Archive for April 1st, 2011
Mona Fayyad did just that in Lebanon: You have the right to delete religious affiliation from official documents
Posted by: adonis49 on: April 1, 2011
Lebanon: You have the right to delete religious affiliation from official documents. That’s what Mona Fayyad did.
I suggested in a previous article that we have the right, of a recent obscure and neglected law, to applying for the deletion of our religious affiliation from all our official documents, particularly from our personal status document (Ehkraj Kayd). https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/youth-movement-in-lebanon-infiltrated-by-ready-made-ideological-programs/
That is what Mona Fayyad did.
Mona described the procedure as she decided to delete this information from her official documents. She wrote in the daily Al Nahar, this Friday April 1st, and I doubt it is one of April’s Foul trick: “I visited the proper department in the ministry of interior. I submitted the application to two idle employees. They could not believe their eyes and claimed that no one ever submitted such a request. They hollered to the remaining employees if anyone know something on the matter. One employee said that Wafiq is the one specialized in that domain.
Wafiq read the four-page application and was not pleased (I guess he feared official scorn from the department). Wafiq asked me to ratify my demand from the Mouhktar (elected official of the town) of my hometown and to verify my signature.
I visited the Mohktar and he was not pleased either, but he did his job. I went back to the “individual status department” and submitted all my documents. Wafiq demanded two official stamps. Someone in the office was kind enough to sell me two stamps. Wafiq told me that the deletion of my religious affiliation will be done in two days.”
We are waiting for Mona confirmation that what was promised is done.
I suggested that the youth movement shoulder a pragmatic program of starting a mass drive, for willing citizens, to officially applying to the deletion of their religious affiliation as registered by the 18 recognized sects. First step first.
For example, although any person could request that his religion should not be mentioned on an official document, the movement as a force should undertake a campaign of enlisting citizens to changing their official documents.
The Lebanese youth movement for changing the sectarian political system is asked to initiate a practical drive and have thousands of citizens effectively do what they are demanding. The movement must take the citizens by the hand, literally, and nudge them to the many official steps required. Vans should be provided, helping filling the application, visiting with mokhtars, buying the stamps, and landing at the proper department. That what is most urgent doing to get wide visibility and appreciation of the seriousness of the movement.
Let the Mona Fayyad bold and determined step be our guiding rod to victory.
The youth movement should pressure the government and the Parliament to officially generalize and automatically drop religious affiliation from documents, as a law.
He is 94 years old and still kicking, engaged, and totally outraged. Stephane Hessel wrote several books, the latest is “Ten steps into the new century” when he was over 80 of age.
Hessel collected the opinions of ten engaged experts in many fields, spanning from global economy, global warming, social inequalities and injustices, reflecting on alternatives for world community solidarity, sustainable development, economic aids and programs to the least developed countries, creating and encouraging formation of civic organizations around the world, involvement in this troubled world, changes in political structures and financial capitalist systems…
The question was: “What should be tomorrow the politics of France, if France wants to participate in the building of newer solidarity that the new century is demanding?”
The purpose of the book was to propose concrete ideas and programs to the new President of France, due in 2002. The propositions were ready to be disseminated and discussed publicly when the Twin Tower tragedy hit.
On the morning of September 11, Hessel was meeting with President of Slovenia, Milan Kucan. Kucan was determined to pulling off his idea of the “College of wise men”, a gathering of peace Nobel laureates and renowned personalities whose opinions can make a difference on the global scene. The UN and the Gallup International agency were contributing in setting up this famous college.
For decades, Hessel militated within the UN and French Administrations toward a cohesive and efficient Cooperation programs among State ministries for developing the poorest countries. It is to be noted that most of the least developed States (around 50 and increasing) are francophone and located in western Africa, colonized by and under French mandated power for a century.
France have not be treating the people in the newly independent States as mature and ready to take on the responsibilities of independent nations. Hessel had suggested to dispatch successive missions on locations in oder to listen and dialogue with the populations on what they expect from France and the developed nations.
The conference North-South of 1975, convoked by President Valery D’ Estaing was a failure. In 1981, the French ministry of Cooperation was to be integrated in the ministry of Foreign Affairs. France was aligning with the “Washington Consensus” that forced poor States to open up their markets to foreign goods and finance: Depriving these States from developing their own potentials. Another report was submitted in 1990 but President Mitterrand was not agreeable to it.
The new generation, with access to ready information, is asked to get engaged massively in solidarity with the dispossessed people. Networks of associative movements in their diversities and complexities have clear-cut principles: Giving priority to justice, equity, participation, democratic inclusion of all minorities, refusing physical and moral oppression, fighting super-privilege classes, and putting a brake on wasteful productions.
The new “hydraulic” system of connections by youth movements can move mountains and depose dictators, absolute monarchs, and oligarchic regimes. The energy deployed by tsunami of wrath is insurmountable and cannot be controlled by apathetic, amoral technocratic institutions.
The spirit of Hessel must be more at peace now: The determined and victorious Arab mass uprisings have confirmed that human rights are priority, indivisible, and universal. Human rights as defined by the Charters of the UN, rights to life, opportunities, education, health, security, freedom of expressions, freedom to gather, to discuss, to organize…Rights not to be discriminated against in genders, race, language, ethnicity…
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