During the weekend I watched the movie Sabah. It tells the story of a Syrian family moved to Canada and how they are trying to fit in the community there, the eldest brother “Majid” is taking care of the family and is trying to keep it a conservative one according to the “Arabic traditions”. Meanwhile, his sister “Sabah”, a 40 year old single veiled woman, falls in love with a Canadian guy “Stephen”, which puts her in a dilemma, her family can’t know about her love and obviously the relation won’t work, but still she loves him and don’t want to lose him.
The main topic of the movie is the relation between Sabah and Stephen, there are other side stories like the arranged marriage and the Arabic community being a Macho one, where males are dominant, and have the right to do any thing without being held accountable for it, while the females, on the other hand, are not granted such freedom, and most of the time they are forced to things they wouldn’t choose if they were free to choose.
Now regarding the relation of Sabah and Stephen I really don’t know where I stand, looking at it religion-wise it is not allowed and not possible for a Muslim woman to marry a non Muslim.
Cultural-wise it is quite different, mainly the Arabic culture is based on Islam, so such relation is quite not possible, yet the culture itself changes due to many factors, for the family of Sabah, for example, it is mainly because they are introduced to a different culture in which the relation only depends on the two parts of it and how they are getting along. but the relation is still strange.
Looking at the relation itself, you see a couple who make a good match, in love with each other and there is not a reason, relation-wise, to separate them form each other.
Macho-wise, this is not what her macho brother arranged for her! So it shouldn’t work.
I still don’t know what I think about it, but what do you think?
