Interreligious Dating

We were on a double date of sorts, walking around the Bab Touma neighborhood outside the old city and enjoying the Good Friday festivities. I slept through last week's Western Easter, though I could hear the merrymaking and bands.

We saw a bit of a parade, with a drumline, scout-like uniforms, and a giant paper-mache Jesus on a paper-mache rock, but left before the stage show because of the pressing crowd. It was packed on the street in front of the church, the kind of crowd where moving more than your neck was impossible, and waves of pushing with no discernible source swept through us.

After we extracted ourselves from the crowd with great difficulty, the other woman's mom called. I was instructed to go say something so the mom could overhear and rest assured that her daughter was hanging with the fairer sex. I ran over and said, "Hey! Where are we going now?" She looked at me quizzically. When she hung up I apologized, telling her the boys had sent me over so her mom though she was hanging with girls.

"Oh, she doesn't care that if there's boys, just that we're all Christian."

Earlier, the two boys and me had met up with her and some friends. "Don't mention anything about us being not Christian to her friends" her boyfriend whispered as we approached.

We were out late, until one, and took a taxi back to Jeramana. After we let her boyfriend out, mine turned to me and said, "It's sad. Their relationship can go nowhere."

It reminded me of the matchmaking I had done for some friends. "He's cute, he's educated... he's Druze."
"He's Druze! When can I meet him?"

Or remarks when two friends start dating: "Oh, and they're both Christian. Awesome."
Or sympathizing with a friend when she couldn't date a boy she really like cause it wouldn't go anywhere. "He's X. It's impossible." Or a Christian friend who eloped with a Muslim man. Her parents still won't talk to her. She called on Christmas and they wouldn't answer.

Not that it doesn't happen. Last summer an Alawi friend's relative married a Sunni Muslim woman. He reported that her family didn't seem that happy with all the booze at the wedding. But for every married interreligious couple I know, there must be 10 thwarted relationships, if not by the law, then by parents.

Not that this is a Syrian phenomenon: I know American couples who had to convert from one branch of Christianity to another in order to appease some parents, and a friend who was disowned for marrying a Muslim.

Hasan and Marqus

I saw the new Adel Imam film "Hasan wMarqus" last night. I ran into Manar, who had been negotiated a late curfew by having her company be her brother's friend and his sister. We decided to catch a film at Cham Cinema.

We all liked the film. It dealt with relations between Christians and Muslims in Egypt, but was not ponderous or serious. Adel Imam plays a Coptic priest named Boulos (Paul) who is threatened by terrorists so the government sends him and his entire family into hiding as Muslims and changes his name to Hasan.

Meanwhile, a skeikh whose brother was leader of some sort of Islamist terrorist group turns down leadership and derides the movement, leading them to firebomb his house. So he and his family also go into hiding as Christians and his name is changed to Marqus.

The two families end up living across from one another. The fathers become business partners and their college-age kids fall in love, each thinking the other is of their religion. Since Adel Imam's son (real son as well) is thought to be a Muslim, and the sheikh's daughter is thought to be a Muslim, they can go out.

It was intersting because there was a notable progression of animosity. At the beginning, at a religious understanding-type conference, Muslim and Christian clerics whisper among themselves. "We have no power!" the Christians complain, "Look how few ministers we have!" Meanwhile the Muslims complain, "How often do you see a Christian begger?" Everyone in the audience laughed at that, "It's so true!" my friends next to me said.

The animosity builds into a full-out religious riot by the end, but not before much hilarity ensues. In their guise as Muslims, Adel Imam and his son must pretend to pray and are even called upon to give a religious lesson. The son responds to these invitations to pray by fainting. The son also is asked to be a candidate in student government for some Muslim student association, a request he responds to by turning and running. The sheikh pretending to be Christian has it much easier: when visited by a bunch of priests, he can claim ignorance about some of the finer points of worship by saying he had been living in America for many years. The priests understand, because irreligiousity is widespread in America and will infect even the most devout of Coptics.

The two families discover each others' secret when the love-sick kids confess their religions, each thinking the other will be happy.
"I'm Christian, like you!" says the boy.
The girl's face squinches up. "No!" she yells. "I'm Muslima!... Muslima!" She runs away.

Tension builds in the apartment and two families no longer talk. But a fire during that religious riot reunites them and they walk, Muslims and Christians, holding hands, through the fray. Together. Because in the end, we are all Egyptians!

One issue that is not addressed at the end is what's going to happen to the kids' romance. The son, now Christian, cannot marry the girl, now Muslim. That's illegal in Egypt (and Syria) though not the other way around. There's no way the son would convert because he's portrayed as very devoted to his Christian faith.

But despite this oversight, the film is good and it's probably a good time for it considering the tension between Muslims and Christians that have been building in some areas of Egypt.

After the film, my friends agreed that this kind of thing was not possible in Syria. "I've never heard anyone talk like that!" Tariq said people in Syria are scared to talk like that, against other religions. We don't want fitna."
"Look at Iraq!" someone said.

The film was also good in that it finally allowed me to refute crash. One of my friends in attendance has long harangued me about racism in America. Exhibit A is the film Crash. And Bringing Down the House. I tried to explain at the time that these films were exaggerations, hightened to make a point. "Why would they try to make themselves look worse?"

Throughout the film, this same friend criticized the extent of animosity, "It's not like this!" and "It's not this bad!" Afterwards, I asked if relations between Christians and Muslims are like this. "No! It's an exaggeration!"
"Like Crash!" I said. I think he finally got it.

Muslims are Similar to American Anti-Contraception Pharmacists

In the current Pharmacists-for-Life controversy in the States, on a group of pharmacists who refuse to sell birth control, some writers like to make analogies to show just how crazy these pharmacists are and how wrong it is for them to shove their beliefs down others' throats. And guess who is a great analogy for that? Muslims! And racists, naturally.

I usually like this blog, because they write some posts on international reproductive health, but I was not a big fan of this recent post from Reproductive Health Reality Check:

If a pharmacist refused to fill out a Viagra prescription for a black man he saw walking around with his white wife, we would have no problem seeing this behavior as bigotry, even if said pharmacist claimed that Jesus told him to do it. But if a pharmacist refuses to sell birth control pills to a woman who isn't wearing a wedding band, somehow that's legitimate religious expression, even though his rights are extending well past her nose. If Muslim pharmacists started refusing to fill out prescriptions for Christians because those Christians don't share their beliefs, we would have no problem seeing that the religious freedom pinched was that of the customer's, not the pharmacists.

Because you know that's a part of Islam: refusing to give medicine to Christians. What? Sorry, where did you pull that out of?

Earlier post from the same blog:

If, however, we're going to let everyone's political beliefs or religious enthusiasms govern our important life decisions, then we must allow that any political or religious convictions can hold sway. In this case, why not permit a Muslim fundamentalist pharmacist to simply put up a sign politely explaining that his religious beliefs require him to deny a woman's prescription for any medication? No doubt Aryan pharmacists have a belief system too. Why should they be forced to violate their dearly held beliefs and serve blacks?

Because Muslims hate women? I think I remember hearing that sura, in which antibiotics and allergy medication are denied to women. It's a core religious conviction in Islam.

From Feministe:

What happens if next, pharmacists or doctors refuse to serve non-Christians? Or if it comes back to bite them in the ass when, say, a conservative male Muslim paramedic refuses to touch women? Or if religious doctors and pharmacists decide that STDs are appropriate punishments for the sexually active and refuse to fill prescriptions for treatment medicine? Or if a paramedic or doctor refuses to deliver the baby of an unmarried woman?

Cause Muslim men never touch women, and Muslim doctors don't perform thousands of procedures everyday on women. If any man did have qualms about touching women, I doubt he would become a paramedic, which I think is the point of this post: don't become a pharmacist if you can't do the freaking job.

I understand why Muslims are getting thrown into the mix, alongside Aryans (do they mean Iranians and northern Indians?) and racists. It's an attempt to expose the hypocrisy of these right-wing movements, that are all for respecting religion as long as that religion is Christianity. But claiming Muslims would deny medicine to Chrisitans or to women, is smearing Muslims based on common stereotypes:
1) that Muslims hate Christians
2) that Muslims hate women, I mean, they must since they veil them and don't let them drive and don't let them get an education and... 60 other misconceptions people have about Muslim women.

There are other analogies that could be made, such as an orthodox Jew refusing to give out condoms (according to some Talmudic interpretations, birth control is allowed for women but not for men, so pill in, condom out), but of course Jews just aren't as scary as Muslims.

Later in the Feministe post, I think they did a better job with analogy:

Wingers were all up in arms about the Somali women who wanted to wear more traditional clothing to work (even though they were still doing their jobs) and the Muslim cab drivers who wouldn’t pick up passengers who had alcohol on them, but if it’s fundamentalist Christianity that’s an excuse for not doing what you were hired to do, and if it’s women you’re refusing to help, then it’s a-ok.

This exposes the hypocrisy of the right, eager to defend the right of Christians lock-step with their views to exercise their religious views, but quick to lambast Muslims for the same. And this features actual events where Muslims felt that some aspect of their job and their beliefs were at odds, not random hypothetical that accuse Muslims of hating Christians and women. When, from personal experience, I know many who are very fond of both, especially the combination. Oohh!

Being Christian

can get a little annoying when you are not actually Christian. Athiesm is a cultural no-no in the Arab World, where any faith (even Jews: as my family likes to tell me over and over again they don't like the Zionists, but they love the Jews. "We used to have Jews" they say sadly, before America pressured Syria into making their Jews go live in America) is better than no faith.

So except with very good friends, I am a Christian. Catholic, to be exact. It's rather easy to remember who I've told what to, as those who ask are usually those who it's just easier to lie to. This is rarely onerous, as few people get into the nitty gritty of faith. But for those who do, it's lucky that I once was very Catholic, so that I can convincingly pretend to believe. Plus, playing Christian leads people to rethink their views of a irreligious US, because in truth were I to be an "average American" I would be Christian, though I probably wouldn't travel to Syria.

But with my family and my private teacher Ibrahim sometimes I regret having told them the Lie because of how often I have to check myself and say things as if I were actually Christian. With Ibrahim this isn't such a big deal, especially now that we don't do much conversation (I now get enough of that from Life). But with the family this comes up a lot.

I especially hate getting quizzed by Abu Mazen, i.e. "How old was Jesus when he died?"
"33."
"Bravo!"
Or lectured by Abu Mazen. I have so far endured the Bible/Qur'an stories of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Soloman, and others. When I attempt to speed up these recounts by filling in the details, Abu Mazen always, always acts surprised. Honestly, as a Christian why is it surprising that I know the story of the Messiah? The other night my family complemented me on being muthaqifa (cultured). "You know about politics, science, history, religion!" Thanks, but as the Catholic I say I am, the last part really shouldn't be all that surprising.

Sometimes I'm lecured on Islam, and the knowledge I have on this is also apparently astounding, but this is more understandable. But still, I get to hear how the Qur'an tells people to be clean, for example you can't enter into a mosque unless you washed and you can't pray until after absolutions, and women can't enter a mosque on their period, but don't get them wrong, "the Christians here are also very clean people, and good. They also cover their heads when they go to church." I told them that you don't have to be physicially clean to enter a church, but you have to be mentally clean (ol' State of Grace) to receive communion. But, you know, we do shower out of common sense and all that. They were shocked when I told told them that women on their period are allowed to go to church. "The Christians here don't do that," Um Mazen said somewhat disapprovingly, perhaps imagining a libertine West in which women are allowed to pray while bleeding out of the vagina.

I really hope the family looks to my frequent flossing and not the admittedly scattered state of my room to judge my cleanliness.