Anger has been wrapping its gummy tentacles around me lately, stroking and pinching and squeezing my soft bones, tempting my patience. It was just a fresh random typewriter, a Smith-Corona, brown and cream, strangely resting on the sidewalk. It had a dream-like quality sitting so comfortably and haphazardly placed, at a slight angle to the curb. I looked left and up and to the side, making sure there were no eyes. Gingerly, I placed it under the green dumpster, nearby. Tucking it out of sight with a few foot taps. And carried on toward the corniche for my morning laps.

I returned and dumped my head upside down, eyes peering where I had hidden my lost and found.  It was no longer there. Turning around, my face surely appearing distressed, I found the usual few men sitting in chairs, just behind a fence. I ran up to them, like a child who had lost her dog, where oh where has my typewriter gone? They waved me over with a few smirks and one man stood, as the Chief Clerk.  He came toward me and spoke in Egyptian, it’s right over there, his long-ashed cigarette pointed. I turned around and saw the typewriter, golden and glowing, on a table under a tin shelter. That’s mine! I yelled. I put it under the dumpster, it’s mine! No, no, I swear by your eyes, the tall one said. It is mine, for I saved it from a man who tried to make away with it. I paid him twenty thousand pounds. I swear by your eyes. No, that’s not what happened! Yes, now give me twenty thousand pounds, and you can have it! But it’s mine! And I walked away, with my head down. Perhaps I could inspire pity in them. No one yelled.

I walked toward home and the tentacles pinched and grew ever tighter while my arms flailed and punched the air. These men they didn’t care, they just wanted to be paid. I didn’t like it, not at all! They held the typewriter for ransom – found it under a dumpster, and now wanted to sell it. Typical typical! I said to myself. Nothing mattered more than those tender paper bills. The face is always a man, telling me, at BHV, yes, this DVD player plays any DVD! (Not a one). At Liban Post, that package will make it to the U.S. in 10 days! (6 months after my mom’s birthday, nothing). A friend of a friend, renting my apartment for the summer: I will leave it better than when you left it! (1 million LL in electricity later…).  T-mobile! T-mobile! “Automatically debiting” from my bank account, months after cancellation! (non-human human voice: We-are-sorry. We-cannot-do-anything…). And there have been more, many more men who’ve crawled under my skin, but I let all this go, it could be worse, much worse!

But now, they were dangling the prize for a price. And it was time for some face to face.  I steamed on my way up, and back and forth on my apartment’s parquet and all the way back down the elevator, and down the hill back to those typewriter thieves. I would go back and settle a deal. He wanted 20 thousand? I would give him half.

I clutched a yellow bill – a 10 thousand in my hand. And stopped in my tracks at the sight of one of the men hunched over and pressing the typewriter’s buttons, and dinging its carriage. Another came along and said, We saved it from the garbage men! Here’s 10 thousand, I said. OK, and they handed it over. The Chief said, look, this button here is the only one that needs to be fixed. Don’t let anyone trick you and tell you it needs more…it’s just this button. Shukrun! I yelled and lugged her home.

I placed her on my dining table and pressed and slipped into it a piece of paper. I clicked and clicked and no response. I turned it around and found it was a bit advanced. Not a normal click-click writer. It was electronic and it needed a wire.

The moral of the story?

Pessoptimist: Coined by Emile Habiby in his book The Secret Life of Saeed, the Pessoptimist. Saeed, a Palestinian in Israel could not decide which exactly he was:

Take me, for example. I don’t differentiate between optimism and pessimism and am quite at a loss to which of the two characterizes me. When I awake each morning I thank the Lord he did not take my soul during the night. If harm befalls me during the day, I thank Him it was no worse. So which am I, a pessimist or an optimist?

When I found out that I won a job at AUB and would be moving to Lebanon, it was on the morning of a lovely sunny Chicago day, and the last day of the semester. It was an e-mail: “We are pleased to inform you…” It invoked in me an ephemeral feeling of utter joy. What had been a sort of fantasy for me – teaching at this prestigious university in the motherland – would be real, and the actuality of this fantasy in light of my pessimism and doubt was the main reason for this joy.

As I anticipated, the joy dissipated into a deluge of anxiety. It was soon after I had confirmed my acceptance of the position when we were driving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for my brother’s graduation. I began placing objects and memories into my new future context. In jest, I said about an old service-style Mercedes that drove by: “I’m gonna buy one of those when I get to Lebanon.” My parents, who were excited about my move to their balad, laughed. But then my dad, being an avid LBC viewer, broke the news, “It hasn’t been calm there these last two days.” The war in Nahr el Bared had begun.

And I begun making my phone calls, chats, and e-mails to my Lebanese family members and friends. They assured me that the fighting was isolated and it’s far and that life was “normal.” That one couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary – everyone was going to work and all. Furthermore, everyone was “against” this loose terrorist faction. On the morning of my departure, aunts and uncles came to say goodbye. As I had become obsessed with the news, I ran up to check the latest to find the headlines. The war was over! Hooray! The army had seized control of the camp! At the time, my knowledge was limited to what I read in the news, which was never critical of the operation. From my vantage point, the Lebanese army had defeated these terrorist elements, and taking down the entire Palestinian camp was just a necessary evil in the process. And I would have fewer terrorists to fear. It was that simple.

On my second day in Lebanon I took part in a parade in Sassine Square celebrating the army’s victory over the terrorists in Nahr el Bared. Everyone raised her flag for the army in praise of their “success” – it had been awhile. Having just hatched from my Lebanese shell, I might as well have been perched on top of a cedar tree, crunching on kri-kri nuts holding a round of cards in one hand and a peace sign with the other; I might as well have been whistling the national anthem too. My national pride was at a peak, and no person, street, or tree was beyond my adoration or cradling arms.

This was also the year, 2007, that Lebanon would experience a presidential vacancy for months. The night in November when Emile Lahoud left Baabda palace without a replacement, I was in a local ex-pat pub during its weekly Friday happy hour. There was a buzz about the impending vacancy. But the only person who seemed fazed was a man who warned us to buy milk, as all hell was about to break loose at midnight – Cinderella Lahoud was leaving and there was no glass slipper in sight. But I was perched at the bar with a student who I escorted there to conduct her primary research on Lebanon’s inhabitants’ “mysterious love for Lebanon” despite all the bloody trouble. All of the white-skinned drinkers boisterously praised the food, the hospitality, the kind people, the liveliness, the feeling of feeling alive. The presidential vacancy, the random bombs, the recent war in Nahr el Bared nor the obstructive tent city had deterred the ex-pats who could live anywhere of their choosing, but chose Beirut. And my student, a Lebanese who had lived in Saudi Arabia for most of her life, excitedly took notes, sighing with intoxication from the energy, that everyone could be so jubilant and careless in the face of so much stress. We lifted our huge mugs of Almaza and clinked them, none-the-wiser.

In the meantime, the tent city erected by the March 8 opposition party was alive and well in the downtown center. The tent city looked like a littered village, full of men pulling on their hookahs. They were not budging until their demands were met. Everyone had an opinion on the situation and they ranged from spitting disgust to fiery revolutionary cause.

Then came the May 7, 2008 events when Hezbollah militiamen and others and their guns took the streets of Beirut in protest of the government’s proposed decision to remove Hezbollah’s telecommunications network and resign the airport’s head of security after finding surveillance cameras there set up by Hezbollah. I was in De Prague Café in Hamra when the first shots in Hamra were spent. We spent the rest of the night in the café, drinking rose and eating, digesting our anxiety. When I and others were finally able to take the streets the following morning, escorted by De Prague managers, who apparently had “friends” out there, I arrived to my apartment where the fighting reignited. Militiamen came into the apartment building; they thought we were harboring a sniper. My neighbors, who were all hiding in the basement of the building, in between workout equipment, thought it was the “end” when they saw the barrels of the guns first, even before the tall men who followed. I was in the bathroom at the time.

After the gunpowder settled, my grandfather charged through the door and whisked me out of Hamra, southbound. I spent the rest of the week in the village where people played cards and drank beer, and fussed over the situation. I understood why many people say, “The days during the war were the best.” It was a time when people could be close and coop up without guilt and argue and eat lots of chips. And my story of being stuck in the bathroom when the militiamen came in was told over and over. My uncle said that was worse than their stories during the war because it was so invasive. Ironically, I did not think it was such a story. I would tell it while I laughed, sure that everyone around me had suffered much, much worse.

Then came Doha. After about 9 days of fighting, that had spread throughout areas of Lebanon and left hundreds killed, the Lebanese politicians put their suits on and hopped in a plane to Doha, Qatar. This materialized into the Doha Agreement (Details: Blogging Beirut). On my way to university, the news filtered out from the open door of a taxi driver’s car. We had a president! The tent city collapsed! The restaurants downtown opened over night and the celebrations began! I went to one of these restaurants and shook Fouad Siniora’s hand. Haifa and Majida el Roumi took the outdoor stages, and I went. I sang in the crowd with Majida el Roumi, and I felt a rush of excitement and joy that we had a president and the tent city would be no more. In the same Hollywood happy ending fashion, Sarkozy called the Doha Agreement a “great success for Lebanon and all the Lebanese, whose courage and patience never failed despite the ordeals they have been through.”

As a result, the summer ushered in new store fronts, pubs, and restaurants, and hundreds of thousands of visitors. One year later, we had relatively fair and successful democratic elections. And this week, about 6 months after those Lebanese politicians were elected, a government has finally been formed (Details: Qifa Nibka). The politicians have reached compromise. And today, Hariri presided over the first meeting at the Grand Serail. This is relatively good news. But, as for me, I know a few things now. I think I’ve joined many in becoming an “alternative” pessoptimist; even though I’ll admit it could have been worse, I am not praising god, and I am certainly not celebrating.

For an interesting point of view on a self-proclaimed pessoptimist at the following blog: “Informed Comment: Global Affairs”

The following is a letter I wrote to the faculty of AUB regarding our non-existent policies to counter  the rampant copyright infringements that occur under our noses, literally, as students sit in their seats with photocopied books wide open. Despite copyright laws in Lebanon, this practice is “normal” and prevalent in copy centers/book stores throughout the country. So what happens is that a $50 book is happily bought for a fraction of the price in a nicely bound photocopied version. In light of Beirut being UNESCO’s “World Book Capital” (April 2009 – 2010), as well as the English Department’s recent experience of being denied more than one textbook from publishers (presumably because of low book sales at AUB/English Dept), I decided to voice my longtime opinion on this subject to garner action.  The result: Most of the response from faculty members was less than stellar and often less than polite. I will keep the rest of my opinions to myself. But the responses have inspired many questions: Why are faculty members complacent on this issue? Why are faculty members so defensive when confronted with the issue? What is there to lose if there were a policy instated? What are we fighting (is there an agenda?) by not having a policy? etc.

In any case, I am optimistic that at least starting the conversation has planted a seed. (And, optimistic, as I have had many sensible conversations with faculty members about this…)

Official Site: http://www.beirutworldbookcapital.com/?lang=en

I will update as responses come in…and there are definitely more to come…

________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Colleagues,

Beirut is this year’s UNESCO World Book Capital. Let’s be real – there is ethical need for a name change; how about World Book Slum, where dressed up books dare not enter for fear of being ripped off.

Recently, in the English Department, we found out how sharply the slack copyright laws in this land are affecting our classrooms. In the spring, the English Communication Skills instructors deliberated over choosing a rhetoric book for our 203 and 204 English courses, which are required for almost every single matriculating AUB student. We selected from our few choices and we put in our request to the publisher, only to find out later – and at the last second – that we (Lebanon? AUB?) is on the book black list: no books for us! To add insult to injury, the previous book we had been using for two years was suddenly restricted entry by the publisher as well, probably because only approximately 10% of our students ever bought the original. Why should they when they can get a photocopied version for a fraction of the price?

We cannot wait for our on-again-off-again government to initiate control over copyright infringements, an issue whose effects are probably further reaching than their awareness. As a university, we have been seriously remiss in setting an example for students and instilling respect for books – and laws, for that matter. I do not think it is impossible to reverse this type of thinking: It’s okay to carry a $600 iPhone but unthinkable to buy a $50 book. In the past year, I have required my classes to purchase original books, and not without discussion. Sure enough, by week two of the semester, they all had an original book and they knew why. In addition, a fellow colleague who worked at Koc University in Istanbul witnessed similar problems until university policy was instated and commitment made to the publisher that all textbooks in the university would be original. After a few years of proving their seriousness, departments were readily provided with desk copies from publishers, resources became more abundant across the university, and even the Intensive English program was provided with free Corpus dictionaries for faculty and students.

As a university, we have been lazy and guilty participants in a hypocritical stance toward the value of the written word and the books that carry them. While upon entry to the university every student is obliged to take a horrid plagiarism test over and over until they pass, we are meters away from Malik’s bookstore, who would copy its soul and sell that if it could.

Our negligence on this issue is costing us and our students knowledge and valuable education. Our students are at one of the top American universities in the Middle East, which cannot even order an English textbook! The bottom line is this: As a university, we should have strict rules about requiring original books. Other universities in the area, such as LAU, have done so already. We should make it our business to bring this issue to the forefront and install strict policies; to encourage local universities to follow suit; to put pressure on places like Malik’s and eventually the government; and to educate our students on the effects of copyright infringements.

I do not see a better time than now – halfway through our term as the “Capital” and as street structures in honor of this title are being erected – to begin this process.

Thank you for taking the time to read. I hope together we can make progress on this urgent issue.

Sincerely…

________________________________________________________________________________

The following are the responses from (a fraction of ) AUB faculty who received the e-mail. I’ve left out their names.

1) Dear Rima

>> Yes indeed copyright infringements is serious but the issue you
>> emotionally raise in not that simple and accusing AUB faculty of  being
>> “lazy and guilty participants in a hypocritical stance toward the value
>> of the written word and the books that carry them” is going too far.
>> Some textbooks are outrageously priced and while few of my students can
>> afford to buy them, many cannot. Few of my students, if any (I don’t
>> usually examine the material worth of my students), carry $600 iPhones.
>>
>> I have often written to publishers advising them to reduce the price of
>> textbooks I am using so that my students do not have to resort to
>> photocopying (Several have responded favorably). When it comes to
>> textbooks and medicine royalty rights need to take into account the
>> income level of the end users.

______________________________________________________
2) I hate to jump in because I have had little experience with the problems
addressed in Rima’s initial email, but I did want to suggest that Lebanon,
like India (where I taught last year), has a serious problem with customs.
This is perhaps why sites like Amazon aren’t available here, or are
available through third party distributors–often taking a great deal of
time and adding additional costs to the purchase of books. Copyright
infringement is something I personally feel strongly about, but I often use
online resources when I find other books or resources unavailable. I have
been using the library database for particular articles in pdf form that I’m
able to upload to moodle. This form of dissemination seems ethically fine to
me, as these articles are already available, and paid for, through our
library. I know this doesn’t address Rima’s particular concerns regarding
textbooks, but customs could be a component behind the difficulty of getting
books here, and getting them on time. Just a thought –

________________________________________________________

3) I think your point is fair that publishers should reduce book prices. Perhaps this can be part of the process that I am “emotionally” proposing. However, you lobbying for lower prices on your own is not enough.  In any case, I do not buy the argument that AUB students cannot afford these books. And even if they are overpriced, it doesn’t mean we simply resort to photocopying. Anyway, with the way things are going, it looks like we eventually won’t have anything to photocopy! While online sources are great, we cannot be limited to them.

The attitude of blaming the other side is typical. We need to do something together.

Rima

_______________________________________________________

4) I don’t accept this emotional essay lecturing us on ethics and accusing us of being “lazy and guilty participants in a hypocritical stance toward the value of the written word and the books that carry them.”

[The first response writer's] reply is exactly what I had in mind!

_____________________________________________________________

5) Unfortunately for such a problem I believe that AUB cannot do much beyond
instilling in the students’ minds the importance of copyright protection and
the ethical ramifications of copying a $100 USD book for 5000 L.L. If some
students would rather spend their money on a  cell phone or a 4 wheel drive
rather than a book, this is their choice and there is little we can do about
it. Also in this day and age, in some disciplines students (like in the
health sciences to which I belong) are led to believe that books are always
outdated and it is better to use electronic databases to get the latest
information.
I think policy at the level of the country, which is always a challenge,
needs to address the issue and get implemented. Malik is not the only one
that photocopies whole books; other places can get you any book that you
want photocopied. This practice must be banned altogether, but can we?
As for AUB, I do not know if the administration can communicate with
publishers to get a lower rate for our students.

____________________________________________________

>6) To [first response],
> Perhaps your students are a skewed representation of the student body
> at large, because AUB statistics
> (http://www.aub.edu.lb/faid/Pages/faq.aspx) show that 60% of all AUB
> undergraduate students receive no financial aid from the university,
> while the remaining 40% receive, on average, $3,523, with grants
> ranging from a few hundred dollars to a full tuition waiver. Given
> these statistics, it seems odd that only “few of [your] students can
> afford” to buy books, while most can afford school without financial
> aid. But again, perhaps your students are for one reason or another
> unrepresentative of the student body at large.
>
> Generally speaking (and especially compared to Lebanese society at
> large), the “end users,” seem to be doing all right. Anecdotally, in
> conversations with my students, most have told me that they can afford
> books but don’t see the point or value in buying them — they would
> rather spend that money on something else.
>
> But for those who can’t afford books, perhaps a simple solution to that
> would be for the financial aid department to start offering a book
> allowance to students who qualify for need-based financial aid, a
> common enough practice in other universities.
>
> Once we’ve made sure that everyone who can’t afford the books can get
> them through this allowance, it seems that a university-wide policy on
> using original books would make sense. Given that you have had such
> success in reducing the price of some of your textbooks in the past, it
> stands to reason that the university would collectively have even more
> success, representing considerably more leverage. Once students are
> obliged to buy the books, there will be considerably more used books to
> then be sold at the book store.
>
> As Rima has pointed out, this question is no longer a theoretical one.
> However we might feel about intellectual property rights, the rampant
> copyright infringement that routinely goes on here is starting to have
> concrete consequences that negatively affect our ability to do our
> jobs. Desk copies become fewer and further between, and in some cases
> publishers refuse to do business with AUB at all. It seems obvious to
> me that something needs to be done to remedy the problem, and if you or
> others have alternative constructive solutions, I for one am all ears.

___________________________________________________

7) I don’t normally respond to the AUB list emails, but feel compelled to
do so on this occasion in part because in the past I have researched the
area of intellectual property (IP) policies in developing countries;
and because there is clear (and hopefully not deliberate) obfuscation
coming from some faculty members (surprisingly in the English
department).

Rather than hectoring AUB faculty for being “irresponsible,” or writing
general statements without sufficient knowledge about the many debates
within the field of IP policy, it would be better to recognize that
there is plenty of controversy and gray zones with regards to the
merits and problems in all areas of IP (including copyrights and
patents). This is hardly a subject area that one can just write a good
vs evil essay, as some seem to be suggesting with their rhetoric about
‘taking stands’ on ‘moral’  issues. This is not simply a moral issue,
but a political one.

To suggest that “We cannot wait for our on-again-off-again
government to initiate  control over copyright infringements, an issue
whose effects are probably  further reaching than their awareness. As
a university, we have been  seriously remiss in setting an example for
students and instilling respect for books -and laws,” is really to
show an incredible lack of nuance on the highly politicized nature of
IP throughout the world (let alone Lebanon), the role of power, and
the role that we professors play in policing our students.

Are you aware, for instance, that Lebanon actually has an entire police unit
dedicated to nothing but going after small shop keepers who infringe
on copyright laws? Do you know that Lebanon has judges specifically
trained in the US to prosecute these same people? Do you know that
these are all US-funded projects that form part of the basket of
pre-requisitesbefore Lebanon is allowed to join the WTO? Do you really think that
the Lebanese authorities have conducted rigorous analyses of who gains and
loses when a country such as Lebanon strictly adheres to IP laws and
policies? Would it surprise you to know that the poorer and more
vulnerable communities are the ones more likely to suffer from such law enforcement?

Are you aware that the USA was the leading IP thief during its rise to
industrial power in the 19th C, they used to send spies to UK
factories to steal and copy technologies? Same thing with Korea and
many “Asian Tigers” in the post WWII era? The trend has always been
that countries infringe on IP laws until they become industrialized
and then they turn to wanting to protect these IPs as they have an actual interest to do so.

In Lebanon, Levant has a monopoly on purchase of and distribution of
many books and magazines: is this also the professor’s fault? Do you
think I should compel my international relations students to buy, for
example, the Foreign Affairs journal, which costs as low as $18 for a
year’s subscription in the USA (including use of its online databases)
and here Levant insists on pricing it at about LL 20,000 per copy? Do you
thinks its perfectly reasonable to require purchase of, say, a DVD
that costs a huge company 25 cents to produce at a cost of $25?
Shouldn’t we differentiate in our moral vigor between products
produced by small companies or  local artists, and those produced by
huge corporations that are making massive profits on prices that are
simply ridiculous? Is it really so black and white?

I do not mean to suggest that we should be encouraging students to
defy IP laws, not at all. Nor I am denying that some AUB students who
can afford to buy original books choose not do so (of course they do).

But I think the minimum we can do as  professors is to recognize that such matters are deeply contested  politically, intellectually, andmorally; and thus to avoid sweeping generalizations and moral sermons.

In short, lets not pretend that one can somehow separate the enforcement of copyright laws among AUB
students from the larger political, policy, and power issues in society.

In any case, to suggest that professors, on top of everything, have to
“educate our students about copyright infringement” (Orwell would be
proud of such language), police their students and open their book
bags to find out if they
have original textbooks is really taking things too far. Would you
suggest that, if I were to catch a student with a photocopied book, I
should call the police or lecture him or her about the virtues of
being a law-abiding citizen? Should we limit this only to copyright?
Why not also do the same to students who are unnecessarily loud (my
own pet peeve), or who use plastic bags which is bad for the
environment? What about those who use cars to come to AUB rather than
bike? Things must have really changed since I was an English major as
an undergraduate student (in the US) and English departments were
considered to be progressive rather than conservative hotspots!

The solution here is thus to separate the two issues at hand, one
moral the other practical. Lets do away with the sermons about how
good IP is for everyone and the call to policing our students; and
rather focus on finding a win-win solutions. The suggestion by Sean to
supplement students’ financial aid with money (or credit) to purchase
original books is a good, practical one. Another one is to have AUB
negotiate more reasonable prices for textbooks/DVDs/Software with key
publishers/companies. Another would be for the English department to
move away from using textbooks and focus on essays.

Finally, I would be remiss I did not at least mention to UNESCO ‘world
book capital’ remarks. Reducing UNESCO’s great heritage in cultural
and educational programs to the erection of silly monuments in this
city and enforcing copyright laws is to gravely misunderstand the
whole point of UNESCO.

____________________________________________________

8) Dear All,
First of all, I fail to see exactly what is wrong with “feeling”
strongly about an issue which is seriously hindering the performance
of our jobs as educators. It is calculated logic which precisely leads
our students to do the simple math, compare the price of the original
book and that of the copied, and then decide that they’d be doing the
smart thing by buying a copied version, thwarting all internationally
acclaimed intellectual property rights.
And, let’s just remember that it is the cold calculation of how to
increase bank accounts which has lead to the destruction of the
planet, and this is no emotional rant.

I also wonder whether our faculty members would be all too happy to
see their own publications, products of hard work and extensive
research, being copied,  and thus seeing their own intellectual
property being stolen.

Copyright infringements reflects a dangerous Lebanese attitude which
by being lenient towards we are only nurturing: the attitude that you
can break the rules and get away with it, that it’s OK not to
acknowledge the rights of the “other”. Obviously, the message which
our students are only too aware of is that one can get away with doing
anything in this country, no questions asked.

___________________________________________________

9) I’m really glad you have brought up this issue. The publisher refused
to ship the textbook I assigned for my class this fall. It seemed to
me that the only way to proceed was to tolerate and even unofficially
encourage illegal copies.

However, with respect to the debate, whether or not students can
afford to buy the books is irrelevant. The relevant question is what a
university-wide policy of using original books would accomplish, and
what exact form it would take. I don’t think that it possible in
practice to enforce a prohibition on illegal copying. I’m not even
convinced that successful prohibition really promote cooperation from
publishers.

__________________________________________________

10) I don’t either…But here’s just a vignette to ponder upon.
I wrote part of a medical book (by US publisher). It took me more than a
year to complete. I get a very modest royalty on each book sold ($1). [Of
course, the publisher makes >20x that]. My own medical students love the
book and they all own it but they have purchased the pirated copy
(apparently produced in a neighboring country). I am denied the royalty (and
the publisher is also shortchanged) but someone else, who is stealing and is
totally undeserving, is profiting from our students.

_____________________________________________________

11) Copyright is akin to censorship, it being the right to prevent others from distributing the work. Respect for the written word is something else.

US Code from http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000302—-000-.html
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000302—-000-.html> TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 3 > § 302. Duration of copyright: Works created on or after January 1, 1978
(a) In General.­ Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death.

__________________________________________________________

12) Indeed, it is a process of building academic practices and values
for/with our students. Something like a person who boycotts a certain
company or cafe, for instance, because of its unethical foreign
policy. If I were such person, I’d know that the dollar or two that I
do not spend at this place may not turn its financial status upside
down, but at the end of the day, I am building certain values for
myself. In the same light, and as educators, I’d like to hope that the
policies we forward to our students are based on certain academic
values and practices.

_____________________________________________________

13) Dear colleagues,

It is facile to dismiss, as an emotional rant, Rima?s argument and
call for action regarding the prohibition of photocopied books in our
classrooms.

Rima?s argument is also trivialized when she?s told that the political
dimension of the issue she raises takes precedence over such
?practical? matters as choosing a textbook for one?s class.

The re-presentation of the issue in its political dimension has the
taste of a post-hoc rationalization.  Do we, at AUB, allow our
students to use photocopied books to fight against high textbook
prices imposed by the publishers/ distributors on the end user?  Are
we really doing it to take a political stance against unfair
intellectual property laws?  Are our students photocopying their
textbooks in protest, for the same suggested reasons?  In reality the
practice of using photocopied materials instead of original materials
for teaching has been going on for a long time; it predates
distributor monopolies, textbook outrageous price increases, as well
as our attempts at adhering to intellectual property laws.  Many of us
have been turning a blind eye to it simply because we can.  Perhaps it
is time for us to stop being complacent about it.

In fact, the problem is real: publishers are restricting our access
and our students? access to important tools for teaching/learning.
These restrictions, some of us (not only in the English Department)
think, are having a negative effect on our teaching.  Unfortunately,
the solution is not as simple as using essays instead of textbooks
(did you know that some essays have copyright fees going up to $500?);
nor can the solution be left up to each individual faculty member.
Before Rima can move to action, she needs the support of the
institution; hence, her message to the faculty list.

________________________________________________

14) [To response #7]

I’m not responding to this on the faculty list, because I don’t think
it really advances the discussion of the actual issue at hand: what
AUB’s policy is on photocopied books.

But I am responding, because I think there are a few points in your
message that should be addressed.

1. The Foreign Affairs example is a particularly poor one, since Jafet
subscribes to that journal, so unless you’re expecting them to read
every issue from cover to cover, you and your students are free to go
to the library and photocopy articles from that publication within the
bounds of fair use. A more apt example would be, for example, our
colleague Farid al-Khazen’s book on the breakdown of the state in
Lebanon, which is published by Harvard and lists at $71. (There are
plenty of other examples, especially from British publishers — IB
Tauris comes to mind.) Should students be expected to buy it at that
price? I don’t know, but I imagine that he might have an opinion or
two on the matter.

2. Your moralizing and generalizing is particularly unfortunate in an
email where you’re accusing our colleague Rima of “sweeping
generalizations and moral sermons.” Our department is a “conservative
hotspot”? Really? I teach in this department, and I would be hard
pressed to make such a gross characterization about the
progressiveness or conservatism of my dozens of colleagues. It’s
unfortunate that you’ve spent so much time impugning Rima and
ascribing to her Orwellian designs instead of engaging more on the
actual issue at hand. That sort of thing is frankly neither helpful
nor accurate,a nd I hope we can move past it.

3. The idea of not using textbooks and moving towards only using
essays is a possibility. It would presumably also affect many other
departments including your own. However, in my experience, it’s not
just the expensive textbooks that are being copied, but also paperback
novels that only cost $10-$15. (Students taking CS courses seem
particularly prone to this.) Also, this would preclude assigning
longer works in their entirety, which doesn’t affect the composition
courses so much but would be a big deal for many other classes in the
department.

4. As someone who spent several years working closely with (often in
the same office as) UNESCO’s copyright division, I can safely say that
copyright is an important part of the organization’s mandate. I would
remind you that the full name given to April 23, the day when the
world book capital’s mandate begins, is actually “World Book and
Copyright Day.” In fact, the Universal Copyright Convention was
drafted under UNESCO back in 1952.

I don’t claim to be a scholar of intellectual property law, and I
actually have very ambivalent feelings about copyright in general. In
certain cases and in certain contexts, I have a lot of sympathy for
the disregard of copyright. As you said, there’s a lot of grey area
there. But we’re not making internationl or even national policy here,
we’re making a decision about our students and the books we assign
them to read.

As it happens, in this case, I’m inclined to think that copyright
should be respected. My personal opinion on the matter, however, is
beside the point. The point is that as an institution, I feel that AUB
should make a decision one way or the other. Either photocopied books
are ok at AUB, or they’re not. In either case, we should be aware of
the consequences of such a decision, the most obvious and immediate of
which include being blacklisted by some publishers and not being able
to acquire certain books and higher book prices for students.

I think that Rima’s message got the ball rolling in that we are having
this discussion. I think that’s important. The question, then, is
where to now? If there’s a debate for and against the photocopied
books, it should be had. And AUB as an institution should try to draw
some conclusions from that discussion and act accordingly. At the end
of the day, though, what we have is a status quo that makes a policy
without actually stating it.

Perhaps a public debate on the issue would be helpful.

__________________________________________________

15) I also teach writing and composition, like Rima, and I, too, have been
extremely frustrated by the situation with textbooks for our students.  It
is hard for me to separate the political/moral from the practical issues
here.  In terms of intellectual property and current copyright law, there
are the inequities you [respondent #7] mention, (in a bit of a moralizing, sermonizing,
condescending tone, I might note).  On the other hand, I consider it to be
an injustice, a very immediate one, when our students are prevented from
accessing the huge range of rich resources that my students in the US had so
easily available to them.

We find ourselves in a vicious cycle.  If the bookstore orders texts for all
of my students, they get stuck with a huge stock that nobody buys, because
students go for the photocopies.  (One semester I ordered 450 books for one
course, and two semesters later, the bookstore had sold 36 of them.)  The
photocopy issue has been restricting the number of books the bookstore
can/will purchase, and now, apparently, new legal policies are further
restricting the books I am even able to order.  (Or photocopy, for that
matter.)  The way things are shaping up, I would say that options for me and
my students are shrinking, the local photocopy shops are raking in the
profits, and intellectual property policies seem to be getting worse, not
fairer.

The 2,000 students we teach every semester in our program really do need to
have, and deserve to have, excellent textbooks.  Giving them “articles” won’t
cut it when it comes to the complexities of many subjects.  Most teaching
faculty simply don’t have time to assemble an excellent set of teaching
materials for every course, every semester, and in any case, they aren’t
really being paid for a huge extra project like that, especially if they are
part-time instructors.    In fact, we have already edited a custom published
reader that at least brings together essays that are relevant reading for
students in our educational context (addressing the problem of
America-centric themes and readings in most commonly available books), and
that was a big, time-consuming project.  But if we were to compose really
good texts for most of the things students need to know, that would be an
even larger project, and I’m not sure it would be any cheaper for the
students.  And again, how would that really do anything to change the IP
situation?  If there is a good textbook out there that will do the job, I
want my students to have it.

The questions of intellectual property and copyright infringement are
problematic and complex, but they need to be dealt with on the level of a
legal/intellectual debate and political negotiation, and hopefully on an
academic level, too–in classroom discussions, for example.  You can’t
really think that when students buy photocopied texts, the important
questions of intellectual property and copyright infringement are being
contested in a meaningful way.  Do you?  And yes, I do think we can
responsibly take a stance, and ask students to buy original texts, without
“policing” them, as you suggest, especially if we have means to support
students who can’t afford the books, and of making used books available.

In 1979, I was born in Peoria, Illinois and my father had a favorite song. The lyrics went like this, “Oh Mandy, you came and you gave without taking…” (you can hear it here: mandy). My father’s fondness for the song inspired the choice name of his firstborn. That is, until my parents realized then their firstborn would share her name with her uncle’s dog – another Mandy. Any sentimentality or romantic fervor for the name became inconsequential as long as that dog had what became my runner-up name. Deliberation became urgent, until another sentimentality occurred to my parents – why don’t they name their little girl after the person who set them up? My father’s sister, Sr. Rima.

At that time, nuns in Lebanon had the utmost respect of the community, for they were of the few trusted entities that served its members in times of serious need.  Although sternly and conservatively, they ran the “best” schools and held the convent doors open through every war or “event.” Now, even while clamping to the convent doors in their high heels, you hear people complain about how “pampered” and picky the nuns are. How mean they are in class. And how the nuns “only like the best food.” These words spoken by men and women who have at least one maid in the house serving them glasses of water and crystal dripping from their ceilings. However, I say if they are a little pampered with good food, cleanliness, or favors, I don’t see that as a huge payment for their sacrifices.  Anyway, this specific class of people claims, “at the nuns” it remains better than elsewhere.

Nuns have a bad reputation. But, I have been a visitor to their home, the convent, on several occasions. You will not leave without a pleasant meal and peaceful surroundings. You will hear stories from wise faces and they will listen to your problems. And thoughtfully respond. They will give you their best because that is what is selfless. The small joys in life, they relish. They are each other’s family, and so is anyone who walks in. My Polish-American uncle stayed with his wife (my aunt) at the convent in Deir al Amaar during his first visit to Lebanon. They served him endless glasses of Almaza and arak while surrounded by the beauty of the Chouf. He vowed to retire there.

Though unlike the ruler-snapping nuns of Lebanon of the past, Sr. Marguerite and Sr. Bernarda and company held the podiums of my Holy Family grade school classrooms in Peoria, Illinois. I know their wrath, but I also know their kindness and their teaching skills, which though “old school,” are also indelible. As a teacher, I am personally on the other end of the spectrum of pedagogical practices; though, that doesn’t mean they are not doing something well. I am convinced that the nuns’ harshness was a result of their determination to instill discipline, values, and service — things they are always weighing and considering. Being in the company of my aunt in different contexts has been evidence of this dichotomy. While a few people who have been taught by her have admitted to me how mean she was in the classroom, outside of the classroom she is talking to my cousins and I about our love lives, asking sincere questions and keeping judgments aside. And small things – Most recently, while in the U.S., I helped her pick out a shopping cart of crayons, Elmer’s glue, and pencils for the students. They were all 10 cents each, (“Thank goodness the economy sucks sale”) and she was intent on piling them into her suitcase so that the parents could buy inexpensive supplies for their children.

Sr. Rima knew since she was a sixteen-year-old in Tyre that she wanted nothing to do with marriage. Instead, she was sure about becoming a nun. One day her sister secretly informed her that a young man had asked her parents to see her. This is when she knew it was time to reveal the calling that she felt. Her family’s reaction was stingy. Her mother scolded while her father tried to dissuade her. Even her eldest brother cut off their weekly trips to the cinema, which was a luxury at the time. But that was no price to pay for her. It was disheartening that her parents were less than supportive of her wishes, but it was mainly because they thought they would never see her. She had heard the calling – and faithfully left for France where she entered the St. Joseph convent. Upon her return, her family accepted and stood proud.

In the seventies, the convent would attract around five women per year. Before that, around twenty, twenty-five. Today, she claims they are lucky to get two. We can speculate the reasons for this decline in interest – increased opportunity for women, multiplication of other distractions, declining trust in religion, and the list may go on. But what you would never guess is that, inexplicably, there are more and more women entering their studies at the convent and then realizing that they would rather be completely cloistered, in what they call a habbis (jail) or a cloister. In these places, one is completely committed to prayer and can only see her family once every few years, through a small barred window. The question this phenomenon begs is why are more and more of these God-seeking women preferring to commit to a solitary life? Nonetheless, it is the convent’s duty to help the young women discover their callings. If they notice that she is “sad” or uncomfortable in the atmosphere of the convent, they have a serious talk.

Sr. Rima has been an active nun in several areas of Lebanon, and even in Jordan for a short time. As she says, they are put “where they are needed.” At the beginning of the civil war, she was stationed in Tyre where she and the convent tirelessly distributed food aid, and where she witnessed such episodes as a mass of people throw milk “donated” from Israel into the sea. And in Beirut where people would come for shelter and then destroy the furniture inside. She served in Saida, after the war, when the convent represented the few Christians who remained. And now she is in charge in Deir el Amar, near the Chouf where most of the children get aid for matriculation, thanks to the convent’s determination and the occasional check that “comes from God.”

Despite her serving Lebanon for thirty years, without government aid (a religious NGO, if you want), she still could not receive the Lebanese passport, for her father was Palestinian and of course, her mother’s Lebanese passport was of no use to her under Lebanon’s archaic, unjust, and sexist government law. Ironically, two years ago the French granted her a passport in gratitude of the many years she had served St. Joseph. I see this as just another example of Lebanese politics’ purported fighting for the cause, doing what is right, and in the meantime punishing everything in its way – in essence, making everything WORSE. Perhaps our government officials (and the region’s) could learn a few things about service, righteousness, and fairness from the women behind these walls.

There is a St. Joseph convent in Beirut. It stands at a corner, nondescript, between a gas station and Hariri’s new schools. The building’s visage is littered with menacing bullet holes from the war days of past. But when you enter off the noisy and impatient streets of Beirut, and ring the bell, you are buzzed in without question. No armed guard stands next to the heavy metal door that  shuts behind;  you only hear the high voices of children singing inside and feel a cool breeze touch your cheek, and a small promising feeling of peace and love.

Since 1991, when my family and I took our first trip back to Lebanon following the “end” of the war, every immigrant Lebanese family or friend we know has seized each opportunity to return to their beloved homeland where the mystery, as many call it, of this land and its beauty begins to unfold as soon as the plane hovers over Beirut. Even I, as a twelve-year-old, thought “I’m home” as the wheels of the 757 hit the runway of the airport before it was “Rafik Hariri.”

And then you wind along the sea coast, passing fruit stands and palm trees until you climb the mountain where your family lives, and those who didn’t meet you at the airport rush down from the balcony where they’ve been keeping watch. The neighbors stand on adjacent balconies and smile broadly. Your family reaches you, breathes you in, and kisses you ardently while greeting you with high-pitched voices. People rhythmically mill about the streets and you see them gathered in the saaHa looking on to see what the commotion is all about.

In the meantime, your immigrant parents and others you know have kept mostly to Lebanese circles in their respective American cities. The Turkish coffee steadily bubbles. Lebanese satellite burns the television. Children are tethered to prevent them from becoming too “American.”  And the longing for the warm embrace of community and sensory stimulation and chaos back home persists, though morphs. Over time, life in America becomes comfortable with heeded Rules of the Road, uninterrupted electricity, straight lines, customer service, relative stability, and, most importantly, the choice of solitude. The latter simultaneously becomes a comfort from the lack of anonymity and privacy especially characteristic of the village, and reason to complain, “Everyone keeps to himself in America! Our neighbors are strangers! Americans…”

Returning home becomes a vacation, in which the travelers wear their newest clothes and regularly announce how this or that is done in America. They become irritated with the driving, the smells, the lack of amenities. But they revel in the liveliness and warmth of the little country by the Mediterranean where they grew up, and sigh with mixed feelings upon coming back to their American home that they must get back to “the routine.”

I have been a resident of the Hamra district for two years now, where it seems there is anything but routine. As a Chicagoan as well, I compare Hamra to Wicker Park. Concentrated with hipsters, artists, intellectuals, old money, and yuppies, it is a neighborhood consistently updating its face with new chains and cozy pubs and demolition of old relic buildings and businesses. It comprises one of the most mixed populations in Lebanon and caters to that with anything from a brothel to a Dunkin Donuts coffee.  I entered Hamra as a stranger, meeting individuals at this party or that pub. Eventually, with Facebook and social events, I found that a surprising number of my separate acquaintances and friends know each other or live in the same building or worked with each other, or made out, or whatever.  The common thread? Hamra.

Before my friend left Lebanon for Northwestern U. last month, she whimsically recounted the vendors and “street” people who were distinct characters of the Hamra she had been a resident of for several years. We considered the web of people that living and playing in Hamra, spins. It is true that Hamra is a central space for people from all over Beirut and Lebanon and the world to integrate as well as to navigate Lebanon, even if it is a just a square, without disarming yourself of your beliefs, personality, or your radical forms of expression.  Nonetheless, my friend’s conclusion was firm: “Hamra is incestuous.” Leaving the saaHa for  Evanston, Illinois was a necessary, though temporary, change.

The saaHa in a village is the town square, a public space for all. I know from visiting my grandparents as a teenager, the saaHa in the village is where you stroll arm-in-arm with a cousin and make eyes at the pubescent boys. And where the boys shoot off fireworks. Whenever there is an event – wedding, funeral, elections – you can see the heads of men and women scattered in groups in the saaHa. It’s the daily meeting point, where you can count on something happening or/and someone you know. It’s about finding an open space.

I know a man who locates the saaHa in his roadwork of memories of the Lebanon he left in the ‘80s, as the meeting point for his emotional happiness.  He raised his children in America and married them off and bought homes and retired. Still, he doesn’t use English and he insists that back home one can lead a “life.” He remembers how he was surrounded and his family protected by the company of his village. And he sighs and sighs and all of his thoughts are Libnan, Libnan. Yet, he sold his house and his land in Lebanon and unwittingly committed to the solitude of a suburb in America.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The film Amreeka, which played at last week’s international film festival in Beirut, narrates a story about a Palestinian woman and her son who immigrate to the U.S.  It is funny, touching and quite authentic. I highly recommend seeing it, unless you’re squeamish about the immigrant experience :) .  It starts playing in the U.S. soon…

www.amreeka.com

The following is chapter 14 of the book Chicago, by Alaa Al Aswany. The setting is the University of Illinois in Chicago and the characters are Egyptian immigrants. Vividly, what is revealed here are the irrational and even ill emotions, actions, and reasoning that arise when one is stuck between “proper” and true love, affection, or desire. Furthermore, it is heartbreaking to see how love’s challenges induce self-aggrandizement while blaming and hating the other! Which reminds me of what my Arabic instructor said to me once, “Don’t fall in love in the Middle East. It only leads to pain.”

This chapter reveals the internal conflict of an Egyptian man, Tariq, whose self-worth is rooted in his family name, his prestigious university, and his chauvinism. It makes him crazy that the object of his affection, Shaymaa, became upset with him because he ignored her indirect though obvious plea for a promise of love and marriage. Shaymaa’s self-worth is rooted in her propriety, “sit bayt” skills (woman of the house), and her reputation and dignity as a decent, clean woman. Though she is sharp with Tariq, she plays the conservative coquette like an actress on a stage.

They both come from conservative religious families and their spending so much time together torments Shaymaa: it may be interpreted by him as “proof that she was loose.” And so, her attempts of knocking out an “I love you” from him and reminding him, “Islam encourages love so long as it doesn’t lead to sin” only produces a sigh and change of subject – an unwillingness to communicate. So she grabs her things and leaves. And this is where this chapter picks up.

The issues here are representative of the layers of extremely traditional crapola that lie tattered and worn betwixt our newfangled modern threads — all across the Middle East. Tariq and Shaymaa are two extremely orthodox people who are navigating their way in very fresh freedom. Though some of us are Tariq and Shaymaa, some of us are way past Tariq and Shaymaa, while some of us are in the hardest place — somewhere in the middle. No matter, Tariq and Shaymaa haunt us all.

“Stand still! Ok, look at me…” my aunt aims her new red Samsung digital camera at me, as I stand in the olive tree.

“Who would think you would come from America to pick olives!” We’re going to send this to your mom in America!” She thrusts a freshly broken olive branch into my hand.

I balance on the thickness of this hundred-year-old tree, holding the branch like the Statue of Liberty’s torch. I peer down through the branches and the skinny leaves into the camera and pose. Through the branches, I can see teta as she sits and gathers the olives that have built up in piles on the tarp with her big hands, chipped bronze nail polish. Her legs spread before her in a V. Squirming beside her are my three kid-cousins who shovel through bags of potato chips that they just bought with grandma’s liras.

They are not humored by the olive picking; they find it “boring.” We bribe them to pick out the good olives that are mixing with the bad ones on the blue tarp. Five-thousand liras per bucket! And so they scurry and fill and then find a shortcut by filling their bucket from the already picked buckets full of the good olives. They are savvy. In the end, we give them their fees. After all, they are only kids looking for a bit of entertainment. My uncle stands on the ladder and furiously rakes bunches of olives from the branches with his hands. He softly disciplines the kids from time to time.

My uncle’s wife works on her own at a small tree. She too is small at no more than five feet and one hundred pounds. Her face flushes a deep red, but she says nothing. I almost forget she is there. She is good with her tiny hands, but only has been able to prove it within the confines of a village. Her beauty shop, which was stationed near the steep road up the mountain, was closed after the July 2006 war with Israel. It wasn’t hit or anything. But, it wasn’t time for waxes or facials, or her favorite – skin peels. But though the war was a practical and timely excuse, this wasn’t all. The collapse of such endeavors is not only because of war, as many Lebanese (and those who know Lebanese) often take comfort in sweepingly claiming. Other things happen. The villagers see you talking to the next- door barbershop owner, taking breaks and laughing. Your clients complain too much and tell you how to do your job. “No, no, the eyeliner should be thicker.” These things can break you if you are too weak. When you know that you cannot possibly change people’s minds and you feel as though the village has a grip on who you can be, well then you close up shop and go home.

Our village.

But home is where you will find the villagers living in earshot. The ones who know what your mother’s grandmother said fifty years ago. The ones who wish you diplomas and marriage and a home, and kids soon after. The ones who know the sound of your car engine. The ones who altogether mourn the loss of a fellow villager. The ones who will gawk at that short skirt you’re wearing while selling you a bag of bread. The ones who know when your menstrual cycle should begin (remember, earshot – no joke!). The ones who make you feel safe that there will always be an eye on your kids, wherever they are playing in the village. The ones who make your life a reality TV show with all their watching and gossiping. The ones you can love and hate. The ones who are so much a part of your history, your blood. They’re the ones who are draped around their family’s olive trees, adjacent to your family’s lot where your grandfather soon arrives in his energetic way.

Three months ago, jido quit smoking five packs a day although he was energetic then too. My grandmother asked him if he had eaten and handed him a manouche. It is startling – this mundane exchange – for I have not seen them communicate directly for a year. The olives go everywhere as I pull and pick. She hands him a manouche with cheese. And I see him smile. She is shy. I remember years ago when he said, “Your grandmother is the best,” and she had smiled coyly and held her head up as she served us the usual lavish meal. It has been awhile, but here under the zietouni, the silence is broken.

I would like to read: Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers – a new book…Review

http://www.zeitounfoundation.org/

The following week, my mom took us all to the Sears Tower, now called the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois – yet another high place to peek out from. But, it was September 12 and all I could think about was a terrorist attack on the “tallest building in the Western Hemisphere” and how my grandmother would only have one daughter left. My paranoia reminded me of a new book I recently flipped through called The Science of Fear by Daniel Gardner (Review). The book’s introduction explains how after September 11, 2001, people stopped flying, fearing apparently that the previously unimagined episode of 9/11 would now happen all the time– trusting their gut before their head. So the following year, people took the roads instead where they crashed their cars, according to statistics, an additional 1600 times.

Chicago streets from top of Willis Tower

A foot above. This new glass case juts out above Chicago.

Things have changed since the time immediately following the infamous disaster. This year to Beirut alone, as of June, almost 800,000 visitors hopped in planes and by the end of the year the forecast stands at around 2,000,000. Some things have stayed the same – Israeli fighter jets were never deterred. They make their visits in Lebanon’s airspace, regularly breaking the sound barrier (google: “Israel breaks sound barrier over Lebanon”). The first time I experienced the breaking of the sound barrier was when I was 20 years old (1999). It was during the summer when I came to visit my grandparents in Ain el Delb, my mother’s home village, just East of Saida. It was a regular moment of life when the sound of thunder at a million watts roared across the tops of our homes. I was a pure virgin to war and its reverberations, so my instinct was to hit the floor where I crawled aimlessly. When it ended after a few seconds, I hobbled to the kitchen to drink water to wash down the scare. My uncle came in laughing at me. When it happened again, again I hit the floor. My grandparents and aunts seemed also undaunted, reacting as simply as if they had turned on the TV at full volume. It was just another regular moment.

One can compare these regular moments to the regular moments of caution that have ensued following that one infamous moment on American soil. Immediately following, Americans were made aware through constant media coverage that their security was in shambles. Still, 8 years after the fact, at O’Hare airport one will be cautioned through the PA system of the “terror alert level” – usually at ORANGE. (What does ORANGE mean? Well, for explanation, I highly recommend the following piece at McSweeney’s.) Where once people stopped taking planes, now they react by not budging from their newspaper article, continuing to roll their luggage along without a twitch, and boarding their flights. I always wonder what measures the “terror alert level” and why the wonderful colors of the rainbow must be molested so. But, most importantly, these regular messages have come to be a cruel actuality just the same as an Israeli fighter jet illegally and threateningly occupying their neighbor’s airspace. And though it seems everyone is desensitized, the reality is not so. As my friend Lina says while pumping her hands near her belly to describe, the roar of the breaking of the sound barrier, like a mnemonic device, stirs the gut-wrenching feelings born in wartime – even though it does not appear so. For, keeping those feelings shoved deep down, closer to the ground, is the choicest strategy toward a regular life.

Beirut corniche.

St. Louis, Missouri. I was in the States for the summer. We took my relatives to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. My mom always feels this is a good place to take visitors. My aunts have come from Lebanon for the first time since my mom moved to the U.S. 31 years ago. They’ve seen a lot in their lifetimes – they haven’t missed one moment of war since ‘75. But the sight of the 630-foot Arch was enough to make their hearts feel funny against their chests. It’s the tallest monument in the U.S. On the way up, in the space shuttle- type elevator, my aunt contorted into feigned anxiety to dispel her actual. This produced tears of laughter during the four minutes it took to reach the apex, from which we looked out onto the Mississippi River and the rest of St. Louis from a bird’s eye view, everything mini, mini. My aunt snapped lots of pictures, “hilou, hilou.”

We learned that the Gateway Arch (designed by Eero Saarinen) was erected as part of the historic site that memorialized the role of Thomas Jefferson and the others responsible for St. Louis’s role in the U.S.’s expansion to the west. Architect Robert Venturi (designer of Franklin Court in Philadelphia and the new Mathematics building at Yale University and one of the authors of Learning from Las Vegas) stated that the Arch “is one of the best things… it is a thing that is very difficult to do which is to do a non-functional, sculptural, symbolic gesture of enormous scale.” Mmmhhhmm, I always thought the arch was one of the most boring things. When mom told me we were taking my aunts to the arch, I thought, WHY? You can’t even get a hamburger there. But, there is some sort of pride in these high places, especially one of this unique form.

Lebanon is regularly referred to as a gateway between east and west. However, we do not, as far as I know, have a monument celebrating it as such. Yet, we do have plenty of “non-functional, sculptural, symbolic gesture[s] of enormous scale,” now ruins, erected by those who traveled through this gateway. They punctuate our modern day Lebanon from Baalbek to Beirut. An endearing Roman column stands just outside of Sanayeh Garden, down the street from my apartment. You cannot climb it or stand atop it and view Beirut from a bird’s eye view, but you can post advertisements on it!

Perhaps this monument – an archaeological phenomenon, circa 64 B.C, affixed with an advertisement for wireless and DSL Internet services – is symbolic of our careless, practical, irreverent, contradictory, beautiful and ugly revolutionary climate. Where new is stuck to old.

Note: One slightly drunken evening, past midnight, a friend and I peeled away at the advertisement. We couldn’t get it all.

For those of you who don’t know Beirut, the city, you first think: war. For those of you who have walked its cacophonous streets and licked its sea salt off a pretty one’s neck, you think: love. To you non-Beirutis, you’re right! Beirut attracts wars like the elephant attracts the elephant gun. But, whoa, there is no war without love. A deeply felt, aromatic love that breathes from its village kitchen, its ever-giving trees, its snow-capped mountains, its burgeoning artists, its trilingual banter that drives us into the revolution of its modern life, which has the attitude of “let’s see how much we can get away with” and the soul of “let’s see how much I can handle before I press the brakes.” Is this a necessary stage of every revolution? Or is this just our cross-eyed gaze?

This blog comprises the musings of one Lebanese-Palestinian-American girl who decided to move to Beirut at 28 after a lifetime in the U.S. of A. She will bring you not only musings and stories, but photos, videos, guest writing, recommendations, and all kinds of other scraps that will put this revolution’s cross-eyed gaze into focus.

The following song and video is “Elephant Gun,” by Beirut, the American band led by Zachary Condon. This video, to me, evokes the spirit of Beirut today. The nostalgic trumpet, the sea, the elephant masters, the hedonism, eroticism, the all out party with an effervescent tinge of tragedy in the seams. Beirut, the winged elephant.

Peace,

Rima Rantisi

PS, does anyone know the origin of the band’s name?