Real Estate

Haircut and a house, Madam?

by Nada Nohra
written by Nada Nohra

 

Georges Jebran, a 57-year old hairdresser who owns a salon in Mar Mikhael, Beirut, considers haircuts for his customers his top priority. But for the last six years, he has also been working as a real estate broker. Jebran became involved in the brokerage business because real estate makes “good money.” He knows many foreigners and speaks several languages, both of which he considers to be requirements for the job.

Bassam Mitri, a full time broker for the last 20 years, said he also entered this business because he likes “fast profit.”

“People like to work as brokers, because you sell something and make money without spending a penny,” he said.

What Mitri and Jebran have in common is that they both work independently. They do not work at real estate companies and have acquired their skills from personal experience. Mitri added that because of the absence of a syndicate to regulate the market and give licenses, a broker has to earn credibility with hard work over an extended period of time.

Real estate brokerage is a profitable business that many have entered on a full or part-time basis, from bankers and lawyers to hairdressers and concierges. What differentiates the real estate market in Lebanon from the West is that the former is not subject to regulation — brokers are not required to be registered or have specific education or training, and therefore buyers sometimes trust people who claim to be credible brokers but have no market experience.

Consequently, buyers who fail to do their own due diligence before completing a sale can easily fall victim to an inexperienced, fraudulent or deceitful broker.

“Everyone in Lebanon is a broker,” said Karim Makarem, director at Ramco real estate advisory. “Even at the top end, be it in politics, banking, lawyers…they are all trying to play the game.”

Makarem warned of the dangers of taking advice from these seemingly more reputable, yet often inexperienced sources.

“If the concierge is advising you, then you are more likely to check what he is saying. But risk arises when someone from a well-established position is advising you,” said Makarem.

“The number of deals that I have done with bankers and lawyers earning commission is frightening,” he added.

The Khaleeji risk factor

Four out of five real estate cases that go to court in Lebanon involve citizens from Gulf Cooperation Council countries, said Tony Tebchrany, a lawyer who has handled many such cases.

He said Gulf residents were more susceptible to fraud for two reasons: first, they are usually wealthy and buy expensive real estate, which makes the fraud more worthwhile; second, their limited knowledge of the Lebanese market, prices and areas puts them at higher risk.

“There are a few major investors from the Arab world who I have come across that have had a very bad experience in Lebanon due to brokers who have misled them and made them overpay,” said Ramco’s Makarem.

While overcharging for land or property is underhanded, it is less malicious than cases where so-called brokers in Lebanon have swindled Gulf clients into thinking they were purchasing a certain expensive plot of land, when actually they were buying a low-value plot in another area.

As an example, Tebchrany outlines a case where a Lebanese “broker” told a Gulf Arab client of a beautiful plot of land in the Jbeil area of Mount Lebanon. The client was interested and so the broker showed him a 4,000 square meter hillside plot with a beautiful beach view and asked him for $400 per square meter.

The client liked the land and contacted his Lebanese lawyer, who had not personally seen the plot. The lawyer asked for a real estate certificate from the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre, confirming that the plot mentioned in the sales contract was legally available. What the client didn’t know was that the plot in the contract was different from the one the broker showed him. After the sale was complete, the client discovered that the plot he’d actually purchased was only worth some $50 per square meter and located further up in the mountains.

A $1 million scam

Tebchrany talked about a case in which a person calling himself a broker approached a wealthy Lebanese client, telling him that there was a plot of land worth $1 million for sale. The broker told the client that a Gulf citizen wanted to purchase the plot for $2 million, and therefore suggested that the client buy the plot himself to sell on for a $1 million profit. The broker said he would have done this himself, but he didn’t have the money.

The client agreed and accompanied the broker to the Phoenicia InterContinental Hotel, where he met the wealthy Gulf buyer who confirmed his interest in the plot. After that meeting, the Lebanese client purchased the plot from the owners for $1 million. He went back to the hotel to seal the deal with the Gulf buyer, but found that no one under his name had been staying at the hotel, the broker he had been dealing with had disappeared, and the original landowners were nowhere to be found either.

“He went to check the plot he had bought and found out that it was only worth some $100,000,” said Tebchrany. The client declined Executive’s request to comment.

 The evils of inexperience

Cases involving clients purchasing land unsuitable for construction, or shoddily constructed apartments, often arise from broker inexperience and a lack of market knowledge. In these cases it is not completely the broker’s fault, as clients must assume some responsibility for failing to perform their own due diligence and blindly trusting middlemen.

“There are some very respectable and honest people who work as brokers but make mistakes because they don’t have enough experience,” said Aline Maalouf, managing partner at Luna Real Estate, a franchise of Coldwell Banker. “This has contributed to [brokers] having a bad reputation.”

With or without a contract

Although the most regulated markets in the world are still prone to fraud, the lack of laws and regulations to protect both brokers and buyers make conflicts more probable.

“There is a small [section of] Lebanese law that talks about brokerage, but it is very minor,” said Georges Sioufi, chief executive officer of the real estate agency GRE Properties. The brokerage law, number 304, ‘General law for all kind of brokerage,’ dates back to 1942 and has not been amended since.

The law says that a broker is any person who acts as a middleman between two parties for a certain fee. Tebchrany said the law does not require parties to sign a written contract, and usually a verbal agreement is enough. If conflict arises and they go to court and a written contract is not available, the broker or the customer has to provide evidence to prove the broker was actually the middleman in the transaction.

Hairdresser-cum-broker Jebran, for example, said that he relies on a “word of honor” and does not sign contracts unless the deal involves a considerable sum of money. If a court case should arise, Jebran said he would rely on witnesses to testify that he was the middleman.

Mitri said he signs written contracts only in rare cases, adding that sometimes, when the market values are increasing, sellers refuse to sign as it obliges them to stick to a certain price.

Luna Real Estate’s Maalouf said her company always signs contracts with customers, but some of them refuse, as they are not used to the idea.

“When someone goes to a bank to get a loan, they make him sign on 50 pages and they [customers] do it blindly to receive a loan… but they are not convinced that they have to sign to receive a service,” she said. 

Tebchrany added that sometimes even big real estate companies do not sign written contracts in order to save paying taxes on a deal.

A new association

In an attempt to regulate the market and differentiate between credible brokers and imposters, a group of real estate companies has formed an association.

Massaad Fares, founder of the asset management company Prime Consult, has been working with several brokers for nearly seven years to create this association, which finally appointed its board of directors in February.

Fares said the association would be a strong lobbying group to advocate for a new law to license brokers based on certain qualifications. The association will devise a code of ethics that its members will have to follow, and facilitate education and training programs to raise professional standards in the industry.

“We want regulation, not because we are assuming all brokers are thieves…[but] we need something to regulate [the market] so that peopple know who to trust,” said Ramco’s Makarem.

Who can enter this association and what the requirements are have not been specified yet, said Fares. GRE Properties’ Sioufi, who is a member of the board, said that the fees would be $667 per year.

Sioufi said that there were many agencies that at first refused to join. “As with everything else in Lebanon, there always happens to be some tension,” he said. “Now we are trying to approach everybody and put things together.”

All the market players Executive spoke to were in favor of the association, saying that it represented the first step toward a more professional and regulated market.

“I would like to think that one day, everyone would look out for the logo of the association and will expect any broker they deal with to be a member of this association,” said Makarem.

However, until the association becomes a syndicate — which requires the issuance of a new law — it will not be able to oblige brokers to abide by its code of ethics, explained Tebchrany.

“The association can work for its own interest but it cannot forbid any person from working if they do not join…but a syndicate could.”

Staying safe

There are no hard rules to follow regarding  who to trust, since a concierge or hairdresser could turn out to be more trustworthy, or have more experience than a lawyer or a banker. For that reason, experts advise buyers to perform their own due diligence before buying a property, such as asking for a real estate certificate, and consulting with lawyers, architects and any party that could help precent cheating or a bad deal. 

“Some people do not consult their lawyers until they are deep in the hole,” said Tebchrany. “I advise all those who want to buy land or apartments to consult a lawyer, and an architect if necessary.”

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Finance

Raising capital

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

After obtaining shareholder approval on February 19, Byblos Bank is set to proceed with a $250 million capital increase, to be completed by the end of June. The bank expects the hike to come from common and priority shareholders primarily, with some capital coming from holders of global depository receipts. The bank said the goal of the increase was to help expand its services in emerging markets and to be better able to lend to small and medium-sized projects. Also contributing to the capital hike was Byblos Invest Holdings’ sale of $47.62 million of Byblos shares to the International Finance Corp. (IFC), concluded at the final price of $100 million. After the capital increase, the IFC will own 8 percent of Byblos Bank

 

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Finance

Commission in crisis

by Emma Cosgrove
written by Emma Cosgrove

 

It is no secret that the backbone of Lebanon’s economy is the banking sector. And right now, the watchdogs of Lebanon’s banking industry are without leadership.

The Banking Control Commission (BCC) of Lebanon is the auditing body housed in the country’s central bank. The Commission is charged with the duty of supervising Lebanon’s banks, financial institutions, money dealers, brokerage firms and leasing companies, to ensure that they are operating within the circulars and regulations of the Central Bank. But, due to sectarian disputes and cabinet deadlock, it is currently without a board of directors.

The cabinet must appoint the five members of the BCC’s board of directors at the end of every five-year period, with the latest term expiring January 31 this year.

 There are no term limits for board members, and as such all five outgoing directors had already served at least a decade at the BCC through reappointments. Despite this tradition of continuity on the commission, the Council of Ministers, Lebanon’s cabinet, has not been able to agree on who will sit at the BCC for the current term.

According to several industry sources, seats on the commission’s board of directors are usually filled without delay. But as Executive went to print, the seats had been empty for almost a month, pushing both banking professionals and government officials to insist on a swift resolution.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has taken over the responsibilities of the board until the members are appointed. On February 2, just days after the previous board expired, Salameh met with the Higher Banking Commission, the body responsible for the enforcement of central bank regulations, to discuss whether there was a legal framework that would allow the Higher Banking Commission to appoint the members, instead of the cabinet. But it was determined that the decision must legally stay within the responsibility of the cabinet.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on February 13 that he hoped the commission would be filled by February 17 or 18, but as Executive went to print, no announcement to that effect had been made.

Who’s the boss?

Under Article 8 of Law 28, enacted in 1967, the president of the BCC must be a university professor or a specialist in banking and finance. A second board member must be recommended by the Association of Banks in Lebanon, and a third recommendation comes from the National Deposit Guarantee Institution. The other two positions have no legal specifications other than clear expertise in the banking field.

Positions on the board of the BCC are full time, thus all appointed members must leave their current positions before they accept the job. Board members are also forbidden from taking a job at any Lebanese bank for two years after they leave the commission.

As some board members come from Lebanese banks, objectivity is an issue of concern. But Marwan Kheireddine, general manger of Al Mawarid Bank, said that appointees have no problem cutting ties with their former places of employment.

“Banks in Lebanon are not tribes: banks are professional institutions, they are for-profit and they think objectively,” he said.

In addition to the board of directors, the BCC has 137 employees, including administrative staff and “examiners” — auditors who perform continuous reviews of Lebanon’s financial institutions through on and off-site examinations. Both BCC Secretary General Souheil Jaafar and banking professionals stressed that the commission is still functioning normally, despite the absent board.

“Middle management is there. It’s just the top management of this commission is now absent or vacant. But the usual work is continuing,” said Elie Achkar, director of research and statistics at the Association of Banks in Lebanon.

And though no expressed legal framework exists to allow Salameh to take over the role of the board in the interim, there have been no public objections to his doing so.

“The importance of any executive anywhere in government at any time is not looking at specifically legal wordings here and there, but filling a vacuum in a process of such imperative importance to the national security of Lebanon and its people,” said opposition Member of Parliament Ali Osseiran.

In fact, Kheireddine said that confidence in Salameh’s management of the commission may have taken pressure off the decision, causing ministers to take even more time, now that they know that the commission is being looked after.

Who’s on board?

The outgoing board members are Walid Alameddine, Farouk Mahfouz, Amine Awad, Kamal Samaha and Abdallah Attieh.

Mahfouz and Awad have been resubmitted for another term without objection, which will bring Mahfouz’s total years on the commission to 25, and Awad’s to 15.

Media reports have suggested that Osama Mikdashi — the former managing director of Citigroup Credit and Risk Management UK and a current board member at BankMed — and Ahmad Safa, the assistant general manager for operations at Lebanese Canadian Bank, are up for appointment.

A Lebanese banker who spoke only on the condition of anonymity but has been highly involved in lobbying for a new commission, said that Fouad Touma — secretary to the board of committees at Byblos Bank — and Mansour Bteich — a member of the board of directors of BLC Bank — are also being considered. This source added that Touma is the only contentious appointment, with some members of cabinet critical of his qualifications. Osseiran confirmed that the appointments are being held up by just one name, but could not disclose which.

Despite the usual speedy confirmation of board members, Kheireddine is not surprised by the delay. “This is very typical of Lebanon. These appointments are political,” said Kheireddine. “Political in the sense that a lot of people that are qualified present their CVs and, typically, there is a lot of pulling and pushing, which happens when such posts are available and politicians or political parties try to push their candidate as opposed to another party’s candidate.”

The government is currently backed up with many of the 79 ‘category one’ appointments for empty senior positions and industry players and politicians have been lobbying to bring the BCC posts to the top of the pile.

“The position of one person on this commission is minor. But having the whole commission is very important. We shouldn’t think in terms of our sects, we should think of who is the best person to have in this position,” said Osseiran.

And since no one project or audit is run by less than two bankers, the BCC’s Jaafar implied that no one board member could harm the entire group.

“This is corporate governance. We don’t have a one-man show,” said Jaafar.

Kheireddine said that the names circulating through the media were proof that the lobbying had paid off and highlighted the appointment of the BCC board members as an issue separate from the other appointments that the cabinet has yet to make.

Who’s watching?

Even with Salameh at the helm, industry outcry for a full board is still going strong due to the damage the delay may cause to Lebanon’s international financial reputation.

“People abroad do not look at political life in Lebanon as much as they look at the organization, the control and the confidence that everybody has in the Lebanese financial system,” said Osseiran.

After a whirlwind year of international recognition for successfully weathering 2009’s financial storm, bankers are worried that this political squabbling may damage the progress that Lebanon’s banking sector has made on the international stage.

“It is critical that we do not have any glitches anywhere that could send the wrong signals both to international organizations and to potential players within the industry and potential depositors or investors,” said Kheireddine. “So it is simply not appropriate not to have a banking control commission.”

 

 

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Imagery intifada

by Michael Young
written by Michael Young

 

This March 14 will be the fifth anniversary of the massive gathering that took place one month after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. And while the politics of the event continue to divide the Lebanese, there is a less-publicized aspect of the popular demonstrations of 2005 that merits retrospective consideration: their branding by advertisers and activists.

The visual success of the independence intifada was its most enduring feature. It highlighted an instinctive understanding by the organizers of how politics and imagery could be combined to advance a political agenda, and how this required capturing the imagination of markets in Lebanon and worldwide. Above all was the international media market – which permitted demonstrators to access foreign audiences – but also the market of association, since the imagery pushed people inside Lebanon and out to mentally associate what was happening with similar efforts that had taken place abroad – such as the color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia.

Perhaps the surest sign of success was the fact that the Lebanese upheaval was given a catchy name, the “Cedar Revolution.” The importance of the media attractiveness of the Independence Intifada/Cedar Revolution and its association with other popular undertakings, was that it pushed the same buttons a successful advertisement campaign would; it allowed those participating in the event, or watching it, to interpret what was happening in both pluralistic and individual ways. Lebanon’s emancipation effort became whatever one wanted it to be.

In retrospect, there was no “revolution” in Lebanon in 2005, just as there were no revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia. The word itself was a remarkable jump over the far less ambitious, but more accurate, “intifada,” by which the Lebanese opposition first labeled their endeavors. Yet “revolution” had a far better echo in the marketplace; it allowed one to dream, and everyone likes a dream.

The branding of the demonstrations inside Lebanon was built around a simple sentence and specific color pattern: the phrase “Independence ’05” and the red and white of the Lebanese flag. This was the brainchild of advertiser Eli Khoury of Quantum Communications, collaborating with the late Samir Kassir. Their plan was initially to unfurl their campaign during the parliamentary elections of 2005, but Hariri’s assassination created a far more dramatic context for it.

Other advertisers entered the fray after February 14, and the activists and political figures who had begun planning the demonstrations in the first days after Hariri’s killing also addressed the matter of imagery. There was an immediate sense that the protest movement against Syrian influence in Lebanon could only survive by being given an identity – one that was both elastic and conciliatory, able to embrace the many very different identities of those descending on Martyrs’ Square.

In subsequent years the two sides in Lebanon’s political divide poured enormous sums of money into advertisement campaigns. But there was a difference between those efforts and the events of February-March 2005; the emancipation movement’s branding compensated for the fact that the state was controlled by the political foes of the demonstrators, with the weapon of ideas serving as a potent leveling mechanism.

What were these ideas? Not least that the demonstrators were behaving heroically and serving a higher purpose. The demonstrators saw themselves as fulfilling an ideal, against difficult odds, and that only increased their impetus to mobilize. They created a narrative for their actions, placing themselves at its forefront. That was a clever, inherently liberal way of dealing with their predicament. It also showed a grasp of what modern politics is about.

The branding of the 2005 movement set up a context for this narrative — or rather the infinite number of narratives brought down to Martyrs’ Square. But it also led to dissension when the narratives momentarily diverged. For a while the red and the white rapidly became the colors of those whose priority was a Syrian military withdrawal, then Hariri’s Future Movement adopted sky blue as the color of their campaign, focused on uncovering the “Truth” about who had killed their leader. This difference was papered over by the time March 14 came, but the recrimination would last for some time.

In an odd way, the friction confirmed how important the branding was.

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Old Lebanon’s final frontier

by Nicholas Blanford
written by Nicholas Blanford

 

Just shy of the ides of March, the Lebanese army is to host (snow permitting) the second Raid des Cedres, in which teams of three race through Mount Lebanon on skis and snow shoes. The teams begin in the pre-dawn dark from the entrance of the Tannourine cedars, before a long climb up Wadi Bayda to the southern crest of the mountainous amphitheater that half encircles the Cedars of Bsharre, at Al Arz.

One of my most memorable moments of more than 15 years in Lebanon was pausing toward the top of Wadi Bayda, and seeing behind me in the darkness what looked like an army of glow worms, as the competitors slowly ascended the valley using headlamps to light their way. Then, the dawn sun gradually rose above the mountain peaks to the east, suffusing the snow with soft pinks, while the icy wind whipped up a knee-high snow drift.

Despite Lebanon’s tiny size and rampant urbanization over the past four decades, it is remarkable that there are still large tracts of lofty unspoiled wilderness to be visited and enjoyed less than two hours drive from Beirut.

The vast plateau that forms the top of the Mount Lebanon range from south of Jabal Sannine to north of Qornet es-Sawda — Lebanon’s tallest mountain at 3,088 meters — presents a desolate and awe-inspiring vista. The terrain varies from gently undulating hills and valleys to dauntingly deep sinkholes, separated by knife-edge ridges of weathered, razor-sharp limestone, beautiful to behold yet a nightmare to traverse.

No one lives up there permanently. The only inhabitants one might stumble across, and only in the summer months, are shepherds and their families living in canvas tents, who offer the rare passer-by glasses of strong sweet tea, bread and fresh goats’ cheese. Then there are roaming shepherds, as agile as their goats, following their flocks up and down rocky slopes during the day, before lighting a fire and sleeping in the open at night.

In early February, I took a day off work mid-week and headed to Warde, above Faraya, for a day’s snowshoeing to the top of Sannine. Brilliant sunshine held up a deep blue sky over well-wrapped and colorful skiers and snow-boarders who, even on a school day, were packing the slopes. But once I had trudged up, over the first crest and beyond the pistes and ski lifts, I had the mountains to myself and saw not a single person for the rest of the day.

The deep layer of sugar white snow softens and smoothes the jagged, frost-shattered landscape of the summer months, creating a misleading impression of benevolence. But the weather can change quickly above 2,000 meters. When a thick mantle of cloud is draped over the mountains, not only is visibility reduced to a couple of meters, but the absence of the sun also removes all shadows and contrast in the snow. Without carefully probing ahead with a ski pole, it is easy to mistake a sudden 10-meter drop for level terrain.

When the Sannine hills are free of snow, the detritus of the civil war can be found here: shallow fox holes ringed with rocks, rusted shrapnel, tarnished brass cartridge cases and coils of barbed wire. In some places, unseen beneath the surface of the stony soil are landmines, still uncleared and potentially deadly. No one should hike the area between Ayoun es-Simane and Jabal Sannine without knowing exactly where the mined areas are.

Yet landmines are not the only man-made threat facing the limestone grandeur of Sannine. A few years ago, the Sannine-Zenith project was launched with the promise of building the Middle East’s largest tourist resort on 66 square kilometers — yes, 66 square kilometers! — of Sannine’s northwestern slopes. Other than ski slopes, the project would include residential housing, hotels, cinemas, an 18-hole golf course and a helipad.

Sannine-Zenith received the green light from the government to proceed in 2004, but thankfully the project has yet to get off the ground. Not only would it destroy one of the most beautiful and remote areas left in Lebanon, it would set a precedent and risk opening up the rest of the unspoiled wilderness between Sannine and Qornet es-Sawda for more tourist site proposals.

May Sannine-Zenith remain nothing more than a set of blue prints gathering dust, leaving the mountains unsullied for those that appreciate and enjoy them.

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Iran is no China

by Gareth Smith
written by Gareth Smith

When United States President Barack Obama came to office promising engagement with Iran, American observers recalled Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to Beijing which opened the way to normalized relations with China.

In practice, “engagement” has meant two meetings in October, and Washington is no nearer to diplomatic relations with Iran. There is even a hollow ring to the Obama administration’s argument that it has encouraged Moscow and Beijing to back further United Nations sanctions over Iran’s atomic program. While last autumn’s cancelation of a US missile shield scheduled for eastern Europe has eased tension with Russia, Washington’s standing with China is falling. Notably, Beijing has not sent a senior representative to the leading powers’ discussions over Iran.

American analysts argue China’s Iran policy is based on economics, especially its thirst for Iranian oil and gas. Naturally, this is a factor. Visiting Hong Kong in January, Mohammad Nahavandian, head of Iran’s chamber of commerce, reported bilateral annual trade of $25 billion, up from $7 billion in 2004. But the Iran issue is just part of wider economic and political rivalries between Washington and Beijing. Obama’s decision to meet the Dalai Lama has alarmed China, which has long accused the exiled Tibetan leader of undermining its rule in Tibet. Further, Beijing sees Obama’s recent $6.3 billion arms sales to Taiwan — a self-ruled island over which China claims sovereignty — as a breach of a 1982 US-China agreement that such sales would “not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms” those following the thaw after Nixon’s visit.

China’s disagreement with the US over Iran focuses on its view, shared with other developing countries such as Brazil and South Africa, that international rules should apply consistently. At the Munich security conference in February, Yang Jiechi, China’s foreign minister, called for continued diplomacy between the P5+1 (the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) and Tehran. Yang said the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) gave Iran as a signatory “the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy” — a stance at odds with US, European and Israeli officials who argue Iran should not enrich uranium.

“When we talk about equality and freedom of speech,” said Yang, “we are talking…not only on an individual basis, but also on the basis of countries and democratization of international relations. One country or a few countries definitely cannot decide the future of the world.” President Obama has evaded this argument. In his State of the Union address in January, he bracketed Iran with North Korea, which has atomic weapons and is not a signatory of the NPT.

Hillary Clinton has gone further. The secretary of state said in Doha last month that the US did not “want to be engaging while they’re building their bomb.”

Such outbursts offer no basis — in Chinese and other eyes — for Obama threatening Iran with “growing consequences” if it ignores its “obligations.” Obama is sending confusing signals to Tehran. It is not even clear if “engagement” is over or not, and it’s not only Beijing that’s perplexed. An end-of-December deadline for Iran to accept the P5+1 proposal to export most of its enriched uranium in return for nuclear fuel for medical use passed without incident. But Yukiya Amano, head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said in January that dialogue was continuing. But the US has also announced the deployment of warships in the Persian Gulf and the installation of missiles in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Talk in Washington is of further sanctions. While the administration is skeptical over congressional proposals to bar from the US any companies supplying Iran with gasoline from the US, it has said it will seize assets of some affiliates of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and may go on to exclude  any companies trading with IRGC entities from the US.

Proponents of sanctions justify these measures as much by the IRGC’s role in policing demonstrations since last June’s disputed presidential election as by its part in the nuclear program. But targeting the IRGC, whose constitutional mission is to defend the Islamic Republic, seems a way to convince the authorities in Tehran — or those in Beijing — that the US wants regime change rather than engagement.

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Society

Press and proliferation

by Spencer Osberg
written by Spencer Osberg

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ (USSR) final head of state, changed the course of modern history. Among other things, he ended the Cold War and a nuclear arms race with the United States and implemented the policies of ‘glasnost’ (openness) and ‘perestroika’ (restructuring) in the USSR through the 1980s, leading to a dramatic increase in social and political freedom, an end to the state’s centralized economy and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics </p> </div> </div> <div class=

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Society

Review: What’s really wrong with the Middle East

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

There are many people in the Middle East who hold an opinion on the region’s ills, but whatever their view, very few choose introspection over finger pointing. Brian Whitaker, the former Middle East editor of The Guardian, in his new book “What’s Really Wrong With The Middle East” aims to realign the trend of shifting blame.

“The problems of the Middle East are always someone else’s fault,” writes Whitaker. “While the West blames dictators and extremists, Arabs often turn the tables, blaming centuries of foreign interference. Both sides are right, up to a point, but they both also ignore a large part of the picture.”

Education, education

The picture that Whitaker offers after interviewing “intelligent, independent minded people” (meaning not government officials or religious extremists) covers four central issues: knowledge, equal rights, secularism and citizenship. 

In surveying these four topics, Whitaker leaves no doubt that there is something deeply wrong with the region, underlining his views with a damning array of statistics.

Whitaker explains that, “Arab societies have, in the past, [balanced] science and Islam very successfully. But many of Islam’s contemporary manifestations are backward looking and anti-intellectual, while the high value placed on conformity in Arab societies is suffocating change.”

A lack of freedom is the fundamental problem that cuts through all the issues discussed in the book. Unlike the neoconservatives, Whitaker does not believe that regime change is the solution: “It is not enough simply to point to the prevalence of authoritarian regimes and imagine that whoever cuts off the monster’s head will be welcomed with flowers.”

Operation family freedom

Instead, Whitaker comes to a controversial conclusion that puts the problems of the Middle East into the homes of everyone in the region. “The regimes — even the most unpopular ones — are products of the societies they govern and to grasp the nature of the problem we have to start by looking at society’s buildings blocks.”

For Whitaker the family is the essential building block of society and he views “the Arab family as a microcosm of the Arab state.”

The book outlines the Arab family to be suffocating, patriarchal and authoritarian, and a structure, much like the Arab state, which suppresses individuality and imposes conformity. Whitaker does draw striking parallels between the family and the state but does not fully and convincingly explain his logical jump from the family as a microcosm of the state.

This is further complicated when Whitaker explores the issue of citizenship. As Egyptian journalist Khaled Diab, quoted in the book, states: “Arab regimes are more akin to those of colonial rulers than a government which has genuine roots among the people.”

It is no secret that the lifestyles of the ruling elite in the Arab world bear little resemblance to those they rule over. This gap of course is often caused by external powers propping up the various regimes in the Middle East, which is why some have called Whitaker’s argument an insult to the people of the region.

But of course this is just the kind of argument that Whitaker is trying to move away from. While not ignoring the issues of foreign interference, this book is an important call to focus on issues that are more immediate and malleable. Far from insulting the people of the region, this is a book that illustrates how people in the region can be empowered. In many ways Whitaker’s book is an important call to action, and highlights the fact that true regime change not only “starts at home,” but in everyone’s homes.

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Society

Communication of faith

by Nohad Mouawad, Zeina Loutfi & Ramsay G. Najjar
written by Nohad Mouawad, Zeina Loutfi & Ramsay G. Najjar

What comes to mind when you hear church bells ring or the call to prayer resonate across your city? These age-old holy sounds have been echoing throughout the Arab world for centuries, and are a core part of how the region’s predominant religions connect with their followers. Most people wouldn’t think of these ancient rituals as forms of noble communication, but the way that religions reach out to their audiences is very similar to a company communicating its values.

Pious PR

This idea might seem strange at first, but if we take a closer look we might find that communication and religion do go hand-in-hand, as religions must also ensure that they are understood by the general public and that their reputation is maintained and enhanced with audiences around the world, much in the same way that companies must maintain their image and highlight what they stand for.

Yet, while we see companies pulling out all the stops to ingrain the meaning behind their brands and view their corporations positively, are religions and religious institutions doing enough to enhance or correct their image and uphold their reputation? Are they engaging people and reaching out through communication to a universal audience beyond their immediate followers?

Beginning with Islam, the true voice of Islamic values seems overshadowed. Everywhere we look, groups only pretending to be Muslim are dominating the airwaves and television screens with fundamentalist and extremist messages that have no real relation to Islam’s teachings. From the Taliban recruitment videos, to websites dedicated to promoting terrorist activities, extremists have been exploiting young Arabs by using the communication channels that target them best, preying on their impressionable nature and lack of fully-formed values and faith, by swaying them with flashy but poisoned messages. Unfortunately, the damage of this “intelligent” propaganda, much like that of the extremists’ predecessors from Goebbels to McCarthy, can only be assessed when it is too late and people, especially the youth, have already been misguided.

This propaganda has been able to thrive as the “silent majority” of Muslim faithful, from religious institutions and other walks of life, are not communicating an alternative message that reflects the true essence and practices of their religion, which is both tolerant and moderate. Until the majority invests in effective, strategic communication, the propaganda of the minority extremist groups will continue to win.

But strategic communication is not only the responsibility of religious authorities, since, if we turned on our TV sets to find a moderate Muslim cleric arguing with an extremist religious leader, we might change the channel thinking that this is only an internal schism within the religion itself. This is where the role of the entire Arab community comes in, as it is in all of society’s interest to relay the true values of Islam and ensure that extremists do not succeed in distorting the image of their faith both regionally and worldwide. By joining together the voices of non governmental and civil society organizations, academic institutions and the media, along with religious organizations and even the private sector, to face down extremism, the impact of communicating true, moderate values will be much greater.

Each of these organizations can play a role in helping achieve this through a number of initiatives, such as launching media campaigns about the core values that are at the heart of religion, holding workshops to discuss the importance of religion and religious values in everyday life, or relaying these messages through reports and media interviews.

There have been some promising attempts by community organizations to communicate religious values to the youth and general public, such as a recent campaign on Arab satellite networks, showing young people helping others and being charitable, reflecting values that are at the core of Islam, as well as another campaign stating that “Terrorism has no religion.”

These activities, although on the right track, are not enough to make a lasting impact as they remain paid advertising and are not backed up by continuous and consistent messaging using a variety of channels.

Reaching out

Religious organizations have also attempted to communicate by launching satellite TV channels dedicated to religious topics. However, the main focus of these stations is purely on prayer and discussions of religious texts, devoting the majority of their programming to roundtables with religious authorities. Limiting religion to prayer and religious study can only succeed in making it more exclusive and less accessible to a wider audience, an approach which is incompatible with the concept of mass media.

Actually, religion permeates and guides every aspect of our lives, and therefore these channels should develop more well-rounded media content that touches on all areas of life and resonates with all audiences, infusing programming such as drama series, entertainment shows, children’s shows, and even game shows with religious values.

 By communicating from this new angle, religious institutions and authorities can reach one of their most important target audiences: the youth. It can provide them with an aspirational system of values that is more in line with their lifestyle.

This new approach to communicating religious values has, in fact, proven successful in the case of a Catholic nunnery in the US that tried to change its image as obscure and completely out of touch with people’s lives. It did so by opening its doors to talk show host Oprah Winfrey’s camera crews and sending two of its 20-odd nuns to be interviewed on the show about everything from faith to romantic relationships.

Engaging communication is the only way that Muslim and Christian religious communities in the Arab world can overcome the virus of exclusivity that is plaguing them and fight misperceptions about their beliefs, helping to create more understanding and tolerant societies.

This means taking a more proactive approach in keeping the true spirit of their religion alive and upholding their core values that are universal to all humanity.

Nohad Mouawad, Zeina Loutfi and Ramsay G. Najjar S2C

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