Articles

This series of articles offers a wide-ranging overview — both thematic and chronological — of the various relationships between music and the space of the City across the ages. The first in the series, divided into three parts, examines the origins of the bond between music and 'the' political — both as concept and as practice. It is somewhat perilous to attempt to date with precision the beginnings of politically engaged music. What is certain, however, is that it did not begin with Bob Dylan, nor with the Negro spirituals , nor even with La Marseillaise … but with music itself — that is to say, in fact, with the very beginnings of the organisation of society and its relationship with the notion and practice of power. It is possible to say, without too much risk of error, that music has constituted, in this sense, one of the means available to men seeking both to govern and to escape that governance.

Between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, the statements reflected a positive atmosphere, but the underlying realities of this summit between giants should become clearer over time. Iran, for its part, continues its provocations. Between Lebanon and Israel, an extension of the truce and future military cooperation. This week was marked by crucial talks whose repercussions will be felt during the next phase. From the very beginning of the week, attention was focused on preparations for the US-China summit in Beijing and the third round of negotiations between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations in Washington.

An exceptional artistic return by Lebanese visual artist Walid Raad, after forty years or so spent in New York, to exhibit his work once again at the Venice Biennale, then at the Festival d'Automne in Paris. A major exhibition that opens with the "inverted chassis" of a Volkswagen Beetle, in an avant-garde visual art space rich with inventive ideas born from the shaping of imaginaries, denouncing the organisation of wars and new bombs, without any faltering in the balance or mechanisms of conception. It is an art that weaves the play of ideas with fictional archives around the geopolitics of the Middle East and the "war market" — a market that endures on the terrain of artistic competition, allowing the best to triumph illusorily in the invention of imaginaries, imaginaries distinguished by a poetic irony constructed in the gaps of Lebanese memory.

A relatively calm weekend beginning on both the Lebanese and regional fronts, with the exception of ongoing military operations in South Lebanon and certain sectors of the Bekaa. This Sunday, May 17, should formally mark the start of the extended ceasefire, lasting 45 days, decided Friday during the third round of direct Lebanese-Israeli negotiations held Thursday and Friday in Washington under the auspices of the State Department. Even if Israel officially gives its approval for this new ceasefire (it could hardly refuse), nothing suggests that Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure or the elimination of pro-Iranian party officials through targeted air raids will be suspended.

In a world where only self-interest holds sway, what can a country like Lebanon do when an internal faction works directly in the service of Iran and wages war against the Lebanese State and its institutions? Lebanon can do nothing so long as there is no national consensus on how to conduct the direct negotiations with Israel in Washington. More importantly, it can do nothing without acknowledging that a price is owed if it wishes to free itself from the Israeli occupation that Hezbollah, and behind it the Islamic Republic of Iran, has brought about. What we have here is nothing more than Lebanese impotence, born of the inability to affirm that Lebanon is a free and independent state, master of its own decisions on war and peace within its own territory. It is in 2026, once again, that Lebanon must establish that its State is the genuine State, that it is not the state of Hezbollah, which is itself nothing more than a brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, nothing else.

The march to the slaughter had been filmed: it is not every day that 288 civilians, including 12 children, are massacred. The scene unfolded in the southern suburbs of Damascus, in the district known as Tadamun — and “by the book.” We are in 2013. More than 24 videos captured scenes of chilling horror, including the following: pro-government militiamen lead civilians, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs, to the edge of a trench; they shove them in before opening fire indiscriminately to kill them. The bodies, we are told, were then burned and buried with a bulldozer to erase all traces. As the ultimate abomination, these “exploits” of the Assad dynasty were filmed in detail by the executioners themselves. By a twist of fate, this incriminating footage began circulating widely on social media from 2022 onward and became emblematic of the regime’s brutality. A piece of evidence showing one Amjad Youssef — the main star of this horror film — calmly dispensing death!