What Hanna said is true. There is no civil society in Lebanon. Just think of how many times you exited someone's house, noting how sparkling clean and "perfect" it is, and one step outside you realize how polluted and disorganized it is. Lebanon's public space is one giant slum, and no one seems to care. Or rather, no one knows how to care. This subject is huge and requires input from experts.
The civil society does exist, except it has been so rotten when it was infiltrated by politics and politicians.
Hell, students in school are electing their representatives based on their political affiliation.
There are some interesting movements and groups like LADE, Rotoract, Transparency international that are quite active in the society.
But what about the larger fronts ? Like the student one ?
Why would people elect you based on your political affiliation ?
What's the plus value in that, except that now the politicians use it as a means to gauge their representation ?
Which is not even close to being true, knowing that the different electoral laws and the way students vote is much much different than the normal elections.....
30th June 2009
