Old fashioned news reporters are no more outraged by protests in deeply confused country
By Martin Jay (Beirut or Bust)
Published: Mon 13 Feb 2017, 8:18 PM
Last updated: Tue 14 Feb 2017, 5:06 PM
The windows in my apartment rattled so much that at one point I thought they would break. The cat darted off and hid under the bed. The noise was incredible. Was this a new Oliver Stone movie being made I wondered as I gazed up at the US-made Huey helicopter, iconisised by so many Vietnam movies? I didn't find the answer on the faces of the airman who looked down at me, sitting on the side of the chopper as it banked steeply while it performed its circular sortie of Beirut's suberbs.
The site of the low flying craft was awesome but I held back from photographing it. I remembered how recent events here in Lebanon, which most would have associated with Africa, had hardly been questioned by media. And how this tiny country was becoming a showcase once again in the Arab world - this time round not for its democratic enlightenment but for being what many might say is benchmarking itself as a country entirely bereft of any of the tenats of liberty and free speech.
Where are the journalists in this country to report on the arrests and prosecution of protestors in a military court? No, I don't mean the narcissistic columnists who double up as 'activists' who write plays about gay women, nor the racist 'hactivists' who raise money for a Syrian refugee to start a bakery only to keep hold of the money and call him a "dirty dog" in an ugly Youtube clip.
I'm talking about simple, old fashioned news reporters who are not outraged by humble folk protesting, who end up facing draconian charges by a military court.
Journalism here has really taken a dive in recent years and few proprietors of the nation's legendary names care to admit it is due to thier own egos standing in the way of allowing blood-and-guts raw journalism to flourish. Indeed, to be fired by the boss of Lebanon's An-nahar newspaper, is considered by some to be a press award in itself as the owner had a habit of only kicking out the best hacks and keeping those who humoured her delusions about the ranking of the paper.
But trivia and banality also play a role. It seems at times that the whole world has given up on journalism and has gorged itself on video clips of news anchors' breasts popping out and kittens performing (or is that 'perrr-forming?) back flips off auntie's sofa.
Lebanon is a deeply confused country which finds itself at times, ideologically in the middle of a tug of war between East and West. In the same month as stories of the military courts charging protestors, we also hear a report of a judge here ruling that homosexuality is not a crime.
I can hardly believe it. Protestors. Being charged by a military court. Even in Morocco people are allowed to protest freely in the street. Indeed, the state takes advantage of it to send in hoardes of secret police to mingle with them and snap photos of the ring leaders.
Trivia has taken up the bandwidth that journalists would normally occupy to cover such sensational stories. Yet this new style of polemisist chat show journalist in Lebanon - who tackles the more salacious subjects of dysfunctional society here - could and should cover this subject. 'Zaven', an Armenian, camp presenter who has taken taboo subjects to a new level has yet to talk about the protestors detainment. His nemesis Malek Maktabi who recently re-united a rape victim maid and her lost child 20 years later, live on air, also is staying clear of it, so far, at least.
And where is the sex-obsessed Joumana Haddad who is described as a "courageous women's rights activist", when she is not writing plays about lesbians.
Surely there's been a mistake. How can it be possible that a nation leads the entire Arab world on human rights for homosexuals but threatens to throw into jail peaceful protestors?
One hopes that President Aoun will intervene as the story is just too weird and whacky to be real although I doubt if anyone is going to write a play about the subject when you have to go to such lurid lengths just to get people to go to the theatre these days - by enticing them with vulgarity.
Aoun should take a leaf out of the books of Netanyahu and Trump. On Wednesday both men will meet and draw up a new world order for the Middle East in the Oval office. Well, that's what the press release says anyway. Probably they will talk about how to deal with Iran, Syria and Gaza. But I can't help feeling that they will also be thinking about their own legacies more than saving the region from falling on its own sword. Trump wants to "protect" Israel and to deal with the "threat" of "terrorism" from Iran. Could this not be put another way though given his extraordianry vanity and failure to grasp even the basics of the Middle East? Does he not mean he wants to build political capital with rich, powerful Jews in America, who, incidently, just so happen to run banks, media and much of Hollywood?
'Trump' is probably a movie which is already being written.
But no one understands the power of banality and trivia like him. He totally understands how social media is more powerful than sex mad journalists with curly hair. Social media became the platform for bullies and tyrants to get their messages out. The truly silly people who can't find love, or sex turn to social media and whine about it. And then get hundreds of thousand of followers from others who connect with them who would otherwise be watching youtube clips of people falling off motorcycles or news reporters walking into lamp posts. Emily Hartridge, ideally, should be given the job as Trump's Midde East uber diplomat.
She has a Youtube channel dedicated to humiliating millions of insecure men who can't date women while she justifies why she can't quite find any men to date either. This pukkah British girl has even gone as far as begging any Australian man, on SM, to date her. It's both hilarious and sad. But it would be a monstrous success in the Middle East. Yet it's also a glimpse of the future as the serious people in the world are going to employ the silly ones to deliver their messages.
The bloggersphere in Lebanon is a vibrant zone which has yet to be penetrated by government agents but has been the victim of Orwellian arrests. But there is time. I doubt if Aoun is obsessed with how film makers will portray him in years to come (unlike Trump) but he might want to think about how history will record his first 100 days in office and the protestors who are in military courts.
Right. I'm signing off. The helicopter's coming back and I don't like the looks on the faces of those men looking down at me. Perhaps it's not only Lebanese journalists who are afraid of Big Brother here in the Calais of the Middle East.
Martin Jay recently won the U.N.'s prestigious Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize (UNCA) in New York, for his journalism work in the Middle East. He is based in Beirut and can be followed at @MartinRJay
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