As supporters of the Iranian state celebrate the 45th anniversary of its revolution’s victory, there is no harm in revisiting the elements that combine to form the multi-layered theory of Khomeinism. The headline above avoids labeling this theory "Iranian," because being fair and accurate means…

I did not come from a Lebanese background. My family supported neither the Kataeb, nor Chamoun. A relative of mine uprooted a cedar tree to protest what he saw as the bigotry of Lebanism. Our north star did not point to Beirut or Mount Lebanon, but Tripoli and, behind it, Homs in Syria. We did not…

Decades of occupation, oppression, and conflict over land and victimhood are the background to the heart-wrenching scenes in Gaza. However, so are other elements that have resulted from occupation, and resistance to it, to the same extent that they have shaped them. Fear, one of those…

Last Saturday, several Lebanese, among them politicians, media professionals, and ordinary citizens, commemorated the third anniversary of Luqman Slim’s assassination in the south. Luqman Slim was a writer, literary figure, publisher, and outspoken critic who did not hesitate to voice his opinion,…

Three weeks ago, Arab and western diplomatic efforts to silence the Israeli killing machine and reach a ceasefire began gaining steam. Some are betting that this ceasefire can be made permanent and enhanced, giving rise to some kind of peace. While there is an urgent need to go in this direction…

Around thirty years ago, six years before 9/11, "Jihad vs. McWorld" was published and widely read. It was printed in two editions, each with a different subtitle: "How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World" and "Terrorism's Threat to Democracy." The author of the book is the American…

The critics who found fault in some liberals rushing to mourn nationalism and pronouncing it dead were not mistaken. If we were to borrow from Plato’s allegory, with some alterations, life in the nineties looked more like shadows and blurred lines of real things, not real things themselves. …

After many Lebanese officials voiced similar positions, Prime Minister Najib Mikati took things further than his colleagues and seemed less embarrassed about his embarrassing position. Besides implicitly acknowledging that Hezbollah is the actual negotiator at the table in which the situation in…

In the mid-19th century, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard published his famous book “Either/or,” in which he argues that individuals must choose between an aesthetic life and a religious and spiritual life. “Either/or” consists of two volumes: one about the first life, or the first…

A few days ago, Riad Al-Turk (Syrian) and Karim Mroueh (Lebanese) passed away. The two men, who died a few days apart, were born in the same year, 1930. They were communists for decades and then became leading communist figures, before they walked back, each in his own way, from their commitment to…