Bareed Mista3jil

The Meem publication "Bareed Mista3jil" about the LGBT community in Lebanon is quite progressive and interesting. To my surprise, it was also informative in a sense. When I started reading it, I didn't think I would enjoy it as a narration but some of the stories did touch me. The stories are also well written and fun to read. The tone of the stories fluctuates between sad, angry, sarcastic, to serious, sermonic, or cheerful but always witty. The writers did a great job humanizing the stories although, as is always the case in Lebanon, they had to make a point in saying that lesbianism equally exists among the different societies, religions, educational levels, and classes. Who would argue otherwise? But I wasn't annoyed by that as I would usually be because it was interesting to learn how people from different backgrounds reacted and dealt with it and because at the end you would come up with the conclusion that there is no rule. As much as I agree that on top of all this is an issue of rights, I cannot dissociate it from the general violation of all sorts of rights in Lebanon. Rights for me come as a package and not in droplets. Let's face it, practically speaking a lesbian in Lebanon has the space and room to enjoy her sexual freedoms much more than a single (i.e. unmarried) heterosexual female (of course not without legal consequences). The problem is not restricted to discrimination and tolerance. It is a problem of freedoms and rights. Of ignorance.