❊ Selling Alcohol In Muslim Areas

The Lebanese south is not a good place for you right now if you enjoy the occasional drink:

A liquor shop was targeted Sunday in the southern village of Houla, while another was burned down last week in the southern village of Bablieh, and others have been forced to close down in the city of Nabatieh, where an informal campaign against liquor stores has been under way since April.

I’m not sure this is restricted to Hezbollah areas in the south. This happens in many majority-Muslim places. Even in Tripoli, you have to search really hard to find a shop or restaurants that sells alcohol. Why is that?

In theory, drinking and selling alcohol are matters of individual freedom, and a democratic country such as ours should protect those rights. In practice however, Muslim societies feel strongly about alcohol and treat it in the same way other societies treat drugs: As a corrupting, society-destroying substance that needs to be weeded out.

Here’s a mental exercise for the non-Muslim Lebanese (and I hope you take this in a light, fun way): If you’re appalled at how “backward” this attitude to alcohol is, I invite you to ponder the prospects of gay weddings (also an individual freedom) in your neighborhood.

We can talk all we want about the rule of law, but the reality is that if a big majority of a community is hostile to an activity (selling alcohol in this case), the individuals who benefit materially from “cheating” are assuming the risks on their own. Cash-strapped municipalities can find it too costly to protect sellers from angry communities, and law enforcers belong to the people and could be hostile themselves to the trade.

Does this mean that we should accept sabotage and vigilante enforcement of alcohol bans ?

No. There is a way democratic nations deal with such matters. If Lebanon had proper decentralization, Muslim areas would have imposed high taxes on alcohol. This would have made it uneconomical for sellers to set up shop. The locals (they are the voters and the tax payers after all) would have been pleased and the consumers would have gone elsewhere to enjoy the stuff (In Tripoli, we go to Zgharta, Batroon, Koura and even Elmina for that).