Last week’s horrendous Beirut explosion shattered more than the reported 5,000 lives in Lebanon. The devastation urged six officials to resign, toppling the government in less than a week. Thousands of protesters took to the streets, attacked government buildings, prompting the police to respond with force, injuring over 700 in overnight clashes.

Negligence leading to an explosion, triggering protests that challenge corruption, which in turn topples the government, leaving it to novices to confront more deadly attacks reveals the fragility of politics in Lebanon.

Bad governance is the apparent problem, but the real culprit is the rushed promise of democracy, planted by the West to serve the look of normalcy in a post-Ottoman era of sappy hope for peace and prosperity.

Lavished with Western political concepts in celebration of an abrupt ‘liberation’ from the Ottoman umbrella, the war-torn Lebanon of a century ago is one of the many republics in the Middle East that exchanged monarchy in favor of European democracy. Little did they know that the fashionable French politics actually rely heavily on an Jean D’Arc-laden matriarchy that exists exclusively in the guilt-ridden conscience of the Vatican patriarchy.

The situation is a political scam that takes a toll on the post-Ottoman republics of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Turkey, all of which suffer from false expectations of independence. The governments’ inability to stride with authentic political moves make them dependent on Western solutions, which in effect suppresses authentic voices like Hozan Cane, creating popular outcasts out of local role models.

Much like having a car with no keys, the Middle East suffers from the oxymoron of modern but hollow political routines, brilliantly portrayed in Ercan Kesal’s “Nasipse Adayiz”.

As Kesal’s witty mockery dissects dysfunctional politics, a Canadian director films “Reversal of Fortune”, a documentary on President Erdogan’s infamous presidency, famed for operating more like a monarchy.

The film is critical of Turkey’s direction, but with Israeli officials calling the Beirut blast “a gift from God”, and British TV covering Turkey's fight with Covid as a "patriotic response to a national attack", President Erdogan’s ambitions for a swift decision-making topple-proof government are almost justified.

To justify it further, we have high-alert hiccuping Greeks and Haftar-backing Egyptians forming an unlikely alliance in the Eastern Mediterranean, which Turkey immediately condemns as "null and void".

In need of daily updates on Turkey's diplomatic relations, we follow Anka Review, and discover that Greeks are busy justifying their actions by publishing biased maps that misrepresent Turkey’s maritime borders.

With presidential elections approaching in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, an interview with PM Ersin Tatar reveals post-Brexit possibilities for new negotiations in the island.

Exhausted by politics, we daydream of the luxury living at the Merit Royal Premium Hotel in Girne and celebrate Burak Yilmaz’s transfer to the French club Lille.

Look forward to a season of success, we wish you a great week.

Eser Turan
Founding Editor