How the scales of justice fall in favor of men: a law of discrimination

The road to equality is still a long one in Lebanon. The promises following the period of civil peace were betrayed, especially those intended to forge equality for women, which was a fundamental demand of Lebanese civil society.

Lebanon ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1996 in response to continuous pressure from civil society organizations. 

Despite this, the Lebanese state continues to maintain reservations on nationality, arbitration and marriage and family life, and the Lebanese Penal Code still discriminates against women in a number of its provisions, including rape, adultery and impudence.

I publish here a list of key legislation restricting women’s rights in Lebanon, and breaches of the laws aimed at upholding them.

Lebanese Penal Code 1943

* Rape is permitted within marriage [Articles 503 and 504].

* If a man rapes a woman but then offers to marry his victim, he is given a pardon [Article 520].

* An adulterous woman is sentenced to three months to two years of imprisonment [Article 478] .

* “Honor killing”: Men benefit from an extenuating excuse if he catches his wife, daughter or sister during the act of adultery or sexual intercourse and kills or unwillingly injures one of the two people involved [Article 562].

Nationality Law

Lebanese citizenship is granted to:

- The children of a Lebanese father

- The person born in Lebanon and did not prove that he/she has acquired on birth another foreign nationality by filiation.

- The person born in Lebanon from unknown parents or parents whose nationalities are unknown[Article 1, Law 1925].

 Personal Status and Family Rights Law 

* In all sects, the father is the mandatory custodian over children. He is, therefore, the only one entitled to authorize their travel or open banking accounts [Family Rights Law].

* Couples cohabiting outside of marriage have no legal protection [Personal Status Law]. 

For Sunni and Shiite sects:

* The testimony of one man is equal to that of two women [Family Rights Law: Article 34]. 

* The husband has the right to forbid his wife from leaving the home of the married couple, to watch her visits, to bring her back to the house against her will and to educate her [Family Rights law: Article 73].

* A man has the right to inherit twice the amount that a woman does.

 For Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Evangelical sects:

* The man must protect his wife and the woman must obey her husband and follow him to wherever he sees appropriate for her to live. 

Key International Conventions on Human Rights signed by Lebanon:

* The Convention of the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women in 1996: reservations on Article 9 pertaining to nationality, Article 16 pertaining to marriage and family life, and Article 29 pertaining to arbitration 

* The Convention for the Political Rights of Women in 1948 (ratified in 1955).

* The Convention against Discrimination in Education 1960

* The Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of other in 1956

* Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women

* Universal Declaration of Human Rights

* The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1972

 Lebanese Constitution:

* “Lebanon is … based on respect for … social justice and equality of rights and duties among all citizens without discrimination.” [Paragraph (c) of the Preamble]

* “All Lebanese are equal before the law. They equally enjoy civil and political rights and equally are bound by public obligations and duties without any distinction.” [Article 7]

 

Lebanon celebrates Jerusalem as controversial Arab Culture Capital 2009

Lebanon is to mark occupied Jerusalem’s appointment as “Arab Culture Capital 2009” with events across the country for the Palestinian diaspora next month, as Israeli authorities quash celebrations at home.

The much-contested capital Jerusalem was chosen by UNESCO and the Arab League this year to receive the annual award for its unrivalled contribution to Arab culture, despite Israeli protestations that the holy city is its own.

With Lebanon home to almost half a million Palestinians, the Culture Ministry has decided to celebrate the achievement with two months of cultural and artistic events to begin next week in Beirut, which was itself last awarded the honor in 1999.

The ministry’s coordinator of the Arab Culture Capital events, Dima Raad, said that with large number of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon it was important the country mark the occasion.

“What we are doing with the events is highlighting the Palestinian cause. Its people should be allowed back, but because they are not we have to make it like home for them here in Lebanon,” Raad said.

“We plan to start the events now and carry on until the last day of 2009, so that every moment until then is a celebration for Palestinians in Lebanon.”

The first event is scheduled for November 9, which will see a week of film screenings at ARESCO Palace on various Palestinian themes, produced by Lebanese directors.

International touring dance troupe “Wishah” will then perform at Palestinian refugee camps across the country, aimed at sharing the Arab cultural history with those unable to return.

The last event on the agenda, “Made in Palestine,” will exhibit installation work, famous paintings and poetry readings in early December. The event will explore the modern history of Palestinians and their national struggle to liberate, as told by artists living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, however it is recognised by all members of the Arab League as the Palestinian capital.

Most of the celebrations in the capital have either been dispersed or banned in advance, as according to Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, the events would constitute a violation of the interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, which includes a clause that forbids the Palestinian Authorities from organizing activities in Israeli territory.

Many Palestinians living in the occupied territories are now making the trip to Lebanon to join with the some-400,000 refugees in the country’s festivities.

Raad, however, expressed regret that two top visiting speakers have been stopped from leaving Israel to attend the events.

Lecturer Mohammad Atta and Islamic history professor Nazmi el-Jabah of Birzeit University in Palestine were programmed to speak during a series of talks, but have been forced to pull out.

“They stopped them just at the last minute which is a shame because it is people like these that have given Jerusalem its culture.”

However, Raad stressed that the 60-day-long series will not be dampened by the travel ban. “The celebrations must go on and the Palestinians are very grateful for these events. It is something for their destiny, something to show they will exist always.”

Simultaneous ceremonies took place in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gaza, Nazareth, and Al-Rashadiyeh and Mar Ilias refugee camps in Lebanon via satellite link at the official opening back in March, after its January start was delayed by the 22-day Israeli offensive on Gaza.

The synchronized celebrations were aimed at building a cultural bridge between Palestinian people in the territories and those living in the diaspora.

Memorial postage stamps bearing the Arab Culture Capital motif, designed and created in honor of Jerusalem’s appointment, have also been released in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Qatar.

A celebration was held earlier this month under the auspices of President Michel Sleiman at the headquarters of UNESCO in Beirut to launch the program for the Jerusalem Arab Capital of Culture 2009.

The general director of the Lebanese Culture Ministry Omar Halablab gave a speech in which he described the city of Jerusalem as “the true representative” of Arab culture and praised the Arab League’s choice.

 

The dark tourist Dom Joly comes home to Lebanon

Any good comedian will tell you that from great tragedy you must make laughter. Dom Joly, a Beirut-born British comic heavyweight would know the technique a little better than most.

A comedian and writer who found fame a decade ago with his hidden camera show “Trigger Happy TV,” Joly was born high up in the mountains overlooking east Beirut, giving him the panoramic view of the Lebanese Civil War that would shape the course of his life.

Returning to Lebanon after a long lull for research for his new unusual travel book “The Dark Tourist,” Joly reflects on whether his deep-seated need to laugh in the face of danger came from this moment; watching the chaos unfurl beneath him.

To merely say he had a strange childhood would be an injustice to its true absurdity. The 40-year-old comedian spent his early years at prestigious Lebanese Quaker school Brummana High with Osama bin Laden’s brothers.

The humorist jokes that somewhere out there is a grainy school photograph of him with the bin Laden brood.

You can almost picture it – Joly pulling the sort of ridiculous face that makes him so instantly recognizable today, and the young bin Laden boys with their more cerebral smirks.

“I’ve tried looking them up on Friends Reunited…but nothing,” he says, disappointedly

It is his off-the-wall humor that has gained Joly international recognition, exemplified by sketches in Trigger Happy TV where he shouts at obnoxious volumes into an oversized telephone in inappropriate public places. Another gag sees Joly casually perusing the aisles of a china shop dressed as a bull. To this day he says he still can’t shake off the show’s more memorable catchphrases.

It turns out the show could have gone in an altogether different direction; Joly says his original plan to film in Lebanon was scuppered by problems in getting insurance. It is doubtful it would have enjoyed quite the same success over here: The comedy mostly derives from the friendly sending up of characteristic British reserve.

Dressed as a giant snail, another skit shows Joly slowly crawling along a zebra crossing at a busy intersection, with not the merest toot of a horn or the ultimate display of

British displeasure – a dramatic exhale of breath – to interrupt the farce.

“In England it’s like ‘just don’t stab me and I won’t get in your way,’ whereas in Lebanon people would get involved,” Joly jokes. “If I did that same sketch here I would have been run down and then probably shot by hunters.”

Joly’s return to his birthplace marks the end of a long absence. He says much has changed in the intervening time.

“I am seeing Lebanon in a completely different way than how I remember it,” he says, taking in the sites of a newly-restored downtown. “It is a country of constant renewal.”

Joly’s new book will document his travels in the world’s least popular destinations.

Having always had a penchant for holidays in hazardous locations, Joly has already paid a weekend trip to the eerie site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in northern Ukraine and visited the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

It is odd for Joly, who spent the first decade of his life in Lebanon, that its inclusion in his book about “dark tourism” does not feel out of place.

“Beirut is still seen as a place for hardy back-packers,” he says. “Most people still think it is a war zone or, more peculiarly, a country made up of nothing but desert and camels.”

Joly admits to being happiest when he is off the beaten track and wants to fill his upcoming book with stories from places as far-flung as Rwanda and Hiroshima. He had also hoped for Libya, but had to strike it from the list after being denied a visa last month.

“I thought it had something to do with the whole Lockerbie bomber Scottish government fiasco, but no, they were actually just banning me.”

It turned out the Libyan government had taken offense to a piece Joly had written some four years earlier in his weekly column for British paper The Independent about the Syrian secret service, making him persona non grata.

“I love that it is a personal ban against me,” Joly says. “It feels like a badge of honor.”

He admits to being a danger junkie, constantly thinking of how he can add more excitement to a situation: “I think it all began in my childhood. Living in Beirut you had to face things that scared you or they would get the better of you.”

Joly thought growing up in a conflict zone was a normal part of life until he moved in England at the age of eight.

“On my first day of school I flipped open my suitcase ready to swap my M16 shrapnel with the other boys as you would do in Beirut to make friends,” Joly recounts. “It wasn’t long before an ex-SAS guy came and quietly disposed of my collection.”

Joly is not used to being set such boundaries, and says that apart from arrests in America for small traffic offenses he has never been in any trouble, which he calls “quite disappointing.”

“But I know deep down I’m chicken,” he says. “If I ever actually have a bad experience I would probably stop immediately, run home to my family, break down in tears and promise never to go away again.

“I am a coward and that’s the note on which I am going to start the new book.”

“The Dark Tourist” is just one of many projects the busy comedian has lined up. Joly is also planning to take Trigger Happy from the small screen to the silver screen by next year, but is worried about the particulars.

“We need to avoid … taking something that is essentially great on TV and giving it a storyline. All of a sudden [Trigger Happy’s] big mobile guy has a romantic interest and then it wouldn’t work,” says Joly.

So long as he emerges unscathed from his adventures in international danger zones, fans of Joly have much to look forward to.

Photo courtesy of fellow Daily Star staffer Sam Tarling

 

World’s ‘last man’ calls for action on climate change

The last man on earth is sitting inside a clear glass cube on the Beirut Corniche, suffering under the sun’s unbearably harsh rays and rising sea levels. The summers are far hotter than he remembers and the rain much heavier. 

While this scene may not actually be a reality today, one Lebanese activist who chose to live inside a transparent box for three days to highlight the dangerous effects of climate change is certain it soon will be. 

 Environmental activist and actor 24-year-old Rami Eid spent 72 hours inside a tiny 2×2 meter box, coming out a little worse-for-wear Sunday, to highlight the damaging effects of global warming and to push Arab world leaders to take fast and effective action against the problem at Copenhagen summit later this year. 

The climate change demonstration “The Last Man,” set up in Ain al-Mreisseh on Friday and organized by independent Lebanese activists IndyAct, visually showed the bleak future for mankind where we failed to act against global warming when we had the chance. 

 As part of the demonstration Eid was forced to put up with simulated “climate changes” to show the future of food shortages, extreme temperatures and rising water levels, which threatened to fill up the very cube he was living in. 

 The cube itself represents the earth in which we all live and the “last man” the future generations forced who will bear the brunt of our inaction today, organizers IndyAct said. 

 “He represents the last man enduring a fierce struggle for survival against climate change effects,” the environmental rights group said. “We are trying to powerfully show the country that this generation can really change the course of the future.” 

As temperatures reached an already uncomfortably 30 degrees Celsius outside, inside the cube Eid experienced the world in 70 years time, with the glass serving to heat the surrounding air up, replicating the long-term effect of green house gas emissions. 

 

Under the constant glare of the curious Lebanese public, Eid was forced to go to the toilet in a bottle when no one was looking in the middle of the night, and survived on what little food he brought in with him. 

 Eid has been live blogging the experience from the cube, sharing the story of the last man with the world. “I can’t explain to you how hard it is to live with a flood,” he said, “and I am sure you don’t wish this upon people let alone your children’s children. But by 2080 this can be a reality,” he warned. 

“Being in this situation really makes me relate to a certain extent with poor countries that get hit with natural disasters all the time. The poor are the main victims of natural disasters,” Eid said. “There are plenty of them, especially in Lebanon.” 

Eid is hoping that his stunt was taken as seriously as the message itself. “I hope we all learned something from this, I know I did. There has been enough talking – it’s time to walk, and our youth in Lebanon are one of our biggest hopes to sustain climate change here and elsewhere in the world.” 

 Early last month IndyActgroup staged a protest in Beirut as part of global “Wake-Up Call” events held in 2,000 locations around the world. The event was attended by throngs of Lebanese fighting to increase awareness of the cause. 

A “Climate Change Countdown Clock” was erected to symbolize the three months the international community has left to forge an agreement to combat climate change at the UN summit.

IndyAct has joined forces with several international organizations to demand Arab leaders attend the December meet and sign a binding treaty to halt climate change.

 

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned last month that it would be “morally inexcusable” if the international community failed to agree on a new treaty in Copenhagen.

 

British actor David Morrissey brings Palestinian refugees to the stage

“If Palestine was free I would play outside with my friends. If Palestine was free I could ask my grandparents about their stories. If Palestine was free I would plant a thousand olive trees.”

The voices of Palestinian refugee children in Lebanon are mostly drowned out, by the government, by politicians, and sometimes unintentionally by their own parents and teachers. When you listen hard enough, however, you can hear their faint cries for peace and stability.

A 5-day drama workshop, organized by United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees from schools across the country, made sure some of their messages were heard this week.

With the help of British actor and director David Morrissey, star of films Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Sense and Sensibility, 65 children aged between 11 and 16 were brought together from different UNRWA schools to find out that learning is not always about what you read in books.

The children chose themes for each of their pieces, resulting in a performance Friday at Haifa school in south Beirut, and while some sung pop ditties of Arabic stars gone by, others chose morality plays with much deeper social messages.

When a child acts out watching her father die because she cannot afford the basic medication that would keep him alive, it is an unmistakable indictment of the system that allows it to happen. The message seems to be clear from a young age – that injustice makes up the very fabric of a Palestinian refugee’s life.

One piece entitled ‘If Palestine was free,” was particularly difficult for the proud parents in the audience to watch, many of whom all too aware what price their children pay for Israeli occupation.

“These performances help you to share in a history you might otherwise forget,” says one 13-year-old girl from the southern city of Tyre, glad to have workshops such as UNRWA’s. “It’s a chance to be listened to and tell your own views.”

Palestinians in Lebanon have long been relegated to an irreverent sub-story in the larger Lebanese narrative and have subsequently suffered from a lack of collective history, marred by massacres, uprisings and uprooting.

There are roughly 400,000 officially registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, making up 10 percent of the population. Thirty percent of those are children, most of whom have never met family living in Palestine or experienced much of life outside the south.

A recent Amnesty International report shows that the educational levels of Palestinian refugee children are nowhere near those of Lebanese children or even to those living in neighboring Arab host countries.

One out of three Palestinian children in Lebanon aged 10 or above leaves school before finishing their studies, believing that years spent in education is a waste when so many professions are barred to them in the country.

“This is not Gaza, this is not the West Bank,” the workshop’s director Morrissey says, “Lebanon is not Israel and the eyes of the world are not on these Palestinians.” Morrissey believes the plight of Palestinian refugees is overlooked, with the children in Lebanon left to suffer.

British actor David Morrissey at Haifa School, south Beirut

He says when he arrived at the school on the first day, the children were resistant to the workshop, but by the end they had let their guard down and began to enjoy the chance to express themselves. “The change that occurred in them in the last five days is astonishing,” he says, “they just need attention.”

Morrissey says the main problem is that children don’t always respond to education purely by rote, which is how most are being taught. “It doesn’t provide the opportunity to be listened to like drama does. It is important this sort of learning is built into the education system.”

This is not to say UNRWA is not trying to change the syllabus and respond better to the children’s needs throughout their 82 schools across Lebanon.

Recreational coordinator with UNRWA Lina al Ghoul believes more initiatives like the drama workshop need to be thought of to reach out to refugee children: “Educate a child through play and they will not be quick to forget,” she says.

“We have given them information in the old, tired way and they rejected it,” Ghoul says. “Though drama is often seen as an extra-curricular hobby it is so key to helping them learn real skills. The future for these children is letting them express themselves and the rest will be that much more bearable.”

Photo courtesy of fellow Daily Star staffer Sam Tarling

 

All-out war with Hizbullah

 What do you do when you have a masked Hizbullah militiaman aiming his gun for your temple?

As a Western journalist working in the Middle East this is always a deep-seated worry, no matter how unfounded. Though you try to prepare yourself for many scenarios this question is never answerable.

Foreign journalists are always chasing the Western fascination that is Lebanon’s Hizbullah party and for many they are an interesting sociological phenomenon waiting to be written about; engaging in battle with them however is not in the journalist’s job description.

In an unassuming part of the square in the heart of Dahieh where the March 8 faction hold their rallies, the paintballing quad ‘Special Forces’ is nestled between the Hizbullah-affiliated cafe Buns ‘n’ Guns and a cluster of high-rise residential apartments showing their own signs of war.

Journalists from various Western publications yesterday waged war against the green and yellow of the city in a paintball match.

With nothing but the thin gauze canopy above us cutting the Beirut sky, we battle against the opposing side, negotiating our way in a hazy light around the all-too-real war “props” which pock-mark the landscape of the quad; concrete outhouses, metal drums, barbed wire and grenades.

Our masks disconcertingly muffle the sound around us, allowing us to hear only the steely silence of our own regular, deep breathing, the eruption of automatic gunfire overhead and the incongruent Muslim call for prayer from the nearby Qa’im mosque.

This is not child’s play: with no real rules, questionable health and safety regulations and undefined boundaries this is more like all-out war. It is a far-cry from the lazer game center ‘Quasar’ our parents took us to in our respective London, New York and Stockholm cities.

 “People take it very seriously here, “a fresh-faced employee with a severe haircut at the quad warns me, “yes it is a game, but it is also a sort of training.”

I understand what he means when I see the local children standing outside the fencing looking on at the battle playing out, mimicking our war poses with military precision.

“It’s mostly teenagers seeing how to handle guns. This is a competition, and people do get hurt” he adds as he knocks over a tin target from a 20-meter range with enviable aim.

One 16-year-old speaks reluctantly, bringing up an unavoidable connotation to the game that no one has yet dared talk about: “The [2006 Israeli] war made me angry, I felt powerless. I come here often on the weekend just to forget that feeling. Some people learn how to use guns from TV, some from their friends, some from paintballing, and some have lived through enough to have learned it firsthand.”

It seems this mantra ‘being armed is being prepared’ is still at the forefront of many people’s minds in south Beirut.

Many more paintballing quads similar to this one have sprung up in Lebanon since the 2006 war, which saw the resistance fight neighboring Israel, and it has seen a huge growth in popularity, noticeably in Hizbullah strongholds. The one in Dahieh opened up just under a year ago and according to its employees it makes good business.

It is not surprising then that the original purpose of paintball was to enable the US military to teach troops how to handle weapons, to aim and learn strategies of combat.

Some venture to say the country’s recent interest in paintball is a playing-out of the mass venting of frustration of a dispossessed youth; others simply dismiss it as a military-themed game, not dissimilar to the plethora that already exist. Either way it is having quite an effect in this South Beirut town.

And it is completely understandable as I dart around in the close dusk air, shooting the enemy with a concentrated force and a concentrated venom; it brings a form of catharsis. But we are lagging; unaccustomed to the heat and hopelessly untrained we topple like dominoes in a stiff breeze. The Western journalists are out of practice, out of breath and out of luck in the Dahieh.

 

Will Lebanon ever get access to government information?

The Lebanese government should be held accountable to the public and no longer make decisions behind closed doors in order to stop the culture of corruption, Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud said on Tuesday on the occasion of international Right to Know Day. 

 Baroud, talking at a conference at Beirut’s Monroe Hotel about the right of access to information, said corruption in the country is being allowed to continue because there is no law to ensure the government publishes data of public interest. 

 As it stands, Lebanon has no legislation allowing the public to request information from the government, which Baroud said was “contrary to all democratic laws,” as enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

“Access to information is a human right, and the accountability of government is fundamental to any democracy,” he said at the conference in Downtown Beirut. 

 A draft Access to Information Act was submitted to Parliament in April with the support of the Lebanese Transparency Association and Lebanese Parliamentarians Against Corruption, but the bill is yet to be passed. 

 More than 90 countries around the world, including Bangladesh, Uganda, Israel and South Africa, have implemented some form of access to information legislation, with Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 the first. 

 Jordan was the first country in the Middle East to adopt such a law, in 2007, with many more in the region following suit in the last two years, yet Lebanon has so far failed to make government information transparent, which some say has encouraged secrecy around public affairs. 

“Withholding such information from the public is unconstitutional,” Minister of State for Administrative Reform Ibrahim Shamseddine said at Tuesday’s conference. “When things are hidden, it is because there is deception involved; by not passing the law we are saying it is OK to hide things from the public. 

 “The Doha agreement was done behind curtains, and it is not right – no state should operate like this,” he added. 

 The lack of publicly available information and official data released by public bodies means the system is almost impenetrable, making the job of media, NGOs and researchers in Lebanon a difficult one. 

 The interior minister also expressed concern that journalists and other “whistle blowers” who disclose information against government and other public bodies can still be prosecuted and not adequately protected against legal action, and he urged that the draft law be passed to stop these people being unjustly tried. 

 Baroud published a comprehensive report for the Interior Ministry immediately before the June 7 elections in the hope of encouraging other ministries to start implementing the law before its official ratification. 

 However, Shamseddine said the fact that so few parliamentarians had put their name to the campaign was disappointing, saying the excuse given that the government was not in place was not an acceptable one. 

 He also said that the draft bill should be the country’s priority: The conference “is an excellent thing – I think it is far more important than the Francophone Games that are happening at the moment. This law would change the country more than one event can,” Shamseddine said in light of the wide national attention the quadrennial games, held this year in Lebanon, has drawn. 

 Lebanon ranks 77th out of 180 countries for corruption, according to a recent survey by the Berlin-based organization Transparency International – four spots ahead of Iran and significantly higher than Colombia and India. 

 On a global integrity scale compiled by Integrity Alliance, Lebanon scored 15 out of a possible 100 for public access to information, and 0 – the lowest score of all countries – for whistle-blower protection measures. 

 The recently implemented Freedom of Information Act in the United Kingdom caused a scandal over the summer when independent bodies fought to make MPs’ expenses available under the act, which came into force in 2005. 

The case served to highlight the need for greater transparency when dealing with issues relating to public spending.

 

Christians tempted to flee from ‘Islamized’ Lebanon

Christians are tempted to flee Lebanon as the country becomes increasingly “Islamized,” according to the founder of the Center for Arab Christian Research and Documentation (CEDRAC). 

One-third of the nation’s Christian population has left since the beginning of the 1975-90 Civil War, and a recent surge in emigration means Christians now make up just 34 percent of Lebanon’s population, Father Samir Khalil, a Jesuit teacher at Beirut’s St. Joseph University’s CEDRAC department, told Vatican Radio last week. 

“Christians used to make up 50 percent of the nation’s population; now experts think the Christians are probably not exceeding 34 percent, which is worrying,” Khalil said in the radio interview during a visit to The Holy See. 

The Beirut-based researcher expressed concern that Christians in the Arab world are moving abroad to places with higher Christian populations, such as America, Europe and Australia, which is increasing the Muslim majority in countries like Lebanon. 

“The same is happening [all over] the Middle East, and this is certainly a very tragic situation, and it will have great consequences in the future,” Father Khalil warned last week on the Vatican Radio station, adding that Christians must stay in the Middle East to keep numbers up. 

Large numbers of Lebanese Christians are leaving as they feel their traditional influence in their country is weakening, while an increasing number of crucial political positions are going to Muslims. 

In reference to Islamic extremism, Khalil claimed the power of the influential Christian minority to counterbalance it was waning, saying: “Lebanon has always been a bastion of religious tolerance, but now it is moving toward the model of Islamization seen in Iraq and Egypt.” 

Christians have taken a backseat in recent times to dominant Sunni-Shiite relations, with key leaders Saad Hariri from the Future Movement representing most Sunni Muslims and Hizbullah of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah leading the Shiites, while the Christian community has less unified representation, split between the country’s rival political camps – the Maronite Catholic supporters of Lebanese Forces and Phalange parties with March 14 and those backing the Free Patriotic Movement led by retired General Michel Aoun, who has formed an allegiance with Hizbullah. 

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI this week called a special Synod of Bishops to discuss the challenges facing the church in the Middle East. 

The Synod meeting, which has been scheduled for October 2010, will address the problems that Catholic communities in the Middle East have in common, the pope said during a meeting last week with the patriarchs of seven Eastern Catholic churches, including Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir. 

The patriarchs, coming from across the Middle East, requested the October meeting, saying that they wished to have more frequent contact with the bishop of Rome in order to “strengthen the communion of their churches with Peter’s successor.” 

Benedict specifically mentioned their relations to other faiths – by implication Islam – and the phenomenon of emigration. Catholic prelates have long warned about that the pressures of living in a Muslim society, and the economic uncertainties facing the region have prompted many thousands of young Christians to leave their homes, imperiling the future of Christianity in the region. 

The pope said the 2010 meeting is designed to help plan a pastoral strategy for Christians living in a region that is ever more heavily influenced by militant Islam. 

The results of a poll released last year show that nearly half of all Maronites, the largest Christian denomination in the country – making up about 22 percent of the population – said they are considering emigrating. 

In the survey conducted by Information International, an independent Beirut body, many Christians cited the growing influence of March 8 faction Hizbullah in Lebanon as a reason for their decision to leave. 

Over 70,000 Christians have fled since the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hizbullah, many fearing more conflict between their southern neighbor and the Shiite group. 

Christians, in particular Maronite Catholics, have historically played a major role in the development of Lebanon’s political, social and cultural institutions. Under the country’s sectarian power-sharing system, the post of president is reserved for a Maronite Catholic, while the prime minister must be a Sunni, and the parliamentary speaker a Shiite. 

Currently, the president, the army commander and the head of the central bank all are Maronites, and under the agreement that ended the Civil War, half of the 128 seats in Lebanon’s Parliament are reserved for Christians.

 

Armenian food with a twist

One of the longest-standing Armenian restaurants in the capital, Al-Mayass began as a labor of love 13 years ago when Armenian-Lebanese chef Chant Alexanderian opened the small Beirut eatery with his son, using their perfected traditional Syrian recipes. 

 Over a decade later it seems Mayass has lost none of its family feel; its Middle Eastern mezza made with a homemade Aleppo twist and its friendly waiters ushering you into the cozy, low-ceilinged cottage help retain the sense of intimacy. 

The restaurant’s staff, (many related to the ageing owner) adorned in modern crimson and white uniforms, delicately offset the low-key rustic charm of their setting, offering a welcome retreat from the horde of over-priced and over-designed bistros in the Christian heartland of Achrafieh. 

In fact you could easily walk straight past it. Quietly nestled between beautiful old Lebanese houses, Mayass does not announce itself quite like most of its competition. 

But this is not to say that its culinary brilliance has gone unnoticed: featured in last year’s Food and Wine’s Go List, Mayass is known for doing good food well. 

Perhaps the discerning American magazine was referring to the mehammara when it awarded the restaurant the honor. A crusted walnut and spicy pepper sauce, the dish’s nuanced nuttiness proved a powerful accompaniment to the toasted Arabic bread, and a perfectly simple appetizer to balance the rather complex milieu of flavors that followed. 

 The spicy potatoes, or batata harra, and the tan­gy grenadine-soaked fattouche offered a much-needed break from the otherwise heavy menu. 

 However the next course of saebeurek, an unambitious and rather stodgy layered cheese pastry pie, did little to excite a palette still savoring the sharp coriander of the potatoes that proceeded. 

For all the excitement lacking from the saebeurek, the kabab be karaz more than made up ground. One of the most popular Armenian dishes on the well-conceived menu, the sweet ground meat apparently never fails to impress. The Mayass recipe relies on the sweetness of the cooked cherries and the unique elegant twist of pomegranate, which was beautifully complemented by the seasoned and tender lamb. 

A traditional Armenian coffee, strong in taste and thick as mud, makes for an ideal way to cap the savory meal.

 

Burqini creator laughs off Islamophobia

Lebanese-Australian Aheda Zanetti first came to the public’s attention when her controversial line of swimwear got caught up in a media storm last month. “Islamic swimsuit ban causes a splash,” “Burqini row opens new chapter in Muslim culture war” the salacious headlines read. What was once a niche online swimwear company known only to an intimate circle of Muslims living in Australia soon became an international sensation.

The story of the French woman who wore an all-in-one bathing suit to a public pool back in August created a debate that seemed to be centered more on the troubling Western view of Islam than the unconvincing hygiene argument cited by French officials; a debate which the burqini’s creator, Lebanon-born Zanetti, says she was not prepared for.

Born in the northern coastal city of Tripoli in the late 1960s, the woman behind the original burqini brand “Ahiida” grew up in a conservative  Muslim family in Lebanon, where she says many women had deep-seated anxieties about swimming in public due to religious prohibitions.

Zanetti tells The Daily Star that after moving to Australia early in her childhood this problem did not go away. Instead, being a Muslim Arab woman in an open and liberal country presented its own challenges. “As an active person who liked to participate in community activities and sport, I found myself restricted due to cultural and religious beliefs,” she says. “I think this is what spurred me to design something that would change that.”

What resulted was the lightweight polyester head-to-toe bathing suit that the media would come to so affectionately dub the “burqini.” The garment Zanetti designed was the first swimwear of its kind to respect Islamic values at the same time as enhancing the lifestyle of the active Muslim female.

Zanetti says the summer controversy did nothing but boost her already thriving business and provided the coverage she needed to help reach the world’s many Muslim women worried about public swimming. One month on she says she is still going through the order forms and letters of support that bombarded her inbox.

“When it all blew up I had anxiety attacks,” she laughs. “The media attention was just unbelievable.” Zanetti received 60 messages overnight, 60 percent of which were from non-Muslims wanting to cover up, and her small business was soon under strain from the global demand. “It goes to show there is a real market for the burqini among all kinds of women.”

She says she is over the moon with how well her business has been doing and is proud that people from her birthplace in particular are taking an interest. “I have a lot more direct customer inquiries now and loads more interest from Lebanese clients than I did before this whole thing.

“We [the Ahiida brand] have had great interest from individuals in Lebanon,” Zanetti says, however she is worried there may be too many risks involved in doing wholesale business with the country: “It is still quite a gamble going into the Lebanese market, especially with the current government uncertainty,” she says. “And I don’t know how the country as a whole will react to my product. It is still quite a conservative society and women may not feel comfortable ordering from us still.”

But Zanetti says she has not ruled out establishing links with Lebanese businesses and trading wholesale in the future: “It will take longer than others, but I think they will come around,” she says confidently.

Take a trip to the coast of Tripoli today, however, and you may well see the polyester get-up in all its glory. Zanetti says her extended family in Lebanon are now sporting her infamous bathing suit, which has allowed some to enjoy the Mediterranean waters for the first time. “They just love it,” she says.

Ask her about the case that sparked it all off and what she thinks about France’s decision to ban the burqini in public pools, and you can see Zanetti is still doggedly determined to challenge the nation’s misconception. “It’s just crazy that they used hygiene as a reason – I mean if it was really about that they would ban men with hairy backs and those wearing long shorts. Does the French Prime Minister [Nicholas Sarkozy] have nothing better to do? He should stick to his day job.”

She says the Islamaphobic argument that was levied by certain Muslim groups was also not a necessarily helpful one. “I think it is hard to tell what it [the French case] was really about – it could have been one of a number of reasons. It is better to just laugh about it rather than getting into political arguments – I know I am,” Zanetti adds, reflecting on a time she will not be quick to forget.