Rhetoric in a Municipal Campaign Poster
A student committee in a Lebanese town of 12,000 residents designs a poster for a candidate running for municipal council. The draft slogan reads (in Arabic): «نحن الأقوياء، ونحن من سيبني لكم كل شيء» ("We are the strong, and we are the ones who will build everything for you"). The committee's advisor objects that the slogan is rhetorically weak and ethically risky, while the student designer argues it is 'short, direct, and memorable.' The poster also contains a statistics line: 'We solved 90% of the town's problems last term' - but the candidate has never held office. The school's writing rubric requires attention to rhetorical figures (الأساليب البلاغية), audience, and truthfulness, and the students must revise before printing 300 copies.
1. Identify the rhetorical figures and weaknesses in the slogan «نحن الأقوياء، ونحن من سيبني لكم كل شيء», and explain why the advisor calls it ethically risky.
Read the worked answer
Figures present:
- التكرار (repetition of «نحن») - builds insistence but also self-absorption.
- الإطناب (redundancy) - «نحن... ونحن من» says the same thing twice without adding meaning.
- العموم (overgeneralization) - «كل شيء» (everything) is an unverifiable absolute, a hallmark of المبالغة (exaggeration).
Weaknesses:
- The slogan is entirely about the speaker (ego-focused), not about the voter's needs - weak مقتضى الحال (fitting the occasion/audience).
- «الأقوياء» (the strong) is a claim, not evidence; it invites the counter-question 'strong against whom?'.
- No concrete benefit is named - الإبهام (vagueness) where the audience wants specificity.
Ethical risk: the slogan promises everything to everyone, which is a promise no council member can keep. In rhetoric terms, المبالغة becomes تضليل (misleading) when it is used to win trust it cannot honor. The advisor is right: persuasive force built on an unkeepable absolute is manipulation, not eloquence.
2. The statistics line claims '90% of problems solved' although the candidate never held office. Rewrite both the slogan and the statistics line into a truthful, rhetorically effective version, and justify each rhetorical choice.
Read the worked answer
Diagnosis of the statistics line: it is a false premise - the number has no referent. Even if it were meant as a goal, presenting it as an achievement is deceptive. A truthful version must shift from past achievement to future commitment.
Revised slogan (example): «معكم، خطوةً بخطوة: ماءٌ نظيف، طريقٌ معبّد، ومدرسةٌ آمنة» ("With you, step by step: clean water, a paved road, and a safe school.")
Justification of choices:
- «معكم» (with you) replaces «نحن» - the audience is now the subject, restoring مقتضى الحال.
- «خطوةً بخطوة» is a استعارة (metaphor) for gradual, credible work - it signals realism instead of the absolute «كل شيء».
- The triad (water / road / school) uses العدّ (enumeration) and concrete nouns - التخصيص replaces الإبهام, and three specific promises are checkable.
Revised statistics line: «هدفنا: معالجة أولويات البلدية خلال أربع سنوات، ونشر تقرير إنجاز كل ستة أشهر» ("Our goal: address the municipality's priorities within four years, publishing a progress report every six months"). This replaces a fake number with a verifiable commitment - the strongest form of الإقناع (persuasion) is a promise the audience can audit.