Tag Archives: nationality

In the 3ahd of Business Deals: Money Can Get You A Lebanese Citizenship, But A Lebanese Mother Can’t

Can you hear that? The sound of every supporter to the current ruling Party in the country scrambling to find every excuse under the sun to justify the latest naturalization law that was passed by their president? It reeks of principles, I’d say.

A couple of days ago, news of a naturalization decree signed by the president surfaced. The decree gave 350+ people the Lebanese nationality. Many of those people happen to be Arab businessmen. A few of those who were given the Lebanese nationality belong to the Maronite Diaspora attempt at reclaiming it for those of Lebanese origins.

The backlash has been swift. As have been the abhorrent defense of the decree by blind supporters of the political parties that brokered it. It even got to the point of an OTV reporter saying that the Lebanese nationality isn’t “that important” so we shouldn’t care.

In a way, she’s right. We have one of the world’s worst passports, worst economies, highest corruption rates, and horrid policies. I would know, I’ve been an emigrant from that country for nearly a year now and I can feel – day by day – how lacking my country is in every facet that I appreciate in being away. But that’s not the point.

The point is that our nationality should not be a mere business deal, given to whoever pays most money. It should not be a back room deal coming right at the heel of parliamentary elections, and it should definitely not be an article 49 in disguise, essentially bypassing Lebanon’s Supreme Court annulling such a decree from our national budget.

What makes this decree even worse is the fact that it has not been published anywhere, it’s the fact that piecing together the names of those who have been given the Lebanese nationality is essentially a puzzle, and that requests to get the full decree from the president’s office are finding deaf ears. If they have nothing to hide, then why are they working so hard at hiding it?

Some of the names that have been naturalized, according to Facebook posts circulating around, are entities that have been essential to the Syrian regime over the years.

Yes, there should be a path to citizenship for non-Lebanese. It is silly that the only way people can become citizens in this country is for a president to decide to make them so, or for them to be married to a Lebanese man or have a Lebanese father. There should be a way for a people who contributed to Lebanese society in a substantial way to be granted to have a way to become more integral parts of this society.

What this new decree does is further solidify the injustice that is ingrained in Lebanese society when it comes to the very foundation of it.

Any person born to a Lebanese mother can’t become Lebanese, but a Syrian nationalist that is loved by some politician can. My cousin’s children, for example, can never become Lebanese even though their mother is, just because their father is American. Our country shows us once again that money trumps our women.

In a time when the mere thought of a Lebanese woman becoming equal in passing her nationality as a Lebanese man is met with racism, sectarianism, and endless backlash from the ruling class, we show our women again and again that they don’t matter.

Furthermore, a person born and raised all their life in Lebanon to non-Lebanese parents can never become a citizen. But a business man from Jordan who needs the citizenship for possibly some financial purposes can. But yes, it’s all fairness and unicorns and happy thoughts.

It’s not about demographics. It doesn’t even matter how many of those naturalized are Christians, that is not the point. 400 people won’t cause a population change. But it’s the principle behind laws that are passed in the dead of the night, without appropriate scrutiny, revision, and assessment.

I hope the MPs and politicians that are against such a decree work on at least trying to block it. I’m looking at you Lebanese Forces and Kataeb blocs – you have enough MPs now (or at least one of you does) to do so.

Lebanese Government Launches Program Allowing Anyone With Lebanese Heritage To Claim Nationality, But Not The Children Of A Lebanese Woman

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Over the past few days, and in their attempt to reconnect the massive diaspora which has any relation to Lebanon back to their great-great-great grandfather’s home country, Lebanon’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants launched a new website (and an app) that allows anyone with a Lebanese forefather anywhere around the world to reclaim the Lebanese nationality.

It’s estimated that the diaspora with Lebanese origins includes approximately 7 million people in Brazil, 1.5 million in Argentina, half a million people in the United States and Colombia, among other countries.

If you go to the website (click), you’ll be greeted with all the hopeful messages about the high worth that the Lebanese citizenship bestows upon someone whose grandfather to the nth degree was Lebanese. Some random person “[remembers their] grandfather’s stories about Lebanon in the  summer – sunny days, warm nights family gatherings, singing, laughing…” because nothing says the right for nationality than to have someone enjoy a midsummer Lebanese night in Faraya.

The website is admittedly appealingly-built. You scroll down for 3 seconds and encounter a button to check whether you’re eligible or not. The eligibility criteria are as follows:

To the backdrop of a picture of a woman, you are told that you need to have a male relative be of Lebanese origins or be the wife of a Lebanese man.

In fact, to make it easier for foreigners to be tempted into trying out their luck, there’s a page which you can check to send in a request for the government to assess whether you’re eligible for the citizenship or not. In that page you’ll find requests for information going back to a great-great-great grandfather and some random uncle that you have. Grandfathers, not grandmothers. Uncles, not aunts. You’re also allowed to upload any data for further relations going way more back than that:

Of course, if you’re a woman of Lebanese heritage that doesn’t fit the patriarchal criteria, your best bet is to find a Lebanese man to marry. As you know, there are a ton of benefits involved in the Lebanese citizenship as detailed by that website.

I mean, they want to guarantee you your political rights, except you can’t vote because they won’t hold elections. They want you to be sure you can own as much land as possible, except you won’t be able to because of all the taxes they’ll throw your way. They want you to be sure you have the right for social security and benefits, except those barely work most of the time, and the list goes on.

To be honest, the only reason the Ministry wants you to become Lebanese again is to increase the number of Christians in the country and stabilize the demographic ratios again. They might as well just add a requirement for your religious background in there to stop fooling anyone.

It’s horrifying that a great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather is more relevant for someone’s nationality claim here than their actual Lebanese mother. Someone who’s a 10th generation Brazilian who has a grandfather from his father’s side who happened to be Lebanese has a claim to become a citizen, but not the children of any Lebanese woman if she marries a foreigner. Someone who has no idea where Lebanon is on a map but who happens to have a Lebanese great-great grandfather can now become a Lebanese citizen, but not the children of a woman who is an actual Lebanese woman.

I’m all for someone who has a rightful claim for the Lebanese citizenship to get it back. It is their constitutional right, after all. But what kind of rights are we talking about here when more half of our country can’t even be included in it? I didn’t know Lebanese nationalities were encoded in the genetic makeup of sperms but not ova.

This program isn’t a disgrace in itself. Our nationality laws are, and it’s high time they change – especially now that there’s a few million Brazilians, Columbians, Argentinians, and what have you, who have no clue what Lebanon is that can suddenly find themselves becoming Lebanese.

When Gebran Bassil’s Goons Don’t Understand Freedom of Speech

Breaking news: Gebran Bassil turned out to be yet another racist Lebanese politician. I have no idea how this piece of news was in any way a surprise, but over the past few days it’s almost the only thing people are talking about, apart from the fact that our phones now need Maps updates in order to skip the roads where garbage bags have started to take up lanes.

The details are as follows:

A few days ago, Gebran Bassil’s twitter account was quoting a speech he was giving in the United States to an audience of Lebanese expats ($10 says they’re voting for Trump in 49 days). In that speech, Bassil dropped the following:

The speech excerpts translate to:

  • I support giving Lebanese women who marry foreigners the right to pass on their nationality to their children but our constitution and societal fabrics don’t allow to give the Lebanese nationality to 400,000 Palestinians.
  • I support the law that allows Lebanese women to pass on their nationality to their children, with the exception of Syrians and Palestinians to maintain our land.

Of course, it has probably escaped Bassil in that moment that St. Maroun, after whom his sect was named, was Syrian and Jesus, after whom he prays, was Palestinian, but that’s besides the point. Certainly, however, Bassil wouldn’t have had a problem if those Syrians and Palestinians weren’t mostly Muslim. I wonder, how different would his statement have been had those refugees been mostly Christian like him? I can imagine him now, à la Oprah, distributing nationalities left and right: YOU ARE LEBANESE, YOU ARE LEBANESE, YOU AAAAAALL ARE LEBANESE!

Context to Bassil’s tweets, however, remains important. His statements do not come from void. They emanate from a public sentiment that has only managed to gain popularity over the past few years with around 2 million Syrians seeking refuge in Lebanon. Of course, as is the case with Lebanon’s statistics, numbers do not exist. But it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that Bassil’s speech is not at odds with what the prevalent majority of Christians believes to be true, and a sizable portion of Lebanon’s Muslim community.

Yet again, the sentiment in the aforementioned denominations arise from their incessant need for self-sectarian preservation and are devoid from any national affinity towards a more global Lebanese state. Either way, I digress.

The uproar towards Bassil’s statements has been deafening. Human Rights Watch issued a statement whereby they found what he said to be abhorrent, in contradiction to the international treaties that Lebanon has signed in regards to women rights, and shameful to come from the minister of foreign affairs who is, whether we like it or not, the face of Lebanon to the world. Sorry #LiveLoveBeirut, you’re not it.

A slew of tweets and Facebook posts criticizing Bassil were also widely circulated, of which the satirical Facebook page Adeela led the forefront with a bunch of posts addressing Bassil’s tweets:

Lebanese blogger Mahmoud Ghazayel had a tweet (now deleted) in which he corrected Bassil’s statement to this:

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So far so good, right? Except this didn’t remain as just a manifestation of Lebanese online degrees of freedom because before you knew it, the situation – thanks to massive reports by Bassil’s online henchmen – became as follows:

Every single post that criticized Bassil about his racist tweets was removed because of Facebook reports, while the social media platform never bothered to check for the background upon which those reports were being filed in the first place, or the statements being criticized to begin with.

As a result, if you try and say something negative about Bassil’s statements, thousands will end up putting you in Facebook jail for at least 24 hours because you somehow violated the terms of being on that website, by simply expressing an opinion.

Maybe it’s fear of  exposing how ridiculous Bassil’s proposition – even if echoed by many – is. Maybe it’s wanting to keep his image pristine in their eyes, albeit it being irrevocably damaged in the minds of many others. Maybe it’s them wanting to keep a semblance of pride.

What Bassil’s goons seem to fail to grasp is that with every post they manage to bring down, ten more will spring up in their place. As it is their right to believe and want to defend what Bassil said, it is the right of every other Lebanese who categorically and irrevocably disagrees to not only criticize but mock those statements until kingdom come, whether they like it or not.

As the stench of garbage and filth overtakes their nares in every cubic meter of air in Beirut, as they spend countless hours without electricity, as they pray for the heavens for internet to be fast enough to load the images in this post, as they debate whether to flush or not because water is scarce, let them have all of that pride and the politicians whose image they want to keep. Let them have their “holy” land, their “better-than-thou” attitude towards anyone and anything they deem lesser. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many Facebook reports are issued, common sense will prevail.

PS: Dear Facebook, re-assess yourself, why don’t you?