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51.8%ANMag Issue 22 Public Surveillance
The Month of Cleansing or Conflict?
By Hanin Ababneh, Staff Writer
Beirut, Lebanon − Streets empty, cars parked neatly in their driveways, and the serene-yet-firm sound booms through the atmosphere “Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar”. Ramadan has filled the hearts and minds of the Muslim world and enveloped its ambience. Stop. Wait a minute! Walking down an ambushed street, dodging cars, people and the infamous scooters, I look around to realize that this serene picture of a once-resounding reality has indeed evaporated, to instead create a chaos of disregard and disrespect. As we move gracefully into the twenty-first century, I realize that Ramadan has been disfigured from a once well-respected and obeyed carnival of celebration tradition to one that is given very little regard in general. Yet, we must be able to realize that the picture depicted is not one of fantasy, yet one reflecting a once reality − one not that far from us.
Ramadan ceases to be solely a practice of the faith of Islam; it also shows the tolerance we Arabs have towards each other. By being able to respect this holy month and that of Lent and other religious periods within Christianity and Islam, we are able to show each other that we are indeed capable of accepting the difference we have for one another no matter who or where we are. It is critical that we recognize one another’s differences and embrace them in order to visualize a change in society, and Ramadan stands as the cornerstone to this progress. With the clash of interests, the collision in the definition of democracy and the battle for characterization of religion in politics, it is all vastly apparent in the Arab world that a sense of respect among the masses is widely called for. Religion, in a social light, is a fundamental aspect of the common Arab man. A fact culturally embedded into us through tradition, it is necessary that we respect such a pivotal point within each other’s lives in order to tolerate each other − something we are not yet capable of doing.
With this, I must add that it saddens me that we, as a nation, must have our governments ban food and drink off of the streets for us to be able to respect − or at least recognize − one another. In the Gulf and selected parts of the Levant, food and drink on the streets before ‘iftar’ is forbidden and will be punished with time in jail. It is disappointing that these rules need be implied in the twenty-first century for us to be able to acknowledge one another’s differences and variation. As we clearly become a working hand in the international community and an active member of the global village, it shocks me that we still have not yet grasped the basic concepts of civilization.
In conclusion, I would like to clarify that my argument does not solely rest on that of the attitude towards Ramadan; it is actually targeted at the ill-fated approach we have in this region towards the differences between each other. Ramadan merely stands as the eye-opener, and we need to realize that our conflicts have deeper origins that we care to look into. More importantly to realize is that these origins rest within ourselves and are indeed not the results of foreign implantation of views, something we have so grown accustomed to blaming our misfortunes on.