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The occupation of Lebanon by Syrian forces has resulted in a precarious state of pseudo-stability. Socialist Woman interviewed MAJIDA SALMAN, who has recently toured Britain speaking on the situation in Lebanon. We asked her to describe the position of women in the struggle, and what role the Revolutionary Communist Group [Lebanese section of the Fourth International] has played in raising women's issues in the struggle. 'I would like to explain the position of women in Lebanon as part of the condition of Arab women, who are probably the most oppressed women in the world - even when compared to women in underdeveloped capitalist countries like Latin America. The oppression of Arab women is very crude. In Lebanon you have to add to this the role that the country has played as an intermediary between imperialism and the Arab market. This has created a big layer of women who are secretaries, bank clerks and so on, which differentiates it from other Arab countries.
Of course this is also related to the religious divisions. There was a big difference between the mobilisation of Christian women and that of women in the resistance movement and in the Moslem neighbourhoods.
The mobilisation of Christian women can be seen as an aspect of the fascist and reactionary organisations relying on petty bourgeois women and using them as a tool in a reactionary way. The arming of women in the reactionary camp was stronger than it was in the anti-Phalangist camp.
The reason, firstly is that the situation of Christian women is better than that of Moslem women — you can compare it with the situation of women in Catholic countries. Christian women were the first to be mobilised because they can go out of their houses more easily. Also there was the policy of weakening the consciousness of women by playing on the fact that they have privileges. The Phalangists tried to give a feeling of superiority which is completely false — because in Lebanon there is no law on all the questions which affect women marriage, divorce, etc. It is the church law for the Christian women, and for the Moslems the Koran.
"God, country and family" was the device of the Phalangist party. Women were not struggling to change their situation, but were struggling for their oppression, for the strengthening of the reactionary bourgeois state.
In the anti-Phalangist camp the situation was different. Here, even if the participation of in the struggle was more difficult - due to the stronger oppression of women by the family tradition and the Moslem religion - it was understood as part of an anti-reactionary struggle, as a liberation struggle. Because politics were brought into every house, many women tried to participate in the struggle. But this was on an individual level, because there was no point raised in the programme of the progressive front on the question of women. The Stalinist and nationalist organisations never dealt with the most elementary democratic questions of women, like the separation of church law or Moslem law from the civil law.
But because of the general upsurge, women tried to participate, first through the traditional roles of women - hospitals, cooking and so on. Although this obviously did not change the position of women it permitted them to go out from their houses. Going to a hospital was easier than going to fight, especially if you consider that in the majority of the nationalist organisations the headquarters were mainly male. It was difficult for women to fight all the traditions of the family and enter them.
There were only political organisations to integrate women. Because of the lack of organisation in the neighbourhoods, women were not integrated on the level of solving the problem of the neighbourhoods. And, as their position was secondary on every social
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level before the civil war, it was very difficult for them to make this jump during the war.