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Christina Foerch
Special to The Daily Star

The little boy is not really sick; he just has the summer flu. “You’ll be over it soon,” says Dr. Tagrid Hajj Ali, “Don’t eat ice cream yet, it’s not good for you now,” she adds, accompanying the boy and his mother to the reception where patients usually have to pay.
But this boy doesn’t have to pay. The clinic is run by the Islamic Health Association, an organization managed by resistance group Hizbullah ­ and the boy’s father died as a fighter for Hizbullah during the battle against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.
“Families of martyrs are treated for free, as well as the injured and former prisoners,” explains Hajj Ali, 36, doctor for internal medicine and director of the clinic in Haret Hreik.
“Since my first years of medical studies at the Lebanese University I knew I wanted to work for the Islamic Health Association, of which this clinic is part.”
She treats approximately 20 patients per day ­ children, men and women. It happens almost daily that male patients don’t want to be treated by her because she is a woman.
“In this case, I just tell them to go to a male doctor,” she says, smiling.
Hajj Ali is just one of the many women in many professions who believe in the aims and policies of Hizbullah as a resistance group and as a social group. She sympathized with Hizbullah as a student, and says she is happy to work for the Shiite organization as a professional.
“I liked Hizbullah for their merits in the resistance, but also because they show a modern way of Islam,” she says.
For Hajj Ali, modern Islam means social equality between men and women and job equality in the workplace and in what careers women can take.
“But it’s difficult to reach equality because of the oriental mentality of the Lebanese people. It will still take time,” she says, pointing to the fact that though there are, for example, many female doctors active in the majority of medical fields in Lebanon, there are still no female surgeons.
The women who attach themselves to Hizbullah are active in many different aspects of the organization ­ they work as teachers in the different high schools and Islamic colleges, as doctors and nurses in the clinics and hospitals, and as journalists at Al-Manar Television or Al-Noor Radio ­ the Hizbullah media. There are political activists among them, some of whom are even political prisoners in Israel. As mothers, they have educated ­ and still do educate ­ their sons to sacrifice themselves for the freedom of the South; as wives they have pushed their husbands to fight as soldiers against the Israeli Army. They have raised funds to buy weapons, and they have observed troop movements and secretly informed Hizbullah offices during the occupation.
“Hizbullah consists of men and women,” says Rima Fakry, director of Hizbullah’s Women’s Association, “and the women contributed 50 percent to the resistance.”
When Hizbullah was founded in 1983, it would have been very difficult to imagine that the former militia group would two decades later become a well organized structure that resembles a small state with services and laws all its own. They have their own tax and social security system, a military and a security force, schools, hospitals, recreational centers and their own media. And women play an important role in most of these fields.
Tamara Mattar, for instance, is a 29-year-old journalist who works for Al-Manar TV. Like Hajj Ali, she became sympathetic to Hizbullah when she was a student of communication at the American University of Beirut. After she graduated, she immediately started to work for Al-Manar TV as a reporter on their Arabic news program. Now, she is the anchorwoman of the English news bulletin and is up for promotion to editor-in-chief. In her section of the television, six women and one man work with her as news editors.
“It just happened that the women who applied for this job were more qualified than the men,” she explains. “We women face no problems from our male colleagues, because we do our job well and there is nothing to complain about.”
Her aim as principal journalist for the English news bulletin is to show the Western world the other side of the coin.
“We give voice to people who are usually not heard in Western media,” she says.
Indeed, since the outbreak of the second intifada, Al-Manar TV reported regularly about the Palestinian children and teenagers killed by the Israeli Army, stories which Al-Manar ­ which means “the beacon” in Arabic ­ and many people in the Arab world believe are not reported in enough depth in the Western media.
“But our news coverage is not limited to Palestine, Lebanon or Iraq. We cover world events, and report also about political or social grievances in Africa, Asia and Latin America,” Mattar adds.
Women like Hajj Ali and Mattar have not just made impressive careers within the institutions belonging to Hizbullah. They can also be considered, in their roles as female professionals, as the base for the ideological thought of Hizbullah, which is founded on the two religious figures of Fatima az-Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, and her daughter in turn, Sayyeda Zeinab. Both women are said to have been strong believers and missionaries of Islam, ready to sacrifice the lives of their loved ones for freedom and justice.
The female teachers at the women’s schools, as well as in the Scout Association and other youth organizations, teach these beliefs, which are rooted in Shiite Islam. This spiritual heritage isn’t just passed on by sheikhs in the mosques, but by mothers to their children.
Soad Jedid, a mother of three children aged between 10 and 18, took Sayyeda Zeinab as her role model. She has been a widow for eight years, since her husband was killed in a confrontation with the Israeli Army in the South.
“I knew about my husband’s activities,” she says. “I never argued with him, because I knew that we didn’t have another option.”
However hard and painful it was to continue life alone after his death, she managed to go on with the help of Hizbullah, the solidarity of family and neighbors, and her own strong will to continue life in a positive way. Jedid is now the proud owner of a clothes shop, and the family recently moved to a new apartment. Her children are doing well in school, and her eldest daughter will start university this fall.
“We know that our time on Earth is limited, and hope for life after death, where we will meet all beloved ones again,” she says.
Among the women of Hizbullah are many with an exceptional character, incredible inner strength, leadership qualities and great professional abilities. It remains surprising, then, that no woman is found in an important political position, either at the highest political level of the Shiite organization itself, or as Hizbullah deputies in the national Parliament.
There may be several explanations for this, one of them being the opposition of men toward a meaningful political role for women.
“It’s the oriental mentality that prevents women becoming politicians,” says Hajj Ali.
Mohammed Fresh, a Hizbullah representative in the Lebanese Parliament, also says that some men would certainly object to women becoming members of the group’s politburo.
“But women should also be willing to take more risks,” he says. “They limit themselves and don’t trust … their abilities.”
According to Mattar, “women are probably not qualified to do such a job” ­ although this is hard to believe in view of the many other important positions women have taken within Hizbullah.
Fakry takes a broader view, however: “There is no real political life in Lebanon. If deputies don’t have a real say, why should we care for such a position?
“We women can do more important work on the ground,” she said.
Whatever the reasons for the lack of women’s political participation in Hizbullah, it is perhaps the last hurdle they have to clear for full equality in the professional realm. They have achieved it as Muslims in every other area.

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