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What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

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Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#211

Post by pmyteh »

nradov wrote: post #70
kamaal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because voting is just a small part of Democracy. Democracies need strong and independent, judicial, law making and executive branches. Voting itself is an averaging process, and you get the average of what ordinary citizen wants. It is hard to make people want good things for themselves without proactive investments in education and developing a population with scientific temper.

Separation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government appears to be a good practice. However, the UK doesn't really have that: Parliament controls everything. And they seem to have a fairly stable and functional democracy.

In theory Parliament controls everything, but in practice the executive controls everything (because they control Parliament). The separation of powers that does exist is largely because of 'leakage' in Ministers' control of events. They can straightforwardly change the law, for example, but you need to change it before you do the otherwise-unlawful thing, not afterward. If you don't, the courts will nullify your actions. You can dismiss 'independent' quango heads quite straightforwardly, but it's politically expensive (and somewhat time consuming) to do so too frequently. You control the Parliamentary timetable, but there are a few gaps in it for opposition day debates and private members' bills. That sort of thing.

We do have a stable and functional democracy, though it's rather brittle against a bad-faith executive. One prominent theory is the 'good chap' model of government, which holds basically that the system is set up such that 'reasonable chaps like us' can govern well and with few constraints, but the flipside is that Johnson's impact was limited by his government's lack of competence, not by institutional constraints. That might be liberating or terrifying, depending on your views about good government.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#212

Post by bergenty »

vineyardmike wrote: post #144
suzzer99 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of places with high ethnic/religious diversity have thrived: Singapore, Istanbul, New York City, (increasingly) the capitals of Western Europe. Teotihuacan, the largest pyramid complex outside of Egypt, was a multi-cultural city where different religions, languages and ethnicities lived side by side for 1000 years. It can be done.

1. Singapore has an extremely controlling government and lots of accounts of an ethnic non-citizen “underclass” being exploited. 2. Turkey as a whole is questionable. They have rampant ethnic violence even if Istanbul is doing ok. 3. The US and Western Europe arent turkey but again, have various degrees of ethnic tension being played out. Whether that’s trump and all he stands for or France’s burka bans. They’re also…

Every place has an underclass that gets exploited including homogenous countries. What’s your point?

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#213

Post by fezfight »

rayiner wrote: post #96
fezfight wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the cause of all human on human suffering since the dawn of time is greed. Its almost a tautology so maybe it didn't need to be said. For the record, I'm a Canadian who went to school with countless Lebanese people in Ottawa. I'm a big fan!

Quoted post unavailable.

I also know quite a few Persians in Canada that I'm also quite a big fan of! Yay, Canada.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#214

Post by babarock »

_alxk wrote: post #169
babarock wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, not Hamas, the Islamic Jihad that came before it. It's not nearly the point of my reply, but good gotcha. As for sources of how the PLO treated non-muslims during the civil war of lebanon, it's tough to find what you want. The whole civil war was about the christian factions vs the palestinian factions, with different entites in between with rapid shifting alliances.

There was no "Islamic Jihad" in Palestinian groups before the 90s. Religion wasn't a factor in Palestinian politics or militancy before Hamas, and Hamas only became a big player during the second intifada in the 2000s. I understand you are from Lebanon and from a sectarian background, but that's maybe partly why you have a biased understanding of the groups, ideologies and foreign players involved. You may want to re…

That's what I get for revealing my identity and sharing my stories. I'm told by strangers hiding behind their anonymous username that my views are "biased". Well, yeah, all views are "biased". Does it mean that those stories are not true?

Lebanon was divided around ethnic lines all throughout the war. On one hand, christian militias. On the other hand, palestinian militias. I know what they said about each other. I know how they killed and assassinated each other. I know how impossible it was to cross the line. I grew up there, I don't full remember the last years of the war, but I definitely remember the after-war and what people did afterwards.

Maybe it "just happens" that the Lebanese muslims sided with the 90+% muslim-palestians. But judged from living there for my whole life I might know that this isn't what they say. Not how they saw each other. The Lebanese muslims sided with the palestinians because of a percieved shared identity. Call it pan-arabism, call it whatever fancy term you want.

I am NOT saying that middle eastern christians are perpetually persecuted or that coexistence with muslims isn't possible. I'm not saying that the situation is the same today in 2022. I'm saying that at one specific moment in history, in one specific country in the middle east, the muslims have attempted (and succeeded at) toppling a non-muslim government that was seen as pro-west-anti-arab.

And to be clear, I agree with you that Lebanon was not a solid nation, was gonna implode anyway, and was dealing with internal conflict long before Palestine was a thing.

> There was no "Islamic Jihad" in Palestinian groups before the 90s.

I guess those guys aren't real then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Jihad_Movement_in_Pale...

They operated in lebanon. They operated from lebanon. They still operate from lebanon.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#215

Post by _alxk »

babarock wrote: post #214
_alxk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no "Islamic Jihad" in Palestinian groups before the 90s. Religion wasn't a factor in Palestinian politics or militancy before Hamas, and Hamas only became a big player during the second intifada in the 2000s. I understand you are from Lebanon and from a sectarian background, but that's maybe partly why you have a biased understanding of the groups, ideologies and foreign players involved. You may want to re…

That's what I get for revealing my identity and sharing my stories. I'm told by strangers hiding behind their anonymous username that my views are "biased". Well, yeah, all views are "biased". Does it mean that those stories are not true? Lebanon was divided around ethnic lines all throughout the war. On one hand, christian militias. On the other hand, palestinian militias. I know what they said about each other. I k…

> I guess those guys aren't real then?

You didn't even check your own link I guess. That group's first attack was in 1984 when they operated out of Egypt and in the south of Israel/Palestine. Not a single one of their attacks happened in Lebanon during the civil war. Their presence in Lebanon starts in 1989, at the end of the civil war, and they have to this day not attacked a Lebanese target.

This confirms the point I've been communicating this entire thread that religion only became a driving force in Palestinian politics and militancy in the 1990s and Palestinian Islamism was not a factor in the Lebanese civil war.

> radical Islamist Palestinians who had left Palestine and wanted an Islamic state in Lebanon

This is false and misrepresents Palestinian movements in the pre-1990s era and their objectives in Lebanon. That is all I wanted to point out.

I agree with the rest of what you said though.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#216

Post by throwoutway »

taylodl wrote: post #197
DubiousPusher wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I assume the city they're referring to is Vienna? Just guessing because of its well known high GDP. However, the point stands. Many cities were bombed to rubble in WWII and they came back. The same could happen in Beirut if a stable political situation were to emerge. Though there are numerous reasons that will be very difficult.

Let's not forget a hefty investment was made by the West to rebuild those cities that were bombed to rubble that Beirut is not getting. So Beirut may need more than a stable political situation.

Stable political situations are a strong precursor to investment and capital flows

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#217

Post by DubiousPusher »

nsajko wrote: post #195
DubiousPusher wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I assume the city they're referring to is Vienna? Just guessing because of its well known high GDP. However, the point stands. Many cities were bombed to rubble in WWII and they came back. The same could happen in Beirut if a stable political situation were to emerge. Though there are numerous reasons that will be very difficult.

Getting quite off-topic, but Vienna is the capital of Austria; while Bratislava and Košice are the only two Slovakian cities with a population greater than 100000, so presumably it's one of those.

Looks like Bratislava

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Bratislava

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#219

Post by babarock »

_alxk wrote: post #215
babarock wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I get for revealing my identity and sharing my stories. I'm told by strangers hiding behind their anonymous username that my views are "biased". Well, yeah, all views are "biased". Does it mean that those stories are not true? Lebanon was divided around ethnic lines all throughout the war. On one hand, christian militias. On the other hand, palestinian militias. I know what they said about each other. I k…

> I guess those guys aren't real then? You didn't even check your own link I guess. That group's first attack was in 1984 when they operated out of Egypt and in the south of Israel/Palestine. Not a single one of their attacks happened in Lebanon during the civil war. Their presence in Lebanon starts in 1989, at the end of the civil war, and they have to this day not attacked a Lebanese target. This confirms the point…

I understand now what you are saying. I don't agree or disagree. Honestly I don't know enough about the topic.

See, for middle eastern, words like "muslim" or "chrisitans" or "jews" doesn't represent your spiritual beliefs. It represents ethnic belonging. To put it in a western perspective, your religion is not a mutable characteristic. I'm born "christian", but my level of belief in Jesus Christ has nothing to do with it.

You're saying the factions that fought in Lebanon didn't emphasize a islamist rhetoric until the 90s. From what I know from the earlier days of the war, there was a lot of talk of pan-arabism and arabic identity, not talk of an Islam nation, so what you're saying sounds plausible.

But from our middle eastern perspective, lebanese muslims allied themselves to other muslims from syria and palestine to topple the christian-led government. I was communicating the point that the factions involved were based on ethnicity.

People picture "wars" like soldiers in battlefields and there was some of that. But a LOT of the Lebanese war was undisciplined militiamen mass killing villages based on ethnic lines. On both sides. Plenty of massacres in christian villages because they were christians. Plenty of massacres in muslim villages because they were muslim. From our point of view, we saw was christian and muslims killing each other.

> radical Islamist Palestinians who had left Palestine and wanted an Islamic state in Lebanon

The first time I read that quote, I didn't react to the words "radical Islamist", but read "palestinians had left palestine and wanted a state in lebanon". I guess this shows my bias after all :D

Now I'm curious what caused the change in the palestinian rhetoric. I'll try to read some more about it. Thanks for opening my eyes to this.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#220

Post by blibble »

Beltalowda wrote: post #210
blibble wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's all from the property of parliamentary systems that the leader can be removed easily presidental systems are really quite awful in practice

I actually think that's a comparatively minor detail, and not all that important here. The biggest issue that has often been discussed is the first past the post constituencies/districts/states both systems share. Neither Trump nor Boris would have become President or PM without that, simply on account of voters having more options to cast a meaningful vote for (UK also does a little bit better than the US in this re…

it's the important detail

in the UK the electorate don't pick the leader

the electorate vote for an MP, and the group of those that form the party alone select the leader (and they can dismiss them just as easily)

the party has power over the leader, which is absolutely not true in most presidential systems

(and as to your second point, yes, under some hypothetical system that doesn't exist it's possible things may be different)

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