Just a few hours ago, I decided that I SHOULD know what’s happening with the Lebanese elections. I had totally forgotten that the parliament elections were on June 7th and I had failed to see how soon they are, that’s just because I have been (what i call) an anti-politics person for a few years, even if no one believes me when I say that. Truth is that I think my opinion doesn’t matter, and all that I gain by following Lebanon’s politics is well, nothing. Or maybe headache. Some heartache also. And a pinch of psychological disorders. Point is that I never understood and will never understand how things happen on the political scene in Lebanon, it’s just too damn complicated and I’m a rational scientific girl at heart: anything I don’t understand, I just ignore. But I digress.
So I Google’d “Lebanese Elections” and after two or three hours of reading, clicking links, and struggling with my deadly slow internet connection, I had gathered enough info to satisfy my small curiosity. But, like I do with technology-related info, I wanted a decent blog with an RSS feed to follow. I know myself well enough to say that I won’t go check elections-related websites again, but if I subscribe to an RSS, it’s different. It will show up in my stream of news and I will end up at least reading the headline, which is better than nothing. In the end, I’m Lebanese and I should care.
The problem that I faced is that I didn’t find ANY decent politics website around the Lebanese elections. All of them are either biased towards the opposition, either biased towards the euh-what’s-the-opposite-of-opposition?-damn, either funny blogs written by strongly opinionated people who are biased towards not being biased ie. they point the silliness in both camps. That’s a diversified coverage and while I enjoyed some witty posts by the 3rd category, none of the blogs are ones that I would want to follow daily. I really don’t care about what someone thinks of the leaked Jumblat video where he bashes his own allies and all Christians, I just care that the video was leaked with a link to it. I’ll form my own opinion, thank you. I also don’t want a blog that calls the FPM as the “Aoun-led-prosyrian-FPM” nor one that calls the LF the “assassin-Geagea-led-LF”, I just want a blog that says FPM and LF, no adjectives appended. I’ll add my own adjectives, thank you.
Then I realized that I wanted a blog like the ones I usually follow in the technology industry. Ones that spoke numbers and facts. So what if politics were as easy to understand and talk about as technology products? What if politicians came with a Spec Sheet?
When announced, their parties would send around a Press Release talking about how awesome their politician is, but no one will be surprised as Engadget would have published leaked info about him some months earlier. Thousands of sites will publish the press release as is, copy/paste baby! Mobile-Review will be the first one to post a review (in Russian first, then translated to English) of the politician with detailed pictures and videos, as well as comparison pictures with other politicians on the market. A while later, some elect people would get to trial the politician and say what they think about him/her, unless he is made by Palm in which case no one will put their hands on him for months. Come to think of it, it would be really nice if we could trial a politician before choosing him for some kind of important seat.
- If the politician isn’t touchable, tons of American-based bloggers will bash him. If he is touchable, the same tons of American-based bloggers will still bash him, unless he has a fruity logo on his back.
- If he’s an important politician made by Finland’s best, it will be months before anyone else can enjoy his company, but some people will rejoice by laying their hands on a prototype-politician with half-baked opinions: he sometimes forgets what he’s doing and stops moving, other times he restarts his sentences or movements. He also has some half-finished aspects of his personality: his eyes can’t capture images clearly or his voice has too much hiss, for example.
A bit later, people would get to meet the said politician and form a very precise opinion about him, and if you Google’d his name + review, you would get more than 140.000 results. You could also find him on Amazon with a rating system, and several reviews. If he’s a one-starer, you clearly wouldn’t want to pick him as your next representative in the government. If he’s a 5-starer, you are probably safe, but you should really look closely to see if the deal isn’t too good to be true, after all the devil is in the fineprint. And last but not least, you could Ebay him when you think you’re ready to move to a more efficient politician model.
Wouldn’t life be easier?
Great post rita… After long time i found a post that i enjoyed while reading
Glad someone enjoyed my ramblings
Interesting article Rita
Agree 100%
Oh, trying to understand politics! not in this life, I doubt, especially Lebanese politics
We all wish it was as simple as checking out a new product, politicians build there image around their opinions, they never mention their background (education, past work…). Worst than that people follow them purely because they agree with their opinion, they just don’t get the concept that a deputy is an employee, you have to check his/her CV and judge based on that.