Snap, Crackle & Pop

Some people just never get it…


After Hariri’s victory in the North, Omar Karami knew whom to blame: The Mufti. So he decided that Lebanon needed another one. A Mufti for the people, to the people, by the people! (The same people who didn’t vote for Karami by the way).

Najah Wakim, in George Hawi’s funeral, stated cockily: “We shouldn’t discount the role of the American and Israeli agents in his assassination”.

In an angry letter to Annahar yesterday, ex Prime Minister Salim el Hoss accused Ghassan Tweini, the Godfather of free journalism in Lebanon, of having malicious intentions and of being biased.

I must say, I never understood these guys.

I once called them Euro-Arabs, but now I like to call them “The NewTV Gang”.
They once had a role to play, when their ideas (Arabism, resistance…etc) where still relevant and still had the power to inspire. But today, they’re not only in denial that those ideas are dead, they are also aggressively promoting their denial and criticizing everyone who is -Gasp!- moving on.

What sets them apart from other politicians is their proud intransigence: They think that the ideal politician should be someone who doesn’t change, doesn’t improve, doesn’t soul-search or doesn’t repent. “I’m still the same person” was the official campaign slogan of Najah Wakim. “Meeting with Aoun didn’t change me” is the title of Hoss’s letter to Tweini. This is why they like to attack alliances like for example the one between Jumblat and the Lebanese forces. “But you slaughtered each other”, they seem to shout with sincere disbelief.

They’re not bad people, they’re just too idealistic to be politicians. Some of them have their distinctive signature; Wakim loves attention, this is why he’s very noisy and conspiratorial. People as far as Kuwait make fun of him, yet his influence is so limited that finding a picture of him on the Internet is extremely difficult (I invite you to try).

So what’s the best way to deal with them?
I would advise: ignore them but don’t make them martyrs. Mr Tweiny gave Mr. Hoss too much importance in his editorial on Sunday. Also, Aljazeera gave Najah wakim too much attention when he was claiming, like Aesop’s frog, that he was the target of organized vandalism in the Beirut election.

Just make sure you don’t humiliate them in public; give them the occasional nod, it will quiet them down, but don’t take them too seriously…