Feminist dreams and nightmares

I can’t recognize me anymore after I peel off those layers of oppression.

My first memory in Amman is when i was 16 year old walking in the streets of Amman with my parents; we went to Amman to get me in University. My parents decided what I will study. Their wisdom and how much money they have decides what I will be.

Raghadan 1984, We ride into the rush hour bus. My parents pushed and shoved their way inside the bus, a scared child, me, never been good at shoving, I climbed the stairs as the bus was moving, and the door is closing, my parents too deep into the bus they didn’t have access to me. And I didn’t know Amman and understandably freaked out.

I am saying this here, in this unsafe space; I feel being watched by strange men and women on a virtual space. I know I might be considered by some to be a lunatic for expressing my true feelings because my true feelings do emphasize the stereotypes imposed by yet another oppressor, but I don’t have anywhere else to say it, will I say it on the Arabic newspaper? I don’t have the guts.

I am hanging somewhere between in and out of the bus, holding the bars on the sides of the door and the tips of my toes are on the stairs. I felt a million hands touch my butt, a million fingers going into my ass, raped, humiliated, reduced, me Lubzi the great is being raped publicly by a whole nation of hungry wolves. I turned around, still hanging on the stairs of the bus, and faced my rapists, young and old they were. One thing in common between them is that smile on their faces, a smile that I can’t describe, the sickest smile I’ve ever seen.

I was furious, mad, ready and willing and have the actual power to kill someone, I had 'Gali' sports shoes on, heavy and bulk made by my other oppressor, el-yahoud. With all my fury I kicked someone's face, his smile bled. I don’t know if he was part of the gangbang, but I didn’t care.  I hysterically pulled him from his bangs and started slapping him left and right, right and left, spilling all my swear words dictionary. I was watching myself, 'where did SHE come from?’  I never saw me like that. I was proud and ashamed. 

The rapist tribe started beating up on him with me, do you think she is sharmoota? They just wanted to say that word because it turns them on, and still trying to touch me if they have the chance to. My parents in the mean time made their way through to me and calmed me down and participated in the beating/shouting etc. 

A policeman was there, 'you bastard do you think she is a sharmoota’, what is it with this word that they have to repeat it? More emotional rape. I insisted on going to the police station and file a complaint. I don’t know if he was part of the thing but I was seeing all those men as one, and you cant blame me, because he whose hand is in the water cant feel he whose hand is in the fire. 'Fuck him and all his likes, and let him pay for that smile' I was thinking. There is a big difference between watching something and living it.

Where can I write about these things?? If not here where??? If I see someone like Nawal Sa’dawi being condemned and tagged as orientalist because she expresses her opinion, then where the hell can I go?

I cant even speak to my therapist about this, it makes me feel guilty to talk to a stranger about us and enforce her already distorted views.

Nawal is radical, she does use a wide brush and exaggerates and generalizes, and that is part of our culture - the Arabic culture in the Arab world. She is not out there to fuck up our image for the good nice westerners, I am sure that didn’t come across her mind. They dig into our shit and use it against us, even if we didn’t have shit they'll make it up and use it against us. Doesn’t mean we prevent each other from talking about it.

I thought orientalist means someone who exoticizes us, who objectifies us, who portrays us as exotic belly dancers. I've seen it and tasted it and it sucks. I've seen Arab orientalists as well as whites. 

I've seen Arabs in the west who identify themselves through food and belly dancing, our brown sex appeal and 'Arabian' passion, I personally fell into that trap for a while.

I haven’t seen many people who are aware of our history. Oh, and recently, Palestine is a cool thing, many now try to carve a character by mzawadeh on the Palestine issue, let's admit it, it is becoming a cool thing. The other days I was in Berkeley , (A coolists heaven) , and I saw Palestine bumper stickers side by side with bongs and drums. The kids in Haight street are about to liberate Palestine with their bamboo bongs and home made soap bars.

There is a fundamental difference between Arab feminists in the west and Arab feminists in the east. We are very protective in the west about our image, walking on egg shells, trying so hard to clean up our image.  I've seen many of the Arabs (not just feminists, not just women) in the west cope with this by becoming coolists orientalists. Some detach from their heritage, some become anti Arabs, high achievers and/or dedicated activists. We care so much about our external image and give it priority over our real selves, our inherent inferiority ‘khawaja’ complex.

Back in the 'old country' the same complexes are there, they immigrated with us and got westernized. 

We need to start where Nawal has started, maybe she didn’t evolve.  Things don’t evolve easily in the Arab world. How can you evolve when you are jailed and accused of being a traitor and so on, you become more bitter and more radical. 

The idea of not being politically correct is OK, it is something of the west, hypersensitive consideration is not part of the Arab world, there is something called general zoq and 3eib and inappropriate, it is a different culture.

People there aren’t hyper sensitive either. They don’t get as easily offended. They do not react the way I react after spending  5  years in the west.  

I don’t react the way I did 5 years ago. I watched me become more hyper sensitive and politically correct, even though I tried to prevent it.

This is not about Nawal Sadawi, this is about my freedom of being who I really am, which is whether I like it or not, is colored by my upbringing and flavored by my culture. My culture which is different from the culture of someone who grew up in Florida or New Jersey even though we might even have the same 'blood' or the same parents.

The first person who silenced me in the west was a Canadian feminist who was fighting day and night for Palestine because I told her the truth I was living and why I made the decision to immigrate. She was the one who was an orientalist, she couldn’t see the romantic picture that she drew fall apart. I ruined the exotic picture that became something she identifies through as a fighter. She silenced me. She condemned my generalizations, my lack of documenting and scientific approach, my exaggeration.  She was very harsh with my way of expression, she told me I am full of shit, and indeed I was, not because I am full of shit as a person, but because I came from a place where people exaggerate and amplify and make up stories.  I learned later that that can be a good thing for poetry but is not a good feature on the practical level of life, especially when you are dealing with people who cant understand that and take it personally. 

That is one point and the other point is about being able to look into our societies in the Arab world and Diaspora, and be free enough to examine our dirty laundry, even if they happen to take a picture of us doing that and publish it on Newsweek. Toz, we are anyway and already dehumanized. The way to fight that is to hang on to our character and true colors, clean up our shit not because we want to look clean in front of the west, but because we are sick of swimming in it for decades. The west doesn’t have to love us, we need to love us. We need to love our culture and we need to educate the mothers of these boys on the streets of Raghadan.

Do you know why someone like Nawal Saadawi  or Ghada el-Samman or Tojan Faisal or Zleikha Abu Risheh or any woman who opens her mouth are heroes?  Do you know why? Because we are taught to walk with our eyes looking down and our voices low. Because in Amman or Damascus you are not allowed to criticize potholes, whether you are a man or a woman, because as a child you should be thankful that your parents beat the shit out of you because they love you and are making sure you are being brought up right, because as kids we used to brag about who took more beating from their parents or teachers. Because we hate ourselves for being oppressed and think God gives it to us because we do deserve it and that God loves el-yahoud and that's why they are better than us. Because we cry our eyes out when our dictator dies. so any one who speaks out in these conditions is a hero.

Because many of our women support honor killing and think that it is men's right to ‘protect their honor’ and their ‘families honor’ and their ‘sisters honor’ by killing her. Because many of our women believe they are inferior and that God said so. Because, because, because, I can go on and on forever with my becauses. Because when we peel the layers of oppression we don’t know us anymore, just like a fluffy cat getting a bath. , like peeling a cabbage. We need to get to our true core, away from the fear of our oppressors. We need to touch our real skin, see our real flesh. We need to get naked and explore each other's features in order to advance, we can’t keep on wearing western boots and cowboy hats and try to save the east  while riding on our white wild west horse.