Articles

Some people spend their lives accepting their lot, while others take their destiny into their own hands. This is all the more difficult for a woman living in a man’s world. And yet… some women chose to fight, succeeding in breaking the taboos of their time. Whether they wielded a brush, a pen, scientific instruments, or their voices, they made their mark on their century with a boldness that at times bordered on scandal. From Artemisia Gentileschi, defying Italian society and the courts five centuries ago, to George Sand, who traded the corset for the freedom to write; from Camille Claudel, the deeply wounded artist, to the rigor and genius of Marie Curie, and the universal voice of Oum Kalthoum… these women succeeded in overcoming social prejudice.

"What is the veneration of a founder worth when his life's work is undone by those who claim to be his heirs?" In a previous article, commenting on the saying "charity begins at home," we showed how Lebanon's history constantly oscillates between internal communal selfishness — retreating into one's sect at the expense of the state — and external ideological "altruism" — prioritizing regional causes at the expense of the homeland. In both cases, the vision of a strong, prosperous, and democratic Lebanese state has been sacrificed. Let us take the analysis further. In a letter published by L'OLJ, lawyer Carole Chelhot wrote some harsh but deeply accurate lines about this fatal fragmentation: "Lebanon's failure is no longer territorial. It is political, moral, and institutional. The administration has been handed over to patronage networks, public services distributed as personal favors, and the law negotiated according to power dynamics (…). The state, which was meant to transcend the communities, has become the spoils they divide among themselves (…). This is where the memory of Elias Hoayek ceases to be reassuring and becomes an indictment.

While the United States has promised an 'economic D-Day' for Iran, this strategy can only become fully effective with the cooperation of China, Iran's top oil importer and leading supplier of military technology to the mullahs' regime. After six months of war in the Middle East, Washington has reason to worry about the quagmire this conflict—initially expected to last only a few weeks—has become. With no quick military solution in sight, the Trump administration has chosen to strangle the Iranian regime by introducing new sanctions targeting not Tehran directly, but its trading partners, in order to isolate the Iranian economy.

I was deeply moved while watching the Netflix series Antarctica , and I found myself wondering whether we in Lebanon could achieve something similar to what happened in Japan in 1950, or whether our situation is simply hopeless. The series revolves around the model embodied by the Japanese expedition to Antarctica in the 1950s, illustrating how a scientific and technical project can become a vehicle for rebuilding national sentiment in the aftermath of occupation and defeat. Emerging from the Second World War, Japan did not confine itself to rebuilding its physical infrastructure. It also sought to reconstruct its collective narrative and its image in the world by shifting the basis of legitimacy from the military sphere to the scientific and civil sphere. The expedition played a symbolic role in this transformation, as it was presented as evidence of the Japanese nation’s ability to rise again and reintegrate into the international community through peaceful means.

The holding of Morocco’s legislative elections on September 23, as scheduled, reflects the regularity of political life in a kingdom more than twelve centuries old. At every stage of its long history, Morocco has managed to overcome difficulties, obstacles and challenges of various kinds, leading up to the reign of Mohammed VI, who ascended the throne a little over twenty-seven years ago, succeeding his father Hassan II. The development of political life has been one of the defining features of Mohammed VI’s reign. It has gone hand in hand with the construction of modern infrastructure of such a standard that someone arriving in Morocco from Spain or Portugal hardly feels they have left two European countries for a different world…

Neo-Ottoman Ankara is making its move in the Bilad ash-Sham! And neither the Israeli bombardment of Abu al-Duhur air base on August 18th, nor the strikes on the outskirts of Damascus ten days later, let alone Tel Aviv's barely veiled threats, are doing anything to halt Turkey's southward advance along the "Syrian Sea" (1). Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Damascus, will have his work cut out for him now that a strategic rivalry is taking shape between Turkey and Israel, with Syria—and soon Lebanon—as the primary arena of competition, and potentially confrontation.