civil unrest than a protest.

No general strike since the war has drawn the thousands of workers they used to. When crowds do form, they usually don sectarian colors

Still waiting

Sitting under their tent on a smoldering summer day, the former workers of FPI in Akkar admit that they allowed the union to weaken and almost disappear before their dismissal. After years of letting management pick the union leader, of turning their heads when the factory was kept from working at full capacity on “surprise” inspection days, for accepting the hours, the conditions and the pay they now think was so unfair, they say they feel a shard of remorse and even shame.

At present, it is looking unlikely that the workers of Future Pipe will get what they want, as they have been effectively abandoned to their fate by the country’s union leaders and the Lebanese state.

“Whatever pretext is being used for throwing these people out I think they have the right to decent jobs and the right to discuss their own future,” says the ILO’S Hamdan. “Whenever there is some sort of summary dismissal, whatever pretext, whether economic or technical, it should be negotiated with the workers, which did not happen.” He sighs: “I am very supportive of their demands, but it’s not the commune of Paris.” 

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Editorial

The road carnage must end

by Yasser Akkaoui
written by Yasser Akkaoui

Last month the son of good friends of mine was killed, hit by a car as he crossed the street on the way to school – his life cut short at just 17 years of age. The same week he was killed I heard that at least another half dozen others were also killed in vehicle accidents. As a conservative estimate, almost 7,000 people have lost their lives on Lebanon’s roads since 2000, and thousands more injured.

Were the roads kept up properly, and even the most basic safety rules enforced by the authorities and adhered to by drivers, the vast majority of these individual tragedies could have been avoided. 

The human cost of this carnage is incalculable.

Where we can begin to quantify the loss, however, is in strain on the medical and insurance sectors, and the loss of economic productivity. Antiquated cars speeding down badly paved roads is also bad for the environment. On many levels, the malaise on our roadways impacts our lives.

It also helps steer away foreign investment and foreign human capital – who wants to move to a place where their family is threatened daily by a nation of irresponsible morons playing bumper tag?

And while foreigners can choose to stay away, most Lebanese have little choice but to remain here and run the gauntlet each and every day they venture out on our lawless roads.

In the same week as the fatalities were piling up, Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces General Directorate issued figures showing traffic fatalities had dropped somewhat compared to previous years. With fatalities still ludicrously high, however, this is no reason celebrate.

Ironically, it is only the fact that our roads are in such bad condition that the body count is not higher. Imagine the death toll if we had European-style highways on which Lebanese drivers could give full expression to their juvenile need for speed.

The government must act. Lebanon should not be a country where children have to risk so much just to cross the street, fearing drivers who, by and large, conform to no road regulations and who know that law enforcement agencies will do nothing to oblige them to. This must end.

How many people have to die before the state wakes up?

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Society

Bags of style

by Emma Cosgrove
written by Emma Cosgrove

Black ballistic cloth, the tough synthetic nylon beloved of luggage designers and flak jacket makers, doesn’t immediately bring to mind images of exotic destinations and the glamour of travel. More likely it recalls long layovers in airline lounges and sleepless nights on long haul flights — not the rich or playful image a luxury brand might prefer.

But for Tumi Chief Executive Officer Jerome Griffith, black ripstop nylon is better than all the calfskin leather and fine silk in the world.

“I said to the design group, ‘love black ballistic, it is what people know you for so be happy with it’,” said Griffith, sitting among a sea of dark shiny cloth in his new downtown boutique on Fakhry Bey Street in Beirut souks, which opened last month.

But while Tumi’s loyal aficionados may recognize the brand’s signature material, not everyone is familiar with this luxury luggage maker.

“Our biggest challenge is becoming more widely known. Even in our home market, the United States, we only have a 39 percent recognition rate which is relatively low. Now, if you’re a business class customer and a world class traveler, you know what Tumi is, but that’s not the average person,” said Griffith.

The brand attempts to make up for this by keeping the right company, with the new downtown boutique sitting alongside Louboutin and Lanvin stores, and guaranteeing that no one else can offer exactly the same product.

Outside of the latest anti-aging potions and a few luxury watch gizmos, the glamorous inhabitants of the downtown retail machine probably don’t spend much of their profits on research and development. But in the world of luxury travel goods, the lightest, most durable, most innovative products are the ones that often determine a brand’s prowess and success.

“We have over 100 patents on different inventions,” said Griffith. He pointed out zippers that fix themselves, and swivel handles for rolling suitcases. He also said that his research and development “guy” had finished new ergonomic backpack straps, which will surely be patent pending soon.

But this is not enough, which is why Griffith has managed to forgo the ubiquitous exclusivity contract with his boutique partners at the Chalhoub group in favor of exposing as many eyes to the brand as possible. Even before opening their store in downtown, Tumi already had a boutique in the airport, which Griffith described as “high volume” and a shop-in-shop at Aishti.
 

So, if Tumi gets their way, black ballistic nylon will be the fashion accessory for the well heeled and well wheeled at Beirut airport next summer. Between product innovations, strategically placed stores and eye-catching opening party celebrations involving guest spray-painting suitcases, they may just get their wish.

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Society

Q&A with Angelo Gaja

by Caroline Anning
written by Caroline Anning

Angelo Gaja’s family has been producing quality wines made from the unique Piedmontese Nebbiolo grape in the Barbaresco and Barolo areas of Piedmont, Italy, for four generations. More recently they have acquired two vineyards in Tuscany, expanding the family business to include more of Italy’s regional varieties as well as non-indigenous varieties such as Chardonnay. Executive met the master winemaker in Beirut as he visited Vintage Wine Cellar to talk old worlds and new markets.

E  Firstly, what’s your opinion on the current state of the international wine market?

We consider Europe to be the cradle of wine, but in the last 30 years there was an expansion of interest in many different countries — what we call the new world. Many producers in new countries — Chile and Argentina and Australia and so on — now compete with France in producing… wines made through international grape varieties… basically Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot noir and Chardonnay.

These countries initially started producing wines for [domestic consumption], but now they are producing wines for export. So today, even France is facing competition, Bordeaux is facing competition — but not the top Bordeaux, top Bordeaux is fantastic quality and is very strong…

And what about the [financial] crisis? In the last two years, we have seen, especially in the United States and England — which were mostly affected by the crisis — and partly in Europe, consumers wanting to drink less expensive wines.

On the other hand, in Asia, in Brazil, in Russia, where consumers are relatively new and they have new money, there is an interest in consuming high price wines and quality wines. So this year, Bordeaux is selling future Bordeaux and the main market is China.

E How does Italy stay competitive in comparison to the new world wine producers?

Italy is the largest producer of wine in the world in terms of volume, and has the second highest price per liter after France. France has a higher average price per liter, but Italy in terms of volume sells 40 percent more than France, so it’s a big difference.

Italy improved enormously in the last 30 years. I believe that this is due to different factors. First of all, in Italy there are 35,000 wineries, which is an enormous number, and the large majority are small wineries. This is a very important human factor — these people are able to take their suitcases and fly over the world to talk about their wines. This is very important in growing the culture of Italian wines [abroad].

The second factor is that Italy has the largest number of grape varieties in the world. This means we make wines with a different taste, with a different provenance, made in a different way, and this diversity is very important to match with different kinds of cuisine.

E You mentioned smaller wine producers taking their suitcases around the world to discover new markets – is that what you’re doing here in Lebanon? Do you see the Lebanese market as receptive to Italian wine?

My goal is to build a brand. It’s important that the wine is in many different markets, and it’s important to find good people that have the culture of selling such a wine, that are not pushing me to provide a huge quantity, because we can’t, but is proud of having a bottle of Gaja and is able to introduce it in a few restaurants, a few wine shops and to some special private customers.

E How do you think Lebanon could go about better promoting and selling its wines internationally?

I believe it’s the same for every area. First of all, it’s important to have producers with personality, with character, dedicated to wine. Then after, for these people to survive, they must understand that they cannot only sell their wines in the domestic market, they have to travel. This is what we Europeans did. So it is important to start travelling and to find in the free market, maybe in Asia or Europe or the US, customers who are interested. Because they exist absolutely.

 

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Bibi’s iron wall

by Peter Speetjens
written by Peter Speetjens

 

The dream of Eretz Yisrael (Greater Israel) is as alive as ever in the Jewish state. And to make that dream a reality, Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has been using a time-honored Israeli negotiating strategy: appear reasonable, while making impossible demands to gain time in which to change facts on the ground.

Bibi’s latest demand — that the Palestinian Authority (PA) must recognize Israel as a Jewish homeland in exchange for reinstating a temporary freeze on Israeli settlement construction on land that is supposed to form the future Palestinian state — should be seen in that light.

The PA recognized Israel as a sovereign state as long ago as the 1993 Oslo Accords. To further define it now as a “Jewish state” would have compromised the status of the nearly two million Israeli Arabs, as well as the millions of Palestinian refugees around the region who demand their right of return be recognized. It was impossible for the PA to concede this, and the Israeli prime minister knew it.

Thus Bibi effectively halted the talks before they had even started. No doubt Zeév Jabotinsky, the godfather of rightwing Zionism and the Likud party would have been proud.  Born in 1880 in Odessa, Jabotinsky believed that the new Israel ought to cover both banks of the River Jordan. To achieve that goal, he introduced the concept of the “iron wall.”

Having analyzed relations between the Arabs and early Zionists, Jabotinsky wrote in 1923: “Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement. This is how Arabs will behave and go on behaving as long as they possess a gleam of hope that they can prevent ‘Palestine’ from becoming the Land of Israel.”

 According to him, the colonization process would only succeed if it continued regardless of the “the mood of the natives,” whereby settlement should take place under the protection of a force “that is not dependent on the local population, but behind an iron wall which they will be powerless to break down.”

Jabotinsky’s metaphorical wall of military and political might would crush Palestinian hopes to turn the tide and the “no, never” slogan of the Arab hardliners would make way for voices willing to compromise.

In 2000, Avi Shlaim, one of Israel’s leading new historians, borrowed Jabotinsky’s concept as a title for his book in which he analyzed the relations between Israel and the Arab world throughout the 20th century. According to him, both Israel’s Labor and Likud parties have adopted the iron wall approach in their dealings with the Arabs.

Shlaim slams the prevailing view in the West that Israel wants peace while the Arabs function as deal breakers. He offers one example after the other, in which the Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians and Palestinians were in fact willing to compromise, yet Israel refused to talk business. This was as true for Ben Gurion in the early days of the Israeli state as for Menachem Begin in his dealings with the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the 1980s and Netanyahu today.

It is telling that the guru of the Israeli left, Ben Gurion, once wrote: “It’s not in order to establish peace that we need an agreement. Peace for us is a means. The goal is the complete and full realization of Zionism. Only after total despair on the part of the Arabs… may the Arabs possibly acquiesce in a Jewish Eretz Israel.”

By paying lip service to American demands to make concessions, while at the same time demanding the impossible from the Palestinians, Bibi keeps both the iron wall and the Israeli dream alive.

Almost as soon as the talks were halted, he approved the construction of more than 200 new housing units in East Jerusalem.

Ironically, the iron wall doctrine fits perfectly with the “Road Map for Peace” proposed by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations in 2002, which states that the final Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement will take into account ‘facts on the ground’ — even if that means there is de facto nothing left on which to build a Palestinian state.

PETER SPEETJENS

is a Beirut-based journalist

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ElBaradei’s boycott gamble

by Josh Wood
written by Josh Wood

In Cairo’s Garbage City — as with many other places in Egypt — there is little optimism about the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. “We don’t know anybody. We only know Mubarak,” says Hani Shanouda, a 26 year-old member of Cairo’s 60,000-strong Coptic Christian garbage collecting community, the Zabbaleen. Like many others in this slum, Shanouda will most likely not be voting on either ballot.

In Egypt’s current situation it is increasingly difficult to discern between those who did not vote as a political statement and those who stayed away from the polls for other reasons. In 2005’s parliamentary elections, less than nine million Egyptians voted — representing almost a third of registered voters but only about 11 percent of Egypt’s population of 77.5 million at the time. The presidential elections that year saw only seven million go to the polls.

There are a number of reasons why Egyptians don’t vote. A lifetime of rigged elections and quasi-dictatorship makes voting seem inconsequential — Egypt’s young population means that, like Shanouda, the majority of Egyptians have never experienced a regime other than Mubarak’s and his National Democratic Party, which have ruled since 1981. Also, with 40 percent of the country living on less than $2 per day, simply putting food on the table often trumps political concerns.

A boycott of November 28th’s parliamentary polls  has been urged by Nobel Prize winner and former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei. He returned to Egypt with political ambitions earlier this year and says a poor show at the polls will expose the fraudulent nature of the country’s elections and spur democratic reform.

However, ElBaradei has been accused of being out of touch with Egypt’s masses. Calls for a boycott could give these accusations credence, showing that ElBaradei’s brand of opposition is more akin to the flash-in-the-pan, internet-based, intellectual-driven opposition groups composed of the upper and middle classes, such as the ‘April 6 Movement’ that caused a small stir in 2008.  While Western observers may applaud ElBaradei’s calls for a boycott as a brave step toward democracy, it could prove entirely detrimental to his movement and leave him on the outskirts of Egypt’s political arena.

Attempts by ElBaradei’s National Coalition for Change to get the country’s numerous opposition groups onto the same page have been hindered by the Muslim Brotherhood, who will field their own candidates in November’s elections. With the group still officially banned by the Egyptian government, Brotherhood candidates have run as independents in the past and currently hold 88 out of 454 seats in parliament, making the Islamist party the strongest officially-represented opposition movement in the country.

Unlike ElBaradei, the Brotherhood is more in touch with ordinary Egyptians and has built much of its support base through providing community services to those ignored by the state. While remaining cautious in the political realm the Brotherhood has still managed to make significant political gains, as evidenced by the number of seats it occupies in parliament.

For any opposition groups though, the election cycle — which starts this month — will be an uphill battle. The Egyptian government has already begun cracking down on dissenters, arresting many Brotherhood members in recent weeks. In October, the government announced that companies that send out mass text messages would require a license — a blow to the opposition, which relied heavily on SMS to mobilize supporters in a country where 60 million people have mobile phones. Despite calls for election monitors from Egyptian civil society actors, the United States and other international entities, it looks unlikely that any such measures will be taken.

Whatever the media hype, anti-Mubarak protests this year have been small and tame compared to the tens of thousands of demonstrators that ground Cairo to a standstill in years past. In this atmosphere, prospects for opposition gains remain slim, and thus it is unlikely that any real change will happen in Egypt soon.

Still, with next year’s presidential elections likely to be a wash (in 2005, Mubarak won a whopping 88.6 percent of a vote widely regarded as rigged), this month’s parliamentary elections are the best shot opposition groups have at making any real gains in the near future.

JOSH WOOD is a freelance journalist based in Beirut

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Tea Party topography

by Michael Young
written by Michael Young

This month’s mid-term elections in the United States will show us the direction the country will head in the coming two years and indicate the future shape of American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.

One factor determining electoral outcomes will be the fate of the disparate Tea Party movement, which has disturbed the Republican Party hierarchy and liberal-left America alike. And yet shorn of its more troublesome qualities, including its embrace of the opportunistic, demagogical former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the shift toward the religious right and its increasingly nativist reflexes, the Tea Party is somehow a healthy initiative. Many American voters are understandably worried about the potential tax burden imposed by the rescue package for the financial crisis of 2008, as well as the high cost of Obama’s healthcare policy.  

The Tea Party — a loose gathering of groups sharing a dissatisfaction with government as it is being run today — was named for the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when American colonists protested being taxed by a British parliament in which they were not represented. The mantra “no taxation without representation” has entered the American political lexicon and is at the heart of the democratic capitalist social contract. Congressional elections will show whether President Barack Obama passes that test.  

But where the Tea Party will be tested, and where it must pass its own test, is in the particulars of a capitalist culture. Will the movement be able to avoid the pull of its extremes and defend free minds and free markets? And what will this mean for the United States in the world?  

Populist and progressive movements have a venerable legacy in the US. The notion of reform, like the implicit mistrust of state power, is a recurring theme in American history, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the US was transformed from an agrarian society into an industrial-capitalist one. As Richard Hofstadter observed in ‘The Age of Reform,’ many of the demands of the American reform movement ended up being implemented even if the political parties that gave rise to such demands disappeared without a trace.

But there was always a nativist quality to these movements standing against what Americans have regarded as part of their national character: domestic inclusiveness and an urge to spread liberal values and freedom abroad. Likewise, the Tea Party movements have tended to look inwards. They have supported limiting immigration into the US; their fear of government over-expenditure has made them increasingly wary of costly foreign adventures, not least the wars in the broader Middle East; some polls suggest they are mistrustful of Obama’s engagement of Muslim countries; and on social issues Tea Party groups lean toward the conservative.  

The significant role played among Tea Party groups by Palin and other right-wing spokespersons, like the organizational power of the religious groups, means the movement is not likely to veer greatly from this path. However, to reduce everything to right-wing, left-wing terms is to over simplify. The Republican establishment has also been a target of the Tea Party. In that sense, the movement doubles as an anti-elite phenomenon.

America is unlikely to be overcome by the Tea Party, and the movement’s haphazard structure may ultimately prove to be its downfall, unless it can be reorganized behind a presidential campaign. This seems to be Palin’s aim. However, even if the movement were to concentrate on advancing legitimate demands for greater fiscal discipline, the outcome would be a more modest America abroad, both militarily and in the spread of liberal values.

 Oddly enough Hofstadter’s observations about American reform movements of the past may apply once again. Though the Tea Party is hostile to Barack Obama, the president appears to have largely accepted the fiscal restraint argument to justify cutting American foreign expenses, especially in Iraq and even Afghanistan, where he has sought mightily to avoid an open-ended conflict that would dramatically drain American resources. The US is changing, and not surprisingly, the Middle East is changing as a consequence.  

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Cityscape’s sinking feeling

by Angela Giuffrida
written by Angela Giuffrida

The man playing the gold-plated piano on the Meydan stand at this year’s Cityscape exhibition in Dubai was reminiscent of a scene in the blockbuster film Titanic: as the famous ship sunk, the band played on.

The pianist was the only reminder of the exuberance that used to define this property show. Once upon a time, crowds came from near and far to get a glimpse of the ambitions of Dubai’s property developers.

Enticed by glitzy displays of model cities, they queued for hours at stands, eager to put down a deposit on a property that was yet to be built and which they probably couldn’t afford. Developers spent millions of dirhams pulling out all the stops to ensure their wares received the attention they needed. As competition intensified towards the middle of 2008 in the run-up to that year’s extravaganza, the chief executive of one newly created developer even alluded to the possibility of the singer Madonna gracing his stand with her presence at the event that October. While celebrities including the actor Antonio Banderas and racing driver Michael Schumacher were actually seen doing the rounds of the exhibition halls that year, there was no sign of the material girl. However, even as new, flashy projects were announced, signs of nervousness among investors began to creep through the showcases of Cityscape Dubai 2008. Just a few weeks after the show, which has now been rebranded Cityscape Global, property prices in some areas of Dubai fell by as much as 40 percent.

The global financial crisis had caught up with the emirate. By the end of that year, hundreds of projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars were cancelled or put on hold while thousands of jobs were cut across the property and affiliated construction sectors. The same developer who claimed a close connection with Madonna suddenly went out of business.

Developers who had once enjoyed easy credit had to wake up to the new reality, and quickly. Rather than rushing to the bank to cash deposit checks, they were instead summoned to deal with disputes raised by unhappy property buyers, who were coming to terms with the reality that they had plowed money into buildings that would never be built.

Strapped for cash, developers have also struggled to make payments to their construction suppliers, with many taking legal action.

Still, it hasn’t all been bad news. A lot has happened over the past two years to clean up the property sector. Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Authority has been swift to implement new regulations, while developers keen to protect their reputation have helped property buyers consolidate their investments.

Projects are also starting to be revived, and Nakheel, the Dubai World-owned developer that is responsible for a large share of the emirate’s property development, said at the end of September it would complete its debt restructuring by the end of the year. Tamweel, one of the country’s largest mortgage providers, will also soon resume lending after Dubai Islamic Bank increased its stake in the firm.

There are still challenges ahead, with a potential oversupply of property one of the biggest threats to recovery. The most startling information to emerge from this year’s Cityscape was that another 9,000 homes would flood the market by the end of this year, while a further 35,000 homes will come on stream next year, according to figures from property consultant Jones Lang LaSalle.

But probably the greatest hurdle is reviving confidence among property investors. Thousands of people have been stung, with many now using events like Cityscape to vent their frustration on hard-to-reach developers or find fellow investors in the same predicament. Buyers will only re-enter the market when they believe the issues have truly been resolved.

The collapse of Dubai’s property sector can hardly be compared to the catastrophe of the Titanic tragedy in terms of loss of life, but it’s going to take a lot more than soothing music to lift the spirits of those who have had their fortunes sunk.

ANGELA GIUFFRIDA is a property correspondent in Dubai

 

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Greeks bearing gifts

by Peter Grimsditch
written by Peter Grimsditch

 

The fallout from Ankara’s continuing and widening estrangement from Israel has seen some unaccustomed diplomatic bedfellows cozying up together in recent weeks. Close military ties between the two states were ruptured when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered a ban on joint military exercises. He also insisted on searching for sources other than Israel for unmanned aircraft used in assaults on Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq.

The rift originated from Turkish protests against the Israeli attacks on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009 in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed. It reached a crescendo in May of this year when Israeli commandos stormed a Turkish-led aid flotilla heading for Gaza, killing nine Turks (including a dual United States-Turkish citizen) and seriously wounding around 50 others.

Bereft of its usual war games partners, the Turkish Air Force teamed up with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army last month for exercises at Konya in Central Anatolia. The pairing was bizarre in that it appears to be the first time that a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has engaged in military exercises with the Chinese. According to the United States Defense Department, any worries that Turkey might reveal military secrets were carefully avoided by their use of F4 Phantom warplanes instead of the much more modern F15. Since the F4 was first manufactured in 1958, this seems to have been a prudent course. Not that the Turks were likely to learn too much either. For a latter-day replay of an aerial Agincourt, the Chinese used Su-27 Flankers, which are of a slightly newer 1982 generation of fighters.

The exercises coincided with a visit to Turkey by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, at the head of a delegation seeking to triple two-way trade to $50 billion a year by 2015.

Meanwhile, Israel accepted the opportunity to partner for aerial combat practice with Turkey’s erstwhile nemesis, Greece. As the two air forces conducted a joint drill over southern Greece, politicians on the ground signed the first Greek-Israeli bilateral pact for 60 years. This is a turnaround for Athens, which has traditionally been noted for its Arab sympathies more than its leanings toward Tel Aviv. This may well have been why two of the ships in the eight-strong Gaza aid flotilla in May were crewed by Greeks and one, Eleftheri Mesogios, was even Greek-flagged. The ships were carrying humanitarian aid and trying to break the military blockade imposed on Gaza by the Israeli military.

Although all the flotilla deaths were on the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara, the Greeks on board the Sfendoni and the Eleftheri Mesogios were also given a rough welcome. According to a report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council and published at the end of September, passengers and crew on both vessels had taken a decision to offer only passive resistance to their Israeli boarders, for example standing with linked arms around the bridge. Despite this, says the report, many were beaten. One woman who refused to hand over her passport was punched in the stomach, a man had his leg broken and the captain of the Sfendoni was kicked in the back, punched in the face and burned with an electroshock weapon.

The report, labeled by Aaron Leshno Yaar, Israel’s permanent representative to the UN Mission in Geneva, as “superfluous… unnecessary and unproductive” before it was published, goes on to catalogue a range of ill-treatment received by flotilla members once on

Israeli soil. These incidents include handcuffing seriously injured patients to hospital beds, confinement for hours on end without access to toilet facilities, physical and verbal abuse as well as the confiscation of personal items, including money intended for distribution among the Palestinians. The report also claims that much of the money has not been returned — nor indeed have cameras, recording equipment and other personal belongings been given back. This would make Israeli civil and military security personnel common thieves as well as any other charges that could be brought against them.

Yet, none of this seemed to interfere in the development of the closest contacts Israeli and Greek politicians have had in six decades. Perhaps it depends on what kind of Greeks are bearing what kind of gifts, and to whom.

PETER GRIMSDITCH is Executive’s

Istanbul correspondent

 

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The Lebanese art of distraction

by Sami Halabi
written by Sami Halabi

 

For several excruciating months the Lebanese press has been subjecting us all to a whirlwind of speculation over the prospect that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) will issue an indictment accusing, in one way or another, Hezbollah of being involved in the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and many others. It is now all too clear that the “informed sources” quoted in various media outlets who told us with such certainty that an indictment would be issued by mid-October were wrong. This deadline passed without incident and yet the media conjecture continues, fueling the perpetual fear of sectarian civil strife.

The debate has reached fever pitch, with everyone from the American Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad throwing in their two cents, and politicians from both sides of Lebanon’s political divide holding endless press conferences. But as the STL has descended into farce, Lebanon’s real problems have — as usual — taken a backseat.  

As we wait for Damascus, Riyadh, Tehran and Washington to decide on our “post-indictment” fate and our supposed leaders bicker over “false witnesses,” we should pause to ponder why we have allowed the STL to take progressive policy reform hostage. Scratch beneath the surface and what has everyone so hot under the collar reveals itself as little more than political posturing, hyperbole and the dark arts of distraction and deception.

Firstly, it is nothing less than comical to talk about witnesses before an indictment is issued, as no one yet knows whose testimony will be considered. The prosecutor has not announced who will be used as a witness or who will be accused; the furor is supposition.

What’s more, calls to try the ‘false witnesses’ in the Judicial Council — a permanent tribunal of five senior judges and no jury that adjudicates threats to national security based on a cabinet decision and therefore violates international judicial norms — is a testament to how far we are from real judicial reform or being able to ever realize “the truth.”

Even more illogical is the dichotomy at the heart of Hezbollah’s position: On the one hand the party has called for those who tried to contaminate the STL with false testimony be held accountable, but on the other it has accused the tribunal of being illegitimate and called for it to be scrapped. Hezbollah emphasizing the importance of the veracity of witness testimony automatically confers some degree of legitimacy to the proceedings and, ultimately, the outcome they lead to. They can’t have it both ways. 

On the other side of the fence, the so-called Hariri camp recently admitted politics motivated it to wrongly accuse Syria of involvement in the 2005 assassinations, while rumors abound of a collusion between the March 14 movement and the original prosecutor. Now, incredibly, they insist that the institution’s credibility has not been damaged.

Given the absurdity of these and other acts in the STL tragicomedy, the fact that both political camps continue to propagate the idea that at any moment the tribunal could cause the government to crumble, taking the country with it, is telling of how far they will go to avoid doing their jobs.

By contriving conflict with talk of violence in the streets and the collapse of the state, Lebanon’s politicians have conveniently drawn people’s attention away from the fact that their water tanks are empty, their food is rotting in the fridge as electricity cuts for hours in the heat and their cars are stalled in choking traffic.

It’s no coincidence that when these issues began to boil this summer, the STL card was played; nor will anyone be surprised when it’s promptly shuffled back into the deck. Everyone already knows that Lebanon’s bilad al kubra, the ‘countries of influence’; do not find sectarian conflict in their interests at this juncture and that no one, even if they wanted to, can fight Hezbollah.

By that time, our politicians will likely have found another excuse to keep us scared into submission and their pockets lined with our money. At some point the joke will get old. But until then, it looks as though we will all have to be content with being laughed at.

SAMI?HALABI is

deputy editor of Executive Magazine

 

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