The Beiteddine Festival is one of the finest festivals in the Middle East and features the World greatest artists. It is held in a 200-year-old palace in Beiteddine, a little town in the mountainous region of the Shouf, 45 kilometers south-east of Beirut.
Gil, who sang for 2 hours excited the crowds . Many of his fans waived the Brazilian flag as if they were at a sports stadium watching a football ( soccer) game .
He mingled with the crowds , by dancing with some and embracing some others. He obviously had many fans .
As he sang he tried to involve the crowds and was pleasantly surprised when he found out that he had many fans in Lebanon who knew many of his songs
Gil , who is a well known Free culture advocate said last September at the Emerging Technology conference, or EmTech, held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that digital technology offers a rare opportunity to bring knowledge to under-privileged people around the world and to include them in the political process.
He called for loosening intellectual property regulations to give more people the freedom to use and republish digital forms of content as a way of encouraging personal expression, culture and political participation.
"Today's digital technologies represent a fantastic opportunity for democratizing access to knowledge," Gil said. "We have found that the appropriation of digital technology can be an incredible upgrade in skills of political self-management and the local political process."
As Minister of Culture, Gil helped spearhead the creation of 650 "cultural hot spots" where people have access to free software and computers, typically for the first time.
At these centers, digital content and technology rapidly becomes assimilated into Brazilian culture, he said. For example, Brazilian Indians have recorded their songs on video, participants have been inspired to pursue an "open-source hardware" initiative, and a well known Afro Brazilian spiritual leader found the means to make her tradition a "first class culture" within Brazil, he explained.
Tags: Beiteddine, Cnet, Festival, Lebanon, Ya Libnan
