Does anyone else feel these days the way I do? I feel a sense of doom, of impending disaster, like a bad climax after all those 40 years of war in Lebanon.
The Iranian Regime is increasingly cornered. Riots at home, economic difficulties, more sanctions on the way... Abroad, its only significant extension is the Hezbollah terrorist organization, now running Lebanon, paralyzing its institutions (Lebanon has had no government since last June's parliamentary elections), occupying its own "security zones", stockpiling missiles in the south in anticipation of the next war with Israel. Yet Hezbollah has been hemmed in by UN resolutions and domestic Lebanese intolerance to the suicidal tendencies of the Shiite numskulls like Nasrallah. So there is a lot of bent-up energy on the Iranian-Lebanese side of things.
Meanwhile, Israel too is under a lot of pressure, even by its friends, to freeze settlements, to get on with a solution with the Palestinians. All it needed was a justification to deflect those pressures. Now that Iran's new nuclear facility has been disclosed, and it is flexing its missile capability muscle, Israel now has the pretext it's been waiting for, and this time it will have the backing of the West, and maybe even Russia and China.
There are really only two scenarios for how this built-up pressure might be vented off, depending on who makes the first step, who attacks first.
One - Israel takes the initiative and strikes Iran's nuclear facilities. On the long term, Iran's nuclear program is delayed by a couple of years. On the short term, however, Iran activates Hezbollah in the Lebanese south: Any small pretext is sufficient - for example, Israeli soldiers detain a Lebanese (Shiite) cow that strays across the border - and Hezbollah unleashes its rockets and we know the rest of the story. This time, though, Israeli planes would bomb every Lebanese government facility - Baabda, Yarze, Verdun, Qoraytem, etc..all the ministries, all the Lebanese army barracks, all the infrastructure, all the roads,.... They have been saying that the next time would include the government as target because Hezbollah is now part of the governemnt. So the deniability argument would not work this time for the Lebanese hypocrites who can't make up their minds between peace and war, between stability and "liberation", between liberating Palestine for the Palestinians, and liberating themselves from their Quixotic megalomaniacal idiocy.
Two - Iran takes the initiative and triggers Hezbollah
The reality is that it does not matter who starts. Both sides have their reasons to want a war: Israel wants to avenge 2006 and try (again) to decimate Hezbollah and the 40-year old threat against its northern border. Hezbollah and Iran know that this may be their last stand, as they have no illusion that they are best as a potential threat than a real threat, and they know about how far they can go before they start losing. But they cannot stay calm too long, for then the "threat" ceases to be one. In the past, lobbing a rocket across the border about once a month, or harassing Israeli patrols, were enough. Nowadays, they have to use their big guns to merely remind Israel of their existence, and that is their dilemma.
In the end, Lebanon will again suffer utter destruction. But unlike previous conflagrations, the hope is that this time will be the last. Perhaps, the utter destruction is what will finally put a few brain cells in the empty skulls of the Lebanese idiots and return Lebanon once and for all to normality.
Hanibaal
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Domestic Violence in Lebanon: Enabled by Religious Monopoly over Civil Rights
LEBANON: Move to take domestic violence cases out of religious courts
* KAFA, a women’s rights organisation, has drafted a new law that would make domestic violence a criminal offence under a common civil law
Religious courts
* Cases of domestic violence are heard by Lebanon’s 15 religious courts which activists say favour men over women
BEIRUT, 23 September 2009 (IRIN) - As lawmakers struggle to form a government three months after Lebanon's parliamentary elections, women's rights activists await the opening of parliament to debate a new bill on domestic violence.
Ghida Anani, programme coordinator of KAFA, a Lebanese organization campaigning against violence and the exploitation of women, estimates that as many as three-quarters of all Lebanese women have suffered physical abuse at the hands of husbands or male relatives at some point in their lives.
In Lebanon's multi-confessional democratic system, cases of domestic violence are ruled on in one the country's 15 religious courts, or family courts, whose laws date back to the Ottoman era and which campaigners say almost always favour men over women.
The new bill proposes to take domestic violence out of the religious courts and into the civil system and will cut across confessional lines, giving both Muslim and Christian women equal rights under the law, and, say campaigners, will be a key step towards equality between men and women.
"The family courts don't treat men and women equally," said Nadya Khalife, a researcher on women's rights in the Middle East and North Africa at NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW). "The law is a step in the right direction, but we still have far to go before we have equality in Lebanon."
"To say violence and rape is underreported is not correct. It's not reported at all"
Domestic violence
Warda, a mother of six, said she suffered 20 years of domestic violence. She said her husband was a drug addict who beat and sexually abused her throughout their marriage. Having had no success seeking help at a hospital and with the police, she went to see the representative of her Shia Muslim religious court. Warda, not her real name, said the representative did little to help except to explain the difficulties of getting a divorce due to her husband's refusal to grant her one. In the end she sought help at KAFA and today, though still married, she lives with her parents with no rights to visit her children.
Every year more than 500 women seek help at women's centres in Lebanon. However, there are only four safe houses - able to accommodate just 40 women in total. Yet the actual number of domestic violence cases, according to KAFA's Ghida Anani, is far higher: "To say violence and rape is underreported is not correct," she said: "It's not reported at all."
Anani said both hospitals and the police were failing to report domestic violence cases. "Often doctors don't ask about bruises and if a woman makes a complaint about domestic violence, the hospital reports it as a `home accident' and there is no further investigation," she said. The police record incidents of violence against women as "beatings" but do not specify in the report who was the perpetrator: "It's almost as if as long as there are no incidences, there's no problem," Anani said.
With 18 different religious confessions officially recognized by the state, Lebanon has 15 religious courts to rule on matters of marriage, divorce, custody and other personal matters, including domestic violence. A separate judicial system rules on common-law criminal cases.
"Family affairs are seen as a very private issue," said Anani. "The woman is seen as the man's property."
Efforts to reform the religious courts over the past decade have met resistance from an establishment reluctant to upset the confessional balance in a country still recovering from a devastating 15-year civil war which ended in 1990. Religious courts, say supporters, respect each sect's traditions as well as protecting them from others. Many fear that one civil law for all would disrupt the communal balance.
The differences between religious and civil law and between the laws for Christian and Muslim women are clear. The minimum age at which a girl can marry is far lower in all religious courts for girls than boys, and lower for Muslims than Christians; in some cases Islamic law permits girls as young as nine to marry.
Islamic religious laws do not prosecute marital rape nor so-called honour killings while the custody of children in divorce cases is usually awarded to the father. According to Anani, this means many women choose to stay in abusive relationships for the sake of their children.
"We don't want a legal system treating women differently from men and one that treats Druze, Shia and Christian women differently from each other," said HRW's Khalife.
Details of the new bill
In 2007, KAFA set up a steering committee comprised of lawyers, judges and specialists who drafted a new bill on domestic violence, known as the Family Violence Bill.
The proposed law, now awaiting discussion in parliament, stipulates specialized family courts operating under a common-to-all civil law, with cases of domestic violence ruled on in private hearings that include judges, social workers, forensic doctors and psychotherapists.
The new law obliges anyone witnessing domestic violence to report it, opens the way to legally binding restraining orders, and ensures the perpetrator provides the plaintiff with alternative accommodation, as well as paying subsistence allowance and medical expenses.
It also calls for specialized police units within the Internal Security Forces (ISF) in each of Lebanon's six governorates, which would include female police officers trained in dealing with domestic violence.
"I wish that law had seen the light of day before I got married 20 years ago," said Warda. "It would have changed many things for me. I wouldn't have been imprisoned to a man who disrespects me. I wouldn't have been imprisoned to a confessional system. I would have lived with dignity."
asf/hm/ed/cb
Themes: (IRIN) Gender Issues, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
Report can be found online at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86247
* KAFA, a women’s rights organisation, has drafted a new law that would make domestic violence a criminal offence under a common civil law
Religious courts
* Cases of domestic violence are heard by Lebanon’s 15 religious courts which activists say favour men over women
BEIRUT, 23 September 2009 (IRIN) - As lawmakers struggle to form a government three months after Lebanon's parliamentary elections, women's rights activists await the opening of parliament to debate a new bill on domestic violence.
Ghida Anani, programme coordinator of KAFA, a Lebanese organization campaigning against violence and the exploitation of women, estimates that as many as three-quarters of all Lebanese women have suffered physical abuse at the hands of husbands or male relatives at some point in their lives.
In Lebanon's multi-confessional democratic system, cases of domestic violence are ruled on in one the country's 15 religious courts, or family courts, whose laws date back to the Ottoman era and which campaigners say almost always favour men over women.
The new bill proposes to take domestic violence out of the religious courts and into the civil system and will cut across confessional lines, giving both Muslim and Christian women equal rights under the law, and, say campaigners, will be a key step towards equality between men and women.
"The family courts don't treat men and women equally," said Nadya Khalife, a researcher on women's rights in the Middle East and North Africa at NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW). "The law is a step in the right direction, but we still have far to go before we have equality in Lebanon."
"To say violence and rape is underreported is not correct. It's not reported at all"
Domestic violence
Warda, a mother of six, said she suffered 20 years of domestic violence. She said her husband was a drug addict who beat and sexually abused her throughout their marriage. Having had no success seeking help at a hospital and with the police, she went to see the representative of her Shia Muslim religious court. Warda, not her real name, said the representative did little to help except to explain the difficulties of getting a divorce due to her husband's refusal to grant her one. In the end she sought help at KAFA and today, though still married, she lives with her parents with no rights to visit her children.
Every year more than 500 women seek help at women's centres in Lebanon. However, there are only four safe houses - able to accommodate just 40 women in total. Yet the actual number of domestic violence cases, according to KAFA's Ghida Anani, is far higher: "To say violence and rape is underreported is not correct," she said: "It's not reported at all."
Anani said both hospitals and the police were failing to report domestic violence cases. "Often doctors don't ask about bruises and if a woman makes a complaint about domestic violence, the hospital reports it as a `home accident' and there is no further investigation," she said. The police record incidents of violence against women as "beatings" but do not specify in the report who was the perpetrator: "It's almost as if as long as there are no incidences, there's no problem," Anani said.
With 18 different religious confessions officially recognized by the state, Lebanon has 15 religious courts to rule on matters of marriage, divorce, custody and other personal matters, including domestic violence. A separate judicial system rules on common-law criminal cases.
"Family affairs are seen as a very private issue," said Anani. "The woman is seen as the man's property."
Efforts to reform the religious courts over the past decade have met resistance from an establishment reluctant to upset the confessional balance in a country still recovering from a devastating 15-year civil war which ended in 1990. Religious courts, say supporters, respect each sect's traditions as well as protecting them from others. Many fear that one civil law for all would disrupt the communal balance.
The differences between religious and civil law and between the laws for Christian and Muslim women are clear. The minimum age at which a girl can marry is far lower in all religious courts for girls than boys, and lower for Muslims than Christians; in some cases Islamic law permits girls as young as nine to marry.
Islamic religious laws do not prosecute marital rape nor so-called honour killings while the custody of children in divorce cases is usually awarded to the father. According to Anani, this means many women choose to stay in abusive relationships for the sake of their children.
"We don't want a legal system treating women differently from men and one that treats Druze, Shia and Christian women differently from each other," said HRW's Khalife.
Details of the new bill
In 2007, KAFA set up a steering committee comprised of lawyers, judges and specialists who drafted a new bill on domestic violence, known as the Family Violence Bill.
The proposed law, now awaiting discussion in parliament, stipulates specialized family courts operating under a common-to-all civil law, with cases of domestic violence ruled on in private hearings that include judges, social workers, forensic doctors and psychotherapists.
The new law obliges anyone witnessing domestic violence to report it, opens the way to legally binding restraining orders, and ensures the perpetrator provides the plaintiff with alternative accommodation, as well as paying subsistence allowance and medical expenses.
It also calls for specialized police units within the Internal Security Forces (ISF) in each of Lebanon's six governorates, which would include female police officers trained in dealing with domestic violence.
"I wish that law had seen the light of day before I got married 20 years ago," said Warda. "It would have changed many things for me. I wouldn't have been imprisoned to a man who disrespects me. I wouldn't have been imprisoned to a confessional system. I would have lived with dignity."
asf/hm/ed/cb
Themes: (IRIN) Gender Issues, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
Report can be found online at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86247
Sunday, September 20, 2009
We Are Not a Nation
About Lebanon:
“The situation is the worst since Lebanon’s independence . . . I’m ashamed."
“We’re not a nation, we’ve never been a nation, we’ll never be a nation."
(Dr Munir Shamaa, an octogenarian who has seen it all.)
From:
Lebanese fear peace and good government are out of reach
MICHAEL JANSEN
The Irish Times
Monday September 21, 2009
“The situation is the worst since Lebanon’s independence . . . I’m ashamed."
“We’re not a nation, we’ve never been a nation, we’ll never be a nation."
(Dr Munir Shamaa, an octogenarian who has seen it all.)
From:
Lebanese fear peace and good government are out of reach
MICHAEL JANSEN
The Irish Times
Monday September 21, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Jesus is Racist: Calls the Lebanese "Dogs"
I cannot stand religions and all the idiotic tales and fantastic fabrications that they have been spinning for millennia. I particularly abhor the monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - with all their racism, fascism and claims to exclusivity that led their followers to commit atrocities and mass murder. Original sin, chosen people, splitting of oceans, sticks springing water in the desert, virgin impregnation and birth, miracles, resurrection from the dead, seal of the prophets, the final message, winged horses taking prophets to the heavens, etc.
I wonder how my fellow Lebanese, who are otherwise educated, have not emulated the European secular enlightenment of 300 years, given that they imitate the West like baboons when it comes to consumption and material pursuits. After years of misinformation, I have finally seen the light and the truth, and it has liberated me. I don;t believe in God. I believe that we are part of the web of life that sprung on this earth because of the specific conditions that exist on this planet. We are no more than the products of chance and the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. We are not only primates, related to the other primates (monkeys and apes), but we are related to bacteria and viruses and every other form of life. In all our apparent diversity, our biology is exactly like theirs, our DNA is like theirs, and we all make the same products and perform the same functions.
Religion is good for those whose minds are incapable of confronting reality. When we are born, we are born as human beings, not as Christians, Jews, muslims or any of those labels. It is only after years of indoctrination that we are taught to become "Christian" or "Muslim" or "Jewish". We are not born in these religions; we are only indoctrinated into them. And as we grow up and begin to realize the lies, fallacies, and fabrications we have been brainwashed with, most of us understand but refuse to accept reality and the truth. There are people who prefer to stay in the safe cocoon of religious lies than to venture into the emancipated world of reality. They behave exactly as they are expected to behave: Like farm animals bred for certain tasks, they spend their lives like domesticated, brainless, tamed animals.
The Lebanese are one of the most hypocritical peoples when it comes to their strong attachment to their religions of birth (more of a tribal thing than true belief), yet they practice none of the tenets of their religions. The Lebanese are some of the most materialistic, superficial, consumer-oriented societies whose members care nothing for their fellow Lebanese or human beings in general. The major challenge that the Lebanese are facing - and any other religious people everywhere - is to secularize their minds, like all westerners have done. Religion should become a hobby, something one does on a weekend, to kill the time or to fill a void. Religion should not be the primary criterion in instituting governments. For decades, the Lebanese have, in their inferiority complex, worshiped the French. Yet, somehow it always escaped the Lebanese that the French are one of the most secular, anti-religion, anti-clergy people on earth. Why can the Lebanese easily copy French culture, but not French secularism? I don;t know the answer, but that is not inconsistent with how the Lebanese in general hypocritically define themselves: Westernized Arabs, or Phoenicians, or Christians.... anything to separate them from the "scum" surrounding them. Yet, they are identical to the scum surrounding them, specifically in their attachment to religion.
There is a story in the Gospels that I remember reading once, and wonder how do the Lebanese, the Christians in particular, explain it. The language is very clear.
In the Gospel of Mark (7:24-30), a Phoenician woman comes to Jesus who was visiting Sidon and Tyre. In her very Lebanese way, she lies to Jesus about how much she has faith in him (because she wants something from him) and, having heard that he is some kind of medicine man who heals people, she begs him to heal her sick daughter. Now Jesus, who elsewhere in the fucking Gospels says that he has come for everyone and that he has come to change things and all that crap, suddenly feels like a Jewish ultranationalist, calls the woman a non-Jewish "dog" unworthy of him and that he does not dispense his miracles to non-Jewish dogs like her. She, again, as the persistent lowlife Lebanese haggler-beggar that she is, tells him that "even dogs [like her] eat from the crumbs of their [Jewish] masters". And, to conclude this otherwise disgusting exchange, Jesus now is seduced by her persistence that he deigns to step down from his superior Jewishness and grants her her favor, namely to heal her daughter, at a distance mind you, without seeing the daughter or going to her bedside.
I am neither Christian, nor Jewish, not Muslim. But if I were a Lebanese Christian and I happen to read this story, I would immediately renounce Christianity. Jesus hated the Phoenicians, my ancestors. He called them "dogs". They should return the favor, call him a fucking dog and not the son of a virgin bitch claiming to be the son of some God.
REASON, my friends, is what saved Europe and made the West what it is today: A haven of individual freedoms, human rights, respect for all life, equality, scientific progress, democracy. REASON, not God. It is by banning God from the public square and from government that the West is what it is today.
Here is the text of Mark (7:24-30):
24
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,
25
but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
26
Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
27
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
28
But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29
Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”
30
So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Or the same text from Matthew 15:21-28:
21
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
22
A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
23
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."
24
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
25
The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
26
He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
27
"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
28
Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
Hanibaal
I wonder how my fellow Lebanese, who are otherwise educated, have not emulated the European secular enlightenment of 300 years, given that they imitate the West like baboons when it comes to consumption and material pursuits. After years of misinformation, I have finally seen the light and the truth, and it has liberated me. I don;t believe in God. I believe that we are part of the web of life that sprung on this earth because of the specific conditions that exist on this planet. We are no more than the products of chance and the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. We are not only primates, related to the other primates (monkeys and apes), but we are related to bacteria and viruses and every other form of life. In all our apparent diversity, our biology is exactly like theirs, our DNA is like theirs, and we all make the same products and perform the same functions.
Religion is good for those whose minds are incapable of confronting reality. When we are born, we are born as human beings, not as Christians, Jews, muslims or any of those labels. It is only after years of indoctrination that we are taught to become "Christian" or "Muslim" or "Jewish". We are not born in these religions; we are only indoctrinated into them. And as we grow up and begin to realize the lies, fallacies, and fabrications we have been brainwashed with, most of us understand but refuse to accept reality and the truth. There are people who prefer to stay in the safe cocoon of religious lies than to venture into the emancipated world of reality. They behave exactly as they are expected to behave: Like farm animals bred for certain tasks, they spend their lives like domesticated, brainless, tamed animals.
The Lebanese are one of the most hypocritical peoples when it comes to their strong attachment to their religions of birth (more of a tribal thing than true belief), yet they practice none of the tenets of their religions. The Lebanese are some of the most materialistic, superficial, consumer-oriented societies whose members care nothing for their fellow Lebanese or human beings in general. The major challenge that the Lebanese are facing - and any other religious people everywhere - is to secularize their minds, like all westerners have done. Religion should become a hobby, something one does on a weekend, to kill the time or to fill a void. Religion should not be the primary criterion in instituting governments. For decades, the Lebanese have, in their inferiority complex, worshiped the French. Yet, somehow it always escaped the Lebanese that the French are one of the most secular, anti-religion, anti-clergy people on earth. Why can the Lebanese easily copy French culture, but not French secularism? I don;t know the answer, but that is not inconsistent with how the Lebanese in general hypocritically define themselves: Westernized Arabs, or Phoenicians, or Christians.... anything to separate them from the "scum" surrounding them. Yet, they are identical to the scum surrounding them, specifically in their attachment to religion.
There is a story in the Gospels that I remember reading once, and wonder how do the Lebanese, the Christians in particular, explain it. The language is very clear.
In the Gospel of Mark (7:24-30), a Phoenician woman comes to Jesus who was visiting Sidon and Tyre. In her very Lebanese way, she lies to Jesus about how much she has faith in him (because she wants something from him) and, having heard that he is some kind of medicine man who heals people, she begs him to heal her sick daughter. Now Jesus, who elsewhere in the fucking Gospels says that he has come for everyone and that he has come to change things and all that crap, suddenly feels like a Jewish ultranationalist, calls the woman a non-Jewish "dog" unworthy of him and that he does not dispense his miracles to non-Jewish dogs like her. She, again, as the persistent lowlife Lebanese haggler-beggar that she is, tells him that "even dogs [like her] eat from the crumbs of their [Jewish] masters". And, to conclude this otherwise disgusting exchange, Jesus now is seduced by her persistence that he deigns to step down from his superior Jewishness and grants her her favor, namely to heal her daughter, at a distance mind you, without seeing the daughter or going to her bedside.
I am neither Christian, nor Jewish, not Muslim. But if I were a Lebanese Christian and I happen to read this story, I would immediately renounce Christianity. Jesus hated the Phoenicians, my ancestors. He called them "dogs". They should return the favor, call him a fucking dog and not the son of a virgin bitch claiming to be the son of some God.
REASON, my friends, is what saved Europe and made the West what it is today: A haven of individual freedoms, human rights, respect for all life, equality, scientific progress, democracy. REASON, not God. It is by banning God from the public square and from government that the West is what it is today.
Here is the text of Mark (7:24-30):
24
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,
25
but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
26
Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
27
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
28
But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29
Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”
30
So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Or the same text from Matthew 15:21-28:
21
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
22
A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
23
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."
24
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
25
The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
26
He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
27
"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
28
Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
Hanibaal
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)