tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67352439664272887282024-02-06T18:52:06.475-08:00We Are NowheristanUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-69239305767813306052009-03-31T02:39:00.000-07:002009-04-01T09:02:58.232-07:00H.I.H Michel I of Nowheristan in The Daily Star<div class="entry"> <div class="snap_preview"><br /><p>BEIRUT: Utopia Now in Starco is shaping up to be a place where the trendy 20-somethings of Beirut would want to flock. The restaurant is being readied for its scheduled opening by the end of next week, and the basics are already in place. The walls are covered with stenciled quotes by Oscar Wilde and the like, and along the floor are framed pictures that will soon be hung up on the walls. Most are of singers or bands, but there are a few of Michel Elefteriades. “Because I like myself,” he explains unabashedly, a self-professed megalomaniac.</p> <p>Elefteriades concedes the fare at Utopia Now will be fairly humble: no smoked salmon or caviar. Patrons will have to content themselves with simpler menu items like labneh and hummos.</p> <p>Elefteriades was recently asked whether Music Hall would be free too, to which he responded, with his trademark dry humor: “No no, that is very expensive, and they will make you wait at the door and all that.”</p> <p>Utopia Now is a two-storey restaurant, and the upper floor has a room that is being transformed into a “torture chamber.” At the center is an electric chair and “blood” is painted onto the tiles. When it’s complete, the room will be sealed permanently, viewable to patrons only from a couple of brick-sized windows built into the exterior wall.</p> <p>The room is a form of catharsis, says Elefteriades, who was tortured when he was 15. When he acquired the Utopia Now location, the room was untouched since the days of the Civil War and the blue tiles reminded him of the ones in the room where he was held. Back then he was a communist, he says, and the “Christian militias” of the day arrested him while he was distributing photocopies of Karl Marx’s manifesto during the war and tortured him.</p> <p>The experience was the catalyst for Elefteriades’ venture into politics. “This is how I started … being more and more involved in politics to take my revenge on the militias. I joined the army of Michel Aoun when I was 17,” he says. “Being tortured at the age of 15 is not something very easy to swallow for a proud young man, when you are beaten for two days, two consecutive days, and tortured it’s not something that you can forget.”</p> <p>He says he stayed with Aoun until the former general’s military defeat in 1990 and flight to France the following year.</p> <p>Elefteriades returned to lead the anti-Syrian, clandestine Unified Movements of Resistance from 1991-94, but after two assassination attempts, he fled to France again and then Cuba.</p> <p>“I stayed in Cuba for over a year, and this is when I understood that maybe what I was doing wasn’t the right way. I’m not going to spend my life working for the Cuban revolution, or being sent to Angola or elsewhere. Then I realized that I had to do something else, that this is not the way to do it, that this would lead nowhere,” he says.</p> <p>During this time period, Elefteriades’ thoughts began to crystallize into what would become the idea of Nowheristan - his manifesto on how the world should work.</p> <p>“The concept springs from the unorthodox belief that many of our sacred and established truths are in fact falsehoods that we have imposed on ourselves: borders, identities, nationalisms, economic divisions, and so forth,” reads the manifesto.</p> <p>Elefteriades essentially imagines a world where the playing field is leveled, and mankind is treated as a unified, albeit extremely pluralistic, society free of national borders and competing national interests, and where global resources are equally divided among the population.</p> <p>His ideal society would be run by a “Senate of Elders,” composed of 1,200 brilliant figures from professional fields, all over the age of 60, and divided into two chambers and located in different parts of the world. The senators would vote and debate in private, the media would have no access, and in order for a decision to be adopted, it would have to be accepted by both Senate of Elder chambers, after they have debated the issue separately.</p> <p>“It ends up by having the Nowheristan ideology implemented everywhere, by dissolving the armies, by dissolving the frontiers, by having one unified GDP for the entire planet, by not having politicians’ elections, but by having the Senate of Elders taking all the important decisions then people everywhere will have the same rights,” Elefteriades explains.</p> <p>It’s a Utopian idea, he concedes, but one that he is serious about; the second floor of Utopia Now also houses the “Headquarters of Nowheristan” next to the torture chamber.</p> <p>Besides, he thinks implementing his idea isn’t that unrealistic, given world history. Elefteriades points out that both Christianity and Islam developed behind singular figures that didn’t have television, radio or Internet. Today, around 2,000 and 1,400 years later respectively, both have billions of followers.</p> <p>“I think that what I’m asking for is not very utopian, compared to other things that have existed,” he says.</p> <p>Via the Nowheristan website he has already recruited more than 56,000 “naturalized Nowheristanis.” The plan is that once there are enough citizens across the world, they will be called on to perform nonviolent acts of civil disobedience that will topple governments. Once the Nowheristani ideology has taken hold globally, its formal name will change to Everywheristan.</p> <p>“So, at the moment I registered Nowheristan [the website] I registered all the Everywheristans, dot com, dot net, you name it,” he says, illustrating his practical side.</p> <p>But before Elefteriades could go public with his ideas on global reform, he knew he had to become successful. To avoid being perceived as someone criticizing the system because he had nothing to lose, based on feelings of resentment, he opted to succeed within the system. So he proceeded to dedicate himself to building a financial empire.</p> <p>Elefteriades dabbled in music back in Cuba, producing a Cuban-Arabic fusion CD that was so successful it led to the creation of Elefteriades Records, a Warner music label.</p> <p>He invested in real estate in places others found dubious, such as in Serbia while the country was being bombed by NATO. Five years ago he went with his gut and opened Music Hall, after the club concept failed a contracted feasibility study. It has now sold franchises in Qatar, Dubai, Belgrade, Istanbul and Egypt, with a venue in Sao Paolo under consideration.</p> <p>If he were just smart and loud with good ideas, no one would listen to him, he says. But, with a smile, he notes he’s all of those, but also rich and successful.</p> </div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com80tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-2642647928460558052009-03-02T08:38:00.001-08:002009-03-02T08:38:34.426-08:00"Alternative visions”, a conference by H.I.H Michel I of Nowheristan at NDUH.I.H Michel I of Nowheristan to speak at Notre-Dame University on the 4th of March 2009<br /><br />We live in a world where many established facts are aberrations and where margins of liberty and maneuver are constantly diminishing, leaving the people no other choice but to accept the sad status-quo they live in.<br />Although in this deviant reality, little space is still left for innovative problem solvers, some of them still dare to speak out, believe in their projects and pave the way for change.<br />H.I.H Michel I of Nowheristan will speak out on the 4th of March 2009, at NDU University against most of these political, social and economic established facts. Don’t miss it!<br /><br />More details about the conference:<br /><br />March 4th 2009, 12.00-13.30<br />Notre-Dame University, Friends Hall<br />Zouk Mikayel<br />00961- 9- 640893<br />nowheristan@yahoo.com<br /><br />And check out the event created on Facebook on the following address:<br /><br />http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=55279345689&ref=mf<br /><br />Hope to see you all there!!!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-29256775413517604832009-01-27T07:22:00.000-08:002009-01-27T07:23:29.270-08:00Nowheristan in five simple questions<div class="entry"> <div class="snap_preview"><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">What is Nowheristan?</span><br />It is the solution to all economic, political, social and philosophical problems humanity has been facing since the concept of civilization emerged. </p> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Where is Nowheristan?</span><br />Everywhere. Nowheristan is the first step towards Everywheristan.</p> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why is Nowheristan a necessity?</span><br />For establishing a Nation where races and identities are considered as a source of enlightenment rather than coercive threats, is our only chance to know peace. </p> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Who will make from Nowheristan a reality?</span><br />The Nowheristanis; no matter where they live, what the color of their skin is and what their believes are. </p> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">When will Nowheristan become real?</span><br />Soon. Peoples of the world will soon lead the Global Revolution and pave the way for the establishment of a world government. </p> </div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-86493065868623224902009-01-27T07:21:00.001-08:002009-01-27T07:21:39.061-08:00Post by HIH Michel I of Nowheristan on the Arab Summit Kuwait ‘09 blog<div class="entry"> <div class="snap_preview"><p style="font-style: italic;">HIH Michel I of Nowheristan was invited to participate in the Arab Economic, Social and Development Summit hosted by the State of Kuwait on January 19th-20th 2009 and attended by Arab presidents, kings and decision-makers. This is HIH’s contribution that was also published on both the Summit website and newsletter. It answers some of the region’s main economic questionings within the framework of the Summit’s central theme: “The Aspirations of the Arab People”.</p> <p>“The Arab world is one of the world’s regions that suffer the most from all sorts of problems. There are two ways of approaching those; either though repairing their effects or through attacking their sources. And I am a fervent enemy of TINA (Margaret Thatcher’s There Is No Alternative). I believe human spirit should dare to opt for innovation and to think out of the box.</p> <p> This is the reason why we need to find solutions for the two main problems that our Arab world is today facing; on one hand, the profound disparities between the rich and the poor and the feeling of powerlessness in front of Israel’s injustice, on the other. A global revolution that would redraft the ruling systems in the Arab world seems to me as the only chance for this region to develop as is the case in other societies.</p> <p>This might seem like an unreachable Utopia, but as Oscar Wilde once said “progress only lies in the realization of utopias”. I do know this can also be painful, but giving birth always comes with labor. The ruling castes need to understand that their survival depends on how many concessions they are bound to give to their citizens, they need to realize they no longer can satisfy those with the few crumbs of the opulence and feasts they have been taking pleasure in for decades. Governments can no longer idly watch Israel’s policies in the region nor can they collaborate with it in worse cases.</p> <p>Times we now live in have made from ethics an obsolete principle, especially when it comes to economy. I pledge for the return of economy in the meadow of Human Sciences. And I dare to speak of the ethics of resistance for resistance is the duty of every free spirit under occupation. Our duty is, before any other thing, to fight both forms of occupation that today alienate our Arab world; first, misery for it generates ignorance, violence and fanaticism and second Zionism for it is today destroying the image of Arab people and their self esteem, as well as their human and economic cultures and heritages.”</p> </div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-88620167387999247422009-01-27T07:20:00.001-08:002009-01-27T07:20:51.906-08:00A note by HIH Michel I of Nowheristan in the light of the conflict in GazaThe system of competition that has always opposed races, religions and nations has been threatening Humanity, every now and then, with persistent dangers; the rise of ferocious monsters, new Gengis Khans and Napoleons wanting to spread their rule over the entire world, and the rise of demagogic ideologies, from the Nazis’ national socialism to today’s neo-conservatives, wanting to drive masses into collective madness…<br />What we are today witnessing in the Middle-East is another resultant of this dysfunctional system for Israel is slaughtering hundreds of children in front of the world’s powerless eyes.<br />Establishing a world government that ensures the principle of universal equality, laying the foundations of a more human economy, guaranteeing the distribution of wealth and fighting power monopoly through entrusting decision making to a respectable Senate of Elders are therefore the unique guarantees for “better tomorrows”.<br /><br />(January 13th 2009)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-57743105866849052482009-01-27T07:10:00.000-08:002009-01-27T07:20:01.954-08:00A note by HIH Michel I of Nowheristan- New Year/Conflict in Gaza<div class="entry"> <div class="snap_preview"><p>Dear Nowheristani sisters and brothers,<br />First, I would like to address you my wishes for a promising year ahead.</p> <p>What was happening on New Year’s Eve, and is sadly still going on shows to which extent the Great Empire of Nowheristan is now a pressing urge in order to counter the world’s impunity and capableness.</p> <p>All Organizations, States, Councils and Institutions that have lured the world for decades pretending to defend the people’s rights have been proven both “UN-capable” and futile for the bloodshed is the same, it only wears different masks.<br />Empires and governments rise, others fall, time passes by and yesterday’s sheep often become today’s wolves…In this prevailing system, those with whom we sympathize for their rights are violated will act like their oppressors as soon as they take over power, as the rule still is “eat or be eaten”.<br />Since the beginning of history, the picture has been the same, only it actors alter.<br />From the media wars of images, to all profit-driven institutions and groups of special interest, our world has always opposed a weak to a stronger, while humanity is invited to assist, helplessly, to the show.<br />That is why the solution lies in the establishment of the Great Empire of Nowheristan where there is no space for bipolarity or the eternal conflict of two opposing axes. This does not mean we will fall in the trap of a totalitarian and centralized regime as decision making is to be entrusted to a meritocratically elected Senate of Elders for we do believe that “safety is in the multitude of counselors”.</p> <p>The topple of all ruling governments by pacific means and the establishment of a world government is our only chance to finally abolish all principles of territorial sovereignty, identities and borders for all are part of a system that has always generated misery, wars, racism and all sorts of injustices that every free spirit should condemn.<br />Days of sorrow have come to their end for change is now looming ahead. Nowheristan is today’s dream and tomorrow’s reality, I call upon you all to embrace it.</p> <p>(January 3rd 2009)</p> </div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-85612233635772567912007-09-12T01:54:00.000-07:002007-09-12T04:29:29.014-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi85QGIBE39F4aBrltp101GbcXPeP7MbvvQGW7g8Jvjk0rJ9WZKUEDaeKtGBmZfpJqg0Yw-QX0hVm3wBzpzqQwGwg3XBLHuwQ24QDp0gntOChgAJfu_giCLI3tnKzSEMR8hqojARqYW8jLl/s1600-h/clip_image002.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi85QGIBE39F4aBrltp101GbcXPeP7MbvvQGW7g8Jvjk0rJ9WZKUEDaeKtGBmZfpJqg0Yw-QX0hVm3wBzpzqQwGwg3XBLHuwQ24QDp0gntOChgAJfu_giCLI3tnKzSEMR8hqojARqYW8jLl/s400/clip_image002.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109258508825908850" border="0" /></a><br /><table class="MsoTableGrid" style="border: medium none ; border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr style=""> <td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 253.45pt;" valign="top" width="338"><pre style="margin-left: 12pt;"><span style=""><br /><br /><br /></span></pre><span style="font-size:85%;">PRESS COMMUNIQUE </span><span style="font-size:85%;">PR/CP-2007-208<br /><br /></span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></td> <td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 237.95pt; text-align: left;" valign="top" width="317"><div style="text-align: center;"><pre><span style="">For immediate release<o:p></o:p></span></pre></div><div style="text-align: center;"><pre style="margin-right: 0.6pt;"><span style="">11 September 2007</span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></pre></div></td> </tr> </tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><pre style="margin: 0in 16.1pt 0.0001pt 12pt; color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" >11<sup>th</sup> of September 1973</span><b><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></b></pre> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold;"><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" >We will never forget the first 11<sup>th</sup> of September, whose well known perpetrators remain unpunished, while millions of innocents pay the price for the second 9/11.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" >Thirty four years ago, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency succeeded in ending one of the most successful leftist experiences ever: the administration of the democratically elected President of Chile, Dr Salvador Allende. A putsch directed and financed by the C.I.A. led to the bombing of the Chilean Presidential Palace “La Moneda”, the death of President Allende and the imposition of the shameful, seventeen-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Chile</st1:country-region></st1:place> until 1990. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-size:100%;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold;" align="right"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i><span style="">“Unpunished crimes are an encouragement for criminals to perpetrate new ones.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-weight: bold;"><span style="">Michel I of Nowheristan</span></i></span><br /></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ujferWfJ1FeuVgbfrNMzg3WKupTunA08D4PNRHKAlDm4SHRRJFvTWb7rcgLyJWnesq0aF9ZFZxOy2dJl1TQhhNbFhQGsG5WGjLMfjdGe5yUaelTzeTHiDwzZPiXrajhMUmp6Wg3VMrfJ/s1600-h/ScreenHunter_01+Sep.+12+12.45+02+04.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ujferWfJ1FeuVgbfrNMzg3WKupTunA08D4PNRHKAlDm4SHRRJFvTWb7rcgLyJWnesq0aF9ZFZxOy2dJl1TQhhNbFhQGsG5WGjLMfjdGe5yUaelTzeTHiDwzZPiXrajhMUmp6Wg3VMrfJ/s400/ScreenHunter_01+Sep.+12+12.45+02+04.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109257104371603026" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPGxBb-6tMeFUrUkPZQyaJV_OvtK3aUPYDsp5WrMU8WuyTVQhW1MvELpsDfSgdYOCUaHV_G9zyf6XbF6XYj-44utlPPzkX6P233twfdEWRpNUCNrfB8girp8F0HEh_n6bDL-clvGWVjRt/s1600-h/ScreenHunter_01+Sep.+12+12.45+02+03.jpg"><br /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-6434934343956543562007-09-03T07:15:00.000-07:002007-09-12T02:35:04.735-07:00The Procalamation of Nowheristan<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfqUkg4TY5ArXXr6bVjtcnLh0aF4m6l1o1-cqmN_yCkyqIvXSNcRT6wae6NSZwh7mu9WM3zgPK-wO03XT-XZeb88IktlGuyXYGA8FeOQoNWALYGZXK9kZ3vtu0rBG4Iq_6E6ddvTHCw-Xx/s1600-h/Unesco+2%28nadine+retouch%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfqUkg4TY5ArXXr6bVjtcnLh0aF4m6l1o1-cqmN_yCkyqIvXSNcRT6wae6NSZwh7mu9WM3zgPK-wO03XT-XZeb88IktlGuyXYGA8FeOQoNWALYGZXK9kZ3vtu0rBG4Iq_6E6ddvTHCw-Xx/s400/Unesco+2%28nadine+retouch%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109248750660212258" border="0" /></a>Photo taken at the UNESCO Palace on the 21st of September 2005, during the proclamation of the Great Empire of Nowheristan.<br /><br />From right to left: Mr. Geir Pederson, personal representative of UN Secretary General Koffi Anan; His Excellency Tarek Mitri, Ministry of Culture of Lebanon; and His Imperial Highness Michel I of Nowheristan.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-42907235112190804982007-07-24T06:27:00.000-07:002007-07-24T06:31:21.275-07:00Communiqué from H.I.H. Michel I Press Bureau<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="justify"><span style="font-size:130%;">Today, there are over four hundred persons illegally detained without charge at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. This unjust situation has persisted despite calls by a number of governments, human rights organizations, international agencies, and others for the Camp to be closed, and the detainees to be charged or released. Unfortunately, due to the undue influence exerted by the United States, the home governments of these prisoners have failed to campaign in earnest for their freedom. In light of these circumstances, His Imperial Highness Michel I, Emperor of Nowheristan, has authorized the granting of Nowheristani citizenship to all those held at the Guantanamo Bay facility. The Government of Nowheristan will take all legal measures to ensure that the illegally held detainees are released immediately. Furthermore, H.I.H. Michel I will lead an effort to present the case in front of the International Court of Justice and other relevant bodies, to hold President George W. Bush, and others in the U.S. Government responsible for their violations of international law. </span> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-24456960807944934792007-04-03T05:14:00.000-07:002007-04-03T05:19:16.060-07:00Nowheristan on the AFP wires<div align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;">Nowheristan emperor spreads wings to Belgrade, Istanbul</span></div><div align="justify"><br />BEIRUT, Oct 8, 2006 (AFP) - With his fashionable Beirut club throbbing again to the popular Music Hall fusion of sounds after being closed by the Israel-Hezbollah war, self-styled 'Emperor Michel I of Nowheristan' is now ready to expand his kingdom.</div><div align="justify"><br />In his sights are the East-West cultural melting pots of Belgrade and Istanbul.</div><div align="justify"><br />The Lebanese businessman -- real name Michel Elefteriades -- dashed to Belgrade in 1999 on one of the last flights so that he could live like a Serb through the NATO bombing.</div><div align="justify"><br />"The Serbs are an interesting, crazy people, a lot like the Lebanese," says the 36-year-old entrepreneur, painter, poet, music producer and would-be founder of a new member of the United Nations.</div><div align="justify"><br />"As for Istanbul, what I love is the mix of minorities. For me, it is a kind of lost golden era of the East that has vanished in places like Alexandria," Egypt's once cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean.</div><div align="justify"><br />"You have this blessed mix of minorities, switching from one language to another. They understand the East and the West," says the polyglot of Greek origin whose own family fled Turkey in the 1920s.</div><div align="justify"><br />Elefteriades plans to open Music Hall in Belgrade and Istanbul within the next 12 months.<br />"People have been begging me to bring the concept to Dubai but I'm not interested. That place just has no soul, but I hope it will one day, and then I may go there," he says.</div><div align="justify"><br />His hugely successful Music Hall in central Beirut is an 800-seat theatre fitted with lounge sofas and low tables -- converted from an old cinema -- featuring an array of talent from Europe, Cuba and the Middle East.</div><div align="justify"><br />This summer's war kept the club closed for two months, during which the eclectic mix of Cuban, Lebanese, Palestinian, Swiss and gypsy artists evacuated to Jordan, on full pay.<br />In one of his many incarnations, apart from having also lived in Cuba and France, the hyper-energetic Elefteriades himself is an honorary gypsy and is often invited as a guest speaker to European seminars on their culture.</div><div align="justify"><br />On top of making money and promoting culture, he is passionate about politics and his utopian country, complete with a constitution and embassies, the first of which is located outside the club. He plans to issue passports.</div><div align="justify"><br />"Being from nowhere makes me at home everywhere," Elefteriades explains.<br />Nowheristan would "create a new culture that takes the best from all cultures, arts, archaeology ... without any religious barriers. The official religion is atheism but you can adore whatever you like," he says.</div><div align="justify"><br />Elefteriades' 250 employees address him as "altesse" (highness) and he regularly reviews the troops in a lineup, with military salutes exchanged.</div><div align="justify"><br />For him, "The East does not have discipline. It has spirituality and imagination, but needs the West's discipline. This is what Hezbollah does so well," he says, not hiding his admiration for the Shiite militant group.</div><div align="justify"><br />"Look at this club, I have alcohol and sexily-clad guests, just a kilometre or so from the edge of the (Shiite) southern suburbs, but they are tolerant. Even with my heavy atheism."<br />Ever the bohemian in appearance, Elefteriades wears his hair long, in a pony tail, flowing and brightly-coloured silk scarves, baggy black pants like the Druze, silver bracelets and his beloved canes which he twirls like a master.</div><div align="justify"><br />Married to a Russian former rhythmic gymnastics champion, Ludmila Batalova, they have two sons.</div><div align="justify"><br />Surprisingly, he is a teetotaller. "I am a very excessive person. So I would have smoked five packs a day and been alcoholic," admits a man who receives dozens of SMS texts each day from fans around the Arab world and beyond.</div><div align="justify"><br />He has a no holds barred approach to politics that he says has almost cost him his life, having escaped assassination bids and been forced to seek asylum in the footsteps of his favoured politician Michel Aoun.</div><div align="justify"><br />The former warlords from the 1975-1990 civil conflict, many of whom now hold high posts, "can play the innocents but they can not make us forget", he says, bemoaning the lack of a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission.</div><div align="justify"><br />He signed up as a volunteer to fight in General Aoun's failed "war of liberation" against Syrian troops in the late 1980s, fled to Paris and returned in 1992 to lead a militant "resistance" against the Syrians.</div><div align="justify"><br />For some, Elefteriades is an eccentric and megalomaniac who lives in a fantasy world. For others, he is a genius and Che Guevara-like icon.</div><div align="justify"><br />"I see things big. If that is a megalomaniac, fine, as long as I am not harming people," he says, with a hint of mischief in his eyes. "My greatest work is my life. Nothing is ever enough. I need to live an extraordinary life."</div><div align="justify"><br />Elefteriades says he pretends to be an emperor "because it's fun" and creative, just like the elaborate ceremonial costumes he orders from India.</div><div align="justify"><br />"I'm a successful businessman and artist. I guess I'm a schizophrenic."</div><div align="justify"><br />In the field which he co-pioneered during the 1990s, however, he is no longer enamoured with the commercialised version of world music. "It's become like Campbell Soup, they serve it in cans. I hate that."</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-21094881881650470842007-04-03T05:12:00.000-07:002007-04-03T05:14:05.933-07:00Nowheristan on UNForum.com<div align="left">This article was published on 15 October 2006 on UNForum.com (<a href="http://www.unforum.com/UNheadlines348.htm" target="_self">original link</a>):<br /> </div><div align="center"><br />NOWHERESTAN!<br /></div><div align="justify"><br />Take your cue from "Emperor Michel." He longs for old Golden Beirut, Rosy Alexandria of Laurence Durell's quartet, Istanbul's Constantinople days, Athens of the Olive branch, Yugoslavia's Belgrade -- to mention a few -- cities of fantasy, sunshine, love and music. </div><div align="justify"><br />Actually, he is Michel Elefteriades, a Lebanese of Greek descent, whose family fled Constantinople in the 1920s. He grew up everywhere -- with a joyous mix of people more keen on life than destruction. "being from nowhere made me at home everywhere," Kyriou Elefteriades explains to Beirut Daily Star. Now that he manages a thriving business, the Emperor has 250 employees who address him as "Altesse" (your Highness); he reviews his troops regularly exchanging some sort of special military salute. He wields a designer's cane, clips his hair in a pony tail, and wears baggy black silk pants. </div><div align="justify"><br />No, he is not a megalomaniac, nor eccentric. He was a militant during war years and toted a gun to fight in the streets of Beirut. Now, he is for cultural joy. The more intercultural the better. He married a Russian gymnastic champion and performs with groups of Greek, Turk, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, Indian, Cuban, Spanish and Gypsy artists, not to be confused with Bohemians. He had approached the U.N. Secretary General's Special Representative in Lebanon to explore how he could initiate membership of his state of "Nowherestan." Mr. Pedersen, he reported, was very forthcoming, but did not promise anything. He was encouraged, however, because one of those present took notes. Now he plans to issue passports.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-68246913898891410752007-04-03T04:30:00.000-07:002007-04-03T04:38:09.558-07:00Nowheristan in The Daily Star, EgyptThis article was published recently in Egypt’s Daily Star (<a href="http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=5672">original link</a>):<br /><div align="center"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Could Nowheristan become Everywheristan?</span></div><div align="center">By Deena Douara</div><div align="justify"><br />Michel Elefteriades is a busy man. “I am a clown, a philosopher, a warrior and an artist.” This, besides being the self-proclaimed emperor of a “supernation,” he hopes will take over the world. Literally..</div><div align="justify"><br />“Nowheristan” is his imagined utopian empire, complete with constitution, embassies, a political structure and citizens with passports. The idea is to create a place free of violence, history, and borders. “The idea of nationality is stupid now. It was good when all [members of a nation] were the same with regards to culture, beliefs, etc.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Instead, citizens would all share common ancestors: Phoenicians, Pharaohs, Celts, Native Indians, and Greeks. “The root of all problems is identity.” Their history would be “the sum of all histories of the world.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Similarly, the political system, if it can be called such, would take the best elements from all systems, including capitalism, socialism, and communism.</div><div align="justify"><br />The only thing missing then is a geographical location. This is not a concern for Elefteriades though, who believes that within 10 years governments will start falling to Nowheristan.</div><div align="justify"><br />“If just two percent of every nation is a citizen of Nowheristan, I will have the largest nation in the world.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Citizens and believers would act as lobby groups within their countries trying to enact the decisions agreed on by Nowheristan on issues like euthanasia, cloning, global warming, and wealth partitioning, among other hot topics.</div><div align="justify"><br />At the same time, the empire can strategically plan and organize shows of civil disobedience, such as refusing to pay taxes or abstaining from work, which Elefteriades believes could topple governments. Violence, however, would never be used. Indeed, no weapons are allowed in Nowheristan, except by small police/military outfits ensuring some measure of security.<br />Though he admits some elements of the project are symbolic, or “to create media buzz,” Elefteriades is serious about the project, comparing himself to Karl Marx, who in 25 years spread communism. “It is not as crazy a project as Marx’s… The majority of people will go for the Nowheristan concept. I’m sure of it.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Already Elefteriades claims more than 9,000 people have expressed interest in joining, from Norway to Saudi Arabia, Egypt to Japan, and many from Turkey. Among his roughly 200 “intellectual” cooperators on the project, Elefteriades says he has some high-level representatives, but who would be “afraid of showing their interest in this point.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Elefteriades abhors modern politics and politicians. He believes the US, neoconservatives, and their allies are mainly to blame for “creating monsters,” mass frustration, and false dichotomous choices: capitalism vs. communism, freedom vs. the axis of evil, and in 10 years perhaps, America vs. China.</div><div align="justify"><br />Instead, the decision-makers in Nowheristan would be the crème de la crème of society, citizens over the age of 60, who have proved successful in their diverse fields. Intelligence and morality are the key factors for inclusion. Still, no clerics would be included, unless they excelled in another field, and no quotas would be set.</div><div align="justify"><br />Elefteriades and his team would select the 600 (unpaid) members of one Senate, and they would in turn select the 600 members of the other Senate. Elefteriades emphasizes that there would be no voting, elections, or “media-ization” of Senators. “Political position is a reward for how much you can lie.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Each group of Senators would reside in fully-equipped villages at diametrically opposing points on the earth, and re-locating every four years, to avoid “centralism.” He admits he has not approached anyone yet about being a Senator, “because at this point they would tell me to f--- off.”</div><div align="justify"><br />While Elefteriades was once a communist, he no longer believes a cook’s vote should equal a scientist’s or expert’s. Now he believes more in eclecticism, or “brainocracy.” “I believe people are equal in rights but not in obligations.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Responding to a comparison between his utopia and dictatorships, Elefteriades says “[The Senate] can throw me in jail if they want …full power is with the senators,” who make all the decisions relevant to the empire.</div><div align="justify"><br />The idea of Nowheristan came about at a crossroads. “I had to start something like this or I would have started fighting again,” like an “atheist bin Laden.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Perhaps this is one reason Elefteriades admires Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, even though he is a-religious. “He’s smart, he’s not lying to his people, he believes in what he’s doing and he’s not gratuitous.” He does not blame Hezbollah for the war that ravaged his country most recently. “If you place an implant in the body [Israel] and it rejects that implant, the body will die.”</div><div align="justify"><br />Though much has been made of the presence of the UN secretary-general representative and the Lebanese Minister of Culture at a performance at the National Orchestra of Nowheristan upon its launch, Elefteriades admits they were there under a deliberate misunderstanding, thinking the event was merely a philanthropic event of multiculturalism. They learned the true significance of the ceremony when Elefteriades illuminated them with a “delirious expose” of the project. “I manipulated them, but so what? We have been manipulated for a long time.”</div><div align="justify"><br />In order to be taken seriously, Elefteriades, dressed in an eclectic costume of baggy black pants, silver bracelets, and cane, has spent years making lots of money. “Money had no meaning for me until I was 25. Then I realized that to be taken seriously, you have to prove to people that you can make money. Money measures the importance of someone.”</div><div align="justify"><br />He has opened clubs, music halls, and a restaurant, as well as produced fusion music for notable musicians such as Jose Galvez and Toni Hanna.</div><div align="justify"><br />His roots were always activist though. Elefteriades recalls how since elementary school he was always in trouble with his peers. “If someone mistreated a girl or someone weaker on the playground, I could not interfere.” This continued until he was 15, when he became a war activist. He claims he was arrested and tortured by Christian militias for having communist ideas, which he adopted on his own after reading Marx’s Das Kapital.</div><div align="justify"><br />After joining his hero Michel Aoun’s army at 17, he was given the choice by Syrian forces, he says, to surrender or flee. He chose to become a political exile in France.</div><div align="justify"><br />After similarly causing disturbances in France, and being “more left than communism,” Elefteriades fled to Cuba, the only existing communist nation he believed would be a haven for someone like him.</div><div align="justify"><br />In his one year in Cuba, he even began to criticize Fidel Castro and decided to leave once again. By then, Syria was out of Lebanon and Elefteriades could return to his Lebanese homeland, where he says he escaped two assassination attempts after organizing resistance movements.<br />Eventually he reached a point where he thought it was all futile. “I can’t get anywhere with this,” he felt.</div><div align="justify"><br />His time in Cuba though inspired his idea for cultural fusion, a path he has been on ever since, combining songs, beats, and instruments of Arabs, Balkans, Cuban, Lebanese, Palestinian, the Swiss and gypsies. “I thought culture can make the world a better place.”</div><div align="justify"><br />In his Cuban Beirut club, Amour y Libertad, replete with Cuban waiters, barmen, and cigar-rollers, the theme is anti-Americanism and walls are decorated with quotes from Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, while flyers on the injustice of the American embargo are distributed.</div><div align="justify"><br />When he’s not creating an empire, running his businesses, penning a novel, composing music, or stirring trouble, Elefteriades judges contestants for the pan-Arab talent show “X-Factor.” He is currently in Cairo to view talents whom he will judge on the show for his second year.</div><div align="justify"><br />While contestants compete from across all Arab countries, Elefteriades says the Maghreb region and Middle East countries produce more talent than the Gulf states due to a long tradition of children singing and dancing at home, and because of a longer tradition of music historically.<br /></div><div align="justify">Recruits are garnered, for both show and empire, through Elefteriades’ “secret weapons,” media and Internet. “No [country] will escape.”</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-31606904035153997312007-03-27T03:20:00.001-07:002007-03-27T04:09:26.121-07:00Nowheristan in Al-Ahram<span style="font-family:'PrimaSans BT,Verdana,sans-serif';"><span v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel" st1="urn:schemas:contacts" st2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" ns1="urn:schemas:contacts"><span link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US"><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:10;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">This article was published recently in <st2:place st="on"><st2:country-region st="on">Egypt</st2:country-region></st2:place>’s <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Al-Ahram,</span></i> the Arab world’s best selling newspaper (<a href="http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/836/profile.htm">original link</a>):<br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span><h1 style="text-align: center; font-weight: normal; font-family: times new roman;">Michel Elefteriades: My favourite emperor</h1><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;" id="authname">By Youssef Rakha<br /><br /></div><span style="font-family:'PrimaSans BT,Verdana,sans-serif';"><span v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel" st1="urn:schemas:contacts" st2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" ns1="urn:schemas:contacts"><span link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US"><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:10;" ></span></span></span></span></span><p style="text-align: justify;">Michel Elefteriades was born to a Greek family in Jounieh, outside Beirut, just in time for the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). As a schoolboy he had only two friends: one was to kill himself at age 16; the other turned out to be a schizophrenic. "Normal" kids thought of Michel as "a retard", partly because he was impervious to ridicule. While they played cards and board games or simply skulked in the shelters, the sound of gunfire suffusing a string of deafening explosions in the open air above, he would pore over big fat books no one suspected he could understand. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> A far cry from the persona he presents you with today -- at 36 he is clearly well-heeled and very self-possessed -- he would develop no social skills until much later: after his involvement in the inter-Christian shootings on the eastern side of the green line, after he went through successive ideological transformations, after he became a founding member of Major General Michel Aoun's Ansar troops (a late offshoot of the Lebanese Army, which Aoun commanded and turned into his own), fighting -- so, at least, he thought -- for a unified, non-sectarian city that recognized no such boundaries as green lines. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Even now, on the phone and during the first few minutes of my conversation with him, while he leads the way from the noisy hotel lobby to his "bungalow" room through a labyrinth of over-manicured garden, his conversational diffidence seems a carry-over from that steep learning curve. He appears to have difficulty clicking into talk mode, assuming businesslike and dawdling tones by turns, taking his time to order tea from room service (he wants a sandwich but they won't heat the bread, nor do they have fresh mango juice, so he settles for two pots, giving up). Once he has sensed sympathy, however, he proves remarkably loquacious; and he never makes the mistake, so common in his milieu, of confusing journalism with PR.</p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> In fact it turns out he is very eager to reveal himself, so eager that you cannot help suspecting a strain of exhibitionism -- a thought his dress sense seems to confirm. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> He does not drink or smoke, he tells me, he has never done drugs in his life, and before long he is speaking of dedication to a given task in terms of a "nirvana-like state that instils in you enormous power". It was because he always had that thing, he says, that he was looked down on at first. There is evidently a touch of the megalomaniac about him, but somehow he manages to make it endearing. Listening as intently as you can -- both the revelations and the speed at which they are made have been overwhelming -- you begin to feel you have always known this benign monster: killer, mogul and, well, colorful character, the kind that might be dismissed as no more than a "cute" exemplar of postmodern madness. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> It's an assessment he is perfectly au fait with; rather than letting it bother him, he means to use it to further his literally world-changing plans. Frivolity is "a way of drawing in young people, a hook", he says; but he is dead serious. He is prophetic, he is dangerous; he was threatened by the secret intelligence of at least one world power. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Like a brilliant best-selling book -- a story of high-tech media, conspiracy theory and international espionage: Hummer vehicles, make-believe wars and sci-fi bugging devices -- a conversation with this man is absorbing, chilling and insanely intense. It challenges credulity, which must be why people have not been taking his last project to heart: he is like the protagonist of an elaborate, multinational fiction. I believe him. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Michel Elefteriades is the self appointed potentate of Nowherestan: Emperor Michel I. Sometimes he speaks with the authority of an emperor, performing a role made comic by its archaicness and his humor -- the humor of a typical <i>az'ar</i> (Lebanese Arabic for "thug") with a background in the war, dapper though he might appear to be, on occasion. More often he just relates, in detail, how he arrived at his native country -- a literal translation, in Nowherestani (that is, "broken English, or poor English"), of the Greek word "utopia" -- with a suffix taken from Farsi to grant it sovereignty. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> He is a rather unusual emperor: his authority over the affairs of the state is merely supervisory; he holds no executive or decision-making power; and neither of his two sons, by a Russian gymnast, can inherit his title. Still, he is profoundly and unashamedly undemocratic, throwing a quasi-imperial frame of mind into relief. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> "Democracy is a very risky thing and a very worthless thing," he declaims. "Because democracy makes it so that the politician, if there is a decision very beneficial to his people which will not get him many votes, doesn't take that decision; if there is a decision not too good for the people which will get him the votes, he takes it. They end up working from opinion polls and surveys; they're more interested in statistics than in the welfare of the people. They find out what you want, and they say they'll give it to you -- that's it, whereas the only true function of someone who's in charge of your welfare is to seek out what will benefit you, not what you feel like: a child's parents don't let him eat sweets all day just because he wants to, do they... Politics has to stop and return to its origin: a discipline of the humanities, like philosophy, like sociology..." </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Equally unusual is the empire, which seeks not colonies on the ground but absolute geographic freedom. Nowherestan will have embassies all over the world -- so far only one exists, in Beirut, along with a 250-strong phalanx who perform a kind of left-wing <i>sieg heil</i> whenever they see him, muttering <i>votre Altasse</i> : an innocuous enough post-war affectation -- but no location. It is rather a nation of the mind, and its citizens' sense of self transcends the boundaries of ethnic and ideological identity: the source of all evil, as he sees it. In its ultimate formulation, Nowherestan is identical with the whole world, a place without politicians or frontiers. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Rather, 1,200 senators -- "all over the age of 60, all luminary success stories in their respective fields, all generously provided for to the extent that they can have no material ambitions at all, without salaries or bonuses, living in five- star villages built especially, eventually to be handed over to the inhabitants of the areas where they're located and turned into tourist resorts" -- make up two senates to be located at the antipodes of the globe, and shifted latitudinally every four years, while they remain diametrically opposed, making a slow circuit of the planet. The senates' job is to debate "those questions that truly concern humanity: global warming, euthanasia, cloning..." Through referenda, the senators pronounce -- and their pronouncements make up the reference points of the future. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> "In democracy, my chauffeur has exactly as much of a say in euthanasia as an ethics professor whose life's work revolves around that topic. My point is -- let people have equal rights, but let them not have equal duties, when they are so obviously unequally qualified." Thus politics; as for economics, and this is where Nowherestan gets complicated, wealth is redistributed to equalize per-capita income: the world is divided into 1,000 square km territories, and wealth is relocated according to population density. "Economic equality at the level of the territories, but not at the personal level -- which is where I break with communism -- because if individuals were to have the same wealth regardless, that would kill ambition and initiative. But they will all have equal access to wealth, rather than the stark and mutually destructive differences between, say, north and south." </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Michel Elefteriades is in Egypt as a jury member of Rotana TV's X Factor singing contests, through which millions of Arabs seek canned, satellite stardom; that's how I've managed to meet him, finally. He need not have stayed for longer than a day, but he thought he might as well, he says. He is keen on spreading the word about Nowherestan -- "first what the end result will be, then how to get there," as he puts it. More simply, "It's fun to be around" -- so long as you can afford it, I almost add. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> It feels strange to be at the out-of-the-way Mövenpick Pyramids Hotel so close to midnight, and stranger still that the person I am talking to is something of a legend; while the conversation progresses, it remains hard to believe that he is, after all, only a few years older than I. He owns the Music Hall -- in Beirut's Starco building, tellingly, on a former green line -- one of Lebanon's most musically interesting and socially inclusive night-life venues, modeled on Middle East cabarets of the 1940s -- red velvet, wood, everything live. He has produced, among much Grammy-award-winning else, some of the fusion genre's most exciting pairings: Hanin and the Cubans, Wadie El-Safie with Jose Fernandez, Tony Hanna and the Yugoslav Gypsies, Demis Roussos with the Oriental Takht... Almost from scratch, he built Elefteriades Productions and Elefrecords, garnered the Warner Bros label, made money; he has become, in his own words, "a role model". </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> But none of this started until 1995, while he was living in Cuba, three years before his final return to Beirut -- Aoun himself did not return until 2005 -- when all the war's factions were granted amnesty. Then, he determined to forget about politics: a life-long, and life- threatening, preoccupation. At age 14 he had completed <i>Das Kapital</i> and was distributing a leaflet of quotes from it; the right-wing Christian Lebanese Forces (originally a splinter group of the pro-Israeli, anti-Arab Phalanges) thought this was clear evidence that he was working for some enemy militia from "the western area", Muslim or communist. They took him away from the school, where they had come across his leaflets while giving a "political education" class, uninvited; they subjected him to "an interrogation" -- torture, "but I made no confession because there was no confession to make". </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> At 17 he organized peace talks at the <i>mahawir</i> (points of contact between the two halves of the city), having discovered that there were those who thought along similar lines in West Beirut... After Aoun's army lost its long, massively destructive war "against the occupation", for which read "the Syrians", though he will tell you that it was, in general, the notion of being occupied, whether by Syrians or Israelis -- this had involved fighting with the Forces, too, of course -- he fled to France along with the Major General, becoming a political refugee. In 1992 he returned under an assumed name "to organize the resistance" -- which is when they booby- trapped his car, almost blowing him up; soon after that a sniper killed some of his companions in the attempt to shoot him. "So I packed my things," he says. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Judging by the frequency of that statement, it seems that throughout his life he has always been packing his things. He could no longer live in France -- a series of anecdotes demonstrate how he came to be on the wrong side of the political establishment there too -- so he went to Cuba, where he could pursue his musical interests. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> "I understood that it was useless. I said to myself that, rather than wasting my time, and maybe risking my life, for something that was going nowhere, I'd better forget the whole thing," he explains. "I forgot it completely, and resolved to devote my energy to culture, thinking that it might help bring viewpoints closer together, or effect some change... But sometimes, you know, you have a character trait that you try hard to get rid of, so you repress and repress and repress it, and later on it strikes back, stronger than before." </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Michel Elefteriades does not speak Greek very well; he understands it, but cannot express himself sufficiently. He gets by well enough in English, is fluent in Spanish and Italian, and speaks Romani like a gypsy. (He is, it is said, an honorary Roma, recognized as such by his Balkan and Spanish adopters.) He grew up speaking Arabic, reading French -- the language in which he thinks and writes. In this and other ways he has no clear sense of identity. Politics, one surmises, reflected the yearning to belong. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> He placed himself on the left not only because it made better moral sense but, more crucially, because it was more amenable to variety. He could be Greek and eccentric, a reader or a "retard", and still he would belong. (The same drive to make room for difference was to inform his production work: pairings affirmed intercultural possibilities; the Music Hall's greatest virtue -- multiplicity.) Even Aoun's appeal was less Aoun's (by now proverbial) megalomania than the notion of the army as a protective force for all Lebanon -- agent of "liberation" and sovereignty irrespective of sect...</p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> I am walking out of the hotel in awe. I realise it will take far more than a couple of hours to work this person out, and more than a couple of thousand words to present him. Meeting him feels like a gift. "When you are next in Beirut," he is saying, having walked with me all the way back to the lobby.</p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;"> Hail, I almost say, my Emperor.</p><br /><a href="http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/836/profile.htm"></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-30166801590714007672007-03-20T07:04:00.000-07:002007-03-20T08:15:56.258-07:00What is Nowheristan?<o:p></o:p><span style="font-weight: normal;"><blockquote>“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at... Progress is the realization of Utopias.”<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;"> - </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: normal;">Oscar Wilde<br /><o:p></o:p></span></blockquote></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p>We are living in a sad world where one is forced to choose between the American neo-con vision of the world and the one of the Iranian Mullahs. Dreamers are asked to stick to show business, graphic design or in the best scenarios to marginalized political cliques. We have a dream… and our dream will change the world because we know that the majority of humanity will be seduced by what we are proposing. A radical change is required and “We Have the Solution”.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p>Nowheristan is the first step on the way leading to Everywheristan. This “gimmicky” name was chosen on purpose to create a buzz around a new vision aimed at solving the historical problems of mankind on the social, economical, political and philosophical levels. It is the brainchild of Michel Elefteriades, artist, former guerilla leader, and the first and last Emperor of Nowheristan (the constitution does not allow a successor). <span style=""> </span>Nowheristan’s theoretical foundations are being worked on by many scholars around the world and will soon be published in a book entitled “We Have the Solution”. The book of Nowheristan exposes a very complex, comprehensive yet reader-friendly vision, of which we will give you a taste now as an introduction. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p>The concept springs from the belief that many of our established truths, which are almost thought of as sacred subjects, can be total aberrations (e.g. borders, identities, patriotism, world economy, etc.). For Nowheristanis, the histories and traditions of all races and peoples on this Earth are the common heritage of all. Therefore, one can say that a modern Egyptian can be proud that his ancestors built the </span><st1:place><span style="font-weight: normal;">Great Wall of China</span></st1:place><span style="font-weight: normal;">; and the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt are a part of the Chinese past. Furthermore, the natural riches of the Earth are resources for humanity as a whole; no single nation should be allowed to hold a monopoly over our common birthright. The oil of Saudi Arabia, the water of the Amazon, the gas of Russia… all are to be monopolized by Nowheristan and to be used to develop people everywhere. The Nowheristani project outlines a system of world governance based on a meritocratic senate of elders. Another deep-rooted belief guiding the Nowheristani project, as stated by Michel I of Nowheristan in one of his speeches, is that <i>"Politicians, this modern-time ruling caste, are a category of people to be equally rejected by society, as are thieves, criminals, etc.”.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p>This is a brief apercu of our vision, which we can elaborate in further discussions. Thank you for your interest.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-32650994519102150202007-03-12T05:08:00.000-07:002007-03-20T07:04:41.082-07:00On the subject of politicians...<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"Politicians, this modern-time ruling caste, are a category of people to be equally rejected by society as </span><span style="font-size:100%;">are </span><span style="font-size:100%;">thieves, criminals, etc."</span></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;">Michel I of Nowheristan<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6735243966427288728.post-18793509016616587762007-03-08T03:35:00.000-08:002007-03-12T05:17:26.726-07:00Greetings from EverywhereIf you are reading this, then you already know why you are here. But if you don't, let us remind you. You're here because you feel an uncontrollable urge to roam, to get lost in the valleys and back-alleys of this tiny planet. You're here because your heart flutters at the sight of gleaming high-rises and blue-domed temples, at the sound of trumpets and the smell of wasabi.<br /><br />You're a wandering peasant, a hardened nomad so full of life and a need to change everything you see, but you feel alone. You feel like you belong nowhere, and yet you want to be everywhere.<br /><br />This is why you are here, in Nowheristan...<br /><br />This is where you belong...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1