Beirut never healed. It just learned to accept its predicament. Beirut, like our parents, is not resilient. It is broken.
Category: levant
Lebanon’s multiple crises also expose the racist Kafala system
on the structural components behind the racialization and dehumanization of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon
Stopping the Bisri Dam: From Local to National Contestation
The Lebanese government has decided to go ahead with the construction of a controversial dam in the Bisri Valley ignoring criticism of the project’s impact on the environment.
Memes and Collapse: An Alternative View of Lebanon’s October 17 Protests
This piece looks at some of the attempts to address this widespread feeling of inevitable collapse.
Lebanon: The Revolution Four Months In
How can an understanding of Lebanese history help us understand the situation? What can we learn from the Lebanese uprising that could inform struggles against capitalism, sectarianism, and the state worldwide?
Syrian melancholy in Lebanon’s revolution
Syrians in Lebanon have greeted the country’s uprising with a complex blend of joy, envy, melancholy, and fear.
Ghassan Halwani and the reclaiming of Lebanon’s imaginaries
How is the October 17 Revolution catalysing the reclaiming of imaginaries?
The Lebanese Revolution Must Abolish the Kafala System (Part 2)
According to Lebanon’s own intelligence agency, migrant domestic workers are dying at a rate of two per week.
Launch of new book of Syrian citizen journalism
First English-language collection of writing from revolutionary newspaper ‘Enab Baladi’
The Lebanese revolution must abolish the kafala system
The same system that we are seeking to change is abusing hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
Lebanon: A Revolution against Sectarianism
In this thorough account of the events of the past month, an on-the-ground participant describes the Lebanese uprising in detail, exploring how it has undermined patriarchal structures and transcended religious divisions to bring people together against the ruling class.
A look at the Lebanon uprising through its chants
The uprising in Lebanon has unleashed a wave of creativity that continues to rock the very foundations of Lebanese politics.
‘Assad or we burn the country: how one family’s lust for power destroyed Syria’
"A powerful new chronicle of the Syrian tragedy, based on interviews with regime insiders and rebel activists, seeks to explain the Assad government’s successful grip on power and the lengths to which it will go to maintain this."
Lebanon, our painfully ordinary country
A new book by Cambridge University's Andrew Arsan arguing Lebanon is "a microcosm of the contemporary world" successfully analyzes the country's ills, offering a helpful framework for Lebanese seeking change.
The future Palestinian present
"the Israeli state continues its war on the Palestinian past through censorship and on the Palestinian present through violence. This gives science fiction a creative potential that has yet to be truly explored: that of creating a new imaginary. “
When Palestinians, Israelis and Germans spoke about trauma in the West Bank
A recent book explores the conditions under which Palestinians and Israelis might be able to reconcile. The challenges are immense, but worth studying.
Lebanon’s “Others,” part 1: Palestinians and Syrians
Drawing on James Baldwin to explore "Othering" in Lebanon.
How a Syrian photo collective is resisting Assad’s narrative from within
"Through our stories we work hard to portray the current situation of the Syrian streets as it is, through the eyes of its people, reflecting how they feel."
Lebanon’s militarized masculinity
militarized masculinities found company in widespread discourses demonizing those who don’t fit within rigid gender binaries and sectarian/class calculations.
An idea called Daraya
This is the story of an idea called Daraya. It is the story of a sick world.
