Fatfatism

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Fatfatism (in Arabic, الفتفتية) is a new political concept emerging from the anti-Government protests in Lebanon in December 2006. Its use is comparable to words like 'conservativism' and 'socialism', and its use is analagous to words like 'Stalinism' and Thatcherism' and 'Reganism' because it derives from the name and policies of a person - Ahmad Fatfat, Lebanon's Minister of the Interior.

This Fatfatism ideology, which has come to refer to a certain "Moderate" breed of political behavior in the Middle East, can be explained, according to Dr. As'ad Abu Khalil, the intellectual who coined the term, as such:

"...it speaks of democracy and 'liberalism' and yet cultivates support among Bin Laden supporters in North Lebanon and serves as a client for Saudi Wahhabism; it speaks in favor of 'sovereignty' and 'independence' while it faithfully represented the interests of the tyrannical Syrian regime, and now represents the external patrons of Sanyurah. The ideology of Fatfatism believes that the most effective way for fighting foreign occupation is serving tea to the occupation soldiers."

The December protests in Beirut, Lebanon in 2006 included chants which demonstrate an anti-Fatfatist feeling among the demonstrators. The chant went, according to primary sources: "احمد فتفت يا قبضاي قبضاي واحد قهوة واثنان شاي" (Ahmad Fatfat, you tough guy; one coffee and two tea). This reaction to Fatfatism can be understood in the wider framework of discontent in the Middle East with politicians like Hosni Mubarak, Abu Mazen, and Iyad Allawi who are perceived by Islamic fanatical and "leftist" sectors of the Arab public to be no more than tools of Western imperial powers.