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Maya Mikdashi
A Legal Guide to Being a Lebanese Woman (Part 1)
![[Chart of Sex Based Differentiation in Lebanese law; Chart by Maya Mikdashi]](/content_images/3/sm_Law_Page_1.jpg "[Chart of Sex Based Differentiation in Lebanese law; Chart by Maya Mikdashi]")
For the past four years I have been researching the histories and the applications of the Lebanese legal system. An understanding of this legal system, which is the architecture of the Lebanese state, has been vital to my dissertation. I have spent thousands of hours poring over legal texts and legal histories, putting together the puzzle of how, when, and why laws are promulgated, amended, and put into practice in Lebanon. I have met with countless lawyers, judges, ...
Keep Reading »Things To Do On Lebanese Independance Day + Arabic Translation
![[Martyr's Square: Image from NOW LEBANON]](/content_images/3/sm_martyrs-square-112207050931.jpg "[Martyr's Square: Image from NOW LEBANON]")
Drive from Saifi Village to Hayy al Sullum or Naba`a, marvel at the miracles of capitalism and Lebanon’s constitutionally protected free market economy. Watch a few pilots from the Lebanese Air Force put on a show in the sky, feel safer knowing that if the IDF is also watching, they are sure to be too afraid to continue violating Lebanese airspace on an almost daily basis. Take a walk in casual clothes through what used to be a bustling souk but is now luxurious downtown ...
Keep Reading »Thanksgiving In Beirut
![[Mass Grave at the Massacre of Wounded Knee: Image from Wikipedia, Indian Costume: Costumes Galore]](/content_images/3/sm_Picture8.png "[Mass Grave at the Massacre of Wounded Knee: Image from Wikipedia, Indian Costume: Costumes Galore]")
On November 24, people from across the United States will gather with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving. They will travel (on the busiest travel day of the year), they will eat turkey and pumpkin pie, and they will shop at the orgiastic sales that are a fixture of what is perhaps the most widely celebrated holiday in the USA. Like all ideologically inflected nationalist myths, holidays such as Thanksgiving or Columbus Day both commemorate and mask the histories of ...
Keep Reading »Gynecology, Honor, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
![[Lead Investigator of the STL D.A Bellmare: Image from Unknown Archive, Female Reproductive System: McGraw Hill Companies]](/content_images/3/sm_Picture6.png "[Lead Investigator of the STL D.A Bellmare: Image from Unknown Archive, Female Reproductive System: McGraw Hill Companies]")
Last week Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech on honor. However, this speech was not about the honor of resisting occupation or the honor of the Palestinian cause. The Sayyed’s speech, rather, focused on how the Special Tribunal For Lebanon had threatened the honor of Lebanese citizens by requesting gynecological files from a women’s clinic in the southern suburbs of Beirut. The day before, when the STL investigators arrived at the women’s health clinic, a group of women ...
Keep Reading »Top Ten List: What to Expect From Ahmadinejad’s Visit to Lebanon (+ Arabic Translation)
![[Image From Unknown Archive: President Ahmadinejad]](/content_images/3/sm_Ahmadinejad.jpg "[Image From Unknown Archive: President Ahmadinejad]")
[Update: See Arabic translation below . . . by popular demand!] 10- Upon hearing Ahmadinejad’s footsteps in Lebanon, Ariel “Arik” Sharon rises from his coma long enough to learn that Iran is still on the road to becoming the second country in the Middle East to have a nuclear weapon after Israel. He has another stroke. Round two for Ahmadinejad. 9-Upon meeting Ahmadinejad at a fundraiser for Hezbollah, Lebanese-American Miss USA 2010 Rima Faqih assassinates him, flies back ...
Keep Reading »Good Morning Palestine
For four days last week, I drank my morning coffee while gazing at Palestine. I was spending the weekend with friends at a house in a border village between Lebanon and what is now the State of Israel. Every morning, I walked from the bed I was sleeping in, to the kitchen to make a cup a coffee, then out onto the balcony where there was a cool breeze. The village is old, its remaining permanent inhabitants are mostly old, but its roads are new. The asphalt is still black in ...
Keep Reading »An Archive of Perversion; 1966 and a Desire to Criminalize
On Friday I was at the library of the Lebanese Syndicate of Lawyers (Bayt al Muhaami), where I have conducted much of the archival research related to my dissertation. As I was researching decisions made by the Ministry of Justice's advisory body regarding religious conversion, I came across an advisory opinion issued by Hay'at al Tashri` wa'l-Istisharat in 1966 in response to an inquiry made by then Prime Minister Rashid Karami. The Hay'at al Tishree` Wa Al Istisharat is ...
Keep Reading »At The Beach With Nancy Ajram
A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting next to Nancy Ajram at a beach/restaurant in Batroun-a lazy town in the north of Lebanon. No, not the Nancy Ajram, star of the stage, Melody TV, and many a teenage boy’s fantasy. I was sitting next to an attempt at Nancy, an approximation of her or rather, a mold of her made of plasticized flesh. My friends and I had gone to a restaurant that is situated inside a hollowed out rock cove in the sea. There are caves lining the cove that ...
Keep Reading »Burn Baby Burn
![[Image from unknown archive--Protest in Beirut]](/content_images/3/sm_lebanonprotestsbeirut070508.jpg "[Image from unknown archive--Protest in Beirut]")
I have been thinking a lot about electricity. A couple of nights ago, I spent 24 hours without it. At ten pm the lights went out, and they did not come back on until the next evening. With the lights went the air conditioner, the television, the refrigerator, the internet, the fan, my stove, and finally, my computer and my telephone. That night, I put a puzzle together by candlelight, opened all my windows, sat naked on my couch, and re-learned the value of a summer breeze. ...
Keep Reading »What is Good Sex?
![[Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_sex-what-do-you-think-3.jpg "[Image from unknown archive]")
I am sure we all have our own answers to this question. While I can only imagine how interesting these answers may be, the answer according to the Lebanese state (or any other state) is much more complicated. This answer is refracted and expressed through various mediums, including the law. One way to understand what "good sex" is according to the Lebanese state is to study the way that sex is regulated in the Lebanese legal system. In order to do this, ...
Keep Reading »Bio
Maya Mikdashi is a PhD candidate at Columbia University's Department of Anthropology and Co-Director of the documentary film About Baghdad. Maya is currently a Faculty Fellow and Director of Graduate Studies at the NYU Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies. She is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine.
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