Political Systems and Time: Timekeeping in Lebanon

Political systems have an uneasy relationship with time. They develop a lifecycle of their own. They also have an intriguing effect on people’s time. Clock time can be hostage to policy inaction. I propose to take the reader on a time travel through Lebanon’s political system. This century-old sectarian model has been time-resilient at the expense of people’s time. With the financial meltdown, people spend countless hours piling up rice and lentils and queueing in front of banks. Policy timelines have had dire consequences. Consider the Beirut Blasts that resulted from deliberate inaction or the case of Palestinian camps frozen in time. By exploring how political time and human time intersect, I hope to offer a real-life appraisal of how political systems cut to the core of our lifetime.