Questions:

What brought you here to the UK?

How did you, your friends and family perceive Hezbollah, Israel and the conflict between them when you were in Lebanon?

What is the UK media getting right about its coverage of the Lebanon crisis? What's it getting wrong?

Fingers crossed for the laparoscopy.

I'm guessing that the number of Lebanese Metachatters is probably zero. I'd be interested in knowing what responses you get to your questions from other sources though.

Off-Topic (somewhat).
The pro-Palestinian people I know are gradually driving me mad with a constant desire to use any situation to push their politics. I don't mind a bit of political discourse, but THEY WON'T SHUT UP. Plus, I suspect a small percentage of them are abusing the situation in the middle east to foster public hostility & bring about a socialist revolution. Really. It's enough to make me want to buy shares in Caterpillar.

The last travesty was a Roy Bailey concert where he happily ...

- Implied that anyone who didn't have ancestors stretching back generations had no real right to live in a place. (Aimed at Israel, but maybe not the right sort of thing to be saying in a town with a large percentage of 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants.)

- Said that Uluru, (a sacred aboriginal site) was (a) on the coast of Australia and (b) was Aboriginal for "fuck off".

- Said that the Israelis & the Western media were completely wrong for reducing Palestinians in the public conciousness to nothing more than Bogey Men & a concept of evil; immediately after singing a song called "The Iron Foot" which did exactly the same for Israel and people living in Israel.

Anyway - rant over. I've got work to do.

We've got a huge Lebanese population here, so can you please keep us updated? (And on the cyst too of course - good luck and whuffles on that).

To clarify - I'm asking for QUESTION SUGGESTIONS, not answers to these questions. :)

Grace, I'm about to do that anitpodean thing of getting involved in a thread and then going off to bed, so sorry if I duck out.

It would help if we knew why you were interviewing them. Are you doing it for the press?

You might want to ask how they perceived Hezbollah before the recent unpleasantness and then how that view has changed. (Hezbollah was created as a reaction to the Israeli invasion last time). You might also ask them what they think about Syria and Iran. Another interesting thing would be how they feel after the (what was it called at the time, Cedar Revolution or some such?) time last year or early this year when it looked, briefly as though they'd got rid of both the Israelis *and* the Syrians and were going back to the Lebanon of the 70s.

Good luck anyway.

"QUESTION SUGGESTIONS"

Count me as "Blind Seanyboy!"

bah.

good stuff that, Gecko - esp. in regards to 'Cedar Revolution' and about Syria and Iran.

I am interviewing them for a brand new magazine by/for minorities here in Scotland!

I like the questions, but wonder where you're going with them.

Firstly, you've got your ...
- When did you move to the UK?
- What were your first impressions?
- Were the British people friendly towards you?
- What did you do as a job?
- What do you miss most/least about the Lebanon?
- What do you like the most/least about the U.K?
- What's your favourite TV Show.
- What do you do of an evening?
questions which are about highlighting similarities & sharing stories in a non-political way.

Then you have the...
- What newspapers do you read?
- What do you think about the situation in the Middle East?
- Is Britain Biased?
- Do you suffer from racism on a day to day basis?
stuff which is more politically charged.

What's the purpose of the questionnaire?

seanyboy, thanks for the ideas!

I am interviewing them for a magazine by and for minority groups in Scotland. Just a few folks over coffee.

The interview is just an opportunity to give non-Lebanese people insight into the way Lebanese people are viewing/interacting with this crisis.

I'd say you need to personalise things then.
- When did you find out things had kicked off?
- Where were you? Who were you with?
- Do you have family / friends over there?
- Have you spoken to them in the last month?
- What does it make you feel?
- How have peoples attitudes to you changed in the last month?
- What do you want to say to Blair / Israel / The British People?
- How do you think peace can be achieved in the Middle East?

Indeed, that's the good stuff seanyboy. I'm sure the interview will be smooth and free flowing. I'll be conducting it with an mp3 recorder and just chattin', and transcribing tomorrow!

There's a kind of black humour joke going around here. It needs a bit of background.

We've been reneging on all manner of refugee treaties lately and insisting that all refugees are "processed" offshore (i.e. somewhere else). This even to the extent that we bully and/or bribe tiny Pacific nations to be our refugee camps.

When the news was full of stories of Aussie citizens fleeing the attacks and being possibly evacuated to Cypress, people started suggesting that the Cypriots insist that the Aussies be "processed" somewhere like the Faroe Islands. You get the idea.

The refugee experience is something that all countries understand more and more these days from the perspective of accepting (or more likely now, rejecting) refugees.

What's happening in Lebanon has shown a lot of Aussies that "there but for the grace of God..." (spooky, eh?).

So perhaps you should think about putting the emphasis on showing how the people you are talking to were (and in the case of Lebanon this is so true) once exactly like your readers, but then they were caught up in terrible events. How would the average Leither* cope with having to move to a new country, learn a new language, work as a taxi driver (even though they were a surgeon previously), etc?

*I pick on Leith only because the Embra version is too hard to type.

Maybe you could ask:

What was your personal reason for joining the Stop the War Coalition?

What should people know about how important it is to provide humanitarian aid to Lebanon?

What do you hope people will learn when they see your protests?

When you think about Lebanon, what do you remember? (Or, what do you remember most?)

What is your greatest fear about this conflict? What is your greatest hope?

What do you think might really happen?

Try to ask open-ended questions that let your interviewees answer from their feelings. Especially since it sounds like you're writing for a lifestyle magazine, feelings, human interest, and personal experience are going to play better than political analysis. Especially since once you get into analysis, people are going to start disagreeing. Depending on the aim of the magazine, you might have to strike a balance. Maybe the magazine wants some analysis so they can seem a little more hard-hitting.

Since you didn't mention any questions you specifically needed to ask, this might not be so. In any case, I'd suggest saving the analysis and yes/no questions until the end of the interview, when the interviewee has already been talking for a while and will be more chatty and forthcoming. You'll get better answers or, at the very least, longer ones!

When I used to write up feature and human-interest interviews, I decided that was my M.O. Get them to talk and talk, and there is more chance of them dropping something quotable, insightful, or poignant. String all the quotes together and voila, article :) When I asked directed questions, I got much worse quotes. If I asked too many, I'd basically get survey answers: a word or a sentence, totally unquotable. People feel like they're taking a test and try to give you the right answer. You don't want that.

Now, if you were trying to squeeze a councilman for the real truth about the bribes he's been taking, that's a different beast!

Good luck! We need more magazines like this.

Best of luck with your surgery!

well the interview went really well and was sent off, thanx everyone!