The Myth of Consumerism
On the Lebanese streets as mediators of neoliberalism.
Image by Joseph Khallouf.
To walk the streets of Beirut is to be bombarded with signs and codes. The streets are not only physical connectors between one end to another; instead, they are an amalgam of signs and codes translated into urban dynamics. Our interaction with the physicality of the streets parallels our mode of production. Streets are where we practice our daily lives and habits and where social divisions and interrelations appear. Focusing on the streets as neoliberal mediators, we will analyze the “انا أعلن” (‘na ‘oelen, “I Declare”/”I Advertise”) campaign released on July 27, 2020, by the Lebanon Advertising Association (AA). In this campaign, the streets became a central circulator of these advertisements and an agent of neoliberal policies. The streets, as spaces, have been central in Lebanese political movements for the past year. For that, it becomes vital to reconceptualize the streets and unpack their complex function. Moreover, reconsidering WJT Mitchell’s question, “what do pictures really want?”* allows us to redefine the streets and their visual rebranding as a tool for political agendas. The consumer of these pictures, as an individual, becomes an essential and powerful agent in economic growth and “producer of their own satisfaction”. By exposing the urban dynamics –or the function of these billboard advertisements– and hence the social, economic, and political relations, what goes on in the streets of Beirut in 2020 replicates our current mode of production and highlights the state’s failure. Hence, the reacquiring of the streets is not merely spatial but also one of social and economic practices.
Streets and functionality – a theoretical grounding
In his book titled The Urban Revolution, French theorist Henri Lefebvre proposes an exposition of modern times' streets. Historically, the spectacle characterized the streets. Whether they operated as a connector of spectacular monuments, exhibited the ‘spectacle’, or enabled it, the streets were vital components in urban organization, and they largely determined urban relations. In modern times, however, streets perform an additional function. They have become central to the circulation of capital and the reinforcement of the capitalist societies – in all the stages of capitalism. "The street regulated time outside of work,” Lefebvre writes. “It subjected it to the same system: the system of yield and profit. It was nothing more than the necessary transition between forced labor, programmed leisure, and habitation as a place of consumption." Streets partake in the exchange of capital and facilitate consumption. Moreover, not only do the streets facilitate consumerism, but they also display class struggles and the social cleavages reflected in the means of transportation. Although streets are reduced to connectors in a capitalist system, they maintained their status of the multifaceted spectacle display. He elaborates:
The street, a series of displays, an exhibition of objects for sale, illustrates just how the logic of merchandise is accompanied by a form of (passive) contemplation that assumes the appearance and significance of an aesthetics and an ethics. The accumulation of objects accompanies the growth of population and capital; it is transformed into an ideology, which, dissimulated beneath the traits of the legible and visible, comes to seem self-evident. In this sense, we can speak of a colonization of the urban space, which takes place in the street through the image, through publicity, through the spectacle of objects - a "system of objects" that has become symbol and spectacle.
The streets - in their reduced form, and at the least expected moment - invite the passive user to be active and consume through the display “of an aesthetics and an ethics” as these visual messages and codes invade the individual’s journey. Wherever one goes, one is bombarded with signs and codes, with constant invitations to consume. Effectively, to walk the streets of Beirut is to be bombarded with signs and codes, with invitations to consume. However, the Beirut of 2020 seems quite different.
From an overview of the last year to an overview of the last decades
Globally, the world has heard of the demonstrations in the streets of Beirut and all over Lebanon that took place on the night of October 17, 2019. These protests erupted and called on the government to revisit certain policies that had been imposed since the 1990s, after the tai’f agreement. In the aftermath of the war, Lebanon then entered a euphoric urge to reconstruct the country and the resilient image of Lebanon — an image of survival. This led to private actors taking part in the reconstruction project. This privatization facilitated the integration of the Lebanese market into the global economy. These neoliberal strategies established "a model oriented to finance and services, in which social inequalities and regional disparities were very pronounced". Since then, the country has been operating with a state that grows weaker by the day and a multiplying private sector. Moreover, the infamous October 17 revolts highlighted the weakness of these policies as social marginalization and injustice have been increasing. Meanwhile, the sectarian state has been reinforcing the privatized networks, generating profit to the ruling elite and disregarding the needs of its people.
The private sector, in its role as savior, implemented the concept of resiliency and the constant need to generate and promote creative ideas for Lebanese survival. It denied any contribution or reform from the weakened state to bring power back to the people. What resulted from this model of a privatized economy is an imposed social and class cleavage and a “materially impoverished society”. The neoliberal project perpetuates an illusion of upward social mobility through consumption for the impoverished class. It rests on the concept that the more one consumes, the more means they possess. This relates to our discussion of neoliberal ideals as they push for increasing power to the private sector, businesses, and decreasing power of the public sector, the government. With this decreasing power also comes the government’s role as a provider of services, thus leading to the ideal of saving yourself by yourself – the survival of Lebanon through consumption, rather than governmental aid. However, the illusion remains just that – an illusion. Thus, the reality hit hard on October 17.
"انا أعلن", a semiotic and linguistic deconstruction
Less than a year later, the "انا أعلن" came to life. Inspired by the “declaration[1]” of the Greater Lebanon, which commemorates its centenary this year, the campaign focused on re-announcing a nation delineated by the private sector. This campaign came as a reaction to the current economic collapse, and as an attempt to grow it back. "انا أعلن" aimed at reviving the empty billboards of the streets of Beirut portraying the crumbling economy. By offering the platform for businesses to reinvest in advertising, with new adapted deals, "انا أعلن" pushed business owners to reimagine Greater Lebanon redeclared and reborn through these advertisements.
"انا أعلن" seamlessly illustrates the function of the private sector. The slogan is literally translated to “I declare” and “I advertise” simultaneously. After being officially registered as tagline, it offers a variety of declarative slogans such as:
انا أعلن لبنان بلد الإعلان
انا أعلن لبنان وطن الإبداع
انا أعلن عن املي بغدٍ افضل
انا أعلن صوت الغد (Radio El Ghad مع)
انا أعلن القطاع الخاص خطّ احمر (Mike Sport مع)
I declare/advertise Lebanon the nation of declarations/advertisements
I declare/advertise Lebanon the nation of innovations
I declare/advertise my hope in a better tomorrow
I declare/advertise the voice of tomorrow (with Radio El Ghad)
I declare/advertise the protection of the private sector (with Mike Sport)
“The encounter with the streets is a continuous reminder of the failure of the state to provide its people with their basic needs and rights.”
These slogans adopt a performative tone in which the people – or, the individual– are (is) expected to declare or announce. In its reformative approach, these billboards (as well as radio ads and TVCs) invite the viewer and listener to become the actor of change. By answering what these pictures really want – or, to be precise, expect – the individual becomes a primary agent in the economic reform. By being signified, the individual is also automatically a signifier. This campaign emphasizes that only through this relentless signification and codification is survival possible. In other words, the campaign declares that it is through consumption that we could imagine a better tomorrow. The role of the state becomes negligent –if none existent– in the reform. The ability to change shifts from the hands of the state to the hands of the individual coerced to consume. The myth of resilience and survival fuels the individual as he/she contributes in the economic exchange. In its patriotic tone, it conditions the viewer to participate in the accelerated economic growth. It urges the viewer to advertise and buy, produce and consume as means of achieving national stability. Through this targeted and one-dimensional approach, the individual and consumer ceases to question and challenge the existing system and dominating ideology.
The encounter with the streets is a continuous reminder of the failure of the state to provide its people with their basic needs and rights. The encounter with the streets highlights the private sector’s pressure on the Lebanese to consume in order to live and keep others alive. Going back to Lefebvre, he considers the streets not only a useful tool for commodity exchange, as suppressive tools in the hand of the ruling oligarchy and private agencies, but also spaces for the public to protest and reverse the dynamic. On October 17, the Lebanese took back the streets. What does it really mean to take the streets back? The streets replicate the mode of production and the forced social dynamics, especially under a neoliberal state, where they highlight the necessity of self-dependence when the government does not fully serve the needs of the people. Therefore, this reading of Lefebvre pushes to reconsider and rethink the appropriation of the streets. In a way it also means the reconfiguration of economic and social relations.
Resources for further understanding:
*We hint here to WJT Mitchell’s essay “What do pictures really want?” October 77 (1996), in which he examines the desires of pictures. Visual culture, as a field, incites the viewer to consider any type of artistic production in its flat visual form, reducing everything to mere pictures. Nonetheless, these pictures speak and communicate with us. We passively absorb them, and yet, actively generate them.
Citations and sources for further reading:
Ali Chalak, “Revolution in the Neoliberal Wilderness,” Beirut Today, October 26, 2019,
https://beirut-today.com/2019/10/26/revolution-neoliberal-wilderness/.
Azzi, Ghada. “Lebanon's Advertising Association Launches a Nationwide Communication Blitz to Revive Economy.” Arabadonline, n.d., July 27, 2020, https://www.arabadonline.com/en/details/news-in-brief/Lebanons-Advertising-Association-Launches-a-Nationwide-Communication-Blitz-to-Revive-Economy.
Fuchs, Christian. Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory. London: University of Westminster Press, (2020).
LeFebvre, Henri. “From the City to Urban Society.” In The Urban Revolution, 1–23. St. Lucia, Q.: University of Queensland Press, (1978).
Lemes De Castro, Julio Cesar. “The Consumer as Agent in Neoliberalism.” MATRIZes 9, no. 2 (2015): 273–88. https://doi.org/10.11.606.
Makarem, Hadi. “The Bottom-Up Mobilization Of Lebanese Society Against Neoliberal Institutions: The Case Of Opposition Against Solidere’s Reconstruction Of Downtown Beirut.” Essay In Gerges, Fawaz. Contentious Politics in the Middle East: Popular Resistance and Marginalized Activism beyond the Arab Uprisings. Basingstoke: Palgrave, (2015).
Daher, Joseph. “After the Beirut Explosion, Disaster Capitalism Has Lebanon in Its Sights.” Jacobin, n.d. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/08/beirut-lebanon-disaster-capitaism-neoliberalism.
Interview with Sami Saab, founder of the "انا أعلن" campaign on October 26, 2020
لأخبار. ‘أنا أعلن’: دعماً للقطاع الإعلاني في لبنان ا. https://al-akhbar.com/Media_Tv/292069.
[1] Interview with Sami Saab, founder of the "انا أعلن" campaign