WTF

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."- Jonathan Swift

So there's a law already being drafted by activists and awesome people alike in Lebanon, to protect women from domestic violence but it's still under discussion in parliamentary debates.  I find that hilarious.  That it's still being debabted I mean.  What I don't find hilarious is the heavy offense some are taking over this law.  Specifically Dar el Fatwa.  Read more details here, the Daily Star article.

(Notice how no one decided to comment on the article in the DS.)   At least when I read it.

Motran George Khodr, bless his heart, wrote an article a couple of days ago, in Annahar, criticizing how Lebanon shall soon become a country divided between two parties in conflict, not based on political fronts or confessionalism as we know it, but on those who are WITH progressive domestic and social attitudes and those who are against them.  The former group is, thankfully, made up of all religious sects. Amen to that.

Now I'm no religious freak by any means, and feel a bit awkward discussing this, for the sole purpose of not wanting to offend any "body."  But when I read the article in the DS all courtesy went to the dogs. 

What's unbelievable is that some think that implementing the law would "break the family" or that it's "too western."  TOO WESTERN?!!  How is crying against beating a woman up too WESTERN?  

(In the U.S., the Violence Against Women Act was brought forth as part of the Crime Bill of 1994. Well, they took their time to get there now didn't they!)

What ticks me off even more about this MAJOR issue, is a Lebanese series I began watching (please don't tell anyone)- last night was episode one- called el hob el adeem (old love).  The girl left her husband because apparently he used to beat the crap out of her, out of love of course, and jealousy of course, because he "loved" her so much, and she still "loves" him, and can't forget him but is willing to marry another guy who is actually wonderful to her and not nearly as psychotic, but she can't tell her ex-crazy-husband because the guys are cousins and best friends, NEVERTHELESS, she can't get her ex-husband out of her mind, and he can't either.  Because- and here it comes- they LOVE each other. 

How does that work? Where love is accompanied by violence and humiliation and possessiveness and distrust and misogyny?

What makes me nauseous is not that I actually sat there and shared the plot with you guys, but that the notion of love is being used so loosly and so ignorantly, that we, the Lebanese overly-exposed-to-violence-in-and-out-of-the-home viewer, are supposed to somehow identify or be sympathetic towards the woman who still "loves" her ex-husband.   Hence, the name of the stupid show, el hob el adeem (old love).  Excuse me while I throw up a little.

honestly, wtf.