Sunday, December 27, 2009

My new book is out: Tales of the Badia


My friend Hamra Abu Eid compiled these Bedouin folk tales which I edited and translated from Arabic into English. They are published in both languages in the same book. You can also listen to the stories in Arabic in Hamra's voice (and strong Bedouin accent) and download the audio files here.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Lebanese lawyers reject Israel's presence in the Mediterranean Lawyer's Union

رفض لبناني لإسرائيل في نقابات المحامين

رضوان مرتضى
«لن نحضر إن كانت إسرائيل موجودة، وإذا حضرت فسننسحب»، هذه الكلمات اختصرت شرط نقيب المحامين في طرابلس أنطوان عيروت لحضور اجتماعات نقابات المحامين في دول حوض البحر المتوسط في مدينة نابولي الإيطالية، التي تأسس خلالها اتحاد نقابات المحامين. نقيب المحامين في طرابلس أكّد تثبيت ذلك في محاضر الجلسات أيضاً، وبالفعل رضخ الاتحاد. فقد حضر الاجتماعات ممثّلون عن نقابات المحامين لدول حوض البحر المتوسط ما عدا إسرائيل. وتجدر الإشارة إلى تغيّب كلّ من نقابتي مصر والأردن.
ألقى النقيب عيروت كلمة في هذه الاجتماعات، شكر فيها المؤتمرين «الذين رفضوا رفضاً تاماً فكرة انتساب دولة إسرائيل العدوة». فقال «إنني باسم نقابة المحامين في طرابلس لبنان، أتمنى التوفيق للمؤتمرين، والشكر للنقابة المضيفة وللنقيب كايا ولأصحاب الفكرة»، وكرر ما أكده المؤتمرون من رفض تام لانتساب دولة إسرائيل العدوّة.
النقيب عيروت أكّد حصول «وشوشات في أروقة إيطاليا بوجوب تمثيل إسرائيل»، باعتبار أنها من دول حوض المتوسط. لكنه لفت إلى إصرار لبنان على تطبيق القرارات، لأن «مشاركة إسرائيل مخالفة لقانون تأسيس الاتحاد». وذكر عيروت أن قانون الاتحاد الذي شارك لبنان في وضعه يمنع الإسرائيليين من المشاركة، وبالتالي «مشاركة إسرائيل مخالفة للقانون توجب انسحابنا».
كذلك أشار عيروت إلى «أن الهدف من تأسيس الاتحاد هو تأليف الإطار الصحيح لتوحيد جهود نقابات وهيئات المحامين على ضفتي البحر المتوسط لتعزيز الإنماء الاجتماعي والاقتصادي ولمجابهة التحديات والعراقيل في عصر العولمة والتجارة الإلكترونية». ورأى نقيب المحامين «أن تبادل الآراء والتجارب والخبرات، كان ولا يزال، العنصر الأساسي لتطوير المهنة التي باتت تنوء تحت الكثير من أخطاء العدالة المزعومة»، مشيراً إلى «أن الهدف أيضاً هو تعزيز الروابط المهنية والتقارب والتعاون وخلق مناخات ثقافية وقانونية بين الحضارات المتنوعة التي تحيط بالمتوسط».

وقد خلصت الاجتماعات إلى التوقيع على ميثاق الاتحاد والاتفاق على موعد الاجتماع المقبل الذي سيُعقد في المغرب في شهر آذار من العام المقبل 2010 ، والذي يتوقّع أن يحضره ممثلون عن جميع الدول الأعضاء. يشار إلى أن الوفد الذي مثّل لبنان في الاجتماعات، تألّف من نقيب المحامين في طرابلس أنطوان عيروت، وأمين السر سعد المقدم، ونائب مجلس النقابة ناظم العمر، إضافة إلى دوللي فرح وماري القوّال وأحمد شندب وسهير درباس.
يذكر أن المشترع اللبناني أصدر قانون مقاطعة إسرائيل بتاريخ 23/6/1955، فحظر على كل شخص طبيعي أو معنوي أن يعقد بالذات أو بالواسطة اتفاقاً مع هيئات أو أشخاص مقيمين في إسرائيل أو منتمين إليها بجنسيتهم أو يعملون لحسابها أو لمصلحتها، وذلك متى كان موضوع الاتفاق صفقات تجارية أو عمليات مالية أو أي تعامل آخر مهما كانت طبيعته. وتعدّ الشركات والمؤسسات الوطنية والأجنبية التي لها مصانع أو فروع تجميع أو توكيلات عامة في إسرائيل في حكم الهيئات والأشخاص المحظور التعامل معهم حسبما يقرر مجلس الوزراء بقرار ينشر في الجريدة الرسمية (م

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Food is too cheap

"The single greatest challenge facing our modern economic food chain is the insanely unnatural cost of food to the consumer, making the simple and necessary act of eating dependent on food that is almost free. The global edifice of cheap food rests on the volatility of a single input; the exponentially depleting supply of easy, cheap oil. We are gorging ourselves at the $1.99 all-you-can-eat oil buffet. Food is too cheap, a “correction” is coming, and there is not a damn thing anybody can do about it."

From Dissident Voice (Thanks Marcy)

High Morales

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10954.shtml

AMY GOODMAN: How would you do that? How would you end capitalism?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] It’s changing economic policies, ending luxury, consumerism. It’s ending the struggle to—or this searching for living better. Living better is to exploit human beings. It’s plundering natural resources. It’s egoism and individualism. Therefore, in those promises of capitalism, there is no solidarity or complementarity. There’s no reciprocity. So that’s why we’re trying to think about other ways of living lives and living well, not living better. Not living better. Living better is always at someone else’s expense. Living better is at the expense of destroying the environment.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Farmers’ Means of Coping

Josh Hersh wrote an article a few months ago on how Lebanese eat unripe fruits (janerik, unripe plums is one example). He asked me why do we do that, and I gave a few suggested explanations. Here's more stuff on the subject sent to me by Daniel, from an article in Monthly Review:

We know that many farmers engaged in individual acts of coping during the Great Leap Forward, such as “moyanggong” (pretend to work but actually not working), and chiqing (eating green crops before they matured). As someone who worked on a collective farm for many years, moyanggong and chiqing appearto me to be a necessary part of dealing with daily life during the Great Leap Forward, rather than individual forms of resistance against government policies or officials. What else could people do, when they were exhausted from hard work but did not feel it was right to stop working completely while others worked on? It was appropriate to engage in moyanggong as a way of taking a break, and other farmers understood.

Chiqing was another accepted and widespread practice during the Great Leap Forward, necessitated by the long working hours and short supplies of food. Farmers ate whatever they could lay their hands on to satisfy their hunger, not to demonstrate their anger or resistance to the government’s policies and officials. When I was working on a collective farm after the Great Leap Forward, it was an acceptable practice to eat a limited amount of green wheat, green corn, tender sweet potatoes and tender peanuts, turnips, and cabbages. We sometimes cooked green corn, soybeans, and even sweet potatoes in the fields. Farmers in Shandong called this shao pohuo (build a small fire in the field). Afterwards, we would start a game of chi yao mohui (trying to darken each other’s face with our blackened hands). Boys tried that with girls, and girls tried that with boys. Production team leaders engaged in this game with ordinary villagers, as well. Without understanding the social context of these practices, it is easy to see them as everyday resistance.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Israeli exploitation of farmworkers

Israeli exploitation of Palestinian farmworkers in the Jordan valley. (Thanks Marcy)

Friday, December 18, 2009

Badael-Alternatives

Badael in Al Akhbar today: My editorial "A deal o good people". Ali Darwish prepares for the Mexico summit (he has given up hope on hopenhagen), and Kamel Jaber on the purple carrot of Kfaremmane, heir to the purple rose of Cairo.

The Future of Food

Welcome to the NEW The Future of Food website!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Un hectare a Beyrouth

A short film about urban agriculture in Beyrouth

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Nawf in the press

« Nawf », ou l’art bédouin en pleine city
Envoyer à un ami Imprimer
Par Maya GHANDOUR HERT | 15/12/2009

Doux et douillets, les coussins se déclinent sous différents motifs géométriques et couleurs.
Doux et douillets, les coussins se déclinent sous différents motifs géométriques et couleurs.
ARTISANAT Des coussins multicolores et des « quilts » aux motifs géométriques, réalisés par les femmes bédouines de la tribu Abou Eid (Hawsh el-Arab, Békaa), sont exposés jusqu'au 31 décembre à la galerie Art Circle.
Doux et douillets, ils pétillent de mille couleurs éclatantes.
«Il s'agit là des éléments décoratifs majeurs que vous trouverez dans une tente bédouine, indique Hamra en passant ses doigts sur les coussins étalés sur un grand canapé trônant au centre de la galerie. La jeune Bédouine est en charge de la «production» artisanale au sein de la tribu Abou Eid, installée depuis deux générations au village de Hawsh el-Arab dans la Békaa. «Nous posons les coussins à même le sol pour nous asseoir dessus. Quand aux "quilts", ils sont utilisés traditionnellement pour séparer les espaces.» Hamra raconte que les femmes de sa tribu se mettaient à broder, piquer et surpiquer les bouts de tissus en coton durant les dures périodes hivernales. «Le rouge et le vert étaient les seules couleurs qui nous étaient disponibles», indique-t-elle.
Si les coussins et les tentures ornementales aux motifs ancestraux sont aujourd'hui exposés à Beyrouth, c'est surtout grâce à celui que ces femmes appellent Dr Rami. Professeur à la faculté d'agriculture de l'AUB, Rami Zurayk a en effet découvert par hasard, lors de ses nombreuses pérégrinations dans la Békaa, l'art de la tribu Abou Eid. L'universitaire a tout de suite compris la nécessité de développer cet artisanat en péril, pour sauvegarder le patrimoine des Bédouins, mais aussi pour en étendre la production et la renommée.
Celui qui finit aujourd'hui de rédiger un ouvrage sur les Bédouins (en collaboration avec Hamra) a encouragé les femmes à reprendre un art tombé en désuétude. Il a mis à leur disposition des tissus en coton d'Égypte, de différentes couleurs, et soutenu la dizaine de femmes qui collaborent à la réalisation de chaque pièce unique (de la dessinatrice à la découpeuse, en passant par la couturière et l'assembleuse) à mettre sur pied une petite entreprise à l'aspect quasi familial.
C'est sous l'intitulé de « Nawf » (un mot qui désigne une femme à la beauté exaltée) que ces coussins et tentures voient aujourd'hui le jour. Les bien nommés!

* Hamra, rue Antoine Gemayel, imm. Assaf. Tél. : 03/ 027776.
E- mail : alia@art-circle.net

Monday, December 14, 2009

Vision please

The new Agriculture Minister, Hussein Hajj Hassan, (from Hizbullah) presented his agricultural strategy. It has all the right vocabulary and concepts, starting with grassroots and community participation and ending with curtailing the role of international development aid. This is a positive departure from "the usual", except that the strategy comes without a vision: where do we want to go? What kind of agriculture do we want? It appears that the minister and his team are still stuck with the conventional definition of development as "the economic growth of the sector". Important questions remain, such as: will the farm sector continue to focus on export as is the wish of the brainiacs who make the financial policy?

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Badael-Alternatives

I forgot to link to Badael this week...

My editorial was titled "Globalized Carnivals" guess why? Ali Darwish also wrote about COP 15 and the poor, and Rameh Hamiyeh on Rashta, a winter recipe from the Bekaa...

http://www.al-akhbar.com/ar/taxonomy/term/16833,18305

Band-Aid

"Unless we re-think the export-oriented capitalism that's causing all of our climate problems, the Copenhagen conference will be nothing more than a Band-Aid."

New Farm Tactics: Boooring....

"As a result, the food-security arm of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a global alliance of agricultural experts, issued their report today that calls for an intensive effort to speed the implementation of dozens of agriculture-related technologies in developing countries, which are the most vulnerable to climate change.
"Agriculture is one of the areas that is most suitable for early action because there are certain agricultural practices that not only suck up carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil, but those same practices increase agricultural productivity and resilience," Ms. Mann said. "They're very crucial to food security and development."
Listed below is a sampling from the CGIAR wish list."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/new-farm-tactics-urged-to-stem-climates-impact-on-food-supply/article1396625/

What I fail to understand is how is this list different from the priorities we set long time ago for sustainable agriculture...

Pressure

"Britain has acted to increase pressure on Israel over its West Bank settlements by advising UK supermarkets on how to distinguish between foods from the settlements and Palestinian-manufactured goods.
The government's move falls short of a legal requirement but is bound to increase the prospects of a consumer boycott of products from those territories. Israeli officials and settler leaders were tonight highly critical of the decision." (Thanks Marcy)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/10/guidance-labelling-food-israeli-settlements

Why I despise globalized carnivals

"At the Food and Agriculture Day on Saturday, much of the conversation was about the need to reduce meat consumption across the world: The Observer was surprised when lunch arrived—pate, salami, beef, pork, liver paste, chops, bacon...a meaty feast for the delegates, many of whom were vegetarians."

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Priorities

A good article on agricultural development priorities in Lebanon by Muhammad Wehbeh. But each one of these priorities is a minefield, a a real challenge to the new minister. I will write about this later in more details in al akhbar

Saturday, December 5, 2009

The Great Arundhati Roy

http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?223821

"At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom and in dignity. For everybody. We have to make common cause, and to do this we need to understand how this big old machine works — who it works for and who it works against. Who pays, who profits.

Many non-violent resistance movements fighting isolated, single-issue battles across the country have realised that their kind of special interest politics which had its time and place, is no longer enough. That they feel cornered and ineffectual is not good enough reason to abandon non-violent resistance as a strategy. It is however, good enough reason to do some serious introspection. We need vision. We need to make sure that those of us who say we want to reclaim democracy are egalitarian and democratic in our own methods of functioning. If our struggle is to be an idealistic one, we cannot really make caveats for the internal injustices that we perpetrate on one another, on women, on children. For example, those fighting communalism cannot turn a blind eye to economic injustices. Those fighting dams or development projects cannot elide issues of communalism or caste politics in their spheres of influence — even at the cost of short-term success in their immediate campaign. If opportunism and expediency come at the cost of our beliefs, then there is nothing to separate us from mainstream politicians. If it is justice that we want, it must be justice and equal rights for all — not only for special interest groups with special interest prejudices. That is non-negotiable.

We have allowed non-violent resistance to atrophy into feel-good political theatre, which at its most successful is a photo opportunity for the media, and at its least successful, simply ignored.

We need to look up and urgently discuss strategies of resistance, wage real battles and inflict real damage. We must remember that the Dandi March was not just fine political theatre. It was a strike at the economic underpinning of the British Empire.

We need to re-define the meaning of politics. The `Ngo'isation of civil society initiatives is taking us in exactly the opposite direction. It's de-politicising us. Making us dependant on aid and hand-outs. We need to re-imagine the meaning of civil disobedience. "

(Thanks Marcy)

Badael-Alternatives

In Al Akhbar yesterday, Badael with my editorial: Boycott and the Hizb new document, Mc Donald opens its kitchens (M. Mohsin) and kammouneh...mmmmh (K. Jaber)

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Depoliticized

Isn't it great to see the Lebanese neo-liberals associating with the "indies" to stop climate change, and going all radical over it? What a nice, distant cause... A letter from the Lebanese people to Copenhagen! The Lebanese people! With 40% poverty! With poor governmental schooling, especially in the rural areas! And much, much more... Don't be fooled: it is not the neo-libs who are radical here, it is the indies who are depoliticized. How many among them are ready to campaign for social justice?

Document

If you read Arabic, then you must read Hizbullah's new political document in which the party adopts (parts of) the discourse of the left, and declares its opposition to "savage capitalism" and to transnational corporations and its affinity with the leftist revolutionary regimes of Latin America. The party fails to explain how it will transfer this thought onto the local scene, as Fidaa Itani explains here.

Syria's new liberal economy

"Syria has been steadily liberalising its economy for the past two decades, with much of this effort focused on the banking sector. The time when six state-owned banks dominated the economy is long gone and private banks have become a central feature of the banking scene. Now the government is hoping to attract a major international bank to its shores and is proposing to raise foreign ownership limits and capital requirements to catapult the economy into a new era."


"Yet Mr Assad’s regime has not only endured but thrived, along with Syria’s economy. Its GDP, its foreign trade and the value of loans to its private sector have all nearly doubled in the past four years, as reforms have tapped suppressed entrepreneurial vigour. For decades Damascus looked as dour as Bucharest under communist rule. Now it pulses with life. New cars throng its streets. Fancy boutique hotels, bars and fully booked restaurants pack its rapidly gentrifying older quarters, while middle-class suburbs, replete with shopping malls and fast-food outlets, spread into the surrounding hills.

The revenue of Damascus’s swankiest hotel, the Four Seasons, is said to have doubled between 2006 and 2008. Bank Audi Syria, one of several Lebanese banks prospering there, made a profit within six months of launching in 2005. It now boasts $1.6 billion in deposits, and recently led Syria’s first-ever private syndication to finance a cement plant, a joint venture between France’s Lafarge and local businessmen costing $680m. In March Syria relaunched its stock exchange, moribund since the 1960s and still tiny. But with new rules allowing foreign ownership of equity, investors are showing keen interest."

http://www.economist.com/world/middleeast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14984967

via http://joshualandis.com/blog/?p=4590


I will be looking closely at the impacts of liberalization on local food systems and food security. Initial observations appear to show that the drastic decline in food security in Syria, especially that of the poorer classes, is linked with the latest liberalization trends.