Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Lebanese politics: 40 years later

I was reading old issues of As-Safir newspaper.  This is from 1974.  It struck me: the headline talks about the designation of Sa'ib Salam (Tammam's father) as prime minister, and it mentions Kamal Jumblat (Walid's father) and Toni Franjiyyah (Sulyman's father).  So the sons still dominate Lebanese politics 40 years later.  Only the Shi`ites were able to discard their traditional leaders.  In the second half of the same front page of the paper, it talks about the Saudi King (brother of King `Abdullah) and mentions Hafidh Al-Asad (Bashshar's father).  Something is wrong, very wrong with this picture.