Being Dark Skinned in Beirut
More racism in Lebanon in 2010 than in the 1980s?
21/12/2010
News
AlMou’aallima Wal Oustaz (the teacher and the professor) is a famous Lebanese TV series that used to be aired in the 80s. The main actors/ actresses were the beautiful Hind Abi-lama’, Ibrahim Mer’aachli and the late Layla Karam. This show was very popular and many of us still remember it quarter of a decade through. We also remember that one of the several students in the class who used to mainly sit in the front seats and not say much, was a fair-skinned migrant person. It is interesting to compare the situation back then and now.
Today, it is almost 99% impossible for us to find any Lebanese production whether film or advertisement which includes a dark-skinned person who is not playing the automatic role of a domestic worker. It is out of question to find a SriLankan playing the role of a business woman or a Filipina playing the role of a husband of a Lebanese woman or an Ethiopian playing the role of a university professor. This is too shocking of a scene for Lebanese people to see in Lebanese productions, let alone to see in reality in Lebanon.
Not to give a very simplistic comparison between reality today and AlMou’aallima Wal Oustaz time, but whatever we say, it remains a fact that what this series did stands as a milestone in comparison with our dark times today.
Ps: Notice how the word dark is used to signify bad times. Or the word nhar aswad/ “black day” also refers to a very irritating day. And many other similairs. Interesting to notice and analyze. Is it time to replace those terms with ones which do not hold such heavy invisible connotations?
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The Anti-Racism Movement (ARM) was launched in 2010 as a grassroots collective by young Lebanese feminist activists in collaboration with migrant workers and migrant domestic workers.
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