CKUT Radio: Lebanon - the Struggle for Social & Economic Justice

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Listen to an interview with Ghassan Makarem, a media activist based in Lebanon with the Beirut Indymedia Media Center. The interview provides analysis on the current situation in Lebanon, rooted in the recent history of popular social movements, specifically focusing on the May 2004 country-wide labour strike and popular demonstrations against the privatization of social services, government-corruption and post civil-war neo-liberal economic policies.

Also this interview addresses the Lebanese political "opposition", which has capitalized on the assassination of former Prime-Minister Rafik Hariri and the popular sentiment against the presence of 15,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon.

Currently social justice activists in Beirut are organizing under the banner of "No to War & Racism - Yes for Secular Democracy", against the increasingly racist political language of the "opposition" campaign, aimed at the disproportionately impoverished Shi'a Muslim population, the estimated 1 million Syrian workers in Lebanon and the over 500 000 Palestinian refugees living in the country.

-> For more info on the current situation visit the Indymedia Beirut at: http://www.beirut.indymedia.org