Take a lesson from 'Arab Idol'

While I was watching the last episode of "Arab Idol", I hoped the organisers would have brought "a neutral arbitration committee" to oblige competitors and arbitrators to its fair rulings and decisions. I had no doubt that the result was to come in favour of Carmen Suleiman, Dounia Batma and Yousef Arafat. I think that the male and female "superstars" would fall to the ground in a knockout as said in the language of boxing. This "super" generation seems tired and exhausted, although it insists on practicing their rituals of stardom that they invented and got used to, and find great difficulty in confessing that these rituals are no longer relevant and that "circulation" is the habit of life, in politics and governance, as well as in art and stardom world. Yesterday's episode brought me back to some political and media memories. One day, a veteran colleague of mine applied for work in a daily newspaper. He was then subjected to competitive efficiency tests, in order to gauge his integrity, transparency and make sure he fulfilled the "equal opportunities" requirement. One of the journalists tested him failed him in quite a knockout way, as the precious exam committee had its own innocent desires with other applicants. The winner of the exam and the exam committee soon faded away, however, my colleague soon managed to continue his difficult path. By the way, the salary of this profession at this time was not more than three hundred dollars. I remember once an educated friend of mine in a leftist Palestinian organisation handed over his resignation to his secretary-general, the reason being he got fed up with the declining level of integrity in the political office and many of its members. According to his description, the low ceiling prevents you from raising your head. The secretary-general responded asking him to continue butting the ceiling until it was broken down. However; it ended up with breaking the guy's head while the ceiling remained intact. Most of the politburo members (the arbitration committee) left the scene and were soon forgotten, settling in comfortable - or uncomfortable - retirement. In a conference for the General Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists in Algeria, this writer was surprised because most of the conference members - the vast majority of the great Palestinian writers, poets, and journalists - were borne from leftist Palestinian organisations. At the very least they had gained experience from them and worked in their newspapers or their cultural, media and ideological entities for some time. A question soon jumped to this writer's mind and he asked his comrades around him: What drives hundreds of intellectuals to go towards the left in their youth? And what forces them to leave it once they are put through the mill? Once again, the story of the ceiling and the “arbitration committee” and the generations that never give up their place except when they die sufaced! I think that what we and other millions watched yesterday and the day before on TV serves as an example for judging the partisan, social, cultural, and artistic phenomena of our countries. I think the issue of the “Arab Spring” is in short an expression of the reach of the “arbitration, judgement, and wisdom committees” in our countries at the end of their life spans. But nevertheless, they still cling to their stardom and privileges, and do not want to give up the stage for youth and future generations, do not want to recognise the basic rules of life that is represented in a proverb which means that “Generations replace one another as life goes on”. This rings true even in the countries where these proverbs are written on its facades, like Lebanon, where we saw that Prime Minister’s exit from his office was sufficient to put the country in a crisis that never ends except when he returned. It is the glitter of stardom and the “eroticism of power”, that killed tens of thousands of Arabs in the years of recession and revolution, and the experience of Colonel Gaddafi is a lesson for everyone.