Arab Media & Society

2 years of lazyness before starting this blog. i'll begin then by thanking israel who burned in one night two years of efforts to avoid getting myself trapped in this adventure. good job guys! especially the airport party. and the bridges. no way to leave the country. nothing else to do than this blog. after all, we all need sometimes a valid reason to start to work, and a good old war soundscape is ok as a starting point (…) this concept of webtifada (the word is not form me. i insist)seems to have some appeal. as you might all know, my brain is not functioning to its full capacity these days. i have no idea of what to do. but despite my legendary skepticism, i feel we can do something with all these people around the world connected to the net. i do not know if petitions work. i usually do not sign them and believe in them. maybe there is a better idea. i do not know. it is really YOU who have to make this webtifada works. i'll continue posting about this issue to give place in the comments section for some ideas to come out. i want this site to be use as a catalyst because it is draging a lot of people. a lot of people that seems to begin to understand that lebanon is not a desert with people on camels worrying all day long where to find water to drink. i'll continue doing my job. please try to start yours.

WE FUCKING RESIST. as we can.

An interesting aspect of this posting is its informality (no capital letters, spelling mistakes, slang) and “unliterary” semblance of speech also known from emails and text messages, which on some blogs is augmented by a free mixing of French, English and Arabic. The informality applies to form as well as to content. Tidbits of political analysis, rumours, chatter, headlines from local television news and quotes from here and there are mixed with personal observations and indignations. This form of argumentation corresponds to what Bakhtin described as primary speech genres that are simple and mostly oral, as opposed to secondary written speech genres of higher complexity.[48] As Doostdar notes, both primary speech genres such as small talk, gossip and casual political analysis as well as secondary forms such as journalism, scholarly writing, poetry and other literary genres can be found on blogs.[49] In fact, it is the casual blending of the two that revokes the authority of high culture and hence, in Bakhtin’s words, can appear to be “aimed sharply and polemically at official language.”[50] Rather than covering or analysing the conflict in the polite tone of newspapers and television, Kerbaj calls on his fellow bloggers to “fucking resist” by speaking their mind and bluntly describing the civilian ordeals in the war. His calls were heard. During July and August 2006, the Lebanese blogosphere established itself as an alternative medium with a large international audience and played an important role in securing aid for Lebanon’s suffering civilian population.

New speech, old politics

Soon after the war ended, many of the war blogs stopped updating.[51] They had been created from the momentum of war and from the urge to do something, to express oneself in the face of extreme adversity. But there are no signs that the recent surge in Lebanese blogs will subside. New blogs keep appearing and there are today more than three hundred Lebanese blogs offering an increasing diversity of social and political perspectives.[52] The dramatic events of February 2005 and July 2006 urged new groups to speak out. As a result of these circumstances, most Lebanese blogs are explicitly political, even those that resemble the Western model of “Myspace”-inspired blogs primarily set up to serve a specific circle of friends.[53] Life in Beirut is politicised to the extreme and even mundane conversations, on blogs as well as in real life, ultimately deal with public as much as with private concerns. 

As an effect, the blog conversation continues to follow public debate in the rest of the public sphere. During the war, widespread disagreement in Lebanon over Hizbullah’s right to provoke a military crisis was tempered by an ethos of national solidarity. After the war, solidarity has given way to renewed political feuds with sectarian overtones. These tensions are mirrored on blogs, but not in any equal way that reflects the level of popular support for Hizbullah. The Lebanese blogosphere is still primarily a domain for the young generation of Beiruti middle classes who played a key role in the Independence Intifada, and most bloggers back the “March 14 coalition” of Sunni, Christian and Druze politicians. Indeed, the development of a Lebanese blogosphere should be seen in relation to the boom in civil activism during and after the Independence Intifada. This political bias overlaps, often rather uneasily, with general weariness of old politics and old political leaders in Lebanon and a keen sense of the need to transcend sectarian and political divides. Here as elsewhere in Lebanon, an ethos of cross-sectarianism coexists with a reality of sectarianism. Only in Lebanon! As one of the A-list bloggers, Raja of Lebanese Bloggers, recently lamented:

It amazes me how those of us who like to think of ourselves (or present ourselves) as above sectarianism, never the less, cannot seem to escape from the sectarian pull or grip. Very few bloggers blog as Maronites, Sunna, Shi’a, Druze, Orthodox or as representatives of other sects. Most of us wrap the Lebanese flag around ourselves and suggest to each other that our voices are those of independent free-thinkers, who are able to transcend our sectarian folds and reach out to one-another as Lebanese. Yet, although we refuse to identify ourselves as sectarian partisans, openly promoting the interests of our respective leaders (we are obviously above such behavior), we consistently appear to carry the banners of the causes adopted by those very men.[54]

One could translate this critique to a reflection on the structural constraints of the blogosphere, and perhaps of civil activism in Lebanon generally. As this article has shown, blogs do at least allow for increased interaction between opposing viewpoints. They have introduced uncensored speech genres that reflect the lives of young Lebanese into public debate. Finally, blogs have initiated new forms of political debate and reporting which challenge the role of the intellectual establishment as the main defenders of civil liberties and social critique. Regardless of such achievements, blogs are still nothing more than a drop in the ocean, a counterpublic of counterpublics, compared to the machinery of institutional politics in Lebanon. But then, perhaps the potential of blogging does not lie in the creation of united fronts, but in the constant development of diversity of opinion and the will to include others than “the pinnacle of Arab intelligentsia” in public debate.[55] Like all Internet-based media, blogs reverse hierarchies of age and empower the language and worldview of the young generation, which in a largely patriarchal society such as Lebanon is significant both culturally and politically. Despite its contradictions and limitations, the blogosphere has gotten a hold of young, politically active Lebanese and is bound to play an increasing role in the negotiation of identity and politics as Lebanon warily edges its way through—another—turbulent period in its national history. 

Sune Haugbolle holds a BA and MA in Arabic from the University of Copenhagen, and a D.Phil from St. Antony's College, the University of Oxford. He has published various articles on modern Lebanon, including "Spatial Transformations in the Lebanese Independence Intifada," in Arab Studies Journal, 2006.