Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Crawling out From under the Trash: the Role of Academics in Lebanon


How and why did we let ourselves be buried under our own physical and psychological trash- the 'we' refers here to most Lebanese -Without implicating ourselves in entrenching the Orientalist caricatures of Southwestern Asian societies as incapable of self-government, there are questions to be asked about quietist and conformist tendencies, about the ostrich like behavior and the zombie attitude. These questions do not lend themselves to easy answers. But engaging with them may facilitate critical assessment of the prospects for sustainable change.

According to Patricio Aylwin Azocar: "Ordinary men and women may often feel unmotivated to exert their citizenship, either because they cannot tell the difference between the different alternatives, or because they have lost faith in the political classes, or because they feel that the really important issues are not in their power to decide". As for the well-known poet Adonis, he reproaches the deification of the political party, the ideology and the community - Adonis opposes the sacralisation that colours and creeps into politics, turning parliamentarians, ministers and other public servants into demi-gods, their ideologies into gospels and political parties into quasi-sects.

Indeed, over the past decades, the legacy of multiple wars in Lebanon, including hypermnesia, and paradoxically the tabula rasa mentality and strategy, have produced in the minds of a good many Lebanese the illusion that somehow “somebody” – the warlord, the zaim, the political party, the sectarian community/belonging – but not the State (or the embodiment of the common management of our diversity), can provide for ALL needs, so why make much effort to fulfill what used to be considered in practice (or are considered in the Constitution) the responsibilities of any citizen?

As Larbi Sadiki describes Adonis in The Search for Arab Democracy, he is in all of this “an iconoclast”. “His predilection is for fluidity, plurality and provisionalism". The icons of Lebanese politics have all cultivated and entrenched political iconolatry, and that iconolatry has been internalized by many Lebanese - including university students and academics -, thus has weakened the case for citizenship. Adonis’s iconoclasm (desacralisation) seems therefore justified, but in my opinion, when it comes to the Lebanese case, iconoclasm is not a generalized rebellion or a revolution - let us not forget the chaotic outcome of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in most countries where it occurred -, but a change-making process located in multiple local and diasporic social-political struggles already taking place.

Agents of dialogue, non-governmental organizations, academics and activists have been trying their best, especially since the 1990s (and before), to raise awareness about the necessity of reforming the social-political system and of finding solutions to numerous crises such as the economic, environmental, cultural,…; crises of paradigms, identities, difference, indifference, intolerance, belligerence, ignorance, oppression, fanaticism, and of missionary zeal. However, if we want to shift from subjection, autocracy, blind faith, absolutism, fixity, non-participatory polity and “denizenship” to citizenship and good government, we will have to crawl out from under the trash, we will have to desacralise, we will have to become iconoclasts, and by that I mean: we will have to start make use of the energy and creativity of all these agents and encourage new initiatives, to serve our society (and continue on serving) even from afar (Lebanese living in diaspora) while continuing our primary missions, to pull up the stories of people who have been silenced, to harness solidarity into forms of actions that would contribute to the change-making process in an efficient manner, and to redirect the substantial energy of our frustration - when our streets and lives are vanishing under piles of garbage - and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.

“If beyond hopelessness there is hope, I am hopeful” (Elias Khoury). And I am calling on my fellow academics to further publicize/disseminate their knowledge as a catalyst for social-political change, to share and continue to share the myriad ways they use their expertise to expand public discourse and promote social justice, human rights, peacebuilding and alternative diversity management approaches. Intellectual activism or public sociology - or social justice education/ peace education - is an important form of activism that should accompany street protests, boycott, peaceful demonstrations and artistic/cultural events. It is about the democratization of knowledge, about facilitating other forms of activism by giving people data and paradigms they can reference to back up their positions on social and political issues (as Popkewitz and others have noted, “Knowledge provides the principles through which options are made available, problems defined, and solutions considered as acceptable and effective”), by fostering dialogue and constructive criticism. It is about stepping out of the office and putting the accumulated research to use. It is about ‘being professor’ as a social role, not just a job, especially when the silence of many maintains injustice, which it frequently does.

True that universities do more than influence society, they are also shaped by it, they reflect the antagonisms and reproduce them, they are contested sites where various agendas and desires are promoted and through which power circulates to produce and legitimate certain kinds of knowledge, experience and ways of knowing, but the academy in Lebanon is also inherently an elitist hierarchical structure and most academics are worried about keeping their jobs and getting tenure. Furthermore, as Henry Giroux notes, “Neoliberalism assaulted all things public, sabotaged the basic contradiction between democratic values and market fundamentalism (…), it also weakened any viable notion of political agency by offering no language capable of connecting private considerations to public issues…As democratic values give way to commercial values, intellectual ambitions are often reduced to an instrument of the entrepreneurial self, and social visions are dismissed as hopelessly out of date”.


Yet despite these limitations and that of self-enclosure of the Ivory Tower, there are already engaged Lebanese academics, iconoclasts, and they are making a difference, but more need to engage beyond their classrooms, books and academic journals, to be in the act of researching people, themselves, the dynamics of oppression and the politics of social interactions and injustices, to become aware of the people’s often unknowingly complicit in the process of oppression, to create knowledge in and through meaningful participation and action with others, to bring people together and contribute to finding reasons of solidarity, to transform boundaries into spaces where lives and pedagogies are constructed together in ways that work for social justice and lead to powerful possibilities, and where dialogic and open-ended praxis based on more collaborative and caring relationships is promoted.

16 comments:

Marielle Karame said...

Thank you Dr. for such an interesting and powerful post.
Lebanese are indeed witnessing their own trash transforming into their nightmare.
I am ashamed of myself and fellow citizens, as well as of our political leaders.

Jihad said...

I agree that activism is multi-leveled. There are those who write and produce knowledge, others who fight on the ground, and there are those who combine different forms in their struggles. There is no black/white situation, tools and way of doing when it comes to activism. And certainly, we need all Lebanese to be engaged. Academics and students in schools and universities paralyze countries elsewhere. But here, ...

I am not that optimistic. I lost faith. I would rather live with dignity as a human being than to be submerged with garbage.

Hayat A. said...

Straight to the point! Thank you for tackling the roots of our trash crisis!
Education is the most important value to take care of if we truly want change in this country for the better.

Mohd said...

A key intervention in a much needed public debate.

Dr. Loubna said...

Thank you Dr. Pamela for this enlightening post. As a researcher, I hope to be a member of a lively and productive community, not an isolated individual working in a library.There was a time when I imagined that research meant solitary thinking or working late and alone over a lab bench, waiting for the eureka moment. But these days, romantic images have little basis in fact.

Mohd said...

I agree Dr. Loubna but many students and academics in Lebanon are not engaged in their society or are already partisans of the political parties that are dissecting our countries. They serve the current rotten system.

Kalima said...

Academics have a crucial role to fulfill in Lebanon. They are educating generations of individuals who are in large parts irresponsible. 'Citizenship' is a non-existent word in the dictionaries of universities' curricula. Many universities have banned cultural/political clubs. Students are spending their time in cafeterias and professors are mostly adjuncts who are paid peanuts thus are not motivated to have a social-political role, nor the basic role of a proper teacher.
This is a doomed country. I am following the news now. People are demonstrating in streets against the mismanagement of our trash crisis. Garbage is filling the streets. Where are the academics? The students? In other countries, they would cease to work, to study, they would boycott, they would at least write and publish as much as possible to raise awareness.
This is not a country. This is a 'mazbale' !!

Solange Abou Haidar said...

There should be a Reform for Citizenship Education in Lebanon. There was a program or a project by the Centre for Lebanese Studies and in collaboration with the Lebanese Ministry of Education. What happened to this project? We need to evaluate and develop the citizenship education curricula, ti implement an active program and develop a program for parents and communities. Educating students is important, and educating their parents is also more important.

I am also following the news online. I live in Montreal. Can't even tell my friends to visit Lebanon. We can't even swim in our sea. Trash is everywhere, in our water, in the air we are breathing, in our homes, in the public spaces, in the parliament...

I hope more and more people will rise from the dead, but not as zombies ;)

Laurent Khoury said...

I couldn't agree more!

The situation in Lebanon is out of control for the moment but the people who are fighting back such as those who are part of the 'Trash Revolution' and many others give us hope in a better future.

Siloe said...

Highly interesting post!

Charbel said...

Sharing the post and agreeing 100%

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh said...

Thank you all for your comments and support!

jamil chaaya said...

Sharing the post too !

karim said...

Hello Dr. We tried to protest against the mismanagement of our trash and it didn't work. What could be the solution?

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh said...

As I commented on a friend's post on Facebook: "I honestly don't think there is a miracle solution. We need many generations to break down the mafia mentality and system. Education (non-official) and awareness are a necessity for the moment. I believe in small and diffused steps. A change-making process... Our society is not ready for a revolution. This is my belief, based on 20 years of activism and 14 years of academic researches about social movements and NGOs in Lebanon. My activism shifted from the street to the classroom and the virtual world. There is plenty of work to be done on changing the worldviews. Lots of deconstructions and reconstructions..."

Patrick Kouffi said...

Bel article Dr. Chrabieh!