What interested you in Lebanese civil society in the first place?
Imad Atalla: It is a question of being a constructive member of the group or the community. This is a matter of necessary civic duty: nourishing, influencing, enriching and benefiting from one's immediate environment within the conditions of upholding the law and seeking truth… Sadly enough, in the context of socio-economic activism, Lebanese society in general is caught in a great momentum of communal mediocrity. As a people theoretically bound by a social contract, we collectively serve the great role of being our own enemies, working against our own interests in the process. From average person to voter to elected representative to self-coroneted leader, the Lebanese are too casual about the truth. The result is a breakdown in public affairs, and law and order. Here I am not necessarily referring to big-scheme politics; I care not for the travails of Saad [Hariri], Nabih [Berri], Samir [Geagea], Michel [Aoun], Hassan [Nasrallah], [Michel] Sleiman, Amin [Gemayel], Walid [Jumblatt] and the garden variety among so-called Lebanese leaders. Instead, I am talking about good governance and basic constructive administration…of the building where one lives, the street, the neighborhood, the public space, the municipality and government agencies as providers of services, the parliament as representative of voter interests, etc.
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