Dar al-Fatwa elects to keep Lebanon in the dark ages

If the Lebanese have any more doubt about the necessity to secularize Lebanon, or that they should reduce the power and influence of the patriarchs of Islam and Christianity and all other patriarchal religious denominations of Lebanon, the this little tidbit should hopefully begin to wake them up. Dar al-Fatwa has rejected a law that would grant Lebanese women protection from domestic abuse as a matter of civil law rather than religious law, which more often than not means that the male is favored, be he in the right or wrong.

Dar al-Fatwa argues that introducing a "western" law in to Lebanese society means giving in to western style decadence and the destruction of Lebanese society as women would wiled the power to brake a family by threatening to send the husband that is beating her, or abusing, her or being cruel to her, with prison. They seem to think that this would traumatize the kids. So in other words they would prefer to condone that the woman, the wife, the mother of these very children who they say would be traumatized by their mothers "threats" against their abusive fathers, to be mistreated, beaten to a pulp, humiliated before her children so that their daughters would learn their place in life and that their sons would learn that this is the proper way to treat a woman. The kids will be traumatized they say! And they have the audacity to say this as if Lebanese society is not traumatized as it is already because of this culture of abuse that they so vehemently want to protect. 

"Islam is very aware of and concerned with ... resolving problems of poor treatment" They say.

Are they really aware of the pervasiveness of the problem? This reminds me of the dismissive acknowledgments of the existence of a "problem" within the catholic church of certain child abuses accusations. They are "very aware" of the "problems" they say. If that was true then praising the virtues of this law would be their priority to promote the proper solution to the real problem. They claim to speak for "Islam" as if the Quran does not afford women reverence, respect, and recognition for being the life bearers. Everyone with some religious ambitions these days seems to think that their traditional understanding of what the scripture says is exactly as it should be without taking in to account the true meanings of the words that they so readily recite out of context just to suite their own warped and colored understanding of what "Islam" is all about. They condone the beating of women because women terrify them. 

They warn against "cloning Western laws that encourage the breakdown of the family" without considering how Lebanese families are already broken. Broken by the many intra family savage and brutal feuds over inheritance. Broken by the many inter-family feuds that would put the Capulets and the Montagues to shame. broken because of parents who force their children to follow in their footsteps or to disregard their children’s aspirations in favor of their own visions. Broken by far too many abusive fathers. And also by many abusive mothers. If these Dar al-Fatwa men do not understand how much a boy can be traumatized by seeing his mother, the woman he worships most in the world, beaten before his eyes, will not traumatize him, then they have absolutely no connection to reality. I had an abusive father. The fact that I choose not to get in to too many details about this topic should indicate how much the topic agitates me. It is not a period in my life I wish to remember. Being too small and helpless to protect my mother form the monster my father was sometimes.

Lebanese women are strong willed, courageous, and opinionated. They can normally hold their own until the man, who feels like he was bested, resorts to the only method he knows. Violence to shut her up. Many times when i walked the streets of Beirut I would hear an argument from one apartment or another, a woman and a man would be arguing until suddenly you hear the sound of a hard slap to the face that would make average people flinch to hear it followed by womanly screams of agony and, more often than not, followed by the sound of crying children and occasionally the sound of family and neighbors intervening to contain the situation. 

I was in a cab one day heading off to work. We were stuck up in traffic near a fast food grill restaurant when I noticed a woman berating her husband while holding one of her young children in her arms. The man was not saying much. I flinched before it happened and it happened very quickly. The man just slapped the unsuspecting woman so hard the she almost dropped the baby as her face twisted and her head, followed by her body, swiveled with the force of the blow. 

Women had a code for when they appeared at work all bruised. If they could not cover up their bruises with too much make up they would claim to have fallen or tripped or been in minor car accident or anything similar but never admitting that they were beaten by their husbands as it would stigmatize them. But it the truth was written clear as day in their eyes. 

Dar al-Fatwa also declared as "heresy" a clause that criminalized marital rape. This one always boggles my mind. They outright condone rape. Marital or not they condone rape. They condone marital rape because they still believe that women are property and that a wife’s duty is to satisfy her husband however she chooses. I find this mentality infuriating especially when it comes from Muslims. The Quran insists on the proper and respectful treatment of women and the Quran requires a man to respect the woman's, be she wife or otherwise, right to consent or not to. Unfortunately, their interpretation of Islam is based more on ancient tribal values that have survived to this day rather than actual Quranic understanding. Tribal values that are patriarchal and regard women as nothing more than property, which is also a mentality that goes against the teaching of the Quran... They know this, but choose to ignore it because first, it will diminish their patriarchal privileges by granting women the legal right to emaciate them when they wrong her. The second reason is that the religious community does not want to lose its grip on the power they hold in Lebanese politics. These are the kind of groups that contribute to the Lebanese sectarian problem because of their incessant interference in maters that should not be left to their ignorant hands. 

This is one of many reasons why Lebanon should do away with the sectarian system and secularize. Lebanese Women... ALL Women... deserve their lawful right to be safe from abuse of any kind and absolute equality in the eyes of the law. Lebanese law, because of its diverse religious nature. The Lebanese need a unified identity and that identity cannot be based on ones religion because Lebanon’s historically rich religious background. Our society can no longer function with the decadence of the religious patriarchal system. The west may be decedent in the eyes of Lebanese conservatives but one should not throw stones in a house of glass. Women should be protected under the law and this should not be a matter of debate. Doing otherwise would be a step backwards in to the darkness that we are striving to avoid.