On a Battered Society, Feminism, and Confined Horizons

We are a battered society. Even those doing the battering are damaged goods. The moment I understood that I forgave them all their faults, their angry outbursts, their displays of road rage, and their twitches and ticks. Here, of course, I refer to psychological battery and bullying

From the moment we are born our lives are surreptitiously steered towards what society, our parents, our schools, our extended family, and the village believe to be the ideal standard. Our goals are predefined. Now, don’t get me wrong, the village here could be the ‘hara’ in a city, a cluster of people who form a cohesive unit, a village/ghetto inside a bigger more impersonal city.

As Lebanese, we are not revolutionaries in our nature. Our perception of revolution is of a violent free-for-all. We do not have any positive ideas about revolution, whereas in actual fact, revolution and violence are not necessarily wedded to each other.

Sudden and major change is revolutionary: imagine a jumbo jet banking right like a fighter jet, I would say that is revolutionary in that it is a dramatic change of course. It is also revolutionary in the upheavals it causes inside the cabin. Now in the normal course of a commercial flight, a pilot who does that would soon find himself unemployed. However, if the pilot makes that maneuver to avoid an even bigger danger, he is regarded as a hero. That is the awkward balance revolutions must maintain.

There is no road map to revolution, no guarantees, no societal approval, and no elderly national father figure nodding at us in silent approval. We are on our own and must find our own way or loose it forever. The Lebanese simply do not have the psychological hardiness to attempt such a risky move.

‘Oh,’ you would say, ‘but we did it in 2005.’ Well, all we did back then was show collective anger, we threw a fit, a tantrum, but when we awoke from our fit we settled back into our daily routines and left the business of revolution/reform to the most traditional and corrupt institution in our country: the political elite! Go figure.

The point is, we listen to everyone, from our second cousin to the green grocer and everyone in between, and we build our lives, our expectations of success or failure around their disparate and sometimes asinine ideas about life. But above all else, we seek their approval, admiration, respect, and their envy.

Yes, I meant that last one: we want people to be envious of what we have, what we have achieved, the trophy wife by our side, and the gas guzzling behemoth beneath our brake pedals, not that we use them much. The brake pedals, that is, not the trophy wife!

We have been battered endlessly by images of society-approved success, what it looks like, feels like, we develop a hunger for it, and we are conditioned to work endlessly to attain it, so much so that we think it’s our birth right. We are a society that embraces conservatism and mediocrity in their extremes, which justifies our clinging to outdated notions of proper and improper behavior, to Ottoman-era laws, and to the comfort and reassurance of our tribal society.

Feminism

Now, our women are in an especially unenviable position. When Arab men talk about freedom it usually means little more than freedom from a political autocracy, military rule, or a powerful oligarchy. But when Arab women talk of freedom, they look to a society that will allow them finally to reach their full potential that will not condemn them from birth to a life in the shadow of men.



I know that as a man, and an Arab man at that, my words would probably be met with equal doses of cynicism and incredulity, but my concern is not of women but of society as a whole, and of a whole society, and our society will not be whole without first breaking the fetters that bind our better half.

Foreigners come to Lebanon and see women in high heels, mini-skirts, risqué bust lines, all made up, and they see this as a sign of a liberal society in which women are free to flaunt their bodies. They are forgiven for thinking in this way; as they judge us against the backdrop of a religiously repressed Middle East.

In actual fact these outward signs of sexual liberation are society’s tools used for the repression of women and the suppression of their individuality. They are uniforms in a way. Society decrees that women must always be on display, always ready to attract a mate, or attract comments that convince her she is still maintaining the social standard.

In this way women are reduced to mere pieces of meat, much like the slaves of the 17th century in the Americas: stolen from their homes in the Dark Continent, made to parade before would be buyers in the Indies, their half naked bodies rubbed with lard to give’em a nice shine!

When will we learn, our women are not comfortable shoes to be polished, they are not maid servants in our homes, they are not sexual objects for the relief of male stress and frustration. They are our mothers, our sisters, our wives, our work mates, our fellow revolutionaries, and our daughters, and they deserve exactly as much from us as our first born sons do.

Confined Horizons

So, in conclusion and to end on a slightly positive note, we tend to limit our own horizons, and like water, we too follow the path of least resistance, or at least the path others have taken before us.

But, there is hope. There are a few of us who are making tiny revolutions happen on their own. In the Press, in the publishing business, in media, IT, in the innovative ideas and business models the Lebanese come up with across sectors, they are going against the tradition of bellyaching. They are going where no Lebanese man (or woman) has been before.

Socially, however, we still have a lot of growing up to do. There are, however, a few on the fringe who break free from society’s steely grip and venture into a world where how you behave, what you eat, wear, watch, or listen to, is not dictated by fashion gurus with as much discerning taste as my left foot!

And, don’t worry about the slow progress for now, remember, great things start with tiny steps.



The only thing we need to remember is to keep going forward rather than throwing our arms up in the air, packing our bags, and leaving for the Gulf. We must never let anyone draw our horizons and define our limits for us with a thick black marker pen; such would be a travesty, an insult to art and to the boundless capacity of the human spirit.

We must never linger too long in a comfort zone; we must always look to the next big thing, to the next major upheaval in our lives and embrace it. Much like a surfer waits for that big wave and rides it threw, we too must have the stamina, strength, and courage to ride out our own waves in life and not let them swamp us.