Lebanon: Women’s Anger At New Tourism Campaign · Global Voices
Layal Al Khatib

The Lebanese Ministry of Tourism has just launched a new campaign called “Lebanon Blues” that targets potential tourists from around the world. The idea behind the campaign is to show what tourists who have just come back from a holiday in Lebanon will be feeling.
In the American version of the television advert, a man is depicted as having completely lost focus at work because he is still thinking about gorgeous, scantily clad Lebanese women:
Screenshot from "Lebanon Blues" television advert. By  Lebanese Ministry of Tourism.
The television advert has caused a lot of annoyance and anger online, and a women's group has written a letter of response to the Ministry of Tourism, which some bloggers have put online:
Dear Ministry of Tourism,
We are a group of female Lebanese citizens, a group that has existed for more than ten years, and for some time we've been experiencing continuous insults and humiliation to us as women from video clips, advertisements, our television screens, all kinds of articles in all kinds of media and on billboards as well. Our occupation has been predetermined: housewives (with all due respect to housewives). Our shape has been predefined and imposed on us: blonde, skinny, with big breasts and pouting lips. Our bodies are violated in the media to increase profits. We have been and still are fighting these kinds of humiliating ads and messages.
In a country like Lebanon, we expect anything and everything at anytime. We expect an advert from the Ministry of Tourism that tells us to “Smile to tourists so they can leave smiling more”, although there's nothing to smile about in this country. And we expect another advert that asks us not to use the car horn. But what we don't expect or accept is the latest advert published by the Ministry of Tourism which uses Lebanese women's bodies to “pull” tourists and the [Lebanese] diaspora to the country. Is it acceptable for the Ministry of Tourism to promote Lebanon as the “cabaret of the Middle East” to tourists? Can't it revive tourism without selling women's bodies? Dear Ministry, how can either we or you accept our bodies becoming the goal and target of the lust of the arriving spenders? How are we supposed to understand that “Lebanon Blues” is connected to our naked bodies? How can the Ministry of Tourism promote a message to the whole world that Lebanon is a country which sells its women for the sake of the tourists?
Your ad contains serious contradictions that we would like you answer:
Firstly, we as women cannot pass our nationality to our children and husbands; we are considered daughters of Lebanese men and not Lebanese women. Therefore you cannot use us in your tourism advert.
Secondly, based on our respect for sex workers and our ongoing demands for laws to regulate their work and protect their safety, rights and health, we ask you as the Ministry of Tourism either to: stop this two-sided stance whereby you promote Lebanon as a country for sex tourism while sex workers in it suffer and are exploited horribly and subjected to humiliation and injustice; or launch a campaign to organize the work of these women and legalize it with proper supervision by specialized and non-corrupt authorities.
Thirdly, based on our beliefs in physical freedoms, far from human trafficking and the exploitation of our bodies as women, we would like to ask about the position of the Ministry of Interior regarding such an advert published by its close associate, the Ministry of Tourism, at the very same time it is striving to impose the “decency law“, watching Lebanese women’s bodies and fining them in case they “cross the red line of decency”. We would like to also ask, and excuse our ignorance, how could you promote Lebanon as a land of “sexual freedom” (even if you didn't write or say as much explicitly at the end of your advert) at a time when every citizen is still subject to article 534 and others that monitor their sex lives and decides for them what is “acceptable sex” and what is “unacceptable”? And also opens up its jails to the “outlaws” amongst the owners of the bodies portrayed in their advert, and others?
Fourth, how dare the Ministry of Tourism provoke us this way and “sell us”, when we are still subject to violence, harassment, rape and unfair and unequal wages, with an absence of any laws prohibiting gender discrimination against us and protecting us from the violence of a male-dominated society? How could you provoke us with these delusional and lying images to simply make profit, disregarding our pain and miserable truth?
The letter concludes:
The truth is that we are not “free” women wearing bikinis and partying all night. The truth is that we are deprived, poor and oppressed. Our bodies which you say are free, are still subject to many social, domestic, legal and economic restraints.
We, as injured and humiliated women, ask the Ministry of Tourism to recall this advert immediately and to apologize for this insult. Because out bodies aren't delicious fruit to offer to consumers so they will visit the “homeland” to pick out what they desire.
We also assure you we'll be watching out for any other adverts offensive to us and our independent and free selves. And from now on, we'll be after whoever is responsible for this type of advertising and will be prosecuting them as well.
Below are some of the reactions on Twitter to the advertisement:
@SamerKoussa: Is this what you think #Lebanon is all about? #Tfeh
@migheille: oh wow lebanese ministry of tourism has officially put leb women on sale http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Siovanti2u0 #mustCheck #WTF
@abzzyy: Shame on Lebanese Ministry of Tourism http://goo.gl/fb/tJHIa #Fail #ImpactBBDO
@UxSoup: Lebanon is not exactly mecca or the vatican. They are advertising what is really happening.Sex sells. Live with it.
@migheille: @UxSoup no country is mecca or vatican – all ladies in all countries are hot – show me another ministry that did same ad?
@Fishful_Thinkin: Creativity has taken a back seat to capitalism. http://abzyy.com/?p=669 #Fail. Shame #Lebanon.
Lebanon has now spent a second month without a government; will Lebanese women feel more respected by the upcoming one?