On Tuesday, I viewed the acclaimed documentary series, The Arab Diaries, and obtained an interesting perspective on the intimate lives of people in the Arab world. Following several different people, the film explores the question of love in the face of strict religious tradition. For example, one of the people examined by the film was Marita, a mid-forties Lebanese woman who had met the love of her life when she was younger, during the Lebanese civil war. Marita says that their love for each other was strong, but there was just one problem: she was a Christian and he was a Muslim. Ultimately, they would be torn apart by their differences in a society that was not willing nor able to nurture an interfaith marriage. Similarly, the documentary looks at a modern young couple, Lama and Fouad, who have the same problem: she is a Muslim and he is a Christian. They wished to get married and their families were willing to accept that, however they kept urging the young couple to leave the country in order to do so. The couple stated how ridiculous it was that they had to go to such measures to move forward with their relationship but ultimately ended up leaving Lebanon for America.
The clearly shows how the traditions of our beliefs can influence, prevent, or even just contradict our natural feelings as human beings. The unfortunate situations cited above have been difficult on the parties involved but it just doesn’t seem warranted. Perhaps that’s my American, seperation of church and state up-bringing, but I just always felt that love and faith could be mutually exclusive if you wanted them to be. However, this belief is naive, as the Middle East, in many areas, is not prepared to give up on their traditions and the social taboo of interfaith marriage. It does seem tragic though…
