- The Observer
34 25.08.19 World
said Salam. “For me it’s about iden-
tity; for them it’s about power. They
worry they are going to lose people
who go for a civil marriage.
“Removing reference to sect [from
marriage papers] is about redefi ning
the relationship between citizen and
state, to create a new modern social
reality. There needs to be space for
seculars, liberals and a civil soci-
ety. This is really a chance to create
a real form of citizenship. The time
has come for Lebanese to mobi-
lise, to the extent that we can do it.
The message is that we can stand up
for something.”
Salam gave legal advice to the fi rst
couple to attempt a civil marriage
inside Lebanon in 2013. After a delay,
the marriage was eventually regis-
tered, as were 12 subsequent locally
held civil ceremonies – all of them
low-key, making little attempt to cre-
ate a visible precedent.
The spectacle of his own wedding,
and the messages of social activism
the couple readily promote, made
this more of a test case – a watershed
moment for a state that continues to
wrestle with issues of sovereignty
and identity.
“There have been two judicial opin-
ions reaffi rming that it is clearly legal
to register a civil marriage here,” said
Abi-Nassif. “I don’t want to be pessi-
mistic. If people are willing to make
sacrifi ces to build a better Lebanon,
it is possible.”
The couple are appealing to
Lebanon’s interior minister , Raya a l-
Hassan, to break the deadlock. So far,
she and almost all other political lead-
ers have refused to weigh in.
“That the first female interior
minister in the Arab world is reluc-
tant to apply the law is disappoint-
ing,” said Abi-Nassif. “It is the bare
minimum she could do. And as a
woman, I believe it doesn’t serve the
country well.”In June this year a young Lebanese
couple, Abdallah Salam and Marie-
Joe Abi-Nassif , got married. They held
their nuptials in the garden of a Beirut
manor in front of a small Lebanese
fl ag. Family and friends bore witness
to their vows.
And that’s how the bride and groom
wanted it: a wedding sanctioned by
the state, not by religious authorities.
Theirs was one of the few civil mar-
riages attempted in Lebanon – where
the simple act of getting married has
long been a refl ection of the country’s
social and sectarian fault lines.
Salam, 32, a Sunni Muslim, and
Abi-Nassif, 30, a Christian, had hoped
that they could fi nally break with a
social code that made holding a non-
religious marriage a fraught prop-
osition – and meant those wanting
one needed to travel abroad. But two
months later their marriage has yet
to be registered by the interior minis-
They said ‘I do’ – so why won’t
Lebanon accept they are married?
The state’s failure to
ratify a high-profi le
civil union calls into
question its authority
over faith groups that
still hold decisive roles
try, which – along with Lebanese reli-
gious institutions – has maintained a
deathly silence.
The couple’s attempt to change the
accommodation between citizen and
the Lebanese state has stalled, expos-
ing glaring gaps between the state’s
declared intentions and what it is
actually willing to do. Successive lead-
ers have vowed to give space to both
secular and religious people, to lib-
erals and devout conservatives , and
promised that, nearly 30 years after a
devastating civil war, central govern-
ment can assert it s will over the feu-
dal lords and fi efdoms that still play a
decisive role in the country’s affairs.
“We want Lebanon to be a coun-
try for all people with equality before
the law, free of the archaic and con-
fessional laws and religious tribu-
nals that apply at the moment,” said
Abi-Nassif. “We really don’t exist as
citizens – just members of groups.
It feels like the state has completely
subjugated its sovereignty.”
In March last year, she gave up
her job as a Manhattan lawyer and
embarked on a career as an operaThe wedding of
Abdallah Salam,
a Sunni, and
Christian Marie-
Joe Abi-Nassif.
Photograph by
Ufuk SarisenInterior minister
Raya al-Hassan
has failed to
intervene in the
marriage case.Martin
Chulov
Beirutsinger. She has sung in Carnegie Hall
and around Europe, and performed
with the Lebanese Philharmonic
Orchestra. Both she and Salam, a
New York lawyer and the son of the
former Lebanese ambassador to the
U N , Nawaf Salam , come from well-
known families – a fact that has
given prominence to the message
behind their marriage, and caused
awkward moments for the country’s
ruling class.
“We come from families who
served the country in one way or
another,” she said. “My father was a
general who served in all Lebanon’s
wars since independence. We have
had insti lled in us a lot of patriotism
and we wanted to serve our coun-
try on a social level. I hope it breaks
some of the unbearable hypocrisy of
the system. If a civil marriage could
be done abroad and registered in fi ve
minutes, it could be done here too.”‘We want Lebanon to
be a country for all
people. It feels like the
state has subjugated
its sovereignty’
Marie-Joe Abi-Nassif
Abi-Nassif added: “This has noth-
ing to do with our faiths. We are not
against religious marriages.”
Travel agencies across Lebanon do
a brisk trade in marriage packages to
nearby Cyprus, where couples, often
from different sects, regularly go to
wed. Their marriages are registered
by Lebanese authorities without fuss
and the arrangement has long been
seen as an acceptable alternative to
trying such a thing at home.
In Lebanon, religious institutions
have a powerful voice in the affairs
of state and in the way people live. A
system devised in the aftermath of
the civil war apportions state posi-
tions on the basis of sect, and critics
say this has consolidated sectarian-
ism and re duced the notion of citi-
zenship to an aspiration.
“The reason why the religious
establishments are against it is that
it breaks down their power base,”