المبادئ الاقتصادية والاجتماعية في الدستور اللبناني

The Economic and Social Principles in the Lebanese Constitution

SifR

The Lebanese constitution was neoliberal before the word existed — we beat Pinochet by decades.

العمال يؤسسون للديمقراطية والعلمانية

Workers Lay the Foundations for Democracy and Secularism

Bidayat

150 years since the Paris Commune — 72 days of direct democracy, secularism, and social justice. Paris lived in the future and bequeathed the hope that paradise on earth is possible.

١٥٠ عامًا على «عامّية باريس»

150 Years Since the Paris Commune

Bidayat

From the shock of defeat and refusal to surrender, the Paris Commune declared the first experiment in direct democracy, secularism, and social justice, affirming that democracy is a product of popular imagination and struggles.

هل الاقتصاديات العربية ريعية؟ حالتا مصر ولبنان

Are Arab Economies Rentier? The Cases of Egypt and Lebanon

Bidayat

The concept of "rentier economy" is inverted from a negative symptom to an inherent feature of capitalism, where exploitation extends beyond production to strongly impact the market.

جورج البطل، آخر البلاشفة مذكرات قائد شيوعي من لبنان

George al-Batal, the Last of the Bolsheviks: Memoirs of a Communist Leader from Lebanon

Bidayat

At age five he insisted on what he knew despite his father's slap, and solved a murder — the tannery taught him that a generous employer curses communists when a worker carries a clock.

من يتذكر الاول من ايار؟

Who Remembers the First of May?

As-Safir

Despite political crises, May Day reminds us that the Arab revolutions were founded on workers' issues and rights, and that freedom cannot stand without bread and true democracy.

مارغريت ثاتشر – الارث والجنازة 

Margaret Thatcher - The Legacy and the Funeral

As-Safir

The "milk snatcher" privatized everything; Ken Loach proposed privatizing her funeral — more consistent with her legacy.

مواد قابلة للاشتعال

Flammable Materials

As-Safir

The confrontation over the wage ladder reveals Lebanon's true power: the financial-commercial-real estate complex that obstructs reforms and accumulates flammable social and sectarian tensions.

عصام النقّري (ابو ربيع)

Issam al-Naqqari (Abu Rabi')

Survived war and resistance unscathed — killed by a hit-and-run whose driver fled. The easiest thing in this country: commit a crime and escape punishment.

العمل والعمال في الثورات العربية

Labor and Workers in the Arab Revolutions

As-Safir

I am a worker, not a slave — the millions in the squares are workers and unemployed, not middle class, and Islamists replace rights with charity.

بريشت – اسئلة العامل

Brecht - Questions from a Worker

Translation of Brecht: Who built Thebes? Books list kings. Caesar defeated the Gauls — didn't he have a cook? Every decade a great man. Who paid the bill?

The Left in Time of Revolution

Bidayat

A founding essay in Bidayat: the Arab uprisings are a movement against neoliberalism—"the people want" is popular sovereignty above all others, and "work, freedom, bread" places unemployment at the heart of democracy.

اجور واسعار وانتظار

Wages, Prices, and Waiting

As-Safir

Wage "correction" just slows the collapse — the only party that doesn't wait is the merchants, who harvest the increases before they arrive.

Stereotyping the ‘Syrian’ in Lebanon, Arab Stereotyping

Bashir Gemayel reduced eighteen million Syrians to the singular "the Syrian"—and the entire political class adopted this stereotyping that redirects class resentment toward a neighboring people.

هرطقات الطبقات الدنيا – اول ثورة ديمقراطية

Heresies of the Lower Classes - The First Democratic Revolution

The English Revolution was the first democratic revolution, unleashing the "heresies of the lower classes" that demanded collective land ownership and equality, before being suppressed in favor of the merchant class.