Monday April 26, 2010
In support of the SheBlogsLebanon, Thomas Hornig, an American artist married to a Lebanese woman, and living in Lebanon for 18 years now, speaks about his experience with the nationality law, his hopes and fears, and what would it mean to him, to have the Lebanese nationality.
When I explain that I’ve had eighteen continuous years residence in Lebanon. Eighteen years as a Professor at the National Conservatory of Music. Eighteen years of Marriage to a Lebanese Woman. Eighteen years of demeaning and costly work-permit / residence permit renewals. Eighteen years of living with no social safety net, no social security, no protection under the law and no retirement benefits. The hair-trigger response is always the same “This is Lebanon”. This very loaded phrase is the ultimate deal breaker. It implies apathy, frustration, a painful past and hopelessness. For a foreigner like me it represents an impasse, a ‘catch 22’.The weight of this 1925 nationality has affected me and my family in many ways subtle and profound. The devastating domino effect of the archaic 1925 Nationality law can be validated in the lives of thousands of husbands, children and grand children who live here, work here and contribute, in many fantastic and immeasurable ways to Lebanon and Lebanese society…Here’s my story:Most of my students were born years after my arrival here. I am a civil servant. My wife is a civil servant. My daughter was born at the American University Hospital in Beirut. As a Professor of Music I hold highest classification reflective of my sixteen years of study. I pay taxes, insurance payments, water payments, electricity payments, tuition fees, house payments, car payments and have done so for eighteen years. As civil servants, our combined salaries do not cover all of these costs and, to add insult to injury; I’ve been required to pay nearly $40,000 in residency fees ($2,000 each year… x 18). Add this to health insurance and a very long list of exclusions such as public education and tax returns for families with children...It's scary. Now, as possibly the first American Male to take up residence after the civil war in Lebanon, my first years here were humbling. I was a guest and acted as such for many years…”Lebanon took me under its wing and treated me like a king” I often recount. Moving to another country is like being born again and frankly, for those first ten years I felt like a child. However, I am now 45 years old and as a provider, a father and a husband I can no longer ignore the fact that I own nothing. My wife and I can no longer accept that our family has no social safety net, no protection under the law, no social security and a very, very uncertain future with no retirement benefits. We desperately want our daughter to feel, and be seen as 100% Lebanese! One can not mention the Nationality Law without using words like assimilation and identity. I often give the example of a Lebanese living in Germany who never learns to speak fluent German knowing that he/or she will never be identified as a full citizen. This unfortunate inability to assimilate leads to an immeasurable loss of opportunity. For my daughter, like all of the other children born in Lebanon denied their Lebanese Nationality, there is an even more fundamental crisis of identity. At the age of nine how will she begin to answer the simplest on most important question of all: ‘Who am I’? Is she Lebanese or American? Is her mother tongue French, English or Arabic? Is she Christian or Muslim? Is she culturally an Arab or Westerner…Where does she fit in?
The Nationality question has served to censure the constitution, equality and the rule of law! We all hold out hope that the thousands of husbands, children and grand children who live, work contribute and will eventually die here will be granted a right which is, was and will always be inherently theirs! ___________________________________________________________________
Thomas Hornig - 
Professor of Saxophone at
the Lebanese National
Conservatory of Music.
(Father of the beautiful
young lady on the right of this page).
