My Beirut Chronicles

Everyone in the West say they’re at war with terrorism. They say they want to defeat it, crush it, eradicate it, but they don’t seem to care about most of its victims.

Charlie Hebdo unity march Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

I hesitated a lot before publishing this indescribably shocking picture. But as disturbing as it may be, we don’t have the right to look away. Not anymore. When a child drifts from a country at war to the shores of a rich continent, when his lifeless lonesome body is found on a quiet beach, we have to open our eyes. Open them very wide. And understand that we have failed. We have failed as a species. We have failed as individuals. Because it happened but never should have. Not in the 21st century. Because we let it happen. Because we didn’t do anything, or so little, to stop it. There are no words. These were hard enough to find. So I leave it at that.

We are today at the prestigious International Academy Of Torture. What's the secret of its success? What does it bring to the world and to our way of life? What does it teach its students? Is torture the foundation of our civilization? The Dean of the Academy kindly accepted to answer our questions in an exclusive interview. - Good morning sir. - Good morning. - What's the secret of your success? - There is no secret so to speak. It’s a recipe, really. And I guess this recipe can be summarized in three words: torture, torture and torture. - A great recipe! - Indeed. You see, torture is the real backbone of our civilization. Without torture, the world will fall into anarchy. How can you control all those masses without moral torture, for example? How can you stop them from acting like mindless beasts? Religion is a very powerful tool for moral torture. It holds the key to your eternal life. If you don’t obey the rules set for you, you will be condemned to eternal...

Today is Good Friday for orthodox Christians. Got me thinking about crucifixion. Since the cross became the symbol of Christianity, no one really remembers the horrific torture and murder device it was. The agony of the crucified could last days before they finally died… Daesh brought back crucifixion along with many other horrors. But is Deash an Arab phenomenon? Is the so-called Islamic State the extreme expression of Arab barbarism, as we are so often told? Despite its Islamic name, nothing in Daesh’s modus operandi is "Arabic". Actually everything about it comes from western inspiration: its structure, its propaganda machine, its terrifying efficiency and its mode of recruitment. Even its self-proclaimed Caliph could have easily been called Führer…

A few weeks ago, a Lebanese ad suggested offering a Kenyan maid for mother’s day. We were all outraged. We all screamed: Lebanon is a racist country.   Two days ago, 148 Kenyan students were brutally murdered by terrorists. Amid the frightening silence of the world, we discovered that Lebanon was no exception, and that the whole planet was racist. A couple of week before, a German plane crashed in the Alps. 150 people died. All over the globe, not a politician, not a media outlet, not a Facebook post, not a tweet, failed to express shock and horror. Since that terrible day, the crash is allover the news, social media and world leaders’ speeches. We were told the names, ages and professions of the victims. We met their families. Shared their grief. We all became detectives and shrinks, analyzing every detail about the copilot that willingly crashed the plane. And the whole planet said “never again” and went on changing security measures on every plane there is.

An eighteen-century Japanese mask is the spitting image of former French president Jacques Chirac. Ironically, it represents a powerful demon called Ôbeshimi. “It’s one of the most evil demons, it claims to have the ability to threaten the human race” says Francis Saint-Genez , curator of the Georges-Labit museum in Toulouse, where the mask is stored. I’m sure that Bush, Cheney and their merry neocon band wish they knew about this when Jacques Chirac was still in office and was strongly opposing their war on Iraq.

So I’m a grumpy writer. My blog doesn’t smell of roses and jasmines. Doesn’t have fuzzy bears popping in the margins, and pink hearts flying around. When I’m not ranting about something I find revolting, I choose gloomy, gruesome topics to dwell on. I’m even accused of showering in cynicism, and complaisantly enjoying it. Why can’t I just, at least from time to time, write about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees? Could I write about birds and ignore the slaughter that’s happening in Lebanon? Every bird that passes above this country is condemned to be shot on sight. Hunting, I’m told, can be an exhilarating thing. I wouldn’t know. But I do know that waiting for a defenseless bird to pass by and shoot it down is nothing less than murder. Could I write about bees without mentioning that soon there may be no more bees to write about? That according to most scientists, their rapid disappearance is a serious threat to all life on this planet. No more bees, no...

The tragic events in Copenhagen, the murder of three Muslim students in North Carolina and the gruesome beheading of twenty-one Egyptian Christians were sadly added to the long list of tragedies since the terrorist attack on the satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo, last January. Right after this attack, a new slogan swept across the world like wildfire: “Je suis Charlie”. “I am Charlie”. In France, they’ve made some variations on the same theme: “Je suis Ahmed”, after the policeman’s name who was murdered the on same day of the Charlie Hebdo attack, and “Je suis Juif” after the hostage crisis in the kosher minimarket, “Super Casher”. Since that dreadful day, many other tragedies happened all over the world, from Saudi Arabia to Libya, from Jordan to Lebanon, from Iraq to Nigeria, from Europe to the United States.

Daesh burns and kills and rapes but who’s doing what about it? As usual, the French and the Arabs talk a lot but don’t do much. The US does a lot but always manages to achieve the opposite result of what it originally intended. The Europeans, well, besides the Brits they’re kind of absentees. And all these jolly nations are united in a Coalition aimed to destroy the so-called Islamic State. With no great results so far… Jordan did its bit though, bombed the hell out of Daesh in Syria, and claimed it destroyed in two days over 20% of the terrorist group infrastructure. If that’s really the case, one can only wonder what was the famous Coalition targeting for all these weeks of bombing.

How shall we react when confronted with the absolute horror that is Daesh?   Is spreading the images of its barbaric crimes helps to show how evil these people are, how important it is to stop them or does it serve their morbid terror propaganda? Some call for a media blackout, others advocate the opposite. People are arguing, fighting even. This shows how little prepared we all were to face such a monstrosity. How little we imagined it could actually exist in real life. Were we naïve or just oblivious of what was truly going on? And today, how can the world respond to Daesh atrocities? After the Jordanian pilot, Moaz al-Kassasbeh, was burned alive, al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam most prestigious center of learning, created a dangerous precedent by calling for the crucifixion of Daesh militants. But isn’t that an official religious approval of crucifixions? Head of al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayib , said that "this cowardly act requires the punishment mentioned in the...

Do you know how to read between the lines? Did you learn yet how to recognize the signs? For decades, mainstream media presented Saudi Arabia as “moderate”. Praising its role as a guardian of peace in the region. Suddenly, now that king Abdallah is dead, the same media talk of the many human rights violations committed in the Wahhabi kingdom. Suddenly, they discovered floggings, beheadings, and women’s dreadful condition in Saudi society… Look well, almost all these media are running more or less the same story: “beyond the praise of world leaders, the gruesome reality of the ruthless Saudi dictatorship.” Such a coincidence is never innocent. It always seem to predict the worst. It always seem to precede mayhem and war.

What can one say? Are there any words that can describe the sheer horror of a young man being flogged fifty times because he expressed his opinion on the internet like so many of us do?   Fifty times! And that was only the first round. Many more are supposed to follow. As many as one thousand lashes need. One thousand lashes! That’s the full sentence rendered by a Saudi court against Raif Badawi, a thirty-one years old blogger and father of three. If in each round he receives fifty lashes, Raif will have to endure twenty more rounds. Twenty more rounds!  How long does it take to flog someone fifty times? Few minutes, half an hour, an hour? An eternity of pain for the tortured blogger…  For what exactly? What did this young man do to deserve such a terrible and humiliating punishment? What was his crime? Did he call for the overthrow of the monarchy? Did he produce homegrown porn? Was he part of some terrorist organization? Or did he simply express his long...

What to think of regime change?  Is it a good thing? Or is it a bad thing? Some advocate it passionately, in the name of democracy. Others are more skeptical, to say the least. Even if it's often confused with revolution, regime change is not an internal affair, so to speak. It's not a genuine popular uprising against an oppressive regime, as we are led to believe, but a direct foreign intervention in the government of a sovereign nation. So, what does history tell us about regime change? If we remember some of the most notorious regime changes in the 20th century, what do we see? The sudden reign of democracy and liberty for the oppressed or the exact opposite? - Iran, 1953: the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh , was overthrown, turning the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, from "constitutional monarch" to dictator. - Guatemala, 1954: the democratically elected President, Jacobo Arbenz , was overthrown and replaced by a dictator, Car...

9/11 was perhaps the most important event in recent history. Thirteen years after the horrific and spectacular attacks, it continues to shape international politics. The magnitude of these attacks and their devastating consequences did naturally attract many conspiracy theorists. If you look-up 9/11 on the Internet, you will find all sorts of different theories, explanations, alleged proofs, etc. Some talk of the Illuminati, others of a coup d’état , and many question the official version and make a decent case against it. But did you know that 9/11 was predicted in movies? And not only in movies, but in TV series and cartoons, in comic books and even in advertising? The World Trade Center Twin Towers were a major New York landmark so it was only logical that they were featured and often “used” by moviemakers and people in the entertainment and communication industries. But the few examples you're about to discover go well beyond that.

In the early 20th century, a silly looking man leading a group of fanatical and ruthless thugs was not considered a real threat and was allowed to grow in strength and influence, despite his public calls for war, his known barbaric ideology and his megalomaniac ambitions.  Back then, many advocated much more pressing fights against much more pressing enemies, while others secretly wished him success because he was challenging communist influence in Germany. Few years later, this silly looking man and his group of fanatical and ruthless thugs plunged the world into a devastating war that killed over 60 million people. His name was Adolf Hitler. In the early 21st century, another silly looking man leading another group of fanatical and ruthless thugs was not considered a real threat and, again, was allowed to grow in strength and influence, despite his public calls for war, his known barbaric ideology and his megalomaniac ambitions. Again, many advocated much more pressing...

We are all witnessing with horror the most monstrous hordes in recent history. They cut off heads and eat hearts, they crucify in public squares, they rape children, they sell women to slavery.   They roam freely and unchallenged. They invade, they destroy, they torture, they murder. And they advertise it all. Proudly and shamelessly. They use every media available to show every atrocity they are committing.  They want the whole world to see. They want the whole world to know. To know who they are and what they are capable of. And to be afraid. Very very afraid. But what is the world doing about it? Governments are cowards, we say. Governments are their accomplices, if not worse. Perhaps. But what about us? What are we doing about it? I’m not only asking people in the Middle East. I’m asking all of us. I’m asking you who are lucky enough to live in a free society. In a society where words and actions can make a difference. A society where votes can decid...

One day, the Gaza war will end. And life will go back to normal. Or so we think.  If we look beyond Gaza, if we look at the world as its stands today, what do we see?  We curse the leaders of the so-called West because they support barbaric wars in Palestine, in Syria, in Iraq…  But what is the alternative? Realistically speaking?  If these leaders get reelected, they’ll pursue the same despicable overall policy. If they loose the next elections, the ones who will replace them will do pretty much the same thing, if not worse. What are the alternatives to Obama? The likes of Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin?  What are the alternatives to François Hollande? The likes of Sarkozy or Le Pen? What’s the alternative to Netanyahu if not the likes of Shimon Peres? What’s the alternative to Assad and Iran if not Daesh?  What’s the alternative to Daesh if not Assad and Iran? And in a wider perspective, what’s the alternative to the West, if not...