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overnment they desire it also expresses a belief that islamic governance alone can guarantee justice and liberty for all as for akp some members have a political history in now banned parties that openly advocated a religious political agenda and or islamic values still it is intriguing that very different categories of islam and very different relationships between islam as a religion and islam as politics elicit similar structural reactions not to mention that these accusations of take over have also been directed at disparate islamic minorities in europe many of them socioeconomically marginalized and politically underrepresented an earlier post on this blog deals with some of the issues concerning islam in europe the more interesting part of the post is the discussion actually the dutch anthropologist and scholar of religion peter van der veer offers another perspective on the matter he basically links the phenomenon to a modern form of governance the state that renders political activity falling outside its purview as suspect here is an excerpt emphasis mine not only are communication and openness crucial to civil society public sphere and religion but also paradoxically so is publicity s opposite secrecy reinhart koselleck has argued in a book that appeared three years earlier than that of jürgen habermas the structural transformation of the public sphere that the emergence of secret societies of freemasonry were crucial in the development of enlightenment critique of the absolutist state in the mid 18th century masonic lodges saw an immense increase in membership and can be seen as the most important sites for the new sociability of the enlightenment besides the more public ones such as coffeehouses clubs salons and literary societies the important point here is that these lodges were able to erect a wall of protection for their debates and rituals against both intrusion from the state and intrusion from the profane world religion is a privileged site for examining an aspect of secrecy that is simultaneously the opposite of the public sphere and foundational for it religious movements and religious sites are often suspected of secret conspiracies by the powers that be and it is precisely the moving away from state institutions and official politics that gives possibilities for fundamental moral critique it should also be clear that this critique can take an unpleasant and terrorist form as it did in the jacobin ideology fo the french revolution this uncomfortable dialectic is what german theorists like koselleck and habermas were interested in after the nazi period source secrecy and publicity in the south asian republic arena in public islam and the common good edited by armando salvatore and dale f eickelman 31 32 leiden brill 2004 it follows logically from this that the dialectic between the state and political religious movements is more potent the longer the distance between the two once they become one and the same as for example with an islamist regime then islam s location as a site for the critique of the model of modern state government is weakened admittedly this poses more questions than it answers but if you have spent too much time dwelling on these issues then the van der veer excerpt can at least offer some food for thought january 30 2010 laique just do it posted by ms tee under events 9 comments rayess bek raps the lebanese laique pride song the lebanese laique pride parade is on 25 april 11am more info can be found on twitter facebook and the llp blog spread the word january 29 2010 the black box is the lebanese state posted by ms tee under citizen and state tags beirut et409 ethiopia ethiopian airlines lebanon 2 comments the aftermath of the ethiopian airline crash has demonstrated how the events of the past five years the targeted assassinations and the wanton bombings have turned us as a nation into quasi experts in collecting debris bucketing body parts taking samples testing for dna etc this is not to belittle the efforts being put into this by various state and other institutions but it is truly sad how throughout the haze of collective mourning the sweeping up took place rather automatically this time even as citizens many of us have become adept at collecting information checking their sources verifying them through various social networks and weeding out rumors from a veritable media mess an article by hassan al zayn in today s issue of al akhbar managed to eloquently capture an aspect of this sad state of affairs this is a quick translation of some parts this is the lebanese political crew s understanding of the state a spectacle concealing behind it several realities the reality about administrations their capacities and their black holes the reality of disaster have citizens been able to observe how these administrations function and have functioned it is almost self evident to admit that the state is incapable of playing a role beyond collecting corpses and plane parts thrown up by the sea what have these administrations done except wait and play the role of the mother of the bride i e soaking in the attention when it is not her day circling aircrafts spreading boats at sea calming families playing the role of a caretaker who is true to the slogan of honoring the dead by burying them standing in front of cameras and playing the roles of technocrats taking care to exonerate the airport control tower and stressing the unlikeliness of sabotage and lest we forget singing the praises of dna this charm repeated by officials the way conjurers repeat their gratuitous phrases despite the wizardry performed by the political crew and its success in kidnapping the disaster of the ethiopian plane it has not been able to cover up for the poverty of its understanding of the concept of state the political crew has performed a trick no less fragile and cruel than the racist and sectarian talk flying like sparks in a dry haystack the national carrier is being discussed as if it were a superman accused of sectarian preferentialism among the sons of a unified country having neglected some lebanese and deprived them of peace of mind they find themselves forced to fly with incompetent airlines hailing from inferior countries according to the lebanese racist pyramid the black box that the lebanese are looking for is the lebanese state whose plane has not taken off but is rather sinking and the political crew are but ghosts in the forms of captain survivors and angels january 26 2010 et409 posted by ms tee under migrant workers tags beirut et409 ethiopia lebanon 1 comment as most of this blog s readers know an ethiopian airlines flight crashed into the mediterranean just south of beirut a few minutes after take off early monday morning this tragedy has shed some light on a well known but less discussed lebanese connection to africa many of the lebanese on this flight most of them men were on their way to various countries in africa where they had jobs or businesses most of them are from the south 16 hail from the town of nabatiyeh alone so this tragedy is compounded by the sad facts of emigration and the estrangement الاغتراب الغربة from homeland and family imposed by harsh economic conditions and government neglect many lebanese politicians and citizens have commented on this phenomenon since the flight crashed but few have managed to throw the nets of empathy wide enough to include another group of passengers aboard flight 409 who have also had to endure emigration estrangement harsh economic conditions and much more most of the 31 ethiopians who were aboard this flight were female domestic workers heading back home after a long long stay abroad one can only hope that this shared tragedy will also bring forth a shared humanity why do you lebanese never treat us good screamed one ethiopian woman as security forces prevented her from entering the governmental hospital in beirut today to identify a body we are human beings like you god created us why don t i have the right to come in and see my sister from the guardian the list of passengers who boarded flight 409 can be found here in english you can also get to know some of the passengers on this facebook group december 30 2009 a recipe for disaster when women s rights and rights in general part ways posted by ms tee under citizen and state tags kolena laila 9 comments this post is part of the kolena laila initiative like most other places in the other arab world the lebanese laila is subject to an institutionalized form of patriarchy that finds its purest expression in the personal status when a lebanese woman is born she like her male counterpart say louai has a personal status and a familial status and she can ask for an extract ikhraj qayd a form of id of both when they get married however laila and louai part ways in the system whereas louai opens his own khanah a new familial extract listing the members of his nuclear family under his name laila is transferred from her father s extract to that of her husband s at first glance it might seem that the new khanah actually belongs to the married couple but should laila get a divorce she has to reapply to be transferred back to her father s khanah while her children remain under her divorcee s khanah this might sound like a trivial matter but bear with me many of the problems civil society is attempting to tackle today are linked to this form of registration into this personal status is written the sect where the children follow the father s it also locates the individual in the sectarian matrix upon which marriage divorce and inheritance laws are based had we had a matriarchal society instead where the khanahs are headed by women these would still be issues to contend with but because we live in a patriarchal society laila faces a problem louai does not face should she get married to a non lebanese she cannot start a khanah of her own under which she can include her children because laila can give neither her children nor her husband the lebanese citizenship though the way we are registered is not its cause this problem traces yet another thread forming this gordian knot of registration by a fluke of the system i happen to be one of few lebanese women who has a khanah of her own a few years ago i was discussing with a friend what might be a possible way to maintain this institutional independence should i get married to a lebanese eventually i did not so now i am extending the solution we came up with into a generic recipe for my other new problem giving the lebanese citizenship to my future children for this you would need 2 unmarried people 1 understanding family 1 or more baby born out of wedlock do not get married just yet or if married get a divorce have baby babies out of wedlock but in lebanon and register them in the nufus personal register as illegitimate mawlud ghayr shar i this will add the children to your khanah or usually the family s khanah and they will carry the last name of the family that acknowledges him documents needed for this procedure can be found here based upon this personal status go to internal security and get the children a lebanese passport each documents needed for this procedure can be found here finally get married or remarried to your foreign husband have him recognize the child or children as his own and live happily ever after to avoid the derision of bureaucrats you could really abuse the system and get your father to do the paperwork i know that doing this will cause problems to most lebanese women but i bring it up also to illustrate the interrelatedness of many of the problems civil society is attempting to address individually sectarianism religion patriarchy the way we are registered and how these are embedded in the smallest details of our personal lives i think that changing one aspect of the system without addressing more fundamental issues helps at some level but in the long run it is only a band aid that serves to make the system even more byzantine to be relevant for wider sections of society the right for a mother to give her family the lebanese citizenship and women s rights more generally need to be addressed both individually as well as part of the larger struggle for a more just more inclusive lebanon a disclaimer i do not know anyone who has tried this method and i am in no way saying it is fool proof in fact if you find any problems with it i would like to know before i try it myself december 19 2009 between rights and capital bank accounts for minors posted by ms tee under citizen and state economy 1 comment on thursday bank of beirut and the arab countries celebrated the first lebanese woman to open a bank account for her minor children the women s union of the progressive socialist party i e walid junblat s party in coordination with the central bank and the association of banks in lebanon was instrumental in bringing about this accomplishment initiated locally the project was funded by usaid and based on a legal study by the young lawyer paul morcos of justicia psp s women s union marketed the project primarily using the language of rights but the problematic and the way morcos proceeds to deal with it is a bit more complicated the full study can be found here but the main obstacle according to the banks was that in lebanon the father is the compulsory legal guardian وليّ جبري for minor children this is according to secular and religious law both christian and muslim this is a long story but secular in this particular case relates to an article from majallat al ahkam al shar iyya or mecelle in turkish this being the ottoman civil code of 1877 which was an attempt to codify the principles of the religious hanafi court byzantine indeed the issue hence risked stepping on spiritual toes and questioning the patriarchal and sectarian foundations of lebanon god forbid morcos circumvented the problem by shifting the focus from the gordian knot of guardianship and highlighting instead how allowing a woman to open such accounts not only does not threaten this existing structure but also contradicts rights accorded to women and enshrined in lebanese law a very intelligent solution given the imperfect circumstances the recommendations in morcos s study deal with the woman not from the point of view of her rights as a mother but as a stipulator assignor in trust in a commercial contract her son or daughter is the beneficiary and the bank the assignor the achievement nevertheless is not to be underestimated more so because it had to do with asserting rights already accorded to women by law and of which she has been stripped through cultural economic practices to meet this recommendation halfway the banks need to engineer account types to allow it to progress legally which brings me to another aspect of this accomplishment the other study that fed into the project was led by economist kamal hamdan and dealt with a completely different aspect of the i...