by NEIL SINGH and SAWSAN ABDULRAHIM
Actress Salma Hayek PHOTO/Wikipedia
Last month, Salma Hayek visited Lebanon to promote the world premiere of The Prophet, the new animated film based on the poetry of Khalil Gibran. It was her first ever visit to the country. The Lebanese greeted her with open arms as a long-lost daughter. The visit culminated with the rumor that Hayek had been offered Lebanese citizenship.
The gesture is not surprising in and of itself. Lebanese citizenship is transmitted through paternal blood and Hayek’s paternal Grandfather was Lebanese. But is Hayek, who calls herself a feminist, aware that accepting the citizenship betrays Lebanese women who have been fighting in vain for decades for equal citizenship rights? Does Hayek know that Lebanese women are denied the right to pass on their citizenship to their children of non-Lebanese fathers? The actress who brought to life the passion and strength of feminist artist Frida Kahlo, who has spoken out repeatedly against gender inequality, and who has donated to shelters for victims of domestic violence, should renounce Lebanese citizenship—if only to use her position and fame to make a statement against Lebanon’s patriarchal citizenship laws.
On the surface, Lebanon seems to be a progressive country compared to some of its neighbors. However, when it comes to some critical indicators of gender equality—such as gender wage differentials or the proportion of women in political office—it ranks low compared to other countries. Perhaps Hayek does not know that Lebanon is one of a handful of countries in the Arab world that completely denies women the right to transfer citizenship to their children of non-Lebanese fathers. Presumably, this will affect her as well; she too will be unable to pass on her newly-granted Lebanese citizenship to her daughter, just because she is a woman.
For Hayek, such an honorary citizenship is little more than cosmetic; because she also holds Mexican and US nationalities, Lebanese citizenship (or the lack thereof) will not change her life or the life of her children. But for tens of thousands of Lebanese women, the inability to pass citizenship to their children has very real and lasting consequences, such as lack of access to basic public services, having to renew their children’s residency permits (known as Iqamas), and the constant fear of separation. By marrying a non-Lebanese man, Lebanese women have all citizenship-based rights—including social services, education, healthcare, and welfare services—denied to their ‘alien’ children.
The crux of the matter rests on a contradiction between the Lebanese Constitution and the Lebanese Nationality Code. On the one hand, Article 7 of the Lebanese Constitution states: “all Lebanese are equal under the law, they enjoy equality in civil and political rights and they assume duties and responsibilities without any difference between them”. On the other hand, Article 1 of the Lebanese Nationality Code states that you only class as Lebanese if you are a “person born to a Lebanese father”. Having a Lebanese mother is not good enough. This bifurcated citizenship legislation implies that Lebanese women are not full citizens in themselves, but merely vessels for their husbands’ personhood. Lebanese women can only accept, and never accord citizenship. Lebanese citizenship passes from father to child without attaching to the mother.
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