For as long as I can remember, the name Dr.Nawal Saadawi equaled nothing more than an old hag who preached immorality and social dysfunctions. That was (is) how my family saw Saadawi, and consequently that was how I saw her too.

From the bits and pieces I heard infrequently about her, she wanted to “liberate women and corrupt society,” and demanded things like “calling a child by its mother’s name” and “abandoning the veil.” These her points of view were quickly linked to her physical appearance, words like “masculinized woman” and “old bitch” were invariably linked to her ideas and effectively stripped them of any validity somehow. Why is it that a female thinker is seen as a masculinized woman and her hair color and texture are brought up in a discussion of her ideas?

I never bothered to investigate Saadawi because I thought I had her figured out through what everyone thought of her. Gradually, though, as I started to grow out of what-everyone-else-thinks bubble I began to understand what I had been missing out on, and it was a lot.

Just today I visited Saadawi’s official website where I discovered that this is an educated, intelligent woman who has written many books (fiction and non-fiction), has served her country and has tried to raise awareness against female genital mutilation. None of that was ever mentioned in any discussion of her that I witnessed. People only talked about her crazy hair and how she had no “shame” of going on TV and speaking against society and religion at her very old age. They had not been prepared for her discourse, so they focused their attention on throwing cheap shots at her hair and age.

I have never read anything by Saadawi (novels, plays,etc.) but I plan on looking for her writings and reading them (some are available on her website). As such, my attitude to date is based on internet materials I read from and about her. I am very impressed with her talking sense into people and suffering for her cause. She was put in jail, exiled, some lawyer tried to force her divorce from her husband through courts (where does that ever happen except in the Arab world?), and some other ultra-conservative lawyer in Egypt recently tried to deprive her of her Egyptian nationality on the basis that she mocked religion through a play of hers. Thankfully, logic triumphed and the latter case was dismissed by the court.

Saadawi’s ideas on women and the wellbeing of society are also impressive to me. In this BBC Q&A she answered people’s questions directly and cleared out some ambiguities created around her thought by the media. She said she is strongly opposed to female genital mutilation, she supports secularism and argues for the essential link between women’s rights in a society and its general wellbeing and progress — things that make sense if we only reflect on them.

I find it scandalous how many religious people fabricate lies around a single woman’s thoughts instead of taking them into consideration. For this reason, I will read more about Saadawi now that I know she makes sense, and I will learn her opinions and hope they spread far and wide, because we need them now more than ever.

I realize that I have been lending the issue of honor crimes in Jordan a lot of attention lately, but that is still not enough.

I remember when I wrote the post Honor Is Another Word for Vagina, some people found it repulsive of me to link such a noble concept as honor to female anatomy. They said I was a cultural renegade, and that I was self-hating and deliberately out to maim a fundamental aspect of Arab, and Jordanian, culture. I was slightly annoyed, but I could not find a counterargument that dismissed my point that, yes, “what Arab men term as “honor” is a polite word for the Arabically-explicit word vagina.” Here were my points in that post:

The other part is a woman, an anatomically different human being who is almost always the honor-defaming culprit in any scandal. The woman’s private parts play a vital role in condemning her because they are, in the traditional male chauvinist view, the forbidden yet deeply desired apple.

To illustrate this, think of the worst possible curse words out there in Arabic and in English. About 99% of them involve someone’s mother, someone’s sister, and their genitalia. They might also include explicit references to sexual acts done to these private parts. In Arabic, these curse words are intended to verbally harm the opposite person’s “honor,” a sacred concept referring simply to a woman’s vagina.

Within this context, when someone commits an “honor killing” to wash away the family’s shame, all they are doing is killing the target woman’s vagina who may or may not have engaged in sexual acts deemed socially taboo. By the same token, when a man swears by his “sister’s honor,” he is swearing by her vagina. Fascinating, isn’t it?

The final point I want to make is this: men do not really have honor to swear by or to protect. Anatomically speaking, it is the women that live with these men that do have honor and sometimes pay a dear price for having it.

Well, what do you know. I found in Al Ghad a citation from a research paper done by Dr.Hani Jahshan defining masculinity and honor as follows:

الذكورة لدى القاتل هو “أن على الرجل أن يحمي، يراقب، ويدافع عن كافة أنواع عذرية المرأة قريبته، ويفسر هذا أنه في صالح المرأة، فإذا لم يقم الرجل بذلك يكون قد أخل بصورته كرجل أمام المجتمع، فيتخذ أنماطا سلوكية لمنع المرأة من انتهاك حدود كافة أنواع العذرية المفروضة عليها، بما فيها السلوكية والاجتماعية، بواسطة العنف الجسدي أو الحبس داخل جدران المنزل أو الرقابة الدائمة أو التخويف بالسمعة السيئة، مما يشكل بحد ذاته نوعا من أنواع العنف والتمييز ضد المرأة”.

He defines masculinity as the male’s duty to protect, monitor, and defend all types of female virginity (not just her tangible virginity, but also her moral and social virginity — not interacting with men,etc.). So I was right then, honor really is centered around the vagina, and guess what, like I argued before, men don’t have it. Something about this makes me smile.

My uncle passed away yesterday morning. He had cancer and he was suffering greatly, and everyone around him was suffering as well. I always find it a good thing when death ends suffering instead of allowing it to go on for months or years — it’s avoiding the inevitable at a very high price.

There is a cloud of sadness hovering over my father’s head now. I can’t imagine how it feels like to lose a sibling. Does it feel like you lost a piece of you — what piece? Does it feel like you are finished and cannot go on? Does it feel like you’ve become a barren tree? I don’t know. I guess it depends how close you were to that sibling during their life.

Upon hearing the news, my initial reaction was complete disconnection. I tend to distance myself like that and treat death as a fact instead of being emotional about it. I suppose it’s a tactic for handling the situation, but it’s definitely aided by the fact that I wasn’t particularly close to my late uncle.

When I went to my late uncle’s house, where my cousins were receiving condolences, I felt my heart shrink as I climbed the narrow stairs. There was something overwhelmingly morbid about the yellowness of the stairs and the distant Quranic recitation coming down from the living room. I had to remove my bright red nail polish before visiting, because my mother said it would be insensitive to keep it on and go to a “condolences house.”

The trip up the stairs was historic, I hadn’t gone up these stairs for five years. My last memory of the staircase and the Quranic verses traveling downwards, the mumblings of dark women clad in black, the smell of death and coffee, was when I went up the same stairs to say goodbye to my late aunt. She was something else, what I felt for her then was on a whole different level from what I felt yesterday — and understandably so. The physical settings, however, did not change a bit.

It was heartbreaking to sit in the living room with the women, my cousins and other relatives, and not be able to truly share their sorrow. I felt sad because they were sad, and when one of them broke out in muffled tears my heart jumped out to soothe her pain. I wanted to tell them it was not the end of the world, but I knew that to them it seemed a lot like it. I couldn’t help feeling helplessly insensitive and cruel for thinking I could argue them out of their sadness.

Sitting there on a gray plastic chair in one corner of the room, I tried my best to avoid eye contact. Women came and kissed my cheeks and asked me if I was “Khalid’s daughter,” and I said yes. I didn’t know any of them and they must have sensed how lost I was when I flashed smiles at them, so they introduced themselves by their men (I am X’s wife, X’s mother). I felt incredibly small. I didn’t know any of them and yet they knew me (or my father), and they were family. How do you justify that to yourself, not knowing your own family?

Next to me was sitting an ancient woman in a traditional black velvet dress, with a crooked cane next to her and a number of green tattoos on her face. Her name was Um Abdullah, and she liked coffee. Her face was so wrinkled and her back arched and she couldn’t walk on her own, but she asked for her cup of coffee to be extra full and sat there sipping it like a queen.

The whole affair looked almost identical to my late aunt’s departure. There were less women but the procedures were the same. Coffee offered, dates, lunch and parts of the Quran. Very few women bothered to read Quran, most opted for sitting around and chatting the social obligation away. They talked about their husbands, upcoming family marriages, food… mundane subjects in the presence of death.

I tried to conjure up memories involving my late uncle. I thought if I could remember sweet things he did for me or parts of his character I would be better able to relate to his death. By knowing what was no longer there, I might feel bad and maybe shed a few tears and fit in where I was. All I could remember was his tall and strong build, his gray hair, and his playing zahar with my dad in Samara. Then someone started crying, so I wiped my tears away. I had a headache by then because I had been thinking too hard.

It’s eerie that the night before last I had a dream that my late aunt was visiting my late uncle. I don’t remember the details of the dream but it was disturbing and I woke up feeling uneasy. It was weird but I attributed it to my having discussed my uncle’s situation with someone that day. A day later, he died and the dream came true.

It’s this sea of mixed feelings that’s confusing me. I am working normally, going to school and going about my daily business normally when my uncle has just died. I go to offer my condolences and I cannot even cry, and all I can think of is my late aunt. There is a huge divide between what I should be feeling and doing and what I am actually feeling and doing. It’s uncomfortable feeling inexplicably harsh and aloof.

هل تؤيد تعديل القانون المتعلق بقضايا جرائم الشرف؟
أؤيد بشدة (55 % )
أؤيد (12 % )
لا أؤيد (11 % )
أرفض بشدة (22 % )
عدد الأصوات : 2862

Al Ghad.

في مثل بحكي : صار للخرى مره و صار يحلف بالطلاق. عزيزي القارئ فهمك كفاية

Horrific news this morning, another woman killed for the sake of a myth called honor:

Criminal Prosecutor Amjad Kurdi on Saturday charged a 23-year-old man with the premeditated murder of his younger married sister for reasons related to family honour, official sources said.

Kurdi also charged the victim’s father, mother and sibling of complicity in premeditated murder in connection with the drowning of the 22-year-old at dawn on Saturday.

The 23-year-old suspect, an electrician who got engaged a week before the murder, then placed his sister’s body in the trunk of the car, drove back to Amman, headed to the Jabal Hussein Police Station and informed officers on duty that he murdered his sister to “cleanse his family’s honour”, the source added.

The victim, who was married almost two weeks before the incident, was returned to her family home on Friday by her husband, who questioned “her fidelity”.

The victim’s family interrogated her and she allegedly told them that “she knew a man but was not involved in an affair with him” so they beat her until she almost fainted, the source told The Jordan Times.

The victim tried to resist and informed her brother that she did nothing wrong, but “he did not listen and killed her,” the source added.

Read the full story here

This is the second woman to be slaughtered in cold blood by a male sibling this week, the 6th since the start of 2008. Nobody knows if the husband’s allegations were accurate, the family never bothered and killed the girl anyway, and now how can we ever be sure what went on?* The woman was married so she must have lost her virginity, and the husband decided to report her “infidelity” after two weeks of marriage. At the sound of the word “honor” the victim’s family was taken by some demonic myth and butchered their own daughter.

Will this killer also walk and be hailed a champion of honor?

*Please note that the woman’s being or not being in an affair of sorts should not have spelled out her death sentence. There is no excuse for murder, and least of all for murder in the name of honor. All justifications for that, real or fabricated, should be made illegal.

I am so excited to announce the launch of the New York Times Middle East blog, which I participated in launching as the person in charge of Al Bawaba Blogs. The blog is in Arabic, and it features a number of New York Times articles translated into Arabic and revolving around life in the Arab region.

The purpose of creating this blog, as its description details, is to make NYT articles about the Middle East accessible to people from the region and in Arabic, and to initiate discussions about them and learn people’s opinions.

ترغب جريدة النيو يورك تايمز في معرفة ارائكم حول سلسلة مقالاتها عن الشباب المسلم في انحاء الشرق الأوسط، كل من هذه المقالات قد تم ترجمتها الى العربية وارسلت الى هذا الموقع لغرض النشر والمناقشة. إن سلسلة المقالات هذه قد رتب لها ان تنشر بصورة دورية لتستمر طوال العام ونحن نتطلع لسماع ارائكم.

It feels so good to be a partner in such a beautiful initiative, and I am ever so proud that I actually got to work with New York Times people! I read the New York Times all the time and it’s this larger-than-life idol to me in a way, so the chance to get a bit closer to it is enormously flattering.

Check out the New York Times Middle East blog and leave your input and opinions there, and I am sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed working on it.

Caelum Moffatt reflects on this the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence/the Palestinian Nakba, in MIFTAH:

Following the Second World War, the holocaust and the termination of the British Mandate, UNCSOP passed Resolution 181 in November 1947 which called for a partition of the British Mandate into two bilateral states – Israel and Palestine. Even with a quarter of a decade of immigration and colonization, Jews still only comprised 30% of the population and owned just 7% of the land. Despite these facts, the state of Israel would be granted 55% of the former British Mandate. A war ensued firstly between Palestinians and Jews, then later between Arabs and Israelis after Israel had claimed independence on May 14, 1948.

The Arabs were defeated and by the time the armistice lines were drawn in July 1949, Israel had extended its territory to 78% of historic Palestine. 800,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes, 530 villages were destroyed and 86% of the Palestinians who now fell within the 1949 armistice lines were displaced. Of the 14% that remained, 70% of their land was confiscated or made inaccessible to them.

According to UNRWA estimates, there are presently 5.5 million refugees spread across 58 camps in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

These have been replaced by some 5.5 million Jews living in Israel flourishing in freedom, prosperity and international acceptance in what can only be described as obstinate blindness and pure disregard for the brutality they employed and still adopt today in order to sustain their existence. They maintain that their actions are justified after being subject to worldwide contempt, suffering years of persecution and anti-Semitism. It is as if their unwavering resolve to achieve their goal supersedes Palestinian claims and relegates them to the unfortunate byproduct or obstacle standing in the way of their destiny.

Source

I plan to commemorate the Nakba throughout this week. There are many events going on around town to mark the tragedy and I actually have someone to go with me for a change — progress!

Cultural Week

Guardians of the Memory — A week marking the 60th anniversary of Al Nakbeh. Starting May 10. Until May 16.

Tel: 079 5222512

May 10 Drawings Exhibition

Carlos Lattof, Naji Al Ali, quotes,

Ghassan Kanafani

Location: Al Hannouneh

Time: 7:00pm

May 11 Gallery

Tamam Al Akhal, Ismael Shamout drawings

Location: Directorate of Arts and Theatre - Jabal Luweibdeh

Time: 8:00pm

Screenings of short films

Location: Al Hannouneh

Time: 6:00pm

May 12 Poetry Night

Jerees Samawi, lute player Sakher Hattar

Location: Daret Al Funun

Time: 8:30pm

May 13 Bazaar

Traditional products, food and handcrafts

Location: `Ebaal Charitable Organisation

Time: 5:30pm-10:00pm

May 14 Al Hannouneh Folkloric Dance

Location: King Abdullah Cultural Centre - Zarqa

Time: 8:00

May 15 Al Hannouneh Folkloric Dance

Location: Radisson SAS Hotel

Time: 8:00pm

May 16 Concert

Sho Hal Ayam band

Location: Directorate of Arts and Theatre - Jabal Luweibdeh

Time: 7:00pm

I must say that I wasn’t always aware of the dimensions and the sheer injustice of the occupation of Palestinian land and the dislocation of its people until recently, and I am ever so glad I achieved that state of awareness. It is angering how the international community embraces Israel as a model of democracy and a shrine for human rights, when in truth the country’s history and current treatment of Palestinians testify to its violent and brutal ways. Remember, dear readers, if you do not stand for something, you will fall for anything.

2008 has been a bad, bad year for me so far. I’ve mentioned this repeatedly before this post, but this current time in particular is very trying. I can’t wrap my mind around the enormous shitiness of my current situation and it astonishes me that I am still alive and willing to take it some more. It’s either hope or curiosity that’s keeping me going. Probably curiosity though.

I don’t like it how people tend to portray future life to be all perfect and happy if you get married or find the perfect job for example. That’s simply not true because happiness is always short-lived, and I don’t care if you meditate or pray or shop to sustain that illusive state, it just does not last. Maybe it’s just me but my life unfolds as a series of depressing or frustrating episodes with significantly few bright interludes that do not last more than a day at a time, if not only hours.

My family thinks it’s because I’ve abandoned faith. I say psshh, one would think god has better things to do than take it personally and take it out on me. Think of the wars and natural disasters and true and actual “sins” taking place and stop with all that superstitious talk, and then compare all that to me…a 20-something young woman trying to figure things out in an oppressive society. Seriously, he’d have a lot of issues if he were to single me out and pick on me. I wouldn’t worship that guy.

I personally think it has to do with my eternal incapability to decide. I can never make a big decision and be comfortable with it on the long run, and I also have a problem with authority. These two combined with my fear of time make for a very interesting cocktail — the buzz of which you must be feeling or otherwise you wouldn’t be reading my thoughts. But to me, the actual person, it’s not half as interesting as it sounds and I sometimes wonder why I can’t be just like everyone else. No overthinking, no calculating, no challenging, no arguing, more sheep-like than tololy-like. I really wonder. Just a tad of submissiveness is all it takes to bliss, honestly. I just can’t bring myself to grow that tumor. Can’t.

All of my life I made the decisions that were socially appropriate. For example, in 3rd grade, I wore the veil because my mother encouraged it and everyone around me had one on. I registered in the literary stream during my high school years because I hated math but also because I wanted to get a good result and make my mother proud. I had originally wanted to become a nurse or a vet (luckily for everyone, that didn’t happen.) Then I did not major in art history as I thought I wanted, because my mother thought that only dumb people opt for arts, and what sort of a job would I get after graduation? During college I missed out on scholarships because it was not “right” for me as a young woman to travel alone. The same thing happened over and over, but I was fine. It was when I started having trouble with adhering to social restraints that my life went downhill.

That started years ago. Now my life has almost hit rock bottom, but it’s not quite there yet. If I insist some more I can guarantee that it will be there in no time. I think I must have done some unbelievably horrible act of cruelty to a lot of people (not animals though, I love them more than humans) at some point in time in a different life, or maybe this one, to have earned this. It’s either that or I’m just seriously and chronically unlucky and designed to be miserable. Whatever it is, it’s not groovy and I want my money back.