Archive for February 12th, 2014
Viva in the nude ski Lebanon. Jackie Chamoun photo shoot: Before heading to Sochi Olympics
Posted on: February 12, 2014
Viva ski Lebanon. Jackie Chamoun photos: Before heading to Sochi Olympics
Lebanon is very excited and exciting these days: Olympic ski champion Jackie Chamoun claimed that her photo shoot 3 years ago were not meant to be published.
Mind you that the Olympic Lebanese did it on their own: Effort, dedication, finances… The government didn’t give a hoot: Just “investigating” the semi-nude photo shoot.
(I copied these semi-nude photos from http://www.mulhak.com mulhak.com)
There is far more support for Jackie than this stupid government. Posters are being mounted saying: “We are worried about Bombs, Not Boobs”
patrickgaley posted this February 11, 2014
Jackie Chamoun photos: Lebanon outdumbs itself
Two things:
1. Lebanon’s Ministry of Tourism has repeatedly produced promotional videos essentially centred on the bodies of Lebanese women. I’ve covered this before, too.
As I wrote a few years back:
There is an argument to say there is little wrong with a country using its natural assets (Lebanon is still poor in resources, and will remain so until the government can agree on what to do with natural gas and oil reserves in the east Mediterranean) to boost its economic draw.
As long as the women in the commercial are consensual, what is wrong with flashing their flesh to promote Lebanon? After all, plenty of countries flaunt their female beauty stocks in a bid to draw beach-dwelling binocular users to their shores.
Not plenty of countries, however, display the same level of hypocrisy by encouraging grabby men to come and ogle their women while denying those same women basic rights enjoyed by men.
Here’s one of those videos for your perusal:
Lebanon has even before taken to the pages of Playboy to flog its women.
It’s transparently hypocritical to promote women as physical specimens while simultaneously denying them equal treatment in every facet of professional and familial society, just as people without boobs shouldn’t get to tell people with boobs what to do with them.
2. I urge everyone to read this report about the Lebanese ski team and how it has had to overcome unimaginable managerial incompetence, corruption and fecklessness to even make it to the Olympics. Any Olympics.
One might think the media might be, I dunno, proud of a young professional who – like many, many citizens of Lebanon – has had to struggle and fight in the face of downright ineptitude and obstructiveness to achieve their ambition. But as you know by now, that’s not how Lebanon – least of all the politicised media – does things.
It’s waspish, petty, self-righteous and stupid. Put that in a tourism video.
Naming and Shaming: Should it be a custom in doing politics? “Doon zekr asma2”
Not naming the perpetrators when the evidences and facts are revealed encourages the politically backed to resume their misgivings.
But this custom is so deep rooted in our current culture that the shame is overflowing on the Lebanese “citizen” for lack of public outcry at the criminals.
I’m feeling at a complete loss for words and hopeless about the way this country works.
When it is backed by solid evidence and not intended as childish and unsubstantiated slander, so-called “naming and shaming” or “تشهير Tashheer” is about anything but curiosity.
Naming and shaming is as much about equality under the law and the public spotlight, as it is about transparency and accountability.
Is there really any need to dwell on the absolute necessity of both in Lebanon at any point in time and in almost any sphere you can imagine – economic, financial, social, political, developmental, confessional, judicial even agricultural, educational and environmental?
It is towards this end that former Lebanese Minister of Labor Charbel Nahas may be making historical headway. What started – and continues – as a fight for the rights of employees of Lebanon-based supermarket Spinneys spearheaded by Nahas, has also become a fight to establish Lebanese jurisprudence for the right to “name and shame.”
Nahas and his supporters have adopted the “naming and shaming is a duty” “تشهير واجب” slogan to keep pounding the point that when the facts are there, naming and shaming is a duty, and keeping silent is wrong and a crime in itself…
And frankly, it should be. A brief overview of Nahas’ defense in this regard can be found here in Arabic (under “التشهير واجب… لهذه الأسباب”) drawing examples from Europe and Lebanon, which I encourage you all to read.
Whether you like Charbel Nahas or not, admire his non-conventional style and perseverance or dismiss him as a populist with political ambitions, the consequences of his perseverance may have very positive consequences on us all.
For how many times have issues of corruption, of public safety (related to rotten food or counterfeit and/or copycat medicine), embezzlement or environmental scandals been left uncovered, perpetrators left unpunished because nobody named and shamed them, because they were “politically backed” and potential accusers had no backing themselves and knew that if they were to blow the whistle or speak, they’d be dismissed as liars or prosecuted for slander?
The battle for “naming and shaming” has the potential to become a reward for us all.
If I were you, I’d keep an eye on the case’s developments and support Nahas, his team, and his cause…
Adonis Diaries 