Beirut: Every Sunday evening, and on cue, Lebanese television viewers are treated to some of the best entertainment during news broadcasts on all eight local channels. That’s when one is blessed with political commentaries delivered by clerics, both Muslim and Christian, sparkled with doses of indignation from one party against another.
Each speaker camouflages his outrage to attentive audiences that, remarkably, sacrifice their weekly day off away from loved ones to submit to mischievous prose that passes for intelligent conversation. Few appreciate the consequences of such verbal assaults that, if left to fester, could potentially inflict serious psychological damage. Why is this even practiced?
After nearly three years in Lebanon, and in awe at the skill with which Lebanese clerics mangle ideas to harangue masses with pointed words, often with elaborate props — formal attires and/or fingers — I can only conclude that this is done to influence and control the gullible even if the phenomenon is embedded in Mediterranean gentility.
That churchgoers submit to homilies is nothing new, of course, but just like the American stock brokerage firm E.F. Hutton, whose famous commercial claimed: “when E.F. Hutton talks, people listen,” the Lebanese pay attention when the Cardinal speaks. Indeed, the Patriarch of the Maronite Church, to take this leading example, is a skilled orator who uses his bully pulpit with panache and hammers, every Sunday, against the establishment over which his persuasive attributes seem to vanish with each passing moment. In Lebanon, everyone always reminds me that this Church has a national mandate, and cannot be considered a mere sectarian institution. Therefore, those who pretend to know tell me that when the Cardinal admonishes, it is a reminder that he is speaking for the silent majority.
Apparently, this is true even when the affable Cardinal utters contradictory pronouncements because, and this must be acknowledged upfront, he devotes the remaining six-days of the week to welcome the same members of the political establishment he ridicules on Sundays. In fact, there must be permanent television crews assigned to Bkirke [the official seat of the Patriarchate] given the comings and goings, all of which is done with broad smiles that ought to raise warning signs among news editors, though most probably accept the criterion that whatever the leader of the “national asset” advocates must be faultless. Naturally, television broadcasters salivate as they await Sunday homilies, for the speaker is apt to produce juicy sound-bites that can be the envy of the world’s better spin-doctors.
Muslim clerics are equally mendacious and rise to the occasion. Whether their venting is directly related to the Cardinal’s homilies is difficult to ascertain — on Friday television broadcasts seldom report on sermons delivered from various minbars (pulpits) — though leading Hezbollah clergymen-cum-politicians speak at promptly scheduled political rallies, often to limited audiences of no more than a few hundred spectators. Invariably, the harangues, spoken in exquisite prose that earns them linguistic accolades — which, truth be told, enrich any listener’s vocabulary as one is forced to check the dictionary to decipher the meaning of choice words—address political developments galore.
Often, Hezbollah officials respond to their foes, defend well-established positions, articulate visions, and profess incredulity that others do not perceive facts the way they do. The best speakers in the lot, Shaikhs Naim Qasim and Nabil Qaouk, are masters in eloquence and have rare oratory skills among Arabic-speaking personalities. They deliver sharp, electric, even bombastic pronouncements that move thousands into action, though one must wonder what goes on in the minds of audiences who submit to such regular verbal battering.
The phenomenon is neither new nor is it unique to Lebanon. As a teenager in the United States, Sunday evening television news programmes on ABC, CBS, and NBC (pre-cable era) fascinated me, especially weekly reportage on the previous Saturday’s Israeli Cabinet talks. Somehow US network editors believed that what occurred among a specific political establishment in Israel was relevant to America that, naturally, I could not possibly understand. Yet, every Sunday, one was acculturated to such fare. Now in Lebanon, Sunday news shows do not disappoint either, as viewers are treated to the same levels of incredulous entertainment.
When the best and the brightest in any nation surround themselves with highly polished PR teams and calibrate the tone as well as substance of weekly conversations, at least two things occur: one witnesses history even if one gets caught-up in the whirlwind of tragedies, and one learns that propaganda meisters come in all colours.
