Lebanon’s first woman defense minister : The superficial Women empowerment of the Middle East world

Zeina Akar 

Lebanese Zeina Aker has become Lebanon’s first female defence minister in history.


The member of President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement “FPM” is also the first female defence minister in the Arab world and near Middle East when I checked Wikipedia “You should click the link to know how Asian women beat the Western women and became defence ministers before them” too.

The new deputy prime minister holds a BS degree in Social Sciences in Marketing/Management from the Lebanese American University.

Akar and her husband renowned businessman Jawad Adra founded together “Information International” Research company.
The Greek Orthodox Christian is its executive director.

لي الشرف أن أكون أول امرأة تتقلد منصب وزارة الدفاع في دولة عربية.. دولة #لبنان المجد والعز.

— زينة عكر Zeina Aker (@Zeina_Aker) January 21, 2020

“It is an honour for me to be the first woman to hold the position of minister of defence in an Arab country… Lebanon, the state of glory and splendour” Zeina Akar said allegedly on her Twitter account.

She is one of 6 female ministers in the newly Technocrat cabinet which the Lebanese people reject altogether.

Now my two cents rant.

This is superficial empowerment of women in Lebanon and the Arab world.

I won’t speak about how strong Lebanese armed forces is or how it is considered the third powerful armed institutions in the country as a couple of Egyptian national security political analysts told me recently in two different occasions.

I won’t speak about her qualifications because in the end unlike the popular belief in Egypt, the position of minister of defence is actually a political one unlike the chief of staff.
Already we all cheered when Lebanon had its first as well as the first Arab world interior minister Raya El-Hassan.
We saw later how El-Hassan dealt in a disgusting and brutal way with the protesters across Lebanon especially last week.

Yes, the Lebanese women can be ministers of defence and interior but they can’t give their nationality to their children and in fact, they can lose their children’s custody if they want to divorce if they are Shia or Sunni.

There is still a lack of laws to protect Lebanese women from sexual harassment and domestic violence.

It is a nice move from the Lebanese political and financial establishments to pick this card in order to win the admiration of the west as a sign of the change.

But a little word from an Egyptian blogger and journalist who knows these fake moves very well when she sees one: The people won’t buy it.

It is superficial empowerment when women activists and protesters are beaten and threatened to be rapped in detention.

It is superficial empowerment when women activists and journalists are attacked and smeared online day and night in the most disgusting way because they stand for what they believe like for instance renowned Lebanese media figure Diana Mouklad and Lebanese TV host Dima Sadek.

Mrs. Zeina Akar made a history indeed but not in a real way. It is just sad.

After all, we all know that the ministers in Lebanon are not acting on a free well but rather the government is façade for Hezbollah and its alley Freedom Patriotic movement aka Michel Aoun and his son-in-law Gibran Bassil.