"Challenges Facing Family Values"

A Seminar Organized by the Lebanese Council of Women and the Research Center - Institute of Social Sciences at the Lebanese University, with the participation of the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers

The MECC Secretary General Professor Michel Abs:

The family is a red line, because the safety of society is a red line, and we consider whoever tries to harm this basic cell, guilty of social crime

Under the auspices of His Excellency the Lebanese Minister of Labor Dr. Moustafa Bayram, the Lebanese Council of Women launched the Family Protection Campaign, and organized, in cooperation with the Research Center - Institute of Social Sciences at the Lebanese University, and with the participation of the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers (CGTL), a seminar entitled "Challenges Facing Family Values". It was held on Tuesday 20 June 2023, at the headquarters of the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers, in Beirut.

The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches Professor Michel Abs participated as a speaker, along with the President of the Lebanese Council of Women Mrs. Adla Siblini Zein, the Representative of the Social Sciences Research Center at the Lebanese University Professor Sahar Hijazi, and the Lebanese Minister of Labor Dr. Moustafa Bayram. The seminar and discussions were moderated by Dr. Sahar Hammoud.

In his intervention, Professor Michel Abs spoke about the alterations of modernity and family disintegration. He said “Modern society, the culture of modernity, is built on freedom, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of unleashing the imagination. Modernity is based on innovation, initiative and creativity, but is everything permissible? Everything in excess becomes a burden to human beings!”

He added “This process of social upbringing has proceeded in a “natural” manner, and has come to embrace the human race, as it were, for thousands of years. Human society produced a system of values that regulated the rhythm of man in his relations with society itself first before coming to control his actions and stances. Our social togetherness was beautiful and progressive, until growing social disruption began to spurn it with its horn thus leading it to slip into risky steps plagued with unavoidable endings… What was in the past a defect or a rejected criterion, has come to be accepted today, and there are even those who defend it under the pretext of upholding individual and public freedoms!”

Professor Abs continued “We grew up on certain, clear-cut family values that differ somewhat from one region to the other, as well as from generation to generation, but the radical alterations that humanity has been experiencing for the past few decades are cause for concern. I write of alterations, rather than of a reversal of social and family values.”

He also added “We in the Middle East Council of Churches, the faith, social, educational, developmental, dialogue institution, have been defending human rights since our founding, as we are on the threshold of our fiftieth jubilee. We have established an advanced program that deals with human capital, with social cohesion, and human dignity. We defend and establish awareness and advocacy programs for the rights of the family, women, children, and all the heavy-laden and tired people whom the Incarnate Master spoke of, in the various regions of the Antiochene East… The family is a red line, because the safety of society is a red line, and we consider whoever tries to harm this basic cell, guilty of social crime, that is, a crime against nation and society.”

Professor Michel Abs ended “I must conclude briefly by saying that the media and the economy constitute the biggest challenges to the family in my country, and that we, as the institutions of civil society or rather of civil society itself, can be “the pebble that supports the jar”, but the jar will remain in a state of fragile stability unless it is identical with the state, the Great People’s Assembly, which frames the energies of civil society. The fortification of society, at family level as well as at other levels of the social structure, is a coherent and sustainable undertaking that requires the concerted forces of society, both official and civil. Herein lies our biggest challenge.”