From Beirut to Tel-Aviv...

Beirut and Tel-Aviv are two sides of the same coin, and yet the two names are rarely combined in one sentence, except in the context of the war between Israel and Lebanon. Both have a stunning coastal line, which make for a breathtaking airplane landing. Both have incoherent architectural style, which illogically make for a charming whole. Both have an ethnic hodge pot, which makes for an uneasy coexistence. Both are generously showered by the rays of sun, as by the rays of bullets, which in the case of Beirut can still be seen echoing off the walls of abandoned buildings. Both are left leaning in their respective national contexts. The inhabitants of both consume mountains of tabouli salad and hummous on a daily basis. This list can go on for pages.

Beirut and Tel-Aviv are of course proxies for a larger similarities between Israel and Lebanon which share a border, but nothing else. No Israeli can enter Lebanon and no one with an Israeli stamp in the passport will be allowed either. The same largely applies in the other direction. Friends in Lebanon tell me that their parents used to be able to drive from Beirut to West Bank, including Israel's proper, and back to Beirut in one day. That will probably remain a dream for decades to come, even if Iran somehow falters and even if Hezbollah's formidable powers are diminished, which is difficult to imagine seeing how it runs a state within a state, in addition to playing the formal political game.

The awareness of an average Lebanese of Israel is virtually non-existent, except for the military might of its tiny but belligerent neighbor, which showers Lebanon with rockets from time to time, the last time being in a not so far away 2006. My Lebanese friends tell me stories of life going on "business as usual" during the war: of them going to the office, hearing shelling of south Beirut, of setting up shelters for those dispossessed from the Hezbollah's areas, of going out in Gemaizeh at night.

Likewise, the Israelis shrink and shudder when they hear something, anything, about Lebanon. For them, Lebanon equals Hezbollah and Hezbollah equals rocket grenades and anti-semitism. I doubt they can imagine that Lebanon's largest synagogue prospers in central Beirut, despite the fact that the Jewish population sadly counts only about 400 Jews, too tired to move or too tied to their land. I doubt they can fathom that Beirut, on the whole, is one of the most liberal cities in the Middle East, that lives for its reclaimed restaurants and shisha pipes and skimpy clad, cosmetically remade ladies. I doubt that they could believe that war is as far from the mind of an average Lebanese as from the mind of an average left leaning Israeli.

And yet, despite this prevailing sentiment of peace and party over grenades and tanks in both Beirut and Tel Aviv, the reality is a little dimmer in both places. Checkpoints staffed by uneasy-looking young men can be found both in the mountains just an hour's drive from Beirut and across Israel and the West Bank. Holidays or celebrations are a particularly weary time in both countries, with military potentially outweighing any civilian presence on the street. That was certainly the case of the parade celebrating Lebanon's independence from the French mandate last week. Given the track record of assassinations in both countries from Izhak Rabin to Rafiq Hariri, it is hardly surprising. On the streets of Lebanon, one can still get in traffic behind a tank.

The only difference is that the Israeli military power is formal and supported by a sophisticated military apparatus, whereas Lebanon's power has nothing to do with its official military but everything to do with Hezbollah, which these days controls much more in Lebanon than tanks and rockets. The fact that Hezbollah's army stretches from south Beirut to south Lebanon is hardly a secret. A lesser known fact is that Hezbollah has an entirely parallel system of government, including parallel schools with a different curriculum, parallel system of hospitals and prisons, and that this fearsome militia owns land all over Lebanon, where presumably some time down the line, it plans to use to settle loyalists, the same way French government tries to build low income housing in the middle of the most bourgeois neighborhoods in Paris.

The parallel between the two countries belies the war and peace politics of the Middle East. It is in the air, expressing itself in how Lebanese and Israelis love, hate, eat and drink. The huge artistic undercurrents in both countries. The exposed brick art galleries of central Beirut and their siblings in Yaffa, on the shore of Tel Aviv. The overpowering role of finance and banks in the economies of the two countries. The business tycoons controlling most of the economy through a sophisticated corporate group structure, spanning banks and industrial companies. The role of expatriates in the performance and even the survival of the state. It is estimated that for every Lebanese in the country, there are about 3 expatriates aroad. In the case of Israel, the diaspora has also not been unimportant, particularly in North America.

Both are insecure of its neighbors and of themselves. Israel carefully observes from behind the self imposed burqa, looking carefully at the Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptian and Syrians and wondering from where the next punch will come. Likewise, Lebanon looks not only to its larger neighbour, Syria, but also to Israel which could shower it with bullets, shells and grenades if Hezbollah, which the Lebanese government does not control, decides to make one step past the porous border. The two countries are akin to self conscious neighbors, hiding behind the doors of their respective apartments, which, like it or not, are situated on the same floor. Behind each door hide beautiful women, so self conscious that cosmetic surgery remains the only option for survival.

And yet, if I had to isolate the important things that the two people share, whether they like it or not, is the sunshine of the Middle East, its incredible hospitality, the human warmth, its unpredictable spontaneity. All these variables add up to make life which is lived for the moment, as opposed to in five minutes, in five days or five years. And life is not the same when one lives for the moment. In the Western world, we all try to capture the moment, to live for today but we can't manage it because we simply don't know how to, because it is unnatural for us, because deep down we hope that tomorrow will be better, and because we are fairly confident that tomorrow exists, that there will be no bombing, and that life will go on, boring and predictable.

We don't wake up to see the bullet markets which decorate the walls of hundreds of buildings of Beirut, reminding - every day - its inhabitants of their mistakes and their dangers. We don't pass by the plaques in front of restaurants and bars, diligently listing those that got killed by suicide bombers. We don't live in an explosive ethic mix of Bedouins, Druze, Jews, Sunnis, Shia, and Christians and the fear that one day, our little world of Jews or Druze will have to be uprooted, demolished, or somehow marginalized. We don't need to have the same sense of fraternity that unites the peoples of Israel or Lebanon, despite their diverse and sometimes opposing backgrounds and history.

We can live in our egotistical bubble, for ourselves, despite what our religions tells us about brotherhood and sharing and all the other good stuff. And we do - live for ourselves, for tomorrow, for some distant hope of something intangible. It might be more prudent and rational, but it is certainly less inspiring. On the other hand, in Beirut and Tel-Aviv life both is inspired and inspiring. And while the Lebanese and the Israelis might see themselves as being on the opposite sides of the world, they might just be on the two sides of the same coin instead. One can only hope that in a not too distant future, the Lebanese would be able to drive freely to the West Bank and Jerusalem, like they used to do, some sixty years ago and that for Israelis, Lebanon would stop equalling Hezbollah. Until then, the road from Beirut to Tel Aviv will remain an imaginary silk route that unites these two peoples, who both live for today for the fear of not seeing tomorrow.

Halloween in Dubai

The Dubai International Financial Center is a combination of glass, lights and expats. It is defined by a structure which looks like the arch of the business district of Paris and creates a New York-like microcosm in the middle of what only a decade ago was an indistinguishable patch of desert. Inside this desert financial center hide fast food joints, snazzy restaurants, contemporary art galleries, chic hotels and everything else that makes it an antithesis for what you would one expect to find in the relatively conservative Emirates.

Western culture and habits, for better or worse, seem to have defined, permeated and invaded everything. British accents are ricocheting off the glass walls, containing the odors of fried chicken, and escalators rushing expats from all over the world up to the their exaggerated paychecks and dreams to making it big if not at in their own countries, than here, in the Gulf. If it sounds like the American dream, it is. To be fair, let's call it the Dubai dream.

With only ten percent local Emirati population, it is no wonder that Western customs and habits did not take long to transform Dubai and its financial center in a very much occidental construct. While the local stock markets operate with respect to Ramadan, Eid and other Muslim holidays, they don't skip an opportunity to celebrate Halloween, which in the neighbouring Saudi Arabia would be considered witchcraft, in some cases punishable by death penalty.

It's 31 October and downstairs of the DIFC, Halloween celebrations are in full swing. Upstairs, some British or French expat is probably still crunching their spreadsheets, praying that the numbers will add up and liberate them to the bliss of the sleek lounge to find their pumpkin. Here, at Zumba lounge, Halloween is taken with all the seriousness it deserves. All the waiters and bartenders have their faces painted and are going about their business with the some serious energy. A middle aged chinese waitress looks somewhat curious with sparkles all over her face, like a ten old who has outgrown her party outfit a few years ago.

At the bar, overmaked-up women of all ages are shaking their - either very well supported or outright remodeled breasts - to the sound of the tam-tam, played by an afroboy or an afroboy-wanna-be. Gold visas are being swiped with the speed of lightening. Packs of cigarettes are disappearing in their own smoke. Blackberries are buzzing distracting their owners from their cigarettes. The bar is moving to the noise of cocktail shakers, tunes of the DJ and echoes of conversations.

A half-moon is hanging over a nearby skyscraper as if to prove that there are no limits to to verticality. Surely, Sheikh Mohammed will shortly announce something taller, wider, louder, more grandiose than all the preceding towers. That one will surely reach the moon. If only the fourteen billion of Dubai Holding debt maturing next year were a mirage. Was Burj Al Khalifa worth it? History will show us, though research already shows that considering its construction costs, the break-even point for the tower is also somewhat of a mirage.

Halloween has drowned out the Dubai crisis, the global financial crisis, the Greek debt crisis. Here, at the Dubai Financial Center, there is no crisis, just a party. And the party is clearly on, here, at least as much if not more than, in Paris or New York. Are a bunch of skyscrapers, bedouins, expats and a half moon enough to light up the night? Are they genuinely happy to be there or is being out and seen an obligation as much as social receptions were the duty of the British and the French nobility? What do these people do during the day that makes them so alive at night?

The financial crisis, the Palestinian -Israeli conflict, the real estate meltdown are mixing in their glasses and seem to be going down rather well. Is it possible that all these drinks are meant to drown out their solitude on the other side of planet earth than where they really want to be? Are they trying to prove to themselves that life goes on even in the desert, that we can all hide behind a halloween mask and return to the careless lightness of our childhood?

But, that is precisely the question. Can we drown out the feeling of not being in the right place at the right time? That same evening, walking back from the party, I cut myself which would be no big deal in Paris, London or New York or even in some less glamorous places. In Dubai though, some hotels are owned by pious Emiratis are dry, devoid even of rubbing alcohol. No vodka, no gin, no wine and no rubbing alcohol. And then it occurred to me that no efforts to remake the desert into something it is not can be full proof. Here in Dubai, even on Halloween Occident and Orient can only co-exist to an extent. Trick or teat anybody?

Contrasts and contradictions

Human experience is defined by a surprisingly few, transformative experiences.Unsurprisingly, those transformative experiences are shaped by human beings. More rarely, they are shaped by an event or a place. And yet, there is a place in this world that touches, in a very profound, albeit in a very different way, almost every humanbeing. The Middle East.

Those that have at least once travelled to this part of the world know that it's like a centrifugal force that pulls you once and for all, like meat grinder from which you emerge substantially the same yet so different. Jerusalem, Baghdad, Beirut, Petra, Mecca - the differences between them loom larger than any real or perceived similarities - and yet, once we are drawn in, there is no right of no return (pun on word intended).

Why is that one can travel to Prague, Lisbon, Saint Francisco, Toronto, Brussels without ever reeling with the same nostalgia that one trip to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon or Israel? Why is that a short trip to this part of the world - scarred by conflict, marred in instability, marked by so much injustice - makes us all leave a little piece of our heart behind and a burns a little scar on the inside?

In answering these questions there are two keywords - contrasts and contradictions. Contrasts and contradictions that have accumulated over the past few centuries are hiding everywhere, in things material and intangible, permeating the air, invading the spirit, pulling us in the centrifuge of the local experience. For an Arab, a Christian or a Jew, life in the Middle East is a contradiction in terms, an emotional roller coaster, composed of a millions of days, each unique and lived very much for the moment.

The Israelis, the Lebanese, the Iraqis, the Yemenis, the Afghanis and many others drive, eat, dance and interact with the intensity, the warmth, and the hate that is so immediate and burning that it captures the thirst of life in a way unparalleled in any other place in the world. Almost everything in the region evades logic and reason. Almost everything is a matter of the heart, almost to the point where melodrama characterises even the most insignificant events, giving them a new meaning.

When we randomly sift through our memory to find associations with the Middle East, they are probably include some if not all of the following: Iraqi women in black crying out for lost members of the family, Gazan men in military uniforms releasing rounds in the air, Egyptian men and woman manifesting at Tahrir square. These images stand in a very stark contrast with the almost surreal calm of the Japanese after the meltdown of the Fukishama reactor.

Contrasts and contradictions underlie every experience today in the region probably in the same stark way as they did 100 or 1000 years ago. Just think of the barren hills and juicy olives in Jerusalem, the stretching desert and ambitious high rises in Dubai, the semi naked tourists and the very much veiled locals in Cairo, the bullet marked buildings and the happening nightlife in Beirut.

Most of these contradictions are rooted in a tension between religion and modernity and exacerbated by the stress among the religious communities. And yet, these contradictions are not unique to the Middle East, far from it. It is not the only part of the world where religion continues to play a defining role in society - look no further than Malaysia. Neither is the Middle East the most ethnically diverse place - not even close to the American melting pot, where an Iranian immigrant can live or work side by side with a Polish Jew.

And yet, there is something in the the Middle Eastern air that makes it explosive. Zataar, shisha, love, hate, a woman's voice, a child's cry, an explosion, a party. Everything touches the soul, as if seeking to leave an engraving. This cradle of civilisations cannot leave even a cockroach indifferent, let alone its own inhabitants who have evolved in circumstances that require the skills of a chameleon.

There are countless expressions of these contradictions that are difficult to capture unless by a skilled photographer. The keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher being guarded by a Muslim to avoid rivalry among Christian families. The women covered in black walking behind their husbands outfitted in Adidas shorts on the beach of Tel-a-viv. Black obayas decorated in miniature christmas trees dominating the storefronts in Cairo. Palestinian shopkeepers selling colourfully decorated mezuzahs in the souk of Jerusalem.

The call for prayer resonating in Dubai Ball, disturbing only the fish in the gigantic aquarium built by the local sheikh. A bearded man and his head-to-toe covered wife sifting through sexy underwear nearby. A woman nestling a medical mask on top of her obaya, already covering all of her face, at the Cairo airport. A man throwing his phone number in a car of a passing lady in the hope of scoring a text back. If that's not obvious, that's in Saudi Arabia.

All in all, the Middle East is like an unpredictable lover. It can be capricious, illogical, melancholic, demanding, welcoming, overbearing, explosive, mysterious, unpredictable. Nonetheless, it is nothing short of a magnet, a centrifugal force that draws us to the cradle of civilisations, to our irrational but precious origins. After one taste, we keep coming back for more, even if this relationship cannot last a lifetime.

Balance of power in the new Middle East

In the 1980s, the Middle East was a manifestation of an ideological battlefield between socialism and capitalism, played out by the United States and the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the Soviet Union had some bigger fish to fry at home than bother with the spread of socialism abroad. Conveniently, "terrorism" gave the United States another enemy in the region and a raison-d'être for its continued presence.

As the first decade of the new millennium wizzed by, the fight against terrorism became the new game in town and at one point it looked like the "coalition of the willing" might take over the Middle East. As Rudolph Giuliani plainly put in his recent interview, America's presence is justified in the Middle East for as long as there is terrorism. Unfortunately, he is not the only one to hold this view.

And yet, as of the beginning of this year, the the narrow and narrow-minded focus on terrorism in the region has been swiftly replaced by the focus of revolutions and revolutionaries. Overnight, America became a supporter of the demands of the Egyptian people, then the Tunisian people, then the Syrian and Yemeni people and basically for all of the people of the Middle East, well, except of the Saudis - they really have too much oil.

The events of the past few months have not only caught world leaders with their pants down, they caught the Arabs with their pants - or perhaps more eloquently put - their robes down. Previously, the region was thought to be "exceptional" - exceptionally undemocratic, exceptionally prone to terrorism, exceptionally difficult to develop. No longer. It seems to everyone's surprise, the Arab people have the same demands at karama (dignity in arabic) as do others. Even bigger surprise was the secular nature of the revolutions, which of course put a wrinkle in the plan to fight terrorism in the region.

International organisations and donor governments are simply at a loss. As soon as they manage to draft up another plan to save the Middle East from itself, the tectonic plates shift once again and our powerful Western leaders find themselves hanging of the cliff on different sides. Certainly, the replacement regimes are better, at least on paper, than their predecessors. Better, but less obvious. Until this year, Arab countries were like large multinationals, run by well known and established leaders: Apple is run by Steve Jobs, Egypt by Hosni Mubarak, Microsoft by Bill Gates, Tunisia by Ben Ali.

In the post revolutionary Middle East, the chain of command seems a little more complex. Who is in charge?!, is the million or the billion dollar question. The Dauville Communique, drafted by our G8 masters committed 40 billion to supporting various noble causes in the region - reducing unemployment, giving women more rights, reducing inequalities, improving democratic processes - except no one has a clue what to actually do with these piles of cash.The whole region seems to have slowly converged towards the Palestinian situation - donors pouring cash on vague objectives yielding invisible results.

While the world powers are watching the news from the region as an interminable Mexican soap opera which everyone suspects will have a dramatic end, but are not sure which of their favourite heros will be sacrificed, Turkey has cautiously entered and installed itself as a major power broker in the region. Turkey's ouvertures towards the Middle East in fact predate Arab revolutionary fervor but until recently were unwelcome. After all, it is hardly a secret that Arabs do not look back at the Ottoman era with the biggest nostalgia.

Why now then? In principle, the Turkish model is more readily exportable and applicable to the Egyptian transition but also the wider political transition in the region, Turkey being a multi-ethnic, predominantly Muslim country, with a history of being ruled by the military. And yet, Turkey, with its borders with Iraq, Iran and Israel appeared of minimal interest in the region until Erdogan decided - in a politically shrewd move - to blow up, the conflict with Israel over the Gaza flotilla which, by the way, took place months before.

Various versions of the Turkey-Israel confrontation, resulting in Turkey all but severing political ties with Israel, abound. Regardless of the substance of this debate, Erdogan has clearly seen the flotilla as his entry point not only into Gaza, but in the wider Middle East. Days after the well-publicised spat with Israel, he arrived in the Middle East, triumphant, characterized as the second most popular Turk in the Middle East since Saladin recaptured Egypt, Syrian and Jerusalem from the Europeans in 1100.

Erdogan has much to be proud of. Only months after Obama's famous Cairo speech, America has lost any shred of legitimacy in the region. The fight against terrorism is a broken record that no longer sells, if ever it did. America's support of the Israeli position during the Palestinian bid for statehood in the UN has made it persona non grata for the foreseeable future. In the absence of any other weighty power broker in the region, Turkey might ride the popularity wave.

Pity that it will do so for all the wrong reasons. While Erdogan might have tried to promote his version of secular Muslim state, it is doubtful his message was heard or noticed as much as his promise that "Israel will no longer be able to do what it wants in the Mediterranean". After all, when he stepped of his plane in Cairo, he was greeted by the now familiar Allah Akbar and not Go Secular Turkey! Undoubtedly, this does not much disturb Erdogan but what he might not realise is that Egypt is not Turkey and playing the Palestinian cause is an easy card to play in what will be a tough poker game.

Echos from North Africa

I have always found it somewhat of a culture shock to find myself on the African continent in less than a 3 hour flight from Europe. As far as the Middle East and North Africa goes: Cairo is 5 hours, Dubai 6 hours, Beirut 4 hours, and yet Rabat is almost around the corner from Paris. By the time you get do indulge - or not - in some moderately eatable airplane cookery and browse through Financial Times or whatever else you fancy, the plane is already lowering itself on leafy green palm trees and you know Europe is far, far behind.

But how far is really Morocco from Europe? After all, it is a former French colony, which has declared independence just over 50 years ago, and the upper social class as well as all of the government still operate entirely in French, which is not the same in Algeria, for all the obvious reasons, or even in Tunisia for less obvious ones. The legal system and the modus operandi of the Moroccan institutions is very much à la française. The locals, when blamed for inefficiency or anything else for that matter, just shrug their shoulders as if to say: "hey, we just borrowed your traditions, it's not our fault!"

While in many ways, countries of the "South Mediterranean"- basically European speak for Maghreb - are linguistically, culturally and commercially closer to Europe than even Turkey, which has for a while been fighting for EU accession, in the most fundamental ways they are worlds apart from Europe, perhaps even more than a continent away. And no Sarkozy talk of his Mediterranean Union project can bridge this in the next few decades.

True, unlike its neighbouring Libya and Tunisia, the subjects of His Majesty have not rebelled, in the region where rebelling against social and economic injustice, corruption, lack of political rights and just about everything else has become as fashionable as fake Louis Vitton bags. It seems that unlike in the neighbourhood countries, where the leaders were caught with their pants down, the Moroccan King - or more precisely his advisors - have been saavy enough to harness all sorts of media. A few days ago, the most read daily boasted the photo of the King busily greeting the head of the domestic anti-corruption watchdog. To his credit, he seems to have got it faster than his neighbours, not least Bashar Al Assad and King Abdullah, both of the same "reformer" generation.

The King, being a descendant from the Prophet, might need even less "communication" to his fellow subjects, of which less than half are literate anyways. His legitimacy is not disputed, and passing by his palaces in Rabat Marrakech or any other city (there is a palace per city policy), there are no crowds demanding any drastic reforms, let alone his departure. The latter is actually against the law, since any criticism of the King is considered as a criminal matter, as a few journalists who have dared to cross the line, swiftly discovered.

Sometimes, one can wonder whether the King fully realises what is actually going on his country, considering that his palaces are surrounded by modern-looking security services and hectares of those leafy palm trees which separate his nose from the pollution of cars and and his eyes from the daily life in the medina. In Marrakech, his palace is surrounded by imposing looking streetlights which standout by the very fact that they do not at all fit with the surrounding misery. Even when the King chooses to take out his Porsche outside the safety of his Palaces, the highways are cleared of cars and guarded by policemen stationed every five meters, and melting onto the pavement in excruciating heat.

Aside from this Disneyland reality of Morocco, the rest is pretty much a sad sight despite all the reforms and laws to improve the daily life of low and middle income class Moroccans. With the exception of a few building blocks on the outskirts of Rabat, destined to create a middle class in a country which fundamentally lacks it, Moroccan cities are interspersed with bidonvilles. Aside from the diplomatic capital (Rabat) and the business capital (Casablanca), other cities are pretty much a sorry sight, which the ignorant Western tourists mistake for some sort of an "authenticity", and from which they hide in the privacy of their luxury villas, riyads and hotels, completely divorced from the local context.

Marrakech, for example, is known as a premium tourist destination, and yet, apart from a couple badly kept and mediocre museums and decrepit medina, there is nothing that catches the eyes except for more of the same: pollution, poverty, unkept children playing in the dust, amid a couple of tired donkeys and fruit vendors. Perhaps the biggest irony is that the most widely known tourist destination in Marrakech is the Villa of Yves Saint Laurent, which is singularly the only impeccably kept place in the city. Needless to say, there is nothing Moroccan about it, except perhaps its gardener and cleaning lady.

What the tourists flocking to Marrakech - an "authentic" North African city stuck somewhere in the medieval times - really see is a lack of an even pretense at progress and development. This is mistaken for originality. Perhaps it is for the best that the tourists continue flocking to Marrakech since the city basically lives off their ignorance and willingness to perpetually pose like a walking wallet. For non-Arabic speakers, the taxi counters are immediately turned off, additional items pop up out of nowhere on restaurant bills, and prices generally quadruple.

In a nutshell, the city is on life support, and it's organ donor is called "the tourist", of which there are basically two types: those which arrive directly to their five star hotel and think than tanning topless around the pool is what everybody in Marrakech does (never mind that a quarter of local women wear a Saudi-style burqa) or those who actually venture into the guts of the city and experience Marrakech grassroots style, which is still very far to the real daily existence of an average Marrakechi.

If tourists and all the services associated with it fled, the economy of entire cities such as Marrakech would crumble like a house of cards. Perhaps somebody should explain this to taxis who are clearly in competition trying to name the most outrageous price. Aside from services, nothing is produced in this city or many other Moroccan cities, whose "artisanat", i.e. crafts are exceedingly manufactured in China and painted in Morocco.

In Europe, we often hear that cooperation between South and North Mediterranean countries is a win-win, due to high unemployment in the the Maghreb and the need for qualified low cost labour in the Europe. And yet, with all the European support and decent laws on books and a relatively competent administration, the Moroccan economy operates like one giant souk, where items are haggled for, bargained, stolen, and sometimes simply wasted. There are a few "islands of efficiency", usually run by expats, which operate according to entirely different principles and deadlines. For the lack of a better analogy, this is a new brand of post-colonialism, and at least to me, not the worst kind.

All in all, Marrakesh might be only 3 hours away from Paris, but it is lightyears away from it. I wonder if it has "gone back" from colonial times, and why despite all the European cash, the linguistic capabilities, the relatively competent civil service, it has not made the huge leaps it has all the potential to make. The answer, I am afraid, lies more the "souk culture" than in an any government procedures or lack of foreign assistance or China's productivity or the King's rule. Bargaining is a certainly a skill, but it cannot be the only one.

Havoc in the Middle East

The Middle East has been one of the most "politically stable" regions with an average mandate of its leaders oscillating somewhere between 20-30 years. A special mention goes to Gaddafi who has been in power the longest in the region, since 1969, and is in fact the longest standing global leader with no royal lineage. The revolution, unravelling in the region has clearly caught the Arab leaders and the rest of the world with their pants down.

What's more, no one expected the posterchild of stable, secular, middle class Tunisia to be the first to take the tumble. Ben Ali was so firmly at the steering wheel that no one could ever imagine that a self-inflicting burning of a vegetable salesman would bring him to flee Tunisia without even putting up a decent fight. The military said "that's enough" and he just left, of course not after his hairdresser wife withdrawing 45 million of gold reserves from the Central Bank, in addition to his existing personal fortune estimated at about ten times that.

Surprising as it may be, the fact that Tunisia was the first card in the deck to fall is historically important. First, Tunisia is not exactly strategic to the US interests and the French, who have historically been very much present, did not manage to produce any loud noises, at least not coherently. The French Foreign Affairs Minister - who should have known better, having served as a Minister of Defence and previously of Interior - quipped that France can send French troops to help quell rebellion in Tunisia. She was promptly and correctly told to zip it and has since even apologised.

Second, the jasmine revolution could not have been branded as some sort of unruly Islamic revolt that would have all Western politicians looking uncomfortably to Iran and anxiously shifting in their seats. It was simply a plea that eventually became sufficiently desperate that survival took the back seat and that tactics with mortal outcomes, traditionally reserved to Islamists (i.e. suicide bombings) have morphed into secular self-destruction (i.e. self burning). What is less known is that this ritual has sadly become somewhat of a fad with young men burning themselves across the Maghreb.

We can only be grateful the revolts did not begin in the Gulf, where US has more strategic interests (access to oil, military bases etc.) And it is indeed interesting to observe that the Arab awakening has left entirely untouched the royal fiefdoms of the Middle East. It would be temping to say that the people of the Gulf countries are fat cats who don't have an interest in political activism of the sort, but Jordan and Morocco provide a litmus test to that statement. Both are extremely poor, royal and reasonably stable, at least in recent years.

So why Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen? Because Ben Ali, Mubarak and Saleh. Put this way, the similarity is striking - all belong to the old military guard, having been in power for over 30 years, all are secular and enjoy no popular support, all have been propped up to varying extent by Western interests in the Middle East, all have relied on an alliance with the military. And yet, unlike the royal regimes who are confident to have their offspring continue to rule, these leaders have behaved like investment bankers trying to hit their annual bonuses, as opposed to seeing the company performance over the longer term.

Now that these revolts are fully underway, the media is overflowing with speculation regarding how they will play out. In Tunisia, the government has already been formed and only time will tell whether democratic tendencies will install themselves and in what concotion. The elephant in the room is of course the status of the Islamic party, Ennahdha, hethero banned, whose alleged representative, Rachid Ghanouchi, is back home from his home away from home, Britain. There are diverging viewpoints on this and Ayatollah Khatami is already seeing "Islam-based Middle East" in the making. I think many, myself included, would beg (and hope) to differ.

The situation in Egypt is perhaps the most tense, unpredictable and consequential for the "new Middle East" than that in Tunisia or even Yemen. In a recent interview, Hilary Clinton tried to predict the outcome by declaring unambiguously, in total seriousness (and with considerable degree of hypocrisy, if you ask me): "what will happen to Egypt is up to the Egyptian people." While that truism should be so obvious as to sound ridiculous when repeated, it is also not exactly the case. What happens on the streets of Egypt is up to the Egyptians, what happens in terms of political change in Egypt is at least as much up to Americans (or their leaders).

And Americans (and for that matter Europeans) are clinging to Mubarak like surround wrap to old piece of cheese. Mubarak has meant stability and stability is a good thing as far as old friends go. With close to 1.5 billion dollars annual aid from the US alone, Mubrak has been able to rule like a pharaon, to the point that that when Egyptians talk of a pharaon they actually refer to Mister M himself. He's been subject to so much ridicule that there are now actually collections of Mubarak jokes like there used to be for Bush Jr. For a good laugh, see "Making fun of the pharaoh" on Foreign Policy.

What seems to have escaped the America and its incoherent Middle East policy in the is the tradeoff between short and long term stability. The more they have encouraged stability, the more instability has ultimately come their way. This should really not be surprising. For ordinary Egyptians, stability they have had is one frustrating kind: stability of illiteracy, of poverty, of traffic jams, of corruption. In response to this stability sought by Egypt's friends, the only unstable variable has been the rise of Islam to the point the only opposition left standing is the Muslim Brotherhood, ready as always to die for their cause.

The second pillar of the Mubarak house allegedly supported by American interests was democracy. Stability and democracy was what has been shouted through a megaphone by successive American administrations, with none of them stopping to realise that those are actually incompatible. Perhaps they realised those two policy objectives were incongruent the day Hamas won elections in not so far away Palestine, but who wants to downgrade the good old democracy? Apparently nobody.

As a result, Ministries of Foreign Affairs in capitals in Europe and North America are now caught peddling political banalities about how the regime needs to respond to its people, without anyone daring to say a word about the regime itself. This is not a regime that is going to respond to its people because that would equate to self-destruction. There is no need to dig the archives for a confirmation of this, it made loud and clear in elections for the Egyptian parliament being only a few months ago. It was made cristal clear again when Mubarak appointed his 75 year old security chief as the Prime Minister.

Mohammed El Baradai might, for the moment, be a solution that addresses the current predicament. He seems to have more popular support than anyone else and he is backed by Muslim Brotherhood, which is certainly not lacking any popular support. Ironically, I am not so certain that he would be backed in Western capitals, not least in Washington where he is still bitterly remembered as the man who claimed that the Iraqi nuclear programme was suspended in 1990s and hence that the war in Iraq was groundless. It does not matter that he was right, what matters is that he had his own opinion. Whether El Baradei will make for a loyal partner in the region, is far from irrelevant to managing Egyptian succession in Washington and hence, in Egypt itself.

In the meantime, what seems relatively clear is that barring major foreign intervention to prop up Mubarak, the man is over. Reporting from Cairo, Robert Fisk, one of the few experts on the region, basically points out that today the Egyptian president might as well be the main character in Catch 22. Doomed if he orders to the army to shoot the demonstrators, doomed if he does not. There is no reason to believe these angry crowds will tire out and dissipate like clouds, even if Facebook is and phone lines are cut. After all, the average Egyptian does not have either.

In any event, the outcome currently in the cards for Egypt will likely not be either democratic or stable. The "made in U.S" political template is simply not the right one for political evolution of Egypt. The people on the streets clearly do not see the benefits of stability, even though some of it like the peace dividend with Israel and the economic reforms of the Nazif led government, are not inconsequential. The problem for them is less the technocrats and their policies and probably more the politicians and their politics. Unlike stability, they seem to note the value of democracy, but it is far from clear that they are ready for it.

Ironically, democracy is not really a value innate value for peoples of the Middle East, who have never really experienced it, having for centuries survived in royal regimes, under tribal rule and simply under repression. The only democracies in this part of the world are Israel and Lebanon and I think none of their neighbours are envious of their political systems, for quiet different reasons. Of course, this can never be admitted by any politician for the noble cause of political correctness.

What everyone also seems afraid to admit is that democracy and stability takes time to reconcile. The Egyptian transition, if not managed carefully can result in chaos and a sort of free-for-all that followed the transition from communism to market economy (aka oligarchy) in Russia. Another equally undemocratic faction will take power and the history will see a repeat of the Young and the Restless featuring a Mubarak substitute.

The only hope for some, even imperfect reconciliation of democracy and stability in Egypt is the formation of some sort of a coalition government where the religious based parties could coexist with secular ones. Ironically, the closest country where this system exists is Israel, although Turkey could also be seen as an example. Naturally, Israel will be the last place the Egyptian people might look for a political role model, but without the reconciliation of Islamist based parties with remaining secular based/religious minority movements, both stability and democracy might just be a far away mirage.

Disinfecting quality of the sunshine - in what dose?

Yes, it is that time of the year. The time to turn off the computer and phone, draw the curtains close, get out the diary and do some reflecting on the year almost passed. I daresay it's better time spent than getting slapped in the face by shopping bags in crowds of Christmas shoppers, whose holiday sprit - at least in France - I always find surprisingly lacking.

So, what happened in 2010? It's a simple question to which the answer is far from evident. Try asking yourself or someone you know what did this year mean for them, and you'll be surprised how much of the answer has to do with banal facts of life: career changes, house renovations, and other types of more or less successful facelifts to their lives. It's all about us what happened to us, as if we were the earth and everything else rotated around us.

While the answer to this question is deeply personal for each of us, the Time qualified 2010 as the Year of the Leak. "We could not control the leaking as if we were all sneezing women who'd just had a baby and we'd just drunk a bottomless cup of coffee and that baby was sitting on our bladder". Bravo, Joel Stein, I was considering unsubscribing and this single article has got me considering sending another cheque to Time magazine.

And it's true that if we look beyond our immediate surroundings, step above our little or not so little problems, and think about what happened in the world in 2010, the past year was really a year of the leak. And one which might not be repairable in the long term. In the short term, governments may be able to dismantle Wikileaks (think US), stop Google (think China), ban Facebook (think North Korea), block any image of women bodies (think Saudi Arabia), or issue their own competing propaganda (think Russia).

And yet this leak may not be a simple physics problem with water flowing in the bathtub of a certain pre-determined size. It might just continue flowing in and out until the leak might indeed become a state of mind. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Before we jump too far into the future, I invite you to look back. Of course, there were Wikileaks, containing nearly a half a million documents, including reports from Iraq, Afghanistan and cables from US diplomatic service about just about every country in the world. Established in 2006 by Julien Assange, the audacious organisation was virtually unheard of until 2010.

Aside from this major leak, there were small leaks all over the bathtub, as if it was shot through with a machine gun. In France, arguably the only entirely independent newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné is entirely founded on gossip provided primarily by disgruntled civil servants. To his great disillusionment, Sarkozy has not yet found a way to sue the paper or its journalists. On the contrary, Le Monde, one of the oldest French papers, is currently suing the President's Office for spying. It appears that the President's Office was seeking to stop Le Monde from publishing further damaging details about the scandal associated with Eric Woerth, French Labour Minister "replaced" in November.

Leaking is not contained to France. Israeli left leaks on the Israeli right and vice versa. In Russia, Putin's and Medvedev's camps are engaged in mutual leaking. In China, the political establishment is engaged in a predictably losing game of trying to contain the real story by shutting down access to Google and Facebook. The Chinese political establishment might want to examine carefully the history of the Soviet Union for hints why such methods are bound to fail. In Italy, everyone these days seems to be leaking on Berlusconi, though sometimes I wonder why the juicy gossip appears in the press at the exact same time when Berlusconi needs to deflect attention from another impending political disaster.

That is not to deny that some leaking has been successfully contained. Only in July this year, Russia and the United States, have quietly swapped spies in a deal that reminded me one of the first swaps of political prisoners during the Cold War. Undoubtedly, much more is contained from the general public than is leaked. We have to get used to the idea that we are not jurors in the courtroom where witnesses swear to tell the whole truth and nothing by the truth. Even for stories that make it out of black boxes, I wonder if the journalistic and blogger community has the capacity to process them (cf. the 2200 page report to the Senate on the Lehman Brother's bankruptcy).

I have to admit that I have no problem with leaking per se. My guess is that unless you are employed by the US Foreign Service or CIA, reading cables unleashed into the public domain by Wikileaks have been at least entertaining, at most fascinating. It has certainly created pretext for some debates over tea, or coffee, whatever your favourite beverage might be. And there is a specific reason for this. I woud humbly propose that there is something dramatically different about these leaks than the Watergate cables, espionage during the Cold War and even the footage of treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

First is motivation. While previous leaks were motivated by a specific political agenda, a desire to expose a specific political plot, to obtain valuable information about an enemy state, Wikileaks is about none of the above. In its repertoire of scandals are Islandic bankers, the scientology church, even members of UN peacekeeping forces. Secrets closely guarded by the American political establishment were merely the next step in the ascent of the Wikileaks dominance, not its primary target.

Julien Assange does not appear as a man with a political agenda, but a man in the search of a truth - a far more dangerous substance. A man of a certain ideology can be converted, convinced or co-opted, while man in search of a truth risks becoming more stubborn in the face of obstacles. And this is exactly what appears to have happened to Assange, though only time can tell how unbending his willpower might be.

Wikileaks has clearly hit sore spots in many capitals, not only in the United States which is scambling to find grounds for criminal charges against its founder. And yet, most of the very controversial information released by Wikileaks is really no news. The misconduct of American soldiers of Iraq, the thoughts of Saudi king on Iranian political establishment are hardly grounds for newspaper headlines. These are old news dressed up in brand new outfits.

Beyond the scale of the Wikileaks, what is really different about them is that they are no longer about events, policies, countries, but about living people. They talk about what individual people, with names, faces and titles think about other individual people with those other names, faces and titles. They reveal the thoughts of the American ambassador to Italy on Berlusconi, the Saudi King on Ahmadinajad and a host of concrete allegations against specific people.

Wikileaks has made gossip people-specific. Therein lies it's biggest power and at the same time it's biggest danger. In its noble search for truth for the public's benefit, it is targeting the private. There is nothing in the leaks that is not personally offensive to specific individuals, which is exactly why they have all rushed to "dismiss allegations" of the cables. Some of the individuals which Wikileaks targeted are now seeking revenge, making it very personal to Assange.

In our world of political correctness, it seems uncomfortable truths are all the more uncomfortable, even if they are hardly news. It's been a long time politicians have generally politely agreed to disagree and any real disagreements, short of North Korea and the US, are quietly swept under the carpet, at least in the eyes of the public. There is no more rendering politicians naked in public. Perhaps our politically correct world is kinder to all. The paradox though, is that it renders even the smallest truth that much more personal and therefore damaging.

So, does the world need more or less truth? Would the world be a better place if human beings could, like in a sci-fi movie, read though each other's thoughts so that secrets would be impossible? I cannot pretend to have a answer, but to arrive at one I suggest you imagine a friend revealing to you all the defects they think you possess. On the one hand, it is desirable to know who you real friends are, on the other, the risk of losing some friends is real. Do we need more real friends or are we better off not knowing the truth? How much of the disinfecting quality of the sunshine do we really need?