The Syrian society proved stronger than obscurant ideologies that tried and still to drag it to tiny patriarchal sectarian states.

Young Syrians who mobilized themselves voluntarily recently against the first draft and succeeded in forcing the authorities to drop it, proofing that they are not only the sons and daughters of their own country, but that they are the past, the present and the future of Syria.

It seems that the holders of those obscurant ideologies, specially in the ministries of Justice and Islamic Affairs, who defended the draft under the table using the Presidency of the Council of Ministers as their stronghold, didn't give up their dream of destroying the Syrian state and dwarfing Syrians into semi creatures cloaked in the dress of sectarianism. Those people introduced their black dream once again with fake amendments in an attempt, doomed to failure, to hide the real face of the new draft.

The new draft changed only few of the notorious concepts found in the previous one and used words like husband and wife instead of defaming expressions.

The new draft law is, in fact, "new" only in its appearance, while it is indeed as backward and reactionary as the first one, abolishing the notion of citizenship and sustaining sectarianism.

The secret committee that drafted both version, along with the official authorities that backed the committee in violation of the Syrian constitution, should be hold responsible in the Syrian courts charged with forging conspiracy against the destiny of Syria and trying to pass backward and discriminatory law that is quite similar to the existing Personal Status Code which, in turn, proved as incapable of matching the huge social changes that took their root in Syria. It should be taken into consideration that the current law has been drafted for a totally different society, the society of the first half of the 20th century, based on legislations from the 19th century.

The drafters claim protecting the "Islamic Sharia". They, indeed, see nothing in religious laws, but their own interests manifested in controlling lives and pushing citizens towards more backwardness and more crises, exactly like warlords. In their world, there is no homeland, citizenship, nor family. There is only a male dominating all levels of life and beside him, there is a submissive and subservient female that has no right whatsoever but to deliver what the male wants.

This draft has been coined completely on the notion of the notorious previous draft: sectarianism and violence against women and children. This comes in harmony with the ideologies of those who formulated the draft whether they work for the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and potentially other ministries. The concepts of these obscurant ideologies aim at restoring the age of slaves by turning people into a herd that follows some religious figures who live in villas, enjoy expensive lifestyles and live like pharaohs, while ordinary people struggling to earn their living. Those figures are well-known for spending hugely in building castles named "mosques and churches" and receiving huge amounts of money from abroad that aim only at dividing Syria, while prayers are in a dire need for dispensaries that provide them with the basic medical and healthcare.

It should be mentioned that from a legal point of view, the Syrian government has no more the right to draft new laws that violate the agreements and international legislations that it has previously ratified, unless it officially inform the United Nations that it has withdrawn from these accords, which is exactly what those obscurant ideologues want. They want that in order to be free from any legal commitments and act the way they like for the sake of controlling people's lives and tightening their grips on both the Syrian society and state.

Moreover, through this draft, the secret committee exposed one of its black obsessions which is canceling the Personal Status Codes of the Christian sects and leaving these sects without a legal background to refer to. It is clear that the committee did that for the sake of imposing their obscurant vision upon other religions as well.

Worth mentioning that we have already opposed issuing separate Personal Status Codes for the different sects and we have expressed that publicly when we discussed the newly issued Personal Status Codes for the Roman Catholics, although this new code brought up some important developments in regards to the international rights for women and children. We reiterate once again that sectarian laws lead only to sectarian division.

Our refusal for a sectarian law doesn't mean, however, the acceptance of another obscurant one under the name of "unifying Personal Status Codes". Unifying these laws doesn't imply by any means resorting to an obscurant group of people who wants to impose its vision upon people. This unification is nothing but a severe blow to the establishment of a modern and healthy society and serves their conspiracies of doing this under the pretext of saving Islam, the pretext that terrorists use worldwide to justify their dreadful deeds.

Although the new draft dropped few of the obscurant concepts of the previous draft under the pressure of the intensive campaign led by Syrian Women Observatory and conducted by thousands of young people who dream of a country that recognizes its people away from any racial affiliation, whether it is religious or not, it retains many of the obscurant notions and some people try to pass it again.

The new draft is refused altogether because it is soaked with sectarianism and legitimizes violence against women and children and therefore violates the existence of the Syrian state, constitution, and the healthy development of the society. It violates the international agreements ratified by the Syrian government specially Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child and all the attached protocols. This draft infringes the essence of religions, including Islam.

What has to be done right away is acting towards eliminating the role those fundamentalists play in the arena of Syrian legislation and starting to draft a new and modern family law based only on the concept of citizenship.

It is to be stressed once again that the concept of citizenship doesn't conflict with any religion. The concept of citizenship is an actual manifestation of the real spirit of religions and sects leaving aside the obscurant concepts and establishing a society based on equality among all its members in rights and duties.

We call for a modern family law based on the concept of citizenship that grasp all the noble and sublime ideas that help in the advancement of our society, and based as well on the concepts of human rights that guarantee equality between men and women, and the rights of children. This is the only accepted form of the family law. Otherwise, all the attempts to draft a backward law will find its way, like the previous one, to heap garbage of history.

By Bassam Alkadi, 18/12/2009, (Stop manipulating Syrian destiny: The only breakthrough is a modern law based on citizenship)

Translated by Basel Jbaily

source in Arabic