The Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at ANU is delighted to host this series of public lecture on timely topics to do with Middle East and Central Asia. I would like first to start by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose traditional land we meet and pay our respect to the elders past, present and emergent. In this somehow skipping notes, you will notice that your videos and microphones are off, because we have this format of webinar, but you are very welcome to put your question in the Q&A chat room and I will relay them to our guest tonight. Also, you can raise your hand and speak directly. We can unmute you during the Q&A question. So we are delighted tonight to welcome Associate Professor Tameras Fahouri live from Beirut to discuss with us the current crisis in Lebanon. We would like first to express our solidarity with the Lebanese people. I was just telling Tameras before the start of the seminar. Our solidarity with the Lebanese people and the Beirutis in the aftermath of the catastrophic blast in Beirut, which has caused not only the loss of lives and livelihoods but also the destruction of an important historical part of Beirut. Lebanon has been struggling in addition to that with a near economic collapse and a new surge of COVID-19 infections. But the Lebanese people, as we know them, have always been very resilient and they are back to the street demanding accountability and an end of economic and political corruption. So with us tonight to shed light on all these complex issues is Tameras Fahouri, who is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She's also the director of the Institute for Social Justice and Conflict Resolution. She's a visiting assistant professor in the summer session at the University of California in Berkeley. Tameras is currently the principal investigator of Carnegie grant on resilience and inclusive governance in the post 2011 Arab landscape at the Lebanese American University. She's also in the leadership team of the right for time network, which looks into shifting the possibilities for humanitarian protection through research on how time conditions war and displacement. Her core research and publication areas are power sharing and ethno sectarian conflict, migration and refugee governance in conflict areas, the European Union's external policy and non contestation in the international system. She has published widely and extensively in all these areas. So without any further ado, I would like to welcome Tameras to give us her talk. Thank you so much Tameras. Thank you so much for your kind introduction. I'm, I'm thrilled to be here and to be part of the seminar series. So allow me first to share my screen. Okay. Um, so my talk will be about Lebanon's 2019 October uprising or thorough idea evolution as many would like to call it. And the concurrent crises, namely the financial crash, the pandemic, and the Beirut blast that have shaped its trajectory. So how will I go about, first I will start with some reflections on Lebanon sectarian based model of politics, which is considered as the key problem underlying the current collapse. And I will look at how such a political system in which he's cartels monopolize power, how the system behaves in the context of a grassroots wave of contention. Second, I will analyze how the October Revolutionary uprising has unfolded. And so doing our focus on some factors that have shaped its course. I will be dedicating particular attention to how parallel crises have added various layers of complexity to the ongoing protest wave. And I will, of course, take some time to discuss the Beirut blast of August the fourth and how this disaster is set to shape Lebanon's path. And what this means for citizens in terms of relief, reconstruction and disaster mitigation in the context of an absent social state. And in my conclusion, I will focus on some important domestic and external dilemmas that will play a crucial part in determining the future dynamics of the protests. Um, so understanding Lebanon's current crisis requires a look at its political system, which promotes adversarial or competitive elite behavior, clientelism corruption and which hampers collective action. So just some background brief background on Lebanon's power sharing system to start with governance in Lebanon is extremely fragmented, both institutionally and spatially. So it's a brokered in 1943 in the wake of the French mandate, a power sharing pact between Lebanon's key Muslim and Christian communities has allowed for the diffusion of state authority. And formally, as you know, the Lebanese president is a Christian Maronite, the Speaker of Parliament is a Shia and the Prime Minister is a Sunni. And in the parliament seats are equally allocated between Muslim and Christian communities, and various political parties represent Lebanon's sectarian communities. This is however, there's an absence of clear cut boundaries between state and non state, as well as formal and informal governance. So governmental leaders have traditionally acted as Zouama informal Zouama or communal leaders mediating services between the state and the communities. I refer to James Muir who calls these communal leaders or Zouama sectarian barons as they seek to consolidate their authority over the territorial strongholds. They also regulate the access of people to the material and intangible resources that are available on the ground, be it in terms of infrastructure jobs or social capital. So political parties are mainly the key channels that strengthen this relationship between formal and informal governance. For instance, after Lebanon's civil war that lasted from 1975 until 1990, all political parties had to demilitarize except for Hezbollah, the Shia based political party that's mandated to fight Israeli occupation. In practice, however, political parties have remained hybrid actors that were several hats, and this is very important to understanding the background to the October uprising. So as formal actors, they represent their constituencies in the parliament. At the same time, through their social and economic wings, they are informal providers of security infrastructure and welfare. So sectarian politics is very much predicated on who shapes and who negotiates access to space, what power brokers determine the political economy of the city, a ministry or even a bakery or construction sites, or a bar at times. So seen from this perspective, governing powers strengthen the existence of the Lebanese state as a collection of sectarian power holders who are vying for control and leverage. So this makes the politics of sectarianism rather than state institutions extremely resilient and robust. So it is worth noting that, however, that Lebanon's political formula is not the product of sectarian hatred. So rather as many scholars have demonstrated such as Osama Makdisi and Basel Salouk and others, it is a constructed social formula that the political elite have originally devised to reinvent Lebanon in the wake of profound post-colonial, territorial and societal changes. The problem, however, is that historically this formula has not changed. It has remained elite based and structured around inflexible sectarian cults, unlike Northern Ireland, for instance, and it hardly allows for ordinary citizens to participate in governance. So I demonstrate in my work that this extremely resilient political system inhibits change for four key reasons. First, it encourages the formation of competitive elite cartels that are supposed to coexist under the guise of national unity. In fact, what happens is that governing powers spend their time processing conflict and managing differences rather than implementing reforms. Secondly, by encouraging fragmentation, the political system enables the sectarian state to supersede the social or civic state, thereby impeding collective mobilization around change. So as I said at the beginning, sectarian gatekeepers dispense jobs and welfare to their followers. In turn, these followers perceive their leaders as the key providers of safety nets and poverty alleviators. And through such patronage networks, the rule of sectarian warlords is perpetuated. So at the same time, the political elite have an interest in keeping state institutions weak in order to legitimize their presence. Thirdly, and very importantly, the system invites external interference, making any homegrown attempt to change the system easily hijackable or capable of being hijacked by outside powers. As we know, historically, sectarian parties have sought external backing in Lebanon as geopolitical leverage to reinforce that position. For instance, in the context of the Syrian conflict, Lebanon's contending parties have supported different external allies from whom they have hoped to derive payoffs and benefits. And this has had disastrous consequences on Lebanese politics since 2011. Fourthly, and most importantly, Lebanon has witnessed in the last decade what we call a democratic backlash. So many would tell me the Lebanese state may not be as deep a state as other Arab autocracies such as Egypt or Syria, for instance. Still in the shadow of Syria's war, governments have prioritized geopolitical concerns and they have sidelined citizens demands referring to them as low politics. And in the name of stability and public order, security forces have frequently arrested activists and protesters who criticize the ruling elite. And so sending the riot police to disperse activists is usually accompanied by this rhetoric in which politicians frame protesters as sectarian agents or as traitors who are co-opted by international agents and paid by external embassies. So it is again such a background that the 2019 October uprising started. I remember that when the protests broke out on October 17, there was a vivid debate that took place in public students and academic spheres. Many were discussing, is this a surprising event or was it bound to happen? Was it inevitable? And so we've seen also academics discussing whether this is part of the first wave of the Arab uprising that started in 2011 or is this a second wave that we should explain in conjunction with protests that were happening at the same time in Sudan and Algeria. So there was even a lot of discussion on whether this is a revolution and uprising or just another episode of citizen dissatisfaction that will soon be crushed by the sectarian regime as in the past. In fact, literature has portrayed October uprising in several ways. First, some have portrayed it as a surprising event and others have analyzed it as a manifestation of the Arab uprisings that were taking place and in which the repertoire of contention was in a way being diffused by protesters from one country to the other. So if you remember, as I said, Lebanon's uprising almost coincided with other uprisings that were happening in Algeria, Sudan and later Iraq. One thing is however sure, Lebanon's so-called 2019 Thaura didn't arise out of nowhere. And so it is to be situated, I argue, in the post-war dynamics of Lebanon's politics of sectarianism. So it's very much domestic, even though the timing was unpredictable, i.e., why October 17 and not before because the grievances were there all the time. The occurrence of these protests can be easily explained in the long-standing failings of the post-war state. So everybody knew that Lebanon had reached the tipping point, yet no one was sure when the collapse is going to take place. I remember that in every conference I visited or almost every conversation I have had in the last years, people have been talking about the potential collapse of post-war Lebanon. Still, observers were convinced that a full uprising like Indonesia or Algeria would not take place and two reasons were given. The first that was Lebanese people suffer from what is called the post-war fatigue syndrome. And secondly, people are afraid of the tragic scenarios that have happened in neighboring countries such as Syria, Libya and Yemen. Yet, if we look at the rich literature on revolutions and social movements as scholars such as Donatella de la Porta, George Lawson or Asif Bayat have written, there are several reasons why the movement is neither a surprise or is no contextless happening. So the roots of rage that usually spark up uprisings were visible in the everyday practices of ordinary citizens and that for decades. So blogs, books and films expressed tremendous dissatisfaction with corruption, inept governance and the lack of access to public services such as clean water, decent internet and phone prices and with a deteriorating infrastructure. So after the war, as I said, the political regime has remained resistant to legal and political reforms and we have almost had no rotation of power since the end of the civil war. Though ironically speaking, Lebanese politicians like to describe Lebanon as one of the few democracies in the Arab world. Also, the trust gap between elite-led politics and citizens has been widening by the day. So according to many surveys already conducted in 2017 and 2018, Lebanese citizens are one of the most highly dissatisfied citizenry worldwide. So they particularly feel alienated from the political class. So this on a daily basis, this has left many convinced that the sectarian model of politics which reproduces itself through formal and informal practices has become not only unchangeable but also unbearable.   These are important codes that regulate our daily lives. So also politically leaders recurrently draw on sectarian myth to block change. For instance, many of you might know that a woman who is married to a foreigner is not allowed to pass her citizenship to her children under the pretext that this might mess with sectarian demographics. Still, why now? Why did it take such a long time for such an uprising to happen? So because citizen grievances have been there for quite a long time. Indeed, a social movement theorists like to point out grievances are everywhere, but political opportunities are not. So in general, crucial to explaining why an uprising happens is the kind of political opportunity that protesters seize in order to organize. In fact, I argue in my work that Lebanon's uprising happens in the context of what protesters have perceived as an opportunity for rebellion, even if their grievances are not new. So if we quickly gloss over the events of the last years, an important thing to consider is that Lebanon's parliamentary elections that have been postponed twice since 2009, almost a decade ago, happened again only in 2018. So in my opinion, this event is crucial to explaining the timing of the uprising. So what happened is that in 2018, people expected change. However, despite the formation of new citizen initiatives, Lebanese ended up voting for the same political leaders who have dispensed services and privileges to their followers thinking that they are the solution to their problems, only to see them drag Lebanon into a harrowing financial crash and to see them reiterate the same empty promises about reforms. So what characterizes the protest movement this time is that Lebanese citizens just like Tunisian protesters in 2011 became convinced that the system no longer serves them and no longer works for them, and that they would remain the disenfranchised others while their political class would grow richer and richer and more corrupt. So in other words, with Lebanon's financial crash that has seen the Lebanese pound who's more than 85% of its value since October, the so-called system of mohasasa or sectarian pie sharing has been discredited. So in my opinion, the missed opportunity of the elections and the financial crash, you know, those two events have revealed to people the huge gap between realities and perceived expectations, and they are to be framed as key turning points around which it is possible to understand the timing of the uprising. So just to talk a little bit about the uprising and its trajectory, as Lebanese academics have underlined this protest wave was new. It had enormous social impact and it carried a lot of symbolic implications. First, it is credited for creating strong connections between social injustice, the corrupt economy of sectarianism and the patriarchal and homophobic system which reproduces itself through regulating gender. So the story has cut across social classes, bringing together vendors, merchants, students, lawyers, private businesses and teachers among many. Just some background on October 17, as some of you may know, a proposed WhatsApp tax led to the eruption of unprecedented protests that spread to various cities and towns across Lebanon, from the north to the south. The following day, the first motorcycle convoys closed the roads, starting a series of nationwide roadblocks that would turn into a daily performance like a ritual. A mass protest called all politicians to resign, decrying corruption and the looting of public funds. And less than 10 days later, Lebanon's government resigned, but it was too late to contain the public outcry. For weeks, protesters were singing daily chants, calling for the resignation of all sectarian elites. And the slogan was, kill on, all of them means all of them. Still, I mean, so, so in a nutshell, the 2019 Saudi was essentially an uprising against banks, looted public funds, political greed and corruption. And still, it quickly evolves into a site for interconnected struggles across Lebanese localities. So in the absence of organized trade unions and syndicates, feminist organizations and collectives took the lead in organizing some of the uprising's iconic marches and campaigns. A feminist group started recurrent marches in various cities, raising banners that targeted the homophobic and patriarchal nature of the political system. In some remote cities that have not known protests for years, it was just spectacular to see women calling for ending discriminatory rulings that are detrimental to women's custody rights in the religious court systems. So the core of the political system was, in a way, discredited. Moreover, to understand the 2019 October uprising, it is essential also to look at the graffiti and the slogans that protesters used. This is central to understand the ongoing revolutionary episode. What is striking is that these slogans had an intersectional message that exposed the far-reaching vices of Lebanon's political regime, and its implications for people's lived reality. So on most of the protest tense, activists had put together various slogans such as, no to political parties and to sectarianism, no to homophobia. This is a feminist revolution, domestic migrants' rights, down with the capitalist system, what is stronger, sectarianism or hunger, queers for Marx, feminism. So many of these graffiti connected the struggles of workers, women, migrants, refugees and queer and trans people. What was also particular to this protest is that people made it a point to reclaim the right to the city, and to occupy streets and public squares that were somehow unattainable. So in Beirut, protesters accessed space that were abandoned, and outside of the reach, they stormed, for instance, the famous Egg Building, which is an abandoned boot and a cinema at the heart of downtown Beirut, and that many of you might have seen. On its walls, they painted and sprayed various graffiti that were very symbolic because they are now to be found next to the bullet holes that were left from Lebanon's Civil War. So they have also stormed the Grand Theater in the center of Beirut that has been abandoned for decades, and by taking over these abandoned spaces, they sought to reclaim the center of Beirut, and this is a highly symbolic act. As some of you know, the legacy of the reconstruction of Kosovo Beirut is tainted. So reclaiming spaces, erecting tents, and staging sit-ins, teach-ins, and readings at the heart of Beirut, was about reusing urban spaces and transforming them into daily places of resistance, places for the people. Still, as empowering and exciting as this may seem, the anatomy of Lebanon's solar or revolutions soon changed. By mid-January 2020, the riot police and security forces started forcefully dispersing both peaceful and more violent protests. As you might know, citizens were angered by capital controls and imitation on dollar withdrawals, and they started by night attacking banks and high-end shops in Beirut with rocks and metal, and during the day, they attempted to bar access to state institutions such as the parliament that is situated at the heart of Beirut. So in one of the protests, for instance, that took place on January 15, security forces responded with so much violence that they caused more than 500 injuries in two days. Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in February and the enforced lockdowns since March, it is understandable that protests have contracted, though they have never abated. Since June and even before the Beirut blasts, we have seen renewed protest activity. Protesters have started against staging demonstrations and blocking roads. Still, some of these demonstrations have taken a more violent dimension. The new government, headed by Hassan Diab, that was formed last January and which had to step down after the Beirut blasts, has not been able to enact any tangible reform at the economic level. Political factions have mulled over an economic rescue plan that was supposed to be presented to the IMF, and more specifically, they have clashed over the size of the financial losses that were supposed to be submitted to the IMF. So with the rapid deterioration of lively rules, the free fall of the Lebanese pound and the procrastination of reforms, the protest wave gradually evolved into a more resentful movement of contestation that has directed its thrust or anger against politicians, shops and banks. Why is it so? And how can we explain the fact that the 2019 protests, even though they were massive and unprecedented, have not led to dismantling the political class and the system as protesters were initially hoping for. And this is very important to understanding the background to the Beirut blasts. Of course, I don't have time to delve into all of the factors that have influenced the grassroots wave. I would like, however, to attract your attention to the resilience of Lebanon's sectarian political regime, as I said at the beginning, and particularly how the sectarian system has managed to subdue the protests and redeploy its apparatus of control through several tactics. Visible repression through crackdown on protesters, but also by using more subtle methods such as deploying sectarian and geopolitical rhetoric to weaken the grassroots character of these protests. So in the first weeks of the protest movement, protesters made a conscious attempt to avoid being co-opted by sectarian powers or international powers. Some activists refused even to meet with French or US officials who offered support to the popular movement. So in other words, protesters made a conscious effort to anchor Lebanon's uprising in its domestic context. However, it was not a straightforward affair. So as I noted earlier, the deployment of the right police and security forces have been crucial to the contraction of the protests. But the apparatus of repression did not only consist in deploying force, political parties played an extremely important role in polarizing the streets. It was reported that certain political parties have beaten their supporters for taking to the streets as an act of reprisal or as a punishment for disobedience. And in Beirut as early as November 2019, some thugs called in Arabic Shabbiha started destroying the protest tent and burned the revolutionary symbols as you can see in the picture in downtown Beirut. So this threatened in a way to change the peaceful character of the protest. Many of my friends who were taking to the streets regularly, you know, were afraid or were more reluctant to go to the protest space after that. However, as I hinted at the beginning, what I want to convey is that this was much more than about visible repression or hijacking of the protest sides by thugs. An important tactic that the political establishment has used to weaken collective mobilization consisted in altering official narratives that draw on geopolitical and sectarian rhetoric. And I will give some brief examples. The first political narrative was to shift the blame away and blur accountability over the collapse. For instance, certain politicians have blamed the international community for not having done enough in the light of the Syrian refugee challenge or for having contributed to the collapse. So by promoting such narratives, politicians have diverted people's attention from their own domestic failings to the Syrian refugee crisis. The second narrative was about situating the protests in the wider and polarizing US Iran binary narrative. For instance, after Iran leader Soleimani's assassination, some party officials focused on the US Iranian dispute, making Lebanon's collapse more a matter of geopolitics and external conspiracy rather than a local affair. And the third political narrative consisted in accusing protesters of acting as trump cards for external actors such as USA or Israel. And this has led to discrediting and polarizing some protest initiatives. After these discourses, many protest stands closed in Beirut because polarizing discourses, in a way, fomented vociferous debate and hostility. So of course, this political rhetoric that was deployed is not unique to Lebanon. Historically, it has been used in various political regimes and contexts, but it's important to take it into consideration in order to understand how regimes can actually subdue protests, not necessarily only through violence, but also through rhetoric and official narratives. And yes, as if Lebanon has not had enough disasters this year, on the 4th of August, twin blasts that were due to the explosion of 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in the Beirut port sent shockwaves across the country until Nicosia and Cyprus. The blast destroyed key districts in Beirut and have caused until now more than 200 deaths and more than 5,000 injuries. So this disaster is really reported to be the largest non-nuclear blast and it has been ascribed as, you know, to the political establishments, negligence and greed. It happens at the heels of the financial crisis. It happens at the heels of the global pandemic and it has innumerable implications for Lebanon's future. In the interest of time, of course, I will limit myself to a few challenges. I will factor in how these challenges will shape the protest wave that has witnessed yet another crucial reason to resume in full force since August 4. So what do the Beirut blasts mean for Lebanese citizens and for the future of the protests? First, the blasts have irreversibly indicted Lebanon's political establishment. So the disaster really epitomizes the failure of the so-called sectarian power sharing system. Huge protests broke out in the wake of the blasts and protesters have shifted to more violent protest frames. So it has become common, for instance, to see protesters carrying a hangman's knot or to tweet with the hashtag that calls for eoteaning or hanging the politicians. So there is escalation in the amount of frustration and resentment. So indeed, I would say that the Beirut blasts constitute a turning point that may lead in the near future to more resentful and angry contestation from below. Keeping this in mind, the Beirut blasts have however brought along many dilemmas and challenges that might make collective mobilization difficult. I would like to share some of these dilemmas with you. First, livelihoods. In the context of a harrowing financial crash in which more than 50% of Lebanese citizens are now below the poverty line and more than 35% are unemployed, there are serious concerns about new forms of poverty and precarity that are proliferating. So extensive damage, people sleeping next to their demolished homes, buildings and danger of imminent collapse are commonplace scenes that we see in today's Beirut. Second, relief and reconstruction. The Lebanese state and the Beirut municipality have been criticized for their slow and inadequate reaction to the explosions. Instead, private and civil society relief efforts have proliferated. People have set up grassroots relief initiatives calling for a people-centric perspective on relief and reconstruction. At the same time, this has fueled vociferous debates. Many are asking right now, should we first mourn and grieve before thinking even about reconstruction? Others have called for ensuring that the politicians are first held accountable before rushing into hasty reconstruction that would most likely bring in developers and neoliberal projects. A third dilemma is the architecture of international aid and its uncertain role in disaster mitigation. So the August 4th blast has imposed new realities regarding international aid. As you know, in the context of the protests, international powers vowed not to funnel aid or not to give a dime to the Lebanese government unless it starts radical reforms. Still, today Beirut is a disaster zone and needs urgent aid. And two weeks ago, Emmanuel Macron co-hosted an international conference that pledged 300 million US dollars for humanitarian relief and reconstruction directly to the Lebanese population. However, many questions arise and I would like just to transmit to you some of the debates that are happening on the ground. People are questioning, when there is no longer term aid strategy, isn't relief going to be only a bet for the night? And what organizations are going to coordinate this relief aid? Already civil society activists have pointed out to the drawbacks of having UN agencies or IMGOs managing the aid. And also various actors feel fear that Beirut reconstruction will be done in haste just like in 1990, with no grassroots consensus on how the process of reconstruction is going to look like. Also, many are currently voicing the fear that Beirut will become yet another site for disaster capitalism. As neoliberal projects will intertwine with sectarian governance and will end up propping up the governance, the governors, sorry. So as you can see, there are key dilemmas that the blast has brought about and that makes Lebanon's recovery part of a very complex and complicated process. So in the last year talking about resilience, the international community has constantly praised Lebanese for their so-called resilience despite parallel crises. And this discourse today is under fierce criticism by many activists and scholars. So people are warning against such a discourse that shifts the blame away from the state and its responsibilities and that puts the onus on the individual. So as almost 50% of Lebanese have been classified as poor by the Ministry of Social Affairs, can people still afford to sustain a longer term protest movement and to rebuild? As you know, a social movement theory also tells us collective mobilization is no romantic project. It is about resources. It's about time. It's about money. It's about resource mobilization. So in lieu of my conclusion, I would like to wrap up. I started preparing the script of today's seminar before debate with blasts. And I wanted initially to concentrate more on the protest themselves and the protesters demands and strategies for change, what they wanted, what they tried to do. So I wanted to adopt more of a protest-centric perspective, but the blast changed, you know, my interpretation of the October uprising. As I was writing the script for today's seminar, I have to think about the broader and very complex environment that will shape our transition. Research, for instance, shows that protest movements and political transitions that usually remain focused on their path are those that are domestically anchored and less prone to polarization. For instance, the relative success of Tunisia's domestic transition was attributed to the fact that there was not much international interference. As you know, in cases such as Syria, Yemen and Libya, a protest took more violent forms in the context of broader geopolitical powers and their intrusion on the ground. So in Lebanon, we deal with yet another complex scenario in which the political system relies on external interference and in which the crises that are happening right now, namely the economic crisis and the Beirut blasts require international and regional engagement. So this is going to lead to polarization. First, how Lebanon's economic crisis will be handled is key to the trajectory of the protest wave and to citizens' livelihoods. As you know, however, Lebanon's economic crisis is not only about the economy. It is tied to national consensus on reforms and to leaders' geo-strategic interests. It cannot be separated from certain polarizing factors. So if Lebanon takes negotiations with the IMF to the next stage, will the IMF impose conditionalities that Hezbollah will find unacceptable? And will the international community accept to allocate longer term aid to Lebanon in the presence of Hezbollah as a key governing power? Already, as many of you know, if they have been following the international discourse, various states, including Gulf and Western powers, have stressed that aid will not only be contingent on longer term reforms, but also on a diminished influence of Hezbollah in regional and domestic politics, and in Lebanon assuming the stance of positive neutrality in the regional conflicts. So from this perspective, we cannot ignore the difficult regional system in which Lebanon is situated. On the 17th of June, perhaps some of you might have heard that the Caesar Act or the Syrian Civil Civilian Protection Act has been adopted with a view to imposing sanctions on stakeholders who may be involved in normalizing ties with the Syrian regime or contributing to its reconstruction. And as you might know in Lebanon, this is very much of a polarizing matter because some political camps have been calling for normalizing ties with the Syrian regime and others have been pushing against. So now that the Caesar Act has made this normalization punishable at an international scale, what stance will Lebanon take? And what does it mean for Lebanon's future? So we have many construction sites, if I may put it that way. To end on a more optimistic note, and shift the gaze back to the protests and to the protesters themselves and to the activists. Various activists that I have interviewed insist, however, that as gloomy as this may seem, the thought or the revolution as it has started intersectional and peaceful has not died down. It has evolved into a lifestyle. Indeed, even if protests may have changed, activists moved to peripheral sites such as community centers, private houses, universities. So the revolution as it started continues through new forms of collective action, such as the formation of professional associations as alternatives to the defunct and politicized trade unions. And many activists agree that now it's the time to move forward. It's time to move into a second phase, which is the phase of collective organization that is focused on creating new associations and safety nets. There's also agreement that the movement cannot remain structure less and that it's time to agree on a leadership base that arises from the people. However, this is at the same time still very unclear in that regard. We may talk a little bit about the tyranny of structurelessness and how difficult it is actually to agree on grass and leadership. So on a final note, what is currently happening for the Lebanese and as apocalyptic as it seems. It's very much a moment of reckoning and a moment to evaluate our past legacies and our future choices, including the electoral ones. I would like to stop here. Thank you so much. This was absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much. What an excellent tour de force I've learned so much and I would like to hear it again. I'm going to go and hear it and listen to it again. Thank you so much. I can send you the script. Excellent. Wonderful. I also have your paper. Thank you. That was really encompassing and I enjoyed listening to the intersectional aspect of it. How you brought in the local, the national intersection with of course the regional, as well as the global and how that makes the situation in Lebanon very, very complex. But you explained it to us extremely well. And you also give us some hope at the end. I mean, there is hope there with this grassroot movement. So I'm not going to abuse my position as the chair and I'm going to go straight to the questions I've got to that are already here in front of me sent by Philip. So it's there are a bit of a long question. I'll try to summarize them. He's saying that clearly lead in the sectarian families that you all that we all know about them, the Hariri, the Jomblattis and others have to recycle that allegedly large personal benefit from office with their supporters. To what degree are Lebanese identity groups ready to withdraw that complexity in the cycle of what several societies folks people call corruption and risk the unknown to create a more functional state. So that's the first one. If you can answer that one. I'll go into the second one. Thank you. So very quickly, as I said, at the beginning, it's not easy because of Lebanon's sectarian power sharing, which is built along patronage networks in which followers see their sectarian Zoma as brokers of security and infrastructure and welfare. So we do not expect this to change immediately. It's not going to be easy actually to change and dismantle Lebanon's political system as events have proven the political system is very resilient and sectarian leaders are very robust in their predominance and their presence in Lebanon's political landscape. Excellent. And Tamara's in relation to that. I mean, you were talking about the fact that this that resilience of the sectarian political system and how it comes back every time to haunt every protest movement in in Lebanon. I mean, the way I understood the movement initially in the 2000 in the October 2019 protest. It was quite cross sectarian and it brought various groups as you said, feminist groups, refugees and migrant groups and various in a sense under different people from different background and classes together to denounce the sectarian regime. Then you talked about how the, I mean, you didn't call it the deep state but how that sectarian resilient emerged and haunted the movement itself by the plane on that sectarian rhetoric. I mean, why do you think they were successful in instigating or dividing the the protesters, despite that optimistic first kind of cross sectarian movement. Is it because of the legacies of the Civil War and the fear that Lebanon hasn't dealt with properly and the fear that he may come back to haunt people and that insecurity that people do have about, you know, that kind of division within society. Yes, that's a great question. I think that as I try to highlight in my in my presentation or in my talk, the political system in Lebanon is very resilient and not only because it can just, you know, deploy force or send the security forces, but it uses official narratives that by on, you know, on, if you want, fomenting these sectarian fears, for instance, many political leaders, once protesters were taking place, started saying, oh, this might be the return of Lebanon's civil war. So there was much polarization and securitization that ended up in a way creating polarization in the protest streets itself and this is not new the political establishment in Lebanon has relied on these tactics. This is why in one of my projects, for instance, usually there has been so much focus on authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. However, I tried to prove that in more, you know, like semi authoritarian or semi democratic regimes, such as Lebanon's. It's also important to look at those strategies, you know, that are not necessarily about full repression, but that somehow, you know, are located between visible repression and more subtle methods of repression that are articulated along the lines of securitization and along the lines of securitization.  Although I should also mention, Karima, that there was a problem, which is the fact that it's what I call, I mean, what also social movement theorists call the tyranny of structure, structurelessness. So because the grassroots movement was so wide and so intersectional, there were so many grievances, so many demands, so many slogans, and there was not an agreement on a grassroots leadership or on an opposition that was able to, you know, to negotiate reforms or to force the government to negotiate with it. So people actually were reluctant to coming up with a leadership base because they were afraid that somebody would drive the protest wave in a way, but now it becomes clear that if there is no leadership arising from this protest movement, how are we going to go further? What will happen is that there will still be a political vacuum that will be taken over by the same sectarian warlords or sectarian barons, as I said at the beginning. That's fascinating. I guess the same problem with all the post-2011 protest movement in Algeria and Morocco and in Iraq and Sudan and various other places, that lack of leadership that doesn't emerge to lead the movement to something more substantial. Thanks, Tameras. I'll go to the second question by Philips. He talks about how public pressure over electricity failures and garbage buildup and infrastructure problem and the economy on the Lebanese government applied briefly earlier this year, basically, in, I guess, in January, February and the 2019 protests, but then it evaporated quickly. And he asked in foreign government, this pleasure with the Lebanese political elite has been visible for the first time in such clarity. And you mentioned the Gulf States and various foreign powers. Why should an event-based display of anger have any lasting effect internally, especially when the port is partially back in action? And why should the elite beneficiaries of their system be influenced by foreigners to relinquish their power and influence? Sorry, it's a bit of a long question. No, no, it's a wonderful question. Actually, as I tried to show in one of my slides on the dilemmas of international aid, there is the fear that the international community and this architecture of international aid will end up propping up the broken political system and that immediate relief that is dispensed directly to the Lebanese population will not solve the problems. I don't have much time to talk about this, you know, architecture of international aid, but those fears are well placed and they are justified. And we are also afraid of such scenarios in which actually things will be back to normal. We will have, you know, neoliberal projects and developers reconstructing Beirut and, you know, invading actually people's private spaces and hijacking a grassroots conversation on reconstruction while sectarian governance will be propped up. So yes, this is very justified. That's fascinating. I mean, that happened after the civil war with the Hariri. Yes, sorry. We are trying to warn against it. We are trying to set up, you know, grassroots and people-centric relief initiatives and to kind of like publish manifestos in which we are warning against such scenarios and we are trying to learn from other cautionary tales that have happened in Haiti or in Afghanistan or even in the U.S. So we want to learn from other contexts in order to know how we can, you know, in a way avoid this and I would be grateful if you have best practices to send me or, you know, any lessons that we could learn in order to avoid this. Thanks, Tamara. There's a question by George asking, what's next for Lebanon? How can Lebanon thrive? How do we go about enacting reform? The government has resigned, yes, but people want more. What is this more that people are asking for? Yes, this is a very open-ended question. So although I answered it in a way, I would like to say that a political transition is for the moment not clear. We can look at it, you know, as a structural process in the sense that protesters now are calling for early elections because the parliament was not.  So there is this realization that we need simply another political system because the TAF system, the system that has been put together after the end of Lebanon's civil war no longer works and is no longer able to respond to people's demands. Lebanon has become obsolete, in a way, 30 years after the war and, you know, from other divided societies such as Northern Ireland, for instance, that there must be a revamping of power sharing deals, you know, when people share power, they update the way they share power. Lebanon has not done this. It's still living in an obsolete power sharing deal that is immune to legal reforms in which women cannot pass their citizenship, you know, to their children if they are married to foreigners. So what can we do? I guess that the more that people are asking for is simply change, structural change. I completely agree. I think the TAF accord in 1918 and was supposed to be temporary, but then it's over the life of the Lebanese. Absolutely. I mean, I don't know if you know, but there is an article in TAF which says that, you know, sectarianism, political sectarianism in Lebanon is only supposed to be temporary. The article in 1995 says that actors are supposed to work on deconfessionalization and on freezing out sectarianism, and so TAF has become eternal in a way. The temporality of the temporary, as one of the scholars calls it. So another question is about the major domestic reform in Lebanon. The person is asking, one can speculate that groups like Iranian backed Hezbollah will have a lot to lose. That being said, we're going to see a ramping up of the deployment of active measures by corrupt fractions in order to sabotage the people's And in relation to that, Tamara, please, the elephants in the room, there's a lot of talking about Hezbollah that Hezbollah must go for Lebanon to reform. But of course, Hezbollah is just part of the program and not the only problem. And it should be part of the solution. What do you think about this question and the Hezbollah issue? Yes, of course, this is the elephant in the room. Yes, so I mean, regarding the question that has been asked, of course, as I said, yes, the political establishment will deploy any active measures they have in order to sabotage the protests to describe them and also to brand themselves as the saviours of Lebanon in the context of political vacuum. They will not relinquish their power so easily. They have in there, they have lots to lose. And even international pressure we have seen, you know, since October 2019, even if the European Union, France, Switzerland, Germany and the US have said that Lebanon has to reform. You know, the political establishment is still there and hasn't actually changed its tactics. So there is the reason to believe that they are ingrained, you know, embedded in Lebanon's political infrastructure and this isn't going to shift any time soon. I mean, Hezbollah, of course, I mean, seeing that Hezbollah is an integral part of Lebanon's society and represents also an important community in Lebanon, it would be actually foolish to believe that they are just going to renounce the power that they are going to accept, you know, the discourse that they just have to, in a way, resign and, you know, just wait in the backstage or something like this as some of the international powers have been calling for. However, many political analysts have said that Hezbollah has been able to reinvent its rhetoric and its role in Lebanon, and that if the party really cares for Lebanon's future, it could actually play an adaptable and constructive role with a view to letting Lebanon at this very stage assume a more positive neutrality towards what's happening around so that Lebanon can embark on recovery. There is a lot of speculation. Other scholars say that this is not going to be that easy because in all of its discourses and all of its speeches, Hezbollah's leader Hassan Masrallah has clearly, you know, talked about the political parties in badness in the system and the fact that, you know, that they are not going to, in a way, relinquish power. So they are here to stay. However, in my own perspective, I think that adaptability and perhaps thinking about what is good for Lebanon at this stage is something that political leaders have to take into consideration. Otherwise, consequences are going to be really, really monstrous for the people, for the citizens on the ground. Thanks, Tamara. Another question by Tim. He's asking about any data gathering yet on support opposition or indifference towards the new protest movement since late 2019. For example, through surveys or qualitative research, particularly among non-urban lesser educated parts of society. Yes. So there have been many surveys that were done regarding people's support of the protests. And if Tim is interested, I mean, you could write to me and I could share with him some of these surveys and data gathering reports. Also, there have been surveys regarding what protesters want on the ground. What are they calling for? And also regarding, you know, the segments of society that have supported the uprising or that have been involved. Of course, there are surveys and survey findings that are a bit contradictory. For instance, there are some surveys which have noted the cross or intersectional and cross sectarian support. Others that have found out that, you know, as the protest shifted or the protest wave shifted, that there has been less support from certain urban contexts. And the question is the timing, you know, because people's attitudes change. I mean, it's been about eight months that the protests started and Lebanon scene has drastically changed with the deterioration of economic livelihoods with COVID-19. So we are seeing an unstable protest wave that is waxing and waning that is expanding or contracting. And I don't think we can have full assessment of people's attitudes for the moment. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Tamara. There are many more questions. This one is from Minerva Nasreddin. Hello there, Minerva, who is our colleague here in Australia. She said, thank you so much for the presentation. Ultimately, political and judicial reform is required. Clearly, each of the Zuhama are trying to retain their share of the pie. With the leaderless Thawra, isn't it likely that we will collapse into this setup? Are the protesters working to rectify this leaderless structure? If so, how are they going to go about it? Yes. Excellent question, Minerva. Actually, as I said in my conclusion, this is the next challenge. Protesters have realized that it's not possible to keep the Thawra leaderless because there's a lot of confusion. There are many factions that are arising that are calling for colliding reforms. For instance, some would like political transition to happen. Someone, for instance, to call for early elections and to appoint technocrat governments. Others are saying that this version or this scenario is romanticized because what we need is a complete dismantlement of the political system and we need the sectarian political class to step down. So there are competing versions of how Lebanon's political transition is to unfold. And we have learned from the Arab uprisings that this has been a core problem. For instance, in Libya and Egypt, people were actually fighting over whether we should first reform the constitution or start the elections. What should we do? How should we go about in order to bring about a change of the system? And according to my research, this is one of the most difficult questions, how to start a political transition from scratch. What I can tell you is that there is a lot of discussion right now on forming professional new professional associations, new trade unions, because our trade unions haven't politicized and they have not played any active role in the protests. So we need, you know, a new grassroots professional associations that can actually act as safety nets. People are also trying to work on new political parties. And they are trying now in the wake of the Beirut Blast to have serious conversations about how to create new political parties that are not, if you want, you know, surrogate sectarian parties, but are really emerging from the protest scene itself. But I can only confess that it is a very complex debate for the moment, because even the protesters are themselves at odds with each other. Thanks. Thanks, Tamaraz. Another question about the increasing discussion of Lebanon moving to a core federalist system. Are you able to comment on this, or have you heard of a better alternative? So, of course, there are a lot of discussions on that. There are some people actually who feel that ideologically competing powers or sectarian parties that have been fighting for 30 years cannot share power. And it's clearly the fact that Lebanon's power-sharing system, which calls for national unity governments, no longer functions. What is the alternative on the ground? To be honest, there's a lot of reluctance regarding a core federalist system, because Lebanon first is a very small state. Resources are shared. There is no decentralization so far. So everything is centralized in a way. So in order to talk about, you know, a core federalist state, first there should be a serious debate on decentralization and serious territorial, if you want, policies, public policies that lead to decentralization and to territorial autonomy. However, this does not exist for the moment. It is likely that, you know, a shift into a more core federalist system will only ferment hostility and tensions if the ground is not prepared for public policies that can sustain such structures and as history shows. Thanks. Thank you, Tamaraz. Another question I think on Hezbollah that you've answered extremely well. And there is another one on constitutional electoral reform. Is it the best way to answer the protesters' aspirations or rather merely getting rid of the warlord leaders and giving a turn to younger and new voices within existing political parties? I think you touched on that as well. I touched on that. Clearly the second one. This is what we want. However, it has proven to be so complicated, as I said, and this is why protesters are divided. There are the more moderate protesters who are calling for, you know, working within the system and others who want to, you know, boycott the system totally and to dismantle it and not to collude with it. Because if you call for negotiation with the system, you're actually acknowledging it. And these are two strategies that have been at the core of the protests since October. And some are calling for being realistic, you know, saying let's work with the system. Others are saying this is never going to work and Lebanon's history has proven that. Excellent. And I think you've answered this question as well. But if you can just touch on it, Tamara, please, how can we expect a change when the political right and left are still imbued in the Civil War paradigm? And of course the paradox of Hezbollah, which you touched up on the state within the state and the proxy wars and the main barrier to the transition toward the secular state. Absolutely. As I alluded, these are key dilemmas that are going to slow down Lebanon's transition or Lebanon's soul searching. I would like to call it soul searching. As I said, the political transition does not happen out of the blue. There is the need for grassroots consensus on how this is going to happen. This is why I think the Beirut blasts have brought something that is very essential to the scene, that this time we don't want to rush into hasty reconstruction and we don't want to rush into a hasty political transition that is only going to solidify and crystallize our problems. Will we be able to do that? I guess, as the questions point out, there are lots of dilemmas and challenges, including the very structure of Lebanon's power sharing in which ideologically opposed parties share power and want to continue sharing power. Thanks so much, Tamara. And all if not many of the colleagues and students and people from around the world asking this question, they always start by saying excellent lecture. So I want to tell you that first. So another question that Chris is asking about the sectarian system. I think you did answer that. And it's very resilient. How might it eventually change? And what are the critical drivers of political transformation? I think you did touch on that. But if you can briefly answer that question, because I still have a lot to go through. Yes, absolutely. I would be very brief. I think I answered this question in a way, as I said, the critical drivers of political transformation revolve around two questions right now. Do we want to continue playing the same power sharing game that is based on Taif, which is the power sharing pack that has led to ending Lebanon's war? Or is there consensus on dismantling the system and coming up with a new pact? There is scholarly consensus that Lebanon needs a new pact that it can no longer work on those ossified structures, which sustain the political warlords and that have disabled legal and political change. Thank you. Thanks so much. Tamara's another question by Alex. He's asking, given the state and semi-state militia's ability and willingness to employ violence in their defense, what options do grassroots movement who are economically weak have to exert pressure to force change in Lebanon without also resorting to violence? Yes, this is an excellent question. This is why we have seen actually the grassroots movement becoming a bit more violent, because people feel that the procrastination of the political class and the fact that political parties can just hijack the protest streets so easily. This has led to protesters expressing wrath, for instance, directing their wrath against the banks, against politicians' houses, and we are afraid that if there is no energy that will channel this wrath, potentially what we will see is more radicalization, more contestation, which might become more violent, because the young people feel that there is no way to voice their anger. And as the paradigm says, it's either exit or voice, if people cannot voice their anger, what will happen is that people will start emigrating. In fact, this year has seen so much emigration, people have emigrated left Lebanon, or there are surveys that demonstrate that people are eager to leave the country. So there is even going to be grassroots radicalization. I wouldn't say that this is going to lead to full scale violence, but we are going to see grassroots contestation, or we are going to see more emigration, more people giving up on the country, more hopelessness, people saying that we have fought, we have done our best, and this ain't going to work. Fantastic. A couple of questions from our own colleagues here at Case. Ian, he's asking that, is it correct that younger Lebanese people under 30 are becoming less bound to the sectarian system? And the second one about the condition that the IMF is likely to impose on the Lebanese government. What do you think the conditions would involve? Yes. So of course there are many surveys that have shown that people who are below 30 are less sectarian in their system, in their attitudes and in the way they practice their daily lives. So yes, absolutely. Younger Lebanese no longer believe in the system and they think that this system has only brought destruction, deadlocks, economically sessions for them, and mostly unemployment. People are diskilled, they just graduate and they have to wait in the parking, in a way, in the parking because they find no jobs or they have to emigrate. So yes, they are questioning the system radically, especially the younger ones and those who haven't lived the war. There are actually some sociological studies that show that people who are still attached to the sectarian political system are people who have been through the war and who believe or are reluctant to changing the system because they believe that this is the best that Lebanon can do unless it wants to transform into an autocratic system like Syria or other countries. This is in the Middle East. So there is this mainstream kind of thinking, which has proven to be totally untrue, in fact, according to surveys and data gatherings. And secondly, regarding the IMF, well, the IMF has made it clear that there are some conditions regarding reforms, reforming the electricity sector, reforming the bank sector, cutting down on corruption, allowing more transparency in the way Lebanon conducts its business. However, it's much more than that. It's also about the fact that the IMF is in a way tied to international powers such as the US that clearly do not want to accept international aid unless Hezbollah disengages from certain regional conflicts. So it's not only about the direct or the visible conditions that the IMF is going to spell out, but it's more about the background to the IMF deal. Will it happen? So some economists are saying that we might never see an IMF alone because the difficulty to get there, the negotiations that will happen will actually not make it work. So yes, we see a lot of pessimistic prognosis in that regard as to whether the IMF deal will materialize. So Tamara, this is the last question. There are many more, but I'm going to stop here. Can you, this is a question from Stu, who said, can you expand on the idea of leadership that comes from the people vis-à-vis the protest movement? And do you have any views on what form this might take? And also one last question from me, Tamara, I'm very intrigued by the Macron's, the little Napoleon coming back to Lebanon. And, you know, the campaign there, and I saw graffiti, talking of graffiti, that portray him in Napoleonic, you know, dress and saying, Macron, mi prison de la republique. It was very ironic because it came from Beirut. So if you can comment a little bit on the French mission. Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks. Be very brief. Sorry, regarding Stu's question, there is this consensus that if a leadership is going to rise from the people, you know, it has to do about leadership that has never participated in the legacy of the war or that hasn't participated in the legacy of political corruption that has dominated Lebanon's political economy. So there are discussions that there are many competent people out there, many people who actually have credentials, who have lots of experience in public policy and who can rule, or who can actually reach political office. However, would they be able to do so in, in a context that makes it almost impossible for people who do not, who do not arise from this political class to rule so or to, you know, to, to become part of the political process. So, so far, what's happening is that people are deliberating alternative political parties on new citizen initiatives and they are calling for new elections. And we hope that in the new elections, people will vote for these new citizen initiatives or for these new political parties that are not linked to the sectarian warlords. Already, the 2018 elections were a bit disappointing because there was the Citizen Initiative of Beirut-Madinati that has made some strides in parts of Beirut such as Ashrafieh, however clearly it could not make it. Only one representative of the civil society initiative is in the parliament and that person has resigned now. So we see the difficulties that are linked to, you know, crafting leadership from below. And last but not least regarding Macron, this is actually a double-edged question because I don't know if you've heard that as soon as Macron visited Lebanon, there has been a petition actually circulating in Lebanon. And so many find that Lebanon becomes, yes, becomes again part of the French mandate. I know. And that was in a way scary, but yeah, the fact that people, you know, do not see changes coming from Lebanon's political establishment is very telling. At the same time, yes, because Lebanon's power sharing system is very much linked to the colonial powers, as you know, and to the French mandate that has negotiated that in order to prop up the predominance of the Christian community back in time, back in 1943, we are afraid that this is this only symbolizes the fact that Lebanon will be under the grip of, you know, international powers again, and this might polarize things and make it even much more difficult. So Macron is set to visit Lebanon again and he said that his visit is contingent on Lebanon enacting reforms, first, you know, agreeing to carry out early elections and embarking on reforms that are linked to the electricity sector, corruption, so on and so forth, auditing the banks. What, how, what course will this take? I think that, as I said, I can only see polarization along these lines, procrastination, and mostly a lot of indecision regarding what kind of government will Lebanon have? Is it going to be another national unity government in which, you know, ruling powers, governing powers are back, or will it see a new kind of government that is really able to gain the trust of the people and open a new chapter in Lebanon's tragic, I would say, phase for the moment? I would like to say optimistic and we are here to continue researching, talking, raising awareness, and I thank you so much for all of your questions. If I haven't answered any, you may still email me. I'd be happy to share links, articles, opinions, and thank you so much, Karima, for hosting me today. Tameray, this has been a real pleasure. We thank you wholeheartedly for a fantastic and excellent talk. We learned so much. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.


TFNN headline news update Good afternoon everybody. I'm Tommy O'Brien coming to you live from TFNN headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida 1 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday three hours left to go in the trading day We got quite a market to the downside S&P is negative by 31 points trading at 2774. You get the Dow up 334 points trading at 25,014 and the Nasdaq off 80 points trading at 75 27 Gold up $4 trading at 12 81 60 notes and bonds higher price and lower yield 10 year up 10 ticks 125 22 you got the 30 year up 27 ticks 152 28 and the dollar index back above 98 up 193 ticks turning at 98 035 we'll start things off. Let's jump over to the futures markets We'll start it off with the Dow. So right at 25,000 on the dot as we speak We made it to a low within about the last hour and a half of 24,938 so you're about 60 Dow points off that low currently Nasdaq 100 pretty similar chart pattern. We make a low just prior to noon Eastern time of 7183 the Nasdaq 100 7200 how about that 25,000 7200 round numbers S&P 2772 we make a low of 2766 just about an hour ago Crude oil with some volatility today as well made it to a low of 5692 56 handle on the price of July crude trading that July contract now now as we speak though Just in the last 10 minutes crude now back above 58 dollars with some volatility there gold contract trading at 12 8033 and the euro us dollar trading 11 1129 terms of what else you have happening out there. It is still earning season We talked about it on the show earlier this morning Abercrombie and Fitch quite a tank this morning down more than 20% We'll pull up their chart in a moment weak same-store sales Closing three big flagship stores one of those being in Soho, New York City jumping over to their chart real quick Before we jump away Vicks. How about that 1904 as we get a little negative market action in that volatility index for a high today And Abercrombie just accelerating now under 19 down 24.4% on the flip side of that though Dick's sporting goods. We still in positive. Wow. Look at that reversal I saw the trend happening this morning dicks Spike to 3852. How about a reversal down more than 5% trading at 33 86? Stay tuned folks. We got our man Steve Rhodes with the traders edge coming up right now Tom O'Brien live at 3 Have a great Wednesday


Family Theatre presents Ruth Hussie, Mona Freeman and Rory Calhoun from Hollywood. The Mutual Network in Cooperation with Family Theatre presents Rory Calhoun and Mona Freeman in the Courthouse Battle. To introduce the drama, here is your hostess, Ruth Hussie. Thank you, Tony LaFranco. Family Theatre's only purpose is to bring to everyone's attention a practice that must become an important part of their lives. If we're to win peace for ourselves, peace for our families and peace for the world, Family Theatre urges you to pray. Pray together as a family. Tonight, Family Theatre takes great pleasure in presenting the Courthouse Battle, starring Mona Freeman as Sally and Rory Calhoun as Marty. The folks of Valley Dale still talk about the great Courthouse Battle, a controversy that raged for days and days and nearly split the town wide open. All this turmoil began about the time Martin Jones was elected Mayor of Valley Dale. In fact, the very first day Martin Jones walked into his office, things started to happen. Good morning, Miss. Why, Sally? Hi, Marty. You should say good morning, Your Honor. I'm the Mayor now. And I'm your new secretary. Well, I suppose, huh? I'm your secretary. Well, how come? How come? Why, Marty Jones, you promised me the job a long time ago.  Well, I know, but... On our very first date we had, when we were freshmen in high school, you said to me, Sally, when I get to be Mayor of Valley Dale, you'll be my secretary. I said that? Positively. Well, now, why do you suppose I majored in shorthand, typing, business management, office methods and stuffy stuff like that? To be my secretary. Truly and absolutely. Well, how about Miss Maddie Jenkins? Well, Maddie Jenkins, having been the Mayor's secretary for 32 years, has finally retired to raise geraniums and her sister's grandchildren. So you do need a secretary, and here I am. Well, well. You know, come to think of it, if I've got to get a secretary, I would hire you anyway. How about that? Of course. So let's have no more talk about it. The Office of Mayor Jones. Oh, yes, Mr. Wiggins. Did you say a rooster? Well, no, I don't blame you. Yes, indeed, Mr. Wiggins. Yes, sir. I'll have Mayor Jones looking to the matter at once, Mr. Wiggins. Yes. Yes, you're welcome. Goodbye. For the past three mornings, T.P. Wiggins has been crowed at by a rooster. Must be one of Tom Foley's roosters across the road. So what? So you've got to put a stop to it. Listen, Tom Foley has enough trouble right now.  I know. I'm sorry about that. But you also must remember that T.P. Wiggins is the richest man in Valladale. And the stingiest? No wonder they call the old codger tightpockets. Well, just the same, you better do something. Oh, here's Fred Appleton. Hello there, Marty. Hi, Fred. Hi, you silly. Hi. Well, don't tell me you're the mayor's secretary. Well, is there any reason why not? Ha-ha. Let's hear you spell municipal. Municipal? M-U-A- Well, just the same, I'm the mayor's secretary. And the very good one, too. What's on your mind, Fred? Well, I see by the Valladale Gazette, they're going to enlarge the courthouse. Oh, they are? Why? Well, to accommodate our new mayor's swelled head. Oh, pithful. That's only one of the reasons. The draft board, the farm bureau, the sheriff's office all need larger quarters. How are they going about it? Well, they'll probably tear down the west wall and make the building whiter. I suppose you want the job. You bet I do. I'm a good contractor. Get it for me, will you? Well, this is a county job, but nevertheless, Mr. Appleton, I will use my best efforts on your behalf. Oh-ho-ho, now there's a good line. Hang on to it. I'll be seeing you, Honorable Joan. So long, Fred. M-U-N-I-C-I-P-A-L municipal. You looked in the dictionary, I saw you. So long, BBD. What does BBD mean? Beautiful, but dumb. Marty, am I dumb? Sally, you're beautiful. Oh, thank you, Your Honor. So they're going to make the courthouse larger. Yeah, even the pigeons are complaining. Not enough room on the roof. Oh, Marty. Now, Sally, if I have any visitors, you call me on the intercom. The inter what? This gadget here on your desk. It looks like a radio. You talk into it and then flip the switch and I talk back to you. Oh, this thing. Oh, I get it. Very well, Your Honor. Carry on, Miss Secretary. I better practice what I'm going to say to people. His honor is very busy now. His honor is in conference. Have you an appointment with him? Oh, dear, oh, dear, I don't know what I... Well, good gracious, Sally Carrington. Where's Miss Jenkins? Well, Miss Jenkins is retired. I'm the mayor's secretary. His honor is very busy now. Do you have a... Oh, Sally, I've just got to see him at once. It's a matter of life and death. Oh, most. Oh, golly. Well, just a minute. I'll intercom him. Your Honor. Your Honor. Oh, dear, maybe this switch will work. Your Honor. I can just shake it sometime. Oh, that's a good idea. Your Honor. Oh, fiddle sticks. Hey, Martin. Well, hello, Clara Barkley. Good morning. Oh, Martin, I'll see you immediately. Something terrible is about to happen. Well, come right into my office. Oh, thank you, Martin. I hope you can prevent this awful tragedy. Well, I'll do my best. Miss Karen, can I'm in conference? Yes, Your Honor. Well, sit down, Miss Barkley. Allow me. Thank you. Did you see the trouble? Did you see the Vallydale Gazette this morning? Yes, sir, with my picture right on the front page, our new mayor, Martin Hallowicious-Jones. Oh, I don't mean that. Of course, it was a very nice write-up. I mean, the item about enlarging the courthouse, is it true? Well, they're considering it, yes. Will they tear down any of the courthouse? Oh, just the west wall. Oh, no. Martin, do you realize the west wall is the one that holds the corner still? Let's see, yes. Yes, so it does. Oh, Martin, you have to stop them. If they tear down that wall, I'll just die. Well, Miss Barkley, what in the world could be... Well, can't you see? They'll open the corner stone. And there's something in that corner stone I don't want anyone to see, not anyone. Oh, that corner stone must not be opened. If they tear down the west wall, they'll surely open it. Why do they have to enlarge the courthouse? Can't they build another building to get the room they need? Well, a separate building would cost more than they have to spend. Well, Martin, you're the mayor now. You have influence. Oh, don't let them touch the courthouse. Miss Barkley, this is a county matter. I can't tell the commissioners what to do, but I'll talk to them. Well, get them to postpone it a week or two. Give me a little time to stir up some opposition to this dreadful thing when you do that. Miss Barkley, I'll use my best efforts in your behalf. Oh, thank you so much. If you... Not now, Joe. His honor is in conference. Clara Barkley's in there. The old girl is throwing fits over something. Oh, boy! Sally, your switch is open. You mean this thing is working? Miss Barkley, I... Good day to you, Mr. Mayor. Good morning, Miss Carrington. Hi, Marty.  This is my second day as mayor of Valley Dale. How am I doing? Real fine. Any calls? Yes. T.P. Wiggins was crowed out again this morning. By a rooster? Correct. A heat chicken belonging to Tom Foley. He wants you to ring his neck. Foley's neck or T.P's neck?  You're supposed to do something to abate this nuisance. That rooster says T.P. is a menace to the peace of this community. Oh, all right. I'll go talk to T.P. You better talk to the rooster. My dear Miss Carrington, a rooster doesn't vote. T.P. does. I'll talk to T.P. It's an outrage. That's what it is. Well, Mr. Wiggins... The loudest crowing rooster I ever heard in my life. I'm entitled to a good night's rest, am I not? Well, yes, T.P. Well, I ain't getting it. I do my best sleeping along about dawn. Just when that confounded rooster cuts loose. You're the mayor, are you not? Yes, T.P.  There. There. Now, you hear that? Yes, but that's not very loud. Well, he's a lot louder at four in the morning. He's pressure. Well, what are you going to do about it? Well, Mr. Wiggins is a solid citizen of Valley Dale. You are entitled to the protection of all its laws and ordinances. And rest assured, T.P., that I will exercise my best efforts on your behalf.  Hi, Tom. Okay. Mr. Mayor himself. Say, is this an official visit? Well, kind of, yes. Uh-oh. I know. Old Tight Pocket sent you over here. Yeah, it's about that rooster of yours. Why, the old fuss budget? Now, wait a minute, Tom. Let's forget I'm the mayor. I'm your old pal Marty Jones. I want to buy the rooster. Marty, that rooster's not for sale. Okay, Tom.  Oh, we fuss over this and that, but Marty, I feel sort of sorry for the old codger. Ever since his wife died, the old boy's been all alone up there in that big house. Alone with his books. Books. What good are books when a man's lonely? Fighting with me is about the only pleasure the old coot has. If it wasn't the rooster, beef's up melt. Probably. So you won't sell the rooster? Marty, the rooster belongs to Helen, my little girl. Oh. Oh, well, that's different. How is she? She's getting some better. Moves her feet a little now. They say she may get all right. Maybe. I know, Tom. It's a heartbreaking thing. Well, as I say, the rooster belongs to Helen. She can raise up just a little bit and watch him when he's out by her window. She calls him Sparky. About the only time she smiles is when Sparky crows in the morning. Sure, I'll sell him for one million dollars. A T.P. I tried to buy the rooster, but Tom wouldn't sell. Yeah, of course not. He wouldn't do me a favor. Well, the rooster isn't his. It belongs to his little girl Helen. You know Helen, don't you? No, I don't. But you must have seen her, haven't you? Oh, I used to notice little girl playing in the yard. I haven't seen her lately. No. Because she was stricken with polio. She's still partially paralyzed. Oh. It'll be a long time before you see her playing in the yard again. Well, why don't people tell me these things? Why don't you find them out for yourself? Get around more. And I'm busy with my books. I'm making a catalog of all the books in my library. 12,000 books. A lot of first editions. Come on, I'll show you. Thanks. I'd like to see them. Hey, this is a grand old mansion here, Mr. Wiggins. Yes, sir. Four generations of Wiggins have lived here. When I go, there won't be no more Wiggins. Well, there it is. Wow. Books clear up to the ceiling. Yeah, more books in the basement. Some an attic. Well, you certainly have enough books to keep you busy. Too many books, maybe. I guess I'll spend more time with people. And all people are almost as real as books, T.P. You'd be surprised. Now, about that rooster. Tom says he'll move the henhouse back a bit. Jones, you go over and tell Tom Foley to send that little girl to the best hospital he can find. I'll pay all expenses. Providing she takes a rooster with her. Hi, Sally. Any calls? Tara Barkley called up. Thank you. She says she got the commissioners to postpone the courthouse remodeling. Yeah, I talked to Homer Stone. He's putting it off a week. Why is Clara so upset about it? Sally, can you keep a secret? I don't know. I never tried. Well, here's one to practice on. If they tear down the west wall of the courthouse, they'll open a cornerstone. Yeah, so what? Well, so it seems there's something in a cornerstone that Clara Barkley doesn't want anybody else to see. Well, what is it? Well, she wouldn't tell me. But the way she carried on, it must be something terrible. Maybe she shot someone and hid the body in the cornerstone. Look, beautiful. The space inside a cornerstone is only about this big. Well, it could have been a midget. Find out if any midgets disappeared 50 years ago. You find out. It's your idea. Well, maybe she hid the gun in the cornerstone. Hey, that'd be more like it. But all kidding aside, it must be something pretty serious. And how? Now, I wonder what's in there. Hey, look out the window. There goes Clara now, walking with some fellow. Oh, yes, didn't you know? Clara finally caught herself a ball. That's George Hemstad, a newcomer here. Kind of saw it off, isn't he? Well, Clara can't be too choosy. She's not very young. Well, this may be her last chance to hook a husband. Has she hooked this one yet? Well, he's on the line, but she hasn't got him reeled in. Say, maybe that's what it is. What what is?  Yeah, it could be. And unless they open a cornerstone, we may never know. Oh, Marty, I've just got to know. Marty, do you need me for the rest of the day? I guess not, Sally. Why? Clara's going around selling people on the idea of leaving the courthouses, it is. I'm going to start a campaign to offset that. Remodel the joint down with the west wall. But Sally, hey, you can't do that. Oh, all right then, go ahead. I'd like to know what's in that cornerstone myself. Homer, why don't you and the commissioners make your next meeting an open meeting? Let both sides have their say and let them argue it out. Then make your decision. Now, why didn't I think of that? We'll do it. It ends up in a row. And it probably will. Thanks, Marty, for your help. You're the smartest mayor we've ever had. In the county on my side. Already I have the Ladies' Civic Improvement Society back of me and the West End Bridge Club. And tomorrow I'm speaking to the businessman's luncheon club. You tell him. I certainly shall. I even wrote a poem for the Balladale Gazette. Oh, leave our courthouse be. Touch not a single stone. In youth it sheltered me, so now leave it alone. Well, Miss Clara, how touching. Confidentially, Miss Clara, what's in that cornerstone? You won't tell. A mayor is like a doctor. He never tells. All right. You see, wait a minute. I don't want Sally Carrington listening in on this.  Yes, it's off. Here, I'll show you. Sally. Sally. See? But all right, I'll tell you. I'm going steady with a new fellow. George Hempstead. Yes, him. George isn't so much to look at, but as far as that goes, neither am I. But George seems to like me real well. Has he popped the question yet? No, but I think he's going to. So he mustn't find out. Well, he says he'll never marry a woman older than himself. He's 48. Well, you're not 48. Oh, thank you. I'm 46, and my driver's license. But one of the things they put in that cornerstone 50 years ago was a copy of that week's Vallydale Gazette, and my birth notice is in that paper. Oh, that happened to be the week you were born. Yes, I'm 50 years old, and that paper proves it. Now do you see why the cornerstone was stay sealed up? It holds the only record of my birth. Well, how about the birth records here in the courthouse? They didn't keep that far back. Well, how about the back files in the Gazette? I used to work for the Gazette, and that week's papers out of the file. People may suspect that I'm around 50. They may even say it. But they can prove it unless they open that cornerstone.  Well, Miss Claire, I don't know what I'm going to do, but somehow, in some manner, I'll keep them from opening that cornerstone. Oh, you dear boy, I could hug you. Clara Barclay, don't you dare! It was on! Well, Sally, the big meeting starts in half an hour. Boy, I wish I could skip it, but I can't. Marty, what's the matter? Well, I promised Claire I'd come up with something to help her out, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to let her down. Well, maybe you'll think of something at the meeting. Where is this cornerstone we've talked so much about? Oh, that's right over here at the corner of the building. There you are. Is that the cornerstone? Oh, I've noticed that inscription lots of times. Valley County Courthouse built 1901 architect Norman Taylor. Builder Ebenezer Wiggins. Cornerstone laid... Hey, wait a minute. What? What was that about Wiggins? Well, right here. Builder Ebenezer Wiggins. Ebenezer? Uh-huh. Why, that was T.P.'s brother. Sally, I've got something. You go on to the meeting and stall him till I get there. Mayor Jones to the rescue again. Something in my pocket.  Brother Ebenezer built this courthouse. Put his heart into it. It's his monument. And as long as I live, I don't want to change. Good. Now, second, for good many years, I've had a clause in my will providing $25,000 for a building to house my library. Mayor Jones tells me that the way prices are going up, by the time I kick off, 25,000 won't buy a good hen house. So I want to build that building right now. I'll give the county 25,000 if they'll put their 15 with it and build a two-story building with my library and historical collection on the main floor and the new county offices upstairs. Well, Sally, they're putting the roof on today. The T.P. Jones Memorial Library will soon be finished. Yes, Marty. The town is about back to normal again. I'm afraid it's too good to last. The mayor's office. Oh, hello, Clara. Oh, the nerve. That was Clara Barkley. She wanted to know if you could marry her. Look, beautiful. What she meant was her man has just popped the question and she has asked if the mayor has the authority to perform a civil wedding. Oh, you mean... Oh, Marty. However, the answer gave her with substantial correct. What was that again? This is Ruth Hussie again. An interesting question to ask of oneself is this simple, little one. What was the best prayer I ever said in my whole life? The most sincere one, the one that came most naturally. The reason I mention this is because we often hear it said that we, all of us, tend to dramatize prayer whereas it ought to be as natural as breathing. We're inclined to think that prayer should be accompanied with mood music or that it should be like a tender and romantic moment. Or, on the other hand, that it's only for the time of crisis, the last desperate stand when only a miracle will save the situation. Well, it is for these times, but these are special times. The best prayer, like the best love, is the constant one. It burns brighter at times, but it always burns. It comes into the mind like the recollection of the constancy of a beloved friend or husband or wife.  It's the rise of gratitude within us for the sudden realization that we're fortunate in what life has given us. It's like an exclamation in appreciation of the sudden appearance of beauty as when the sun rises in purple to light a new day or sets in crimson and gold to mark the close of a finished day. The best prayers are like that. Natural movements of the souls of all of us. And family prayer that is natural and the familiar thing in a family is one of the best of the best prayers because it illuminates the very reason of the family and by illuminating it binds it together so that the family that prays together stays together.  From Hollywood Family Theater has brought you Rory Calhoun and Mona Freeman in the Courthouse Battle. Ruth Hussie was your hostess. Others in the cast were Ruth Perret, Herb Vigran, Ralph Moody, Howard Culver and Bill Irwin. The script was written by Harry Lawrence with music composed and conducted by Harry Zimmerman and was directed for Family Theater by Joseph F. Mansfield. This series of Family Theater broadcasts is made possible by the thousands of you type of program, by the mutual network which responds to this need and by the hundreds of stars of stage, screen and radio will give so unselfishly of their time and talent to appear on our Family Theater stage.  This is Tony LaFranco expressing the wish of Family Theater that the blessing of God may be upon you and your home and inviting you to join us next week at the same time when Family Theater will present Don DeVore, Otto Kruger and Nancy Gates in Seeds of Promise. Want you? Control's largest network. This is the mutual broadcasting system.