By Michael Karam
This article represent the opinion of the author
I presume the Lebanese company Demco Properties meant well
when it decided to make “Lebanon is calling”, a 40-second ad apparently
aimed at wooing back expatriate talent. I guess it’s just unfortunate
that it came across as a bit weird and somewhat insulting.
For
those who haven’t seen it – I caught it on CNN twice in one hour last
week during the coverage of the US presidential elections – the ad is
set in a swish office, towering over what looks like New York. A
well-groomed but thoroughly bored Arab businessman stares out across the
city. The phone rings. “Lebanon” is on the other end.
Our man is surprised. He asks “Lebanon” where “he” – Lebanon is a man
and sounds, as one friend pointed out, like the murderer from Scream –
has been “all this time”. With unfaultable logic, the scary voice
replies: “I’m here, I never moved. It’s you who left”.
Stung by
the reproach, our hero argues that he had no choice, that “things
haven’t been easy”. But Lebanon counters: “It’s even harder for me”. Our
man is on the back foot.
“I’ve always wanted to come back,” he adds, as the camera pans to a
selection of framed family photos behind his desk. Lebanon plays his
ace. “Well, I’ve been working hard day and night and now things have
changed. I’m back on my feet again.”
“So why do you need me?” the
businessman asks in desperation (it is at this point that I couldn’t
help thinking the poor chap didn’t really want to go back.) “I want you
to walk with me,” Lebanon replies. “Home is waiting.”
And that’s that. Lebanon is once again announcing that it is open for
business. The timing of the ad is significant, aired as it was a week
after the nomination of Michel Aoun as Lebanon’s president, a move that
ended the country’s 30-month political impasse amid a level of
jubilation not seen since the nomination of Bashir Gemayel for the same
job 34 years ago.
Mr Aoun, like his newly elected US counterpart, is an unshakeable
demagogue, and the former army commander has wasted no time in promising
to roll up his sleeves and put things right. First on his to-do list is
a pledge to fix Lebanon’s chronic electricity shortage, a problem that
has blighted the country for four decades. The mood in Lebanon is upbeat
and many sound-thinking Lebanese to whom I have spoken believe Mr Aoun
can solve the power problem and do much more to boot.
Mr Aoun and senior members of his Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) have
also spent years wooing potential benefactors, both at home and abroad,
but it is unclear if there is any relationship between the FPM and the
Demco Group, of which Demco Properties is part, and which accounts for
at least 50 per cent of Lebanon’s annual steel sales.
But if I
were a gambling man I would wager that the ad was inspired by Mr Aoun’s
nomination rather than that of Saad Hariri who, as the next prime
minister, will soon form a government.
New optimism aside, the reality is that our fictitious New York-based
Lebanese tycoon is still being asked to give up on one of the most
vibrant cities on Earth and take a chance on a nation whose political
stability is still fragile, whose economy is at best sleepy and whose
infrastructure is only slightly better than that of Rwanda.
I
called the ad “insulting” because I’m one of those who left Lebanon in
2014, moving my family to the UK after living in Beirut for 22 years and
I’m not convinced I’m ready to “walk” side by side with Lebanon any
time soon. I gave Lebanon a chance, moving there from the UK just after
the war at the end of 1991 at the age of 26. Back then the idea was that
we would grow together, Lebanon and I.
And
I wasn’t alone. Fifteen years of conflict had displaced hundreds of
thousands of Lebanese and they returned with similar ambitions.
I
stuck it out because I had less to lose but most went back when they
found they were unable to command the same salaries they were used to or
work within the same framework of corporate governance as they did in
their adopted countries.
Demco would argue it was just doing its
bit (and buying ad space on CNN during coverage of the presidential
election is certainly one way of standing up and being counted), but I’m
still not sure I’m convinced.
Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton
Follow The National’s Business section on Twitter
