My husband is officially a /

Alternatively titled: My atheist husband is no longer a Sunni. When we got married in Cyprus, our papers said ‘Walid, Lebanese Sunni’ and ‘Nicolien, Dutch None’. Because the Cypriots take all the information from the official documents, and Lebanese official documents automatically state a person’s sect (whether they are religious believers or not is irrelevant), my poor atheist husband will forever have a marriage certificate that classifies him as a Sunni.

(Or Muslim, as it occurs on some papers, as opposed to Shi’a, for whom the Lebanese State does not use the word Muslim, interestingly enough.)

Unless we get married again, because then his papers will say ‘Walid, Lebanese /’: yesterday, he officially removed his sect from his papers. He will no longer be forced to identify as something he doesn’t believe in, that his father didn’t even believe in, passed on to him along paternal lines just because the Lebanese State refuses to make a civil law for things that can also be arranged by religious decrees.

Until recently, it was impossible to have any papers that did not state one’s sect/religion, until the former Minister of Interior Ziad Baroud decided that it was permitted to have it taken off (and replaced by a “/” sign). This despite the legal problems that will probably occur when the people who have removed their sect want to get married in Lebanon, or be buried in Lebanon, or other such personal matters which are up until now only arranged by religious institutions and then recognized by the State. The Minister didn’t have time to print official applications, but he made the required text available to all Mokhtars (a Mokhtar is the person you have to go to in Lebanon to identify yourself in order to do any and all governmental procedures – usually a guy with an office on a street-corner close to your house, or, as with one of my friends, in the back of a gas-station), thus opening up the possibility to keep one’s religion separate from the State.

Jamil, a friend of ours, was the first to do it. Whether he believes or not, he doesn’t think religion has any place on official documents, so he went through the remarkably short procedure and had his sect removed – despite his mother’s fears that this was his first step on his way to becoming Shi’a (quite possibly her biggest nightmare).

Because Walid’s Mokhtar didn’t want to participate in the procedure (giving excuse after excuse about the lack of official applications), he went to Jamil’s Mokhtar, who gladly obliged and wrote the required yada yada yada on a paper, cheered on by two men who were waiting and thought that everybody should have their sect removed.

Not so in the Ministry of Interior. On his way to the office to get the last required signature and be forever de-sunni-fied, a friendly government worker tried to warn Walid of the dangers involved in carrying out this operation. ‘You will not be allowed to marry in a religious court!’ he pleaded, his hand on Walid’s arm. ‘I’m already married, in a civil ceremony’, was the answer. ‘But you won’t be able to be buried in a Muslim cemetery when you die!’ the distressed employee tried one more time, just before he opened the door. It couldn’t change Walid’s mind; he went in and had his paper signed.

I’m proud to say that my husband is now officially a “/”.

Het is allemaal de schuld van de Nederlanders

Israël-liefhebber en Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Maxime Verhagen zal er niet blij mee zijn: niet alleen heeft Israël opheldering gevraagd over de financiële steun aan de mensenrechtenorganisatie Breaking the Silence, maar nou blijkt ook nog eens dat onze zuurverdiende belastingcentjes besteed worden aan opium voor de Arabieren! Nou ja zeg. Breaking the Silence is een organisatie van Israëlische oud-soldaten die onlangs letterlijk een boekje open deden over het handelen van het Israëlische leger tijdens te oorlog in Gaza, begin dit jaar. Dat het leger er daarin niet zo goed vanaf kwam, moge duidelijk wezen – en daarom wil het (bij monde van Israëlische diplomaten) nu graag weten waarom Nederland daar (financiële) steun aan verleent.

Een paar jaar terug heb ik in Amsterdam een tentoonstelling bezocht die was georganiseerd door Breaking the Silence. Het waren foto’s genomen door Israëlische soldaten tijdens hun tijd in de Palestijnse bezette gebieden, vakantie-kiekjes als het ware: met de huis-tuin-en-keuken cameras van de Israëlische soldaten zelf vastgelegde beelden van huiszoekingen, checkpoints, en, als ik me goed herinner, de momenten van ontlading achteraf. De beelden waren schokkend, en de verhalen erbij mogelijk nog meer. Het lijkt mij voor iedereen beter als zulke misstanden aan de kaak gesteld worden, zeker als dat gebeurt door de mensen die erbij waren.

Dan wat die opium betreft – voor de lezers die niet door dat argumentsloze artikel heen zijn gekomen,* de Nederlandse belastingbetaler wordt pas in de allerlaatste paragraaf bedankt – dat gaat om kritiek van Saseen Kawzally. Saseen is schrijver en redacteur van Menassat, een website voor persvrijheid in de Arabische wereld grotendeels gefinancierd door de Nederlandse overheid. En waar het al erg is als Israëliers kritiek leveren, is het natuurlijk onmogelijk dat een Arabier commentaar heeft op wat er in Israël gebeurt, of wat dat voor invloed heeft op de Arabische wereld.

Vandaar dat Menassat de opium van de Arabieren is. Maar goed dat de Syriërs en Bahreinis onder dictators leven die het beste met hun onderdanen voor hebben: de website is al sinds geruime tijd verboden in die landen, wegens te kritische geluiden. Zal wel ongezond zijn, die opium.

===

*nee werkelijk, wat dacht je van een pareltje als: “Half of all Egyptians, for instance, are under 24. This helps explain why many turn to religious fundamentalism for solace.” Religious fundamentalisme! Nu alleen voor onder de 24 jaar! Sluitend argument, echt heel overtuigend. Of bedoelen ze dat het heel vermoeiend is om met zoveel jonge mensen in een land te leven, en alle bejaarden zich daarom tot religieus fundamentalisme keren? Het blijft onduidelijk...

You'd think they sell contraceptives here

... but no, it's a jewelry store. (Found in Basta, Beirut, June 2009.)

Pulling out the big guns

Coming back from Damascus, I was once dropped off at the highway just before Beirut and needed to take another bus to get back home in Hamra. I got on a mini-van which happened to be empty and was supposedly going my way. Unfortunately, the driver changed his plans upon seeing me, and took a left turn where I knew we should be going right. I asked him where we were going, and he said he ‘just wanted to pick something up at home, I didn’t mind now did I? We could have a cup of tea together?’But yes, I did mind, so I opened the door of the van and when he saw I wasn’t kidding, he slowed down and I jumped out.

***

Last year I was living on one end of an L-shaped building. On the other end, new apartments were still under construction. Communication with the construction workers was usually courteous and friendly, until one day they employed a guy who just couldn’t stop staring into our apartment. Whether my roommate and I were in our respective bedrooms or in the living room, his eyes were constantly following us. One day I couldn't take it anymore, so I went over to the work-site and told him in no uncertain terms (in limited Arabic, yes, but with easy-enough to understand hand gestures) that I had had enough of his non-stop looking into our house. Luckily, the other workers followed me and yelled at him what the hell he thought he was doing, and before I was back in my apartment they had sent him away and never employed him again.

***

A few days ago, I was home alone in my pajamas, when I heard voices on our rooftop-terrace. To my surprise, I found the janitor of the building right outside our open balcony-doors, showing the living room to a prospective tenant. When he noticed me, he backed away, but a minute later the doorbell rang. It was the manager of the building: if I could please move over and show the tenant our house. This time in French, I was a bit more eloquent: Did he think it was ok to sneak into my house like that? What if I was in the bathroom? Or walking around in my underwear? Just to name a few scenarios. He saw nothing wrong with it, after all the prospective tenant was an American woman – just like you! But neither am I American, nor is the janitor, who was also there standing on the terrace of my house with the tenant, a woman (and neither of which are really the point, ultimately), so I slammed the door in his face.

This morning, the manager wanted to speak to Walid about the inappropriate behavior of his wife, what with me denying them entrance to my own house and objecting to the janitor breaking in by way of the terrace. Walid asked him what he would do if a stranger would enter his house when his wife was home alone, and when the manager didn’t know what to answer, the assembled neighbors were there to help him out: shoot him, of course! ***

A while ago, a foreign friend of mine living in Beirut for the summer wanted to take a bus home, but accidentally got on the wrong line. A friendly passenger advised her to stay put until the end of the line, when the bus would turn around and go back to where it came from. Sensible advice, except that the bus, with my friend as the only passenger left, did not turn back – the driver took some back-roads until he got to the highway, parked the bus on the side of the road, and sat down next to my friend, to ask if she was married, after which he proceeded to grope her. She screamed and pushed him off of her, but having learned never to get out of a vehicle on the side of a highway she still needed to stay with him until he decided to drive again and get back to the inhabited part of the city.

We have so far identified which type of bus is was (the beige one), and which line (the 4), and there are apparently only 4 or 5 drivers on this line so it won’t be long until we’ve singled out which driver it was, but we’re as yet undecided what to do with him. Sending in a big friend acting as her husband, although probably an effective scare, will only reinforce the idea that what he did would have been ok if she were not married, so we need something else. These are obviously issues that need attention on a much wider scale, but until then we have to deal with it on a case by case basis. Anybody any ideas?

Oh, Nou snap ik het!

In het echt is het wel grappig! (Vrijdagmiddag, Ein el Mreisse, Beiroet: )

bebak-maftouh