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Rabat – In an apparent bid to counter campaigns supporting the LGBTQ+ community and same-sex relations, the term “Fetrah,” translated as Instinct in English, has recently gone viral as a trending hashtag on social media platforms in Morocco and across the MENA region.
To exhibit their support for the campaign, users on social networks often post a blue and pink colored flag, whose colors refer to the gender binary: male and female.
The hashtag has gained ground in both the Middle East and in countries across North Africa, including Morocco.
Blue and pink, ONLY
Fetrah has to date generated over 13,000 tweets in Morocco, making it one of the country’s trendiest hashtags over the past few days.
The campaign was first launched by Egyptian youth on June 22 and later gained momentum among other users across the MENA region.
“There are only two genders. This is our reality,” a Twitter user said, posting the hashtag and the blue and pink picture.
Another wrote that he “completely agrees and support #Fetrah,” while others have continued to encourage social network users to share the hashtag in order to earn more support for their anti-LGBTQ+ campaign.
Some Muslims following the trending campaign have even employed Islamic Law, known as Shari’aa, to justify the homophobic ideology, pointing to verses in the Quran to emphasize Islam’s position against the LGBTQ+ community.
“O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other),” Surah Al-Hujurat 49:13 from the Quran reads.
Fetrah, the organization who launched the campaign, issued a communique on Wednesday, July 6, arguing that the goal of the initiative is to express “categorical rejection” against all campaigns and “malicious ideas that are promoted and that are contrary to human instinct.”
In a bid to expand its campaign’s reach, the organization has notably been commending people across the world for sharing the hashtag.
“Spread Fetrah in your style and in the appropriate way with the hashtags #Fetrah and #fetrah_the_idea,” the organization concluded but warned that it does not promote any forms of violence and abuse against any individual.
Vivid support
On Facebook, supporters of the movement have started employing the blue and pink flag as the background for their Facebook profile pictures to further advance the campaign.
Morocco’s penal code currently criminalizes premarital and extramarital relationships and sexual orientations that do not conform to Moroccan and Islamic values.
Article 489 of the code punishes same sex relations by imprisonment from six months to three years and a fine of up to $1,200.
Hassan Kettani, one of Morocco’s most renowned Islamic scholars, supports the campaign.
Read also: ‘Lesbian Diaries’ Book Pulled From Rabat Book Fair
In a statement to Morocco World News, Kettani rejected homosexuality, emphasizing Islam’s position.
“Parents have to be careful and protect their children against communication tools, which could contribute to having their daughters and sons influenced” by campaigns supporting and promoting the LGBT community,” the scholar argued.
Kettani also expressed his opinion against allies of the LGBTQ+ members, arguing that whoever supports this community is doing something fundamentally “wrong and sinful.”
Kettani is not the first public figure to criticize efforts seeking to normalize LGBTQ+ support in Morocco.
An already prevalent concern
Over the past couple of years, many have expressed concerns regarding the use of same-sex kiss scenes in Disney and Pixar’s movies.
The latest controversy occurred several weeks ago, when Disney released its animated movie Lightyear, which featured a kiss between two lesbian characthers.
Many countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and China, have banned the film for promoting homosexuality.
A Moroccan petition also appeared to force a nationwide ban against the movie.
A number of public figures, heads of associations, and professors launched the campaign, describing the move as a heinous affair and calling on authorities to stop “this nonsense seeking to corrupt children.”
Counter campaign
The Fetrah campaign has elicited a diverse range of opinions. While some have chosen to stand against the LGBTQ+ community, others believe their support is legitimate and necessary.
Several internet users have used the Fetrah hashtag to reject its ideology and voice their support for LGBTQ+ community.
“Literally, F*** your Fetrah, all of you are hateful snowflakes that can’t open their minds…., we’ll get our rights whether you like it or not, no bunch of violent barbarians could make us stop fighting for ourselves,” one Twitter user said.
Describing Fetrah as a “dogmatic, homophobic and transphobic hate movement,” Moroccan LGBTQ+ rights advocate Mariyem Gamar told Morocco World News that Fetrah is “trying to misinform the public by fear mongering … and frame the LGBTQ+ movement as a criminal movement, as an immoral movement, as an unnatural movement, and all of this is wrong.”
Fetrah “in its essence is not there to advocate for heterosexual rights, which already exist,” said Gamar, arguing that the movement is in fact “there to oppress and to oppose the LGBT+ community and reinforce hate and beliefs that already exist in the majority of societies.”
Gamar argued against Fetrah’s premise that considers gender and sexual diversity to be unnatural, referring to the World Health Organization, which has disproven “their claims” alongside “medical and psychological professionals.”
Commenting on the use of the “binary pink and blue,” Gamar said that Fetrah “is not only spreading hate against LGBT+community, but it is also reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes even toward heterosexual women and men.”
The movement “is trying to put us back in a box we are all trying to escape,” Gamar added, arguing that “it is trying to make society one spectrum, one dimension, and it is refusing all other members of society who might have different beliefs or different interpretations of Islam.”
Although Facebook shut down Fetrah’s official page last week, the organization that launched the movement created another page saying: “Given the West’s habit of restricting freedoms if the opinion is contrary to their whims, they put down the page; but they will not be able to put down the idea.”
