Like A Bus With Square Wheels

Yesterday I was reading a Lebanon article by Robert Fisk. I used to admire the man, but lately I’ve been getting the feeling that he’s losing his bearings. That said, I like his recent observation about our dear land of the cedar:

[Lebanon] may have beautiful mountains, fine food, an extraordinarily well-educated population, but it is sectarian. It’s a bit like owning a Rolls Royce complete with fresh leather seats, a flat screen television and a cocktail bar — but with square wheels. It doesn’t work.

Not bad, but I think we can push the metaphore a bit further. A great place to start would be to read this revealing article (Arabic) written yesterday by Houssam Itany on Lebanon’s head-scratchingly unusual, distorted and “parasitical” economy.

The point of Mr. Itany’s article is that unlike other economies, Lebanon has an aversion to real numbers and has two large and unaccounted for dependencies: Inflow of cash from its very large diaspora, and inflow of political money from outside sponsors. Since most of that money serves tribal and sectarian groups, the Lebanese have no incentive to look at their common means of production and by extension at their common destiny. The result of that, according to Mr. Itany, is that the Lebanese communities grow in their own independent coccoons and don’t care about the rest of the population, a process that is totally independent of the country’s economic condition.

So back to our metaphor: Instead of a Rolls Royce, let’s think of Lebanon as a large bus with many sections. Each section has its own form of entertainment, delicious food and problems. All sections are highly territorial and jealously guard their “uniquenesses” (خصوصيات) while simultaneously trying to get a bit more room and priviledges (some sections have broken tvs, some sections have broken air conditioners). They always fight about the direction of the bus, but the bus has square wheels and it cannot move.

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