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Saturday, March 7, 2009

Brainstorm for Lebanon

Japanese corporations have a proven principle: spend 80% of your time planning, and you'll succeed. Brainstorming* is part of planning, and at the origin of every successful project. Therefore, to create an alternative kind of Lebanon, the kind that does a "leapfrog"** above the western world, we need all creative Lebanese people to brainstorm! Of course the prerequisite to an alternative Lebanon is to end the rule of the present sectarian oil-republic in Lebanon, but this brainstorm can give us a vision of what we will be free to achieve if enough of us vote for the opposition.

So, brainstorm* at will! If you're an environmentalist Lebanese, tell us how you will reforestate, if you're an urban planner, an archeologist, an agriculture expert, tell us what you would do in Lebanon if our culture suddenly became open to constructive suggestions. Imagine for a moment that you don't need to leave Lebanon to have your constructive ideas be well received, and to get support from society to achieve them.


Notes:
* A brainstorm is when we pull out of our head every possibly useful idea, to then select a few from the collected idea and act on them
** A "leapfrog" is when a developing finds a way to outdo developed countries it is trying to catch up with, in a given area.

Open letter to Virgin Atlantic

Would a Million Lebanese expatriates flying to Lebanon in May-June 2009 boost airline sales?
I have a suggestion to the airline who's CEO Sir Richard Branson is famous for its social entrepreneurship; Virgin Atlantic.
A reported 10 million Lebanese live abroad, more than twice as many as in Lebanon. Part of this Lebanese diaspora reverses itself over the summer, which this year includes one crucial date, June 7th, when a new Lebanese parliament will be elected to replace the one elected in 2005, the year when Syrian troops gradually withdrew from Lebanon. The current Lebanese parliament postponed a law that allows Lebanese people to vote from abroad, until 2013, even though most of the Lebanese live abroad. This left Lebanese expatriate with two choices, give up on having a truly representative parliament, or pay for expensive airline tickets to Lebanon by election day.
Large airlines fly about 5 to 6 million passengers per month. If 10% of the Lebanese diaspora went home for the elections, 1 million passengers will need 2-way tickets, not a far fetched number from the 750,000 who reserved their vacation for the summer of 2008 ("Lebanon elects army chief as president", msnbc, May 25th 2008), about 20% of an airline's monthly sales.
Many Lebanese residents are eager to host voters flying in for the elections and have a centuries-overdue truly democratic elections, but this does not alleviate travel costs. One organization pays for voters' tickets, but only if they vote for the current majority in power. This is election in considered election fraud, not to mention that westernized Lebanese do not appreciate this intrusion on their private choices in an election, even fro a party they do support.
As a Lebanese expatriate I support the idea of the highest number of Lebanese voters possible flying into Lebanon for the elections, regardless of whom they support. They all have equal rights to register their vote, on June 7th, 2009.
My suggestion is that Virgin Atlantic offers a discount on flights to Beirut from May 10th until 5th of June, a time period when voters can retrieve their ID card before voting on June 7. The airline would not only boost its sales, but also facilitate the first free parliamentary elections in Lebanon. The emergence of new democracies is after all a very noble social enterprise, that benefits the entire world.

What are the talking points of the tayyar (LFPM)?

Traditionally, the Lebanese joined political parties by heritage, the choice was dictated by their community. Then came along the Lebanese free patriotic movement (LFPM), known also as tayyar (which means movement in Arabic). It was formed by people who lived through events that made the choice clear: national sentiment vs. sectarianism. This idea spread intensely through word of mouth, while this movement was underground, from 1990 to 2005. Now it's an official political party, joined by people who have learned about it through one-on-one, word of mouth campaigning. The tayyar (LFPM) website of the tayyar reflects an assumption that by the time you visit their site you already have an understanding of what they stand for. This must be why the principles of the tayyar are implicit, or at least it seems that way to Lebanese abroad who are not exposed to the daily Lebanese political dialogue in the media. The problem is that if the principles of the tayyar are not explicit, in a short document online, the tayyar website is less accessible to those who have never been immersed in the daily Lebanese dialogue.

If we forgo half of our night's sleep, those of us living abroad can chat with Lebanese compatriotes every day to stay afresh on the principles of each political party's principles. This however makes me think of the rule to become a Lobster fisherman in Maine: you have to spent 1 year at the docks helping out the fisherman before they allow you to have your own license and fishing boat. This dedication is commendable, and so is the bond it creates between teammates, but this being 2009, it's just not practical. The reasonable alternative is to make the tayyar principles explicit, like for example this list of talking points posted by campaigners against the National Animal Identification System, http://www.vicfa.net/tpdc.pdf. You can be a stranger to that other cause, and still take less than 5 minutes to learn about it, and decide to support it or not. At the tayyar elections page: http://elections09.tayyar.org/ar/default.aspx, you need to already know the basics to understand and pass a judgment on the electoral program of this political party (also not readily accessible on the page).

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

When we win, what is goal #2

Since 1989, the Lebanese Patriotic Movement has nurtured in a growing majority of the Lebanese population, a national sentiment and rejection of religious segregation. The idea is to replace that with equal respect for all Lebanese. This places the members of that movement a hundred years ahead of the sectarian mafias (March 14th, and out-of-the-blue "centrists") running against it and its allies. Since the tayyar managed to achieve that, and hopefully the Lebanese voters will want to maintain this achievement, it has raised the bar for our expectations. We now want to end 4,000 years of stagnation in our culture, by engaging Lebanese talents in re-creating our society, the same talents that Lebanon has produced and driven to migrate, for millenia, without ever succeeding to attract them to stay home. The book "The Rock of Tanios" by Amin Maalouf (Goncours prize winner) is a recount of such a tale.

What made our culture, and many ancient cultures, repel its own talented people so successfully? Why did we stagnate ever since we had a golden age thousands of years ago? The reasons weren't all external, even if bullying powerful neighboring cultures might have contributed to that. There are internal reasons which I am slowly trying to understand, so we can end this stagnation. Here are a few things I noticed.
In our culture, some people are unaware of how helpful the talent of others can be to them, or perhaps they're reluctant to trust others, and out of ego I suppose try to do it all on their own. They hoard responsibilities and information to achieve this goal, and everyone collectively under-performs as a result. This is common to developing countries it seems. Maybe it's because we're an ancient cultures, and in ancient time success was the result of ruling over others. Collaboration could be a recent concept, historically speaking.

Naturally the priority of the tayyar is to first stop the government's abuse, but once that is done, we can move on to scrutinizing our culture regarding how we work together. We can make it a social goal to learn that supporting others in their work will benefit us as a society every time we do it. I heard this story about an old "opticians gang" in Lebanon that sabotages younger opticians when they open a clinic by spreading rumors about them. I contrast that with a recent meeting with an engineer and professor in the US, who proudly told me of the young student who's business he helped launch. I don't intend to generalize, but what a contrast! Ruling unchallenged versus creating talents all around us. The first motto leads to a stagnating society and the second leads to success for the person receiving support, the one giving it, and society at large.

If we teach our culture to trust and benefit from others' thinking, I can envision a very lively democracy where elected represnetatives engage the voters in every decision, no just the elections. I also envision institutes, private and public, genuinely inviting and trusting talents from the public to solve their problems. I can also picture a thriving patents' office in Lebanon yielding wildly creative technologies, and entrepreneurs and other creative people feeling supported in the Lebanese society, and encouraged to stay and serve it. These are all inexistent at the moment in Lebanon, but the movement that ended a world-supported religious segregation, might just be able to change that.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Will Lebanon have creative ideas when the world economy crashes?

A Russian engineer who predicted the economic meltdown gives his ideas of how to survive when the economy collapse:http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_16876.cfm

here's the author's blog: http://www.cluborlov.blogspot.com/

These are also good ideas for Lebanon, when the tayyar wins the elctions, and we have to re-make an economy from scratch. I wonder if the pro-oil money (Hariri) in Lebanon will read that. The oil, the money they're counting on for power is on its way to extinction. If the Lebanese society doesn't want to be crushed along with the world's economy, it cannot vote for oil puppets!

Any trees around to the luxurious lebanese buildings?

I well intentioned Lebanese developer advertised his apartments online, but forgot to notice the role the landscape plays in the value of his building. Maybe if many of us wrote him, we can influence reforestation: http://hasrounapartments.homestead.com/

Dear Lebanese developer,

It's a thrill to see Lebanese apartments advertised online, and to see Lebanese producers, and developers, expand into the international market. There's one more step though that Lebanon needs to take to fit in that market: fixing the deforestation problem. Your well designed apartments need to be surrounded by green space, not brown space, for their value to be obvious. The landscape surrounding Lebanese achievements has to be lifted to the level of these achievements, before the world can appreciate them.

The real Arabs

The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (PBS) reports on the Arabesque show
organized by the Kennedy Center. It's amazing, an organization showing a true image of Arabs, in the US!!!

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Open Letter to Virgin Atlantic

Would a Million Lebanese expatriates flying to Lebanon in May-June 2009 boost airline sales?
I have a suggestion to the airline who's CEO Sir Richard Branson is famous for his social entrepreneurship; Virgin Atlantic.
A reported 10 million Lebanese live abroad, more than twice as many as in Lebanon. Part of this Lebanese diaspora reverses itself over the summer, which this year includes one crucial date, June 7th, when a new Lebanese parliament will be elected to replace the one elected in 2005, the year when Syrian troops gradually withdrew from Lebanon. The current Lebanese parliament postponed a law that allows Lebanese people to vote from abroad, until 2013, even though most of the Lebanese live abroad. This left Lebanese expatriate with two choices, give up on having a truly representative parliament, or pay for expensive airline tickets to Lebanon by election day.
Large airlines fly about 5 to 6 million passengers per month. If 10% of the Lebanese diaspora went home for the elections, 1 million passengers will need 2-way tickets, not a far fetched number from the 750,000 who reserved their vacation for the summer of 2008 ("Lebanon elects army chief as president", msnbc, May 25th 2008), about 20% of an airline's monthly sales.
Many Lebanese residents are eager to host voters flying in for the elections and have a centuries-overdue truly democratic elections, but this does not alleviate travel costs. One organization pays for voters' tickets, but only if they vote for the current majority in power. This is election in considered election fraud, not to mention that westernized Lebanese do not appreciate this intrusion on their private choices in an election, even fro a party they do support.
As a Lebanese expatriate I support the idea of the highest number of Lebanese voters possible flying into Lebanon for the elections, regardless of whom they support. They all have equal rights to register their vote, on June 7th, 2009.
My suggestion is that Virgin Atlantic offers a discount on flights to Beirut from May 10th until 5th of June, a time period when voters can retrieve their ID card before voting on June 7. The airline would not only boost its sales, but also facilitate the first free parliamentary elections in Lebanon. The emergence of new democracies is after all a very noble social enterprise, that benefits the entire world.