Sawt al Niswa | صوت النسوة - Featured

نصائح سعادة في زمن التشبيح

Azadeh Faramarziha — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Sawt al Niswa

س. أ. غ

الى ( د. ق.ب و ه.ع ول.ل.)

تعترضني حالات من الشك حول جدوى الكتابة في لحظات كهذه، أو تعترضني حمّى تصيبني كل فترة وأخرى لأجنفسي في حالة من الهذيان، تحصل أغلبها في مقاعد السرفيس الخلفية، أشك انّ ما يحصل لي يحصل للشعراء، ورغم كرهي الشديد لهم، أسمعني أردد الكلمات وأحس بوقعها عليّ بين نفسي ونفسي. ماذا تصنع الكتابة غير الفردية والاكتئاب؟ ماذا تصنع الكتابة غير أخبار عن موت إلى موت؟ من وصف حالة طفل يحتضر وإضافة علامة تعجب مرة أو مرتين، من رسالة إلكترونية تعبُر الهاتف، تعلن حالة طوارئ جديدة.

على كنبة س. المريحة، كنت أحاول أن آخذ نصف نهار لأشتاق لأحد ما، قد أقفلت كومبيوتري وغيرت مزاج هاتفي الى “عاجز عن الرنين”، وتمدّدت بارتياح شديد لأقوم بما نويت عليه، ألّا أفعل شيئاً غير الاشتياق، لم يكن ليعنيني في هذه الأثناء من خطف من، ومن يقطع الطريق وأين تشتعل الإطارات؟ وأين هي الدولة ؟ وماذا يفعل الباعة المتجولون على الطرقات حين تقطع؟ كنت آخذ بعضاً من الوقت كي أشتاق لأحد صعب المراس. لا أدري إن عاودتني الحُمى، ولا أدري إن كان يصح أن أترك الباب مفتوحاً لأفكاري وأنا أقوم بالاشتياق، غير إني فكرت في السعادة في زمن الحروب، فكرت في النوستالجيا المستعارة من إيقاع صوت القذائف وبيوت مضيئة تستضيف الحفلات والرقص والسهر، فكرت كم يكذب الناجون من الحروب الحميمة، كم يضيفون عناصر سنيمائية تهيئك عند حصولها مجدداً، لاستكمال حياتك حينما تستطيع، وحينما تفهم أن العادة تتلازم مع الحرب: شرب القهوة صباحاً، الذهاب الى العمل، الالتحاق بالصليب الأحمر، تبادل الإعجاب، تثبيت أحمر الشفاه، عدم الذهاب إلى العمل، مشاهدة البث المباشر، الاتصال بالأهل، منع الأولاد من الخروج، النوم، الكتابة على الفايسبوك، ضغط لايك. الملل. تك الديجنتور.

نحن في حالة من الطورائ، حالة تشتد ساعات وتكون غير مرئية ساعات أخرى، تتناوب محطات التلفزيون في استعراضها، كيف نعيش الأيام المقبلة؟ الشهور المقبلة؟ نحن أجمل ما في بيروت الآن، نحن الناس المسالمون والحالمون والطامحون والباحثون عن السعادة في نكتة قذرة، في غرافيتي على الحائط، في مجموعات صغيرة تتشابك، قبيلة من الأفراد في مدينة لا تحب جميع أفرادها. لمن هذا المكان؟ لمن هذه المدينة؟ لماذا نصُر على عيش هكذا؟ لا أحب كيف تصنع الميلشيات منا المعجزات.

إن كنت سورياً في الوقت الراهن، فلا تخف وقم بالمحافظة على رشاقتك، ولا تكن اجتماعياً؛ لا تخبر الدكانجي عن رأيك السياسي، وتمرن على لهجة أهل منطقتك، لا تقل لأحد إنك مشتاق إلى سوريا، وإلى ذاتك فيها، لا تُخبر أحداً عن صعوبة أن تكون غير لبناني في لبنان، لا تعزل نفسك في مكان لا يسكنه أحد من عائلتك وأصدقائك، فتش عن بيوت متلاصقة، واسكنوها جماعياً، هنا، الجماعة أساس الملك، انظر الى أحياء هذه المدينة ورغم غياب التنظيم المدني، خريطة الجماعات فيها واضحة ومنظمة، هندسة بشرية رائعة. تعلّم الركض، ولا تأتِ إلى المناطق التي لا تحبك، حاول ألّا تعتبرها مسألة شخصية فقد تكون أنت إنساناً رائعاً، لكن المحبة من الله وأعني هذا حرفياً.

إن كنت لبنانياً غير منخرط بما يجري، ولا يد لك في أي حادث فردي حصل سابقاً، ولا جماعة لك، فاتبع نفس النصائح ولا تنظر إلى لخلف.

إن كنت فلسطينياً، فالزم المخيم ومكان التجمّع… وافتحهما للسوريين القادمين.

حضّر حقيبة في حال تكررت الاشتباكات وتطورت، ضع فيها أوراق ثبوتية، ضع صورة تحبها لنفسك ومن معك، ضع سراويلك الداخلية المفضلة، حمالة الصدر الأغلى التي تملكين، المال. ربما زجاجة ماء، منشفة وثياب. لا تنسَ أن تضع زجاجة ويسكي أو مشروبك المفضل، إن كنت تدخن الحشيشة، فاحرص على لف السجائر مسبقاً، إذ في حال اضطررت إلى النزوح سيتحسن شعورك عندما تتذكّر أنّ السيجارة ملفوفة، لن تخونك رجفة يديك، أو الشعور بأنّ هناك من سينتبه. دوّن اسمك الكامل على ورقة وضعها في الحقيبة، وقد تستطيع أن تثنيها وتكتب على الجهة الأخرى: الاسم “رفيق الحريري”، فلا ضير من روح الدعابة عند الأزمات. لا تنسَ زجاجة العطر.

تموّن،احرص على وجود الكحول بوفرة في المنزل، وموسيقى جيدة، استثمر في راديو جيد ويعمل على البطارية لساعات طويلة، اختر موسيقى لطيفة، مفرحة وتستطيع الرقص عليها. لا تستمع إلى زياد. كن مع أصدقائك، افتحوا منازلكم بعضكم لبعض، وتحدثوا في ليالي الاشتباكات الطويلة وتذكّروا أنّ من نجا الحرب السابقة، كان سعيداً خلالها فلم تستطع إليه سبيلاً. إذا أمضيت ليالي الطورائ مع أهلك، فلا تنزعج واحرص على تفادي الاحاديث المزعجة، تَسبب في مشكل مع الفرد الأكثر إزعاجاً في العائلة لضمان سكوته طوال الليل، اسأل أمك عن أمور توّد إصلاحها في المنزل واشغل نفسك بها، وتذكّر الهدية التي حضّرتها مسبقا في الحقيبة في حال أشتدّ تأثير العائلة عليك. لا تدمن على التلفزيون، أستمع اليه في حالات الضرورة. اخرج في اوقات السلم، توجه الى البحر واشتم كل من تريد وكل ما تريد.

ابتعد عن الاخرين المتعلقين بما يجري، تحاشَ جارك الطائفي، افتعل زكاماً كلما حاول أن يتحدث اليك. نقِّ ذهنك، قم بممارسة اليوغا السياسية، لا تظهر أي ردّات فعل، لا تحقد، تحاشَ كلًّا من ١٤ و٨ آذار. تأمل خريطة لبنان عند الحيرة وتنهد.

في زمن التشبيح، فتش عن السعادة ولا تقلق، لا تفقد إنسانيتك، ابتسم لصديق حزين، تأمل السماء وانتظر ظهور القمر، ازرع حبق وياسمين، لا تكره المدينة كثيراً، أعذر الاصدقاء رغم عاداتهم السيئة، فهم جميلون دائماً وأبداً. تعلّم عزف العود، افتح الشبابيك على مصاريعها، تنفس. لا تنسَ أن تتنفس.

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

Sawt goes patriotic

Tags:

Featured:

Reflections on Queerness in the Arab World: An Interview with Dr. Samar Habib

Lamia Moghnie — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Nayrouz A.

Ghaida Moussa

Before the last decade, all we could focus on – as Arab queers – was looking back to the past, determined to uncover our roots, our trajectories as Arab queers living in the Arab world or in the diaspora. Today, the paradigms are shifting, making us reflect on our present and future, all the while feeding on histories unearthed by the scholars and activists who came before us. Among these scholars is Dr. Samar Habib, an academic who – for many Arab queers – has offered a starting point to question past and current narratives that characterize us as estranged and displaced in our embodiment of queer identities. Through her publication of works such as Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations, Dr. Habib has revealed textual and cinematographic representations of what we can today call today our actual and representational ancestry. She has provided us with accounts upon which we can reflexively base our understandings of ourselves, our communities and the cultures that we belong to. Much of these revelations have brought with them a shattering of the conception of culture as static, of queer as foreign/Western, of sexuality as singular, and of Arabness as monolithic.

As Arab queers who are personally invested – on the ground, in the classroom and in the spaces inbetween –we – the authors – wished to open dialogue with Dr. Habib. At the time of the interview, our memories of home(s) were being shocked and stirred with the images and stories being broadcasted to us in the daily newspapers and television news channels. The fall of dictatorships, the rise of peoples’ movements, the confusion and evident failures of the West, the bloodshed, the simultaneous plea for nationhood, civil factionary clashes, and rebirth of trans-regional solidarity, the demand for basic rights and the voices of women at the frontlines were brewing in our minds and in our hearts as we watched from afar. Simultaneously, our reflections concerning the relatively recent surge of queer activism and literature in the Arab world and in the diaspora infused our academic, artistic, and daily projects and experiences. The works of authors, such as Dr. Habib and Dr. Sahar Amer, as well as, the autobiographical works of queer groups such as, Meem (Lebanon) and Aswat (Palestine), the spoken word poetry of local queer Arabs in our cities, our own academic projects, and the emergence of multiple queer Arab social movements in countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Lebanon, Canada, the United States, England, Palestine, etc. – have inspired art, political and anti-colonial discourse, community-building, and social movements. Within these projects some common themes surfaced and are currently being explored: the quest for self-definition; the quandary of definition by an Other; the longing for a sense of belonging; the permanence of a sense of displacement; the reality of the colonization of our minds, tongues and bodies; the thirst for community; and the dilemmas of solidarity among others.

It is within this very real and grounded cloud of thoughts that we approached Dr. Habib during the following interview. Out of this state of mind emerged a series of themes from which we built our interview questions. We were first interested in knowing about Dr. Habib’s past and present work, how she came about choosing the topics for research and why she approached these topics the way that she did. We were also interested in understanding how she defined concepts such as homosexuality, queerness, and homophobia, and how these definitions were rooted in her historical analysis of queerness in the Arab world. Conjointly, this meant engaging in a very current debate concerning the provenance of queerness and homophobia (were they a project of Western colonialism/imperialism?). These questions were not only self-involved, but also implied better understanding how to work with non-queer members of our communities. Furthermore, the topic of ‘solidarity’ and its implications – as a neocolonial effort to manage and oppress and as a strategy to find a common front for unity – was a heated topic of discussion. Finally, Dr. Habib shared with us the future directions of her work. While many subjects were left aside or only dealt with in a more superficial manner than was deserved, we hope that this discussion can inspire a continuation of the many conversations that queer Arabs are having amongst each other, online, and across borders. Furthermore, as Dr. Habib brings forth, these conversational and action-based bridges are also pathways to further empowerment, self-knowledge and definition, as well as community building.

We interviewed Dr. Habib in Toronto, where she was a guest speaker at the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival: “With Love from Le(z)Banon and Pa(lez)tine” program.

How and why were you interested in current and historical queer/homosexuality issues in your work, such as: Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representation, and “Queering the Middle East and the New Anti-Semitism”? In the first book you trace written evidences of female homosexuality in the Middle-East, while in the second article you focus on queer political related issues. What brought about your interest in these themes?

I think it was a question of trying to uncover what Foucault would call an ‘archeology of knowledge’ on same-sex relations or desire in the Arab context. It was really a question of trying to reconstruct that kind of desire in ways that were meaningful to my cultural identities. So those primary identities being: Lesbian or queer identified woman, gender atypical queer bodied and also my Palestinian heritage, being born into a condition of statelessness. It began as a question and I was not sure what I was going to find. So my work, my written work, was defined by the material and primary evidence that I collected over the years. As to the question of Palestine and queer politics, I really became interested in that since I was interested in finding something remedial: ‘How do we get beyond this issue of Zionist and Arab? How do we start thinking beyond national borders and nationalism?’ – And queer politics seems to be an appropriate framework. Naturally, the very first article I published, which was “Queering the Middle East and the New Anti-Semitism”, just happened to be about this convergence of my Palestinian identity and my queer identity, through going back to the site of trauma: occupied Palestine. Going back to the site of trauma, I realized that within these homo-national LGBT groups in Israel, there was this really small contingent, at the time represented by the Jerusalem Open House, who really spoke out about Israeli state oppression of Palestinians in the Occupied Territory and in Palestine itself. For me, there was something healing about identifying groups in Israel that were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. It was also healing to locate myself as an Arab in our history and our Arab history and as a queer Arab to find other non-heteronormative gender and sexual identities going as far back as the 9^th century. So, I think it was a process of healing and of remedy.

How do you define concepts such as ‘queer’ and ‘homosexuality’ in your work?

I am not sure if I have ever defined it explicitly, but over the years I have come to realize that when using “homosexuality” I wanted to use the term as an a-historical neutral term, like a clinical term, such as same-sex. I did not want it to be used based on its actual origin from medical discourse or as a clinical diagnosis. I like the word “homosexuality”. Queer is also transhistorical; we tend to use “queer” as a sort of umbrella term to identity people across histories. When you say “lesbian” the term is very specific to the island of Lesbos or to Sappho; the term has all these implications. However, somehow, the term “queer” has been dehistoricized in the way “lesbian” and “homosexual” has not but one day we will be talking about “queer” in its historicity too. Because “queer” has its very own construct here in the late 20^th century, in an academic, privileged, bourgeois discourse. But also, the difference between “homosexuality” and “queer” is that “queer” carries a political identity with it. It is anti-hegemonic; homosexuality does not necessarily have to be anti-hegemonic. Homosexuality also, is a very well defined and specific term, while queer, by its very nature, resists definitions. It is always open to re-definition; it is never a closed concept in the way homosexuality is.

How do you draw on the continuity and change in the conceptualization of the terms (queer/homosexuality) and the experiences of them through looking at these current and historical periods? The traditional or classical terms suhaqiyya (lesbian) or luti (gay man) in Arabic saw shifts in the past ten to fifteen years, and the terms mithli or mithliya were introduced. In what way is this transformation in terminology a political and social transformation?

The way to answer this question is to look back at the terminology itself. “Suhaqiyya”, سحاقية, “luti”, لوطي, these terms have a derogatory origin (also, “queer” has a derogatory origin). Let’s start with “suhaqiyya”, for example. It is misogynist, and anti-lesbian or homophobic on a number of levels. It implies that a woman who has a sexual relationship with another woman is entering into a non-copulative sexual act and therefore she is annihilating herself, suhaq, ‘annihilation’. Also, it is a very phallocentric expression because it refers to suhaq as in grinding, so it is this idea that sexual relations between two women cannot be penetrative, which is absurd. So, it is very phallocentric, patriarchal and misogynist. ‘Luti’, of course, brings with it all the textual drama, and damnation of the story of Lot in the Quran, which is the most essential text for the Muslim clergy, and that Christian and Jewish orthodoxy rely on to justify homophobia in the whole world. So these are not nice words. In contrast, I know for example that in the 13^th century, Ahmad Ibin Yousef al-Tifashi said that same-sex-loving women used to call themselves tharifat, which means ‘witty women’. So at the same time that society had generated derogatory labels, same-sex-loving women of the Arabic classic period, had these names that were nice names like gay, which is very similar to tharaf (wit). By the same token in the present we have translated the word “homosexual” to mithlya or mithlyi, from the word ‘same’; the sameness is important here, and we also dropped beautifully the history of the word being connected to an oppressive medical discourse. So the word mithlya is more radically empowering than the word “homosexual”, which was never really empowering, but even more empowering than the word “gay” or “queer”, which has its origin in weirdness or in a kind of non-normativity that can be derogatory.

In Female Homosexuality in the Middle East, you present the main discourses used in the Arab World to entertain homophobia, such as medical and religious frameworks. Despite the importance of this work, it seems like you rarely tie these discourses – their emergence and sustainability – to colonial processes which brought them to the Middle East. Why is that?

That is a brilliant question but let me challenge that idea that the Middle East or the Arab World did not know homophobia until it was imported from the West. We have had our own brand of homophobia long before there were Western colonial impositions and conceptual migrations of that kind. We have had homophobia wherever gender and sexual minority persons have existed. There is a Hadith about Caliph Abou Bakr, for example, that says that two men were brought to him who were engaged in a same-sex act and the Prophet hadn’t really made any pronouncement about what you do with that sort of thing (weak ahadith to this effect notwithstanding) and he made the pronouncement that you kill them. That was way before that medical discourse that the modern Islamic scholars use, especially the ones I address in Chapter One of Female Homosexuality. I would hesitate to say that we did not know homophobia, or whatever you want to call it, because it is so hard to use these words because they are such modern terms. Let’s just say ‘revulsion against gender and sexual minority persons’.

However, that is a very important critique of Female Homosexuality in the Middle East, that it rarely – if ever – engages with the colonial processes which brought a very important thing to the Middle East, which is the legislative criminalization in a modern state of same-sex sexual acts. For example, what Helem are trying to do in Lebanon is to repeal penal code 534, under which gender and sexual minorities get prosecuted. That penal code was brought in by colonial intervention. Lebanon itself in its current statehood was founded by the French after World War 1. The situation in Egypt: the debauchery laws were brought in by English colonists,. That would have been a very important point to address, to say that under Ottoman occupation – which lasted 600 years – and under the Ottoman brand of Islam, and certainly under the Abassid brand of Islam before the Ottoman takeover and before the fall of Bagdad to the Mongols in the 13^th century, there was nothing punitive legislatively. So yes it was condemned in some cultural circles; the Imam in the mosque might say ‘that’s wrong and you shouldn’t be doing that’ but people did it. It was frowned upon but nobody got punished for it in those particular geographies during those times. So yes, who brought this back and who inspired modern Shari’aa laws? Yes, it was the colonists and that was a very important point that clearly I missed in the book.

I would also want to address the institutional cringe: you know, I was working within a department that did not encourage that kind of critical work about colonial interventions in the Middle East and any kind of criticism in that vein. For some reason, it is okay to be critical of colonial intervention in India. I am not sure why it is so depoliticized. It is probably the case because it is not current, it is not still ongoing. I always have to attribute that omission in Female Homosexuality to the institutional constraints that are placed on research in one’s early career. Surely as I progress, I am better able to address these things and better able to liberate my research agenda from institutional constraints.

Considering that homophobia did exist, could we agree that the ways in wish we frame our homophobia – whether it be through the legal system which creates certain widespread campaigns against homosexual or the pathologies that are created in the medial system – is in fact internalized from the West? In other words, while communities in the Middle East may be thinking that they are rejecting the West by rejecting homosexuality, they are in fact internalizing Western thoughts related to homosexuality brought in through colonial processes?

Absolutely – it’s not only Western, it is both contemporary to evangelical discourses in the US but it’s also the same discourse used in 1950s sexologies in the US, Europe and in North America generally. None of the arguments that these modern critics of homosexuality come up with haven’t already been proposed or are not already being circulated, particularly in ex-gay style institutions. But also we have our very own culturally specific brand of homophobia and we bring in this residue from religious discourse as well, from the weak or unauthenticated Hadiths about the Prophet, from the Quranic version of story of Lot (lut). In fact, recently in India the repeal of the law that criminalized homosexuality was largely based on a desire to eliminate this remaining colonial law. So I think rhetorically that is a really good strategy, to say ‘you know what, we used to let people do what they wanted. It is their business. It is up to Allah to punish them. You don’t have to police people on the street. You don’t need a vice squad, you don’t need a moral police.” But in the modern Islamic republic and the modern Islamic monarchy such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, that is exactly what they have. But I’m also quite certain that if there wasn’t a Western discourse with which to engage, that the Arab modern scholastic institutions would have created their own discourse to pathologize and medicalize gender and sexual non-normativity, because we can come up with our own homophobia, but that we didn’t need to, that we can rely on these outdated discourses is also true.

Do you believe that bringing the colonial processes narrative to mainstream audiences in the Middle East would help counter homophobia?

I think you’ve identified a very good rhetorical strategy because what I am seeing now is that we – us queers of the Arab world - have always had this accusation leveled at us, that we are West identified and that we are also agents of Western sabotage, that they are trying to infiltrate our culture by imploding it from within.

What I am seeing now as well is that a lot of these groups are also showing political solidarity with the mainstream Arab World that rejects them, saying we are against all forms of oppression, be it colonial, be it imperial, be it capitalistic in nature from within (like class oppression) and we are also as Arab as you: We work in the same institutions, we cook the same food, we love the same music, we have the same families and the same ties to those families. Many of us have the same aspirations like reproductive aspirations, for example. That very idea that homosexuality is a Western import also comes from the West. It is also a Western discourse that is relied on in the Middle East to establish queer identity as a Western concept and precedent. It is a very popular academic discourse and it really works to sabotage the authenticity of what it means to be a sexual or gender minority person outside of a Western framework.

But I digress. Let’s return to talking about bringing mainstream colonial processes and their relationship to homophobia to the mainstream of the Arab world. I should add that I’m seeing such efforts undertaken by groups like Helem and Meem and Al-Qaws and Aswat. These groups are building their rhetorical strategies around supporting the very communities that reject them. For example, during the second Israeli invasion of Beirut in 2006, Helem turned their premises into a shelter for all people from the area. They were engaging the outer community and saying ‘we are with you in this struggle. We are discriminated against by this West you think we are agents of in the same way. When we get bombed too and we die with you.’ The vocal work of al-Qaws and Aswat in addressing occupation and pinkwashing, also goes a long way in engaging this rhetorical strategy, or reminding our communities that we share in the same institutionalized oppressions they face.

The problem with homophobia is that it doesn’t change overnight. It is something we need to work on in a very long process.

It is said by many authors that the new wave of imperialism (possibly rising post-September 11), which is justified by a ‘human rights intervention’ discourse, has granted Western queer and gay movements a new neo-colonial role which resembled the one played by Western feminist movements currently and in the past. Do you imagine this rise in what is said to be “transnational queer solidarity’ to be a dangerous or fruitful one?

I think that you have identified here Edward Said’s thesis: the idea that Liberal Western feminism played a critical role in justifying military interventions in the Middle East. And then you have also identified Joseph Massad, Said’s protégé’s thesis replica in relation to the LGBT or gay international as he calls it. What interests me is that I would really like to make a distinction between transnational queer solidarity and LGBT NGOs. LGBT NGOs can be problematic in the way they approach gender and sexual minority oppressions in third world contexts, that much is very true. There is this issue which can be problematic and I think the person who actually illustrated this much more effectively and not simply polemically is Jasbir Puar in Terrorist Assemblages. She really shows where this problem lies: how these discourses can be inherently racist and culturally remain without nuance. At the same time, I would like to envision transnational queer solidarity as different from LGBT NGOs. Solidarity is just a sense of affinity, a sense of political convergence, whereas when NGOs come down to it and do the hard work, it really depends on the cultural sensitivities of the people devising policy and setting the programs, who is donating and how are they influencing the agenda. But also I don’t think there is a monolith within LGBT NGOs either, and what about NGOs that are formed as grassroots groups and organizations from within the third world, or the non-western world? It’s a very peculiar generalization to say all of these are complicit with neo-imperialism. Or that you can’t do anything, you must sit in a straight jacket because you are cooperating with Western incitement to discourse. I think we need incitement to discourse – that is exactly what we need, but to do so responsibly.

Do you believe that queerness, in the way that is understood in the West, can be superimposed on queer MENA realities? For example, in Female Homosexuality in the Middle East, you talk about the suhaqiyya (grinder) to refer to more masculine women who only engaged sexually with other women and you make a distinction between the more masculine Lesbian suhaqiyya and the bi-sexual women who was not called suhaqiyya. In Western LGTBQ contexts this could be called butch-femme, in your opinion did these binaries exist in the Middle East during the period you speak about (9th-13th century Middle East)?

I am not sure that I ever said that only masculine same-sex loving women were identified as suhaqiyyat. It was actually just believed that the feminine ones could be reconverted. I very much think that is untrue… but again it is in that male, patriarchal imaginary that we understand her: She wants to be a man, but, you, what is wrong with you? You just haven’t met the right man. That is the distinction – they still use these discourses to delegitimize feminine female homosexual identities throughout the world.

I wonder if queerness is even understood in the West. Maybe the West understands Lesbian and Gay much better, but this concept of Queer is really very much understood by fewer in the West and fewer people within the Lesbian and Gay community or transgender community even. You have to remember that we have homonormativity, we have transnormativity, we have people who only wish to engage in Lesbian or Gay as a lifestyle issue: who want to marry, who want to have kids, own property, and we have trans people who do not want to acknowledge their birth biological sex and want to identify as exclusively female or male. Not that there is any issue with that but I think that this “Queer” is not even understood in the West.

Thirdly, in Western LGBT contexts – and this could be called butch/femme – can these be superimposed on the period I speak about? Well, in what way can they be superimposed, I would ask? Can we say that there were masculine women who had attractions to feminine women who had attractions to masculine women? Yes of course. Is it butch/femme in the style of New York City in the 1950s where masculine women would pass off as men, and hence be able to live with their partners? Probably not because that is a condition of a modern metropolis, a post-industrial society of alienation and condensed populations. How can you pass that off in a small city where everybody knows everybody and that’s so and so’s daughter. I mean, it could happen but then they would only be phenomenologically butch/femme, only in a cursory way but not in any kind of deep and meaningful way. But have there always been masculine female attractions to feminine female attractions and vice versa? Of course. I don’t see why not and it’s in the literature as well: there are two kinds of grinders, say Al Samaw’uli and Al Yamani. There are the masculine ones and there is nothing you can do about them, they say, and then there are the feminine ones and maybe we can do something about them, they say. They just have to meet the right man. Is that true? Of course not. And does a masculine woman necessarily have to be homosexually inclined? Of course not.

While ‘radical movements’ often feel like they might be immune to reproducing oppression, when we speak of transnational alliances, colonial histories demand of us to acknowledge power relations. Do you believe ‘solidarity’ can exist and express itself outside of a neo-colonial framework, and in this sense benefit all parties involved?

Yes I do believe that solidarity can exist and express itself outside of a neo-colonial framework. I just do not know how transnational organizing can achieve that. I think on an individual atomic level, from person to person, that sense of solidarity to understand that there are other people undergoing your struggles is important. A very good example are the LGBT communities in Israel which have been co-opted by a nationalist discourse and this kind of homonationalism permeates the LGBT community in Israel precisely because the Israeli state, in comparison to many other modern states in the region, gave its gender and sexual minority Israeli citizen a bit more recognition. It is not like there is gay and lesbian marriage in Israel, it is not like there are equal inheritance laws. But the idea that I want equality for just me and my lot, rather than I want universal social justice is really problematic and it is not Queer. The whole point of Queer – and that is why I say to you that I believe that there can be queer transnational solidarity — is that I want social justice for all, for everyone who is oppressed: for the gays, and lesbians, and transgendered, inter-sexed, queer people and bisexual people, and the differently abled, and the poor and the racially oppressed and so on. I would also want it for religious fundamentalists should they happen to exist in contexts where they are being persecuted. It’s ironic, how universalist queer can be, in relation to social justice. So, of course I do not think you can have a queer identity or have a radical movement that doesn’t identify transnationally with those other oppressed groups and wherever those groups maybe not just gender and sexual minorities, but also Palestinians in the occupied territories, and not just Palestinians in the occupied territories, but oppressed persons wherever and whoever they may be.

Finally, we would like to hear your reflections on your past and present (or future?) work.

Currently I have been looking at the autobiographical narratives that have been emerging from the Middle East on gender and sexual minority autobiographical narrative. There is the autobiography called Randa the Trans which came out of Beirut. There is also the books by Aswat Haqi an Akhtar an A’eesh an Akoun and Waqfet Banaat, and Bareed Musta’jil from Meem. I have been so far looking at the intersection of religion and gender and sexual minorities and provide an intensive reading as to what these autobiographies have in common across the Middle-East and North-Africa. I am really also interested in this amazing new rise in grassroots organizing within the Arab World for gender and sexual minority rights, and not just activism for rights to try and enter the hegemony or the state, but organizing really for social support, for having a cross regional Queer Arab transnational counterculture that I see is flourishing.. So I want to document that.
If you were to revisit your work, what critiques would you have towards it?

I have a lot of critiques of my work. Every time I read I think I would love to change things but I think this is the nature of scholarship. I think a good critique of Female Homosexuality in the Middle-East I would have is not having engaged sufficiently with the concept of “queer”. I think I handled in great details the issue of essentialism and constructionism and the issue of a-historical narratives of gender and sexual identities across time and space, but I did not address the issue of “queer”. Mainly, I did not acknowledge how the term “lesbian” can be problematic and how “queer” – just by its potential to be redefined unlike the terms “lesbian” and “homosexual” – could have actually served better. It could have been Female Queerness in the Middle East.

The other thing is the issue that you raised. Originally I had in the introduction a lot of criticism of Western imperialism and this Arab identification of homosexuality as a Western conceptt being itself born of colonial dialectics and as a result of colonial imposition. Arabs were trying to define themselves by everything their oppressor was not, so if the oppressor has gays we don’t have gays, if the oppressor does not execute, then we do. That is how we define ourselves in relation to the other. So I really did not take up that issue which was also very important. I began to but I remember taking out these passages.

Other passages that I removed involved my critique of then Public Culture article, of Masaad’s “Reorienting Desire” (Desiring Arabs, then, had not come out yet). I remember being critical of that article, but in my revisions I decided to leave it for another project.

I am sure there is a lot in my critique that can and will be disputed in time, but this is the very essence of scholarship. If a work does not become out of date and remains forever current then I am sure it is not a work of scholarship.

Samar Habib is a writer, researcher and scholar. She has published widely on homosexuality in the Arab world, including the books Female Homosexuality in the Middle East and Islam and Homosexuality. Her latest novel,Rughum & Najda, is a ficto-historical narrative involving same-sex love among women in ninth-century Baghdad.

* The Turkish version of this interview is published in Feminist Yaklasimlar which is an online peer-reviewed feminist journal in Turkey. For the website of the journal: www.feministyaklasimlar.org.

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

Nasawiya

Tags:

Featured:

Politics of Closeness and Alienation

sara — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:00:00 +0000

source unknown

Sara Emiline AbuGhazal

To Audre and Adrienne,

Prologue

Because a true vision holds much power, if it is not killed into this reality, it will have no place to go, and all its power will destroy the one who received it. A vision is a responsibility, and to kill the vision into reality is a complete act of power.

Dreaming the Council Ways, Okhy Simine Forest, p.92

I sit down to write to Audre and Adrienne a letter, and in this letter I mean to explain to them who I am, and what is my vision of womanhood and change. How do I insist that this notion of feminism is more ancient than the programs for economic empowerment, and how it goes beyond what we understand of violence in the modern world, that it extends to a memory I invoke by understanding my particular history, of this land and this culture, of knowing that I will continue to evolve as long as I unfold my ancestral roots, the forgotten history, where the feminine / female was sacred.

That this kind of feminism, if we wish to call it that, runs deeper in our blood than any other “identity,” that it allows me and many others to know that what they call an “act of rebellion” is nothing more than an instinctual pulse that we have followed. That regardless of what they say, and however they say it, what women have suffered from and continue to suffer from, is not normal. That patriarchy in its sectarian, national and capitalist faces will not fall down, until women, especially those in the south of the lands, change their consciousness and remember who they are and what they have always represented, that they meet, and create spaces free of that.

I wanted to write about the layers of identities, sexualities, class and privileges that prevent us from moving towards the ways of true change. How every time people use English my heart gets broken, as I feel our mother’s tongue is being cut over and over again, and we are forgetting what we are, and how to look at ourselves from that language in particular, and how we invent ourselves through it, distancing ourselves from what the colonialists told us. That I feel ashamed of having to write this in English, because many of my sisters choose the easy ways of communications, that the sum of what we know and we don’t know about is not being documented, that we often don’t practice what we preach.

That we are surrendering to the system, and it is luring us to a change that happens a certain way, into a revolution that fits the market, a revolution that doesn’t not challenge our brothers and sisters into an understanding of how working with feminists is not an issue of diversity; it is an issue of saying that your spaces, your attitudes and your actions are women “friendly,” that you don’t treat women in meetings as either princesses or as hysterical, as an object of love or as an object of liberation. That women’s spaces and their work is about shifting the paradigms of work and politics.

I have realized that I don’t have a vision, that the sum of my visions has been killing parts of myself. The parts where I’ve fought battles to cultivate. I realize that I’m so detached from the person I wanted to give birth to. We all give birth while we transform into the people we want to be, we mature in labor, while we struggle against conforming or holding onto our new-found beliefs.

We all understand that liberation and emancipation is an act of individuality, before it is an act of collectiveness. We all change, we all cultivate this change, adding to it and taking from it, so that we become what we are meant to become. To have visions is to have the desire to change, to have a desire means that the power to create hasn’t been taken away from you, and your chances of survival are stronger. We don’t live in the wilds to worry about survival, but we do live in a globalized economy, our identity crises are becoming more or less crises of consumers and consumerism. Can I afford this house? Could I afford this lifestyle?

To survive is to constantly make sure you can consume. I’ve consumed enough of the promoted individual lifestyle, I’ve consumed enough of love stories and emotions, I’ve consumed enough of activism. I’ve consumed enough of being an individual living in Beirut. I’ve consumed enough. I’ve consumed enough coffees at Younes’, and drinks in Hamra, I’ve consumed enough of polite greetings, I’ve consumed enough ways to tame my sexuality so it doesn’t freak people out, I’ve consumed enough betrayal from those who are confused about the difference between friendships and social networking. I’ve consumed enough of not being visible as the only Palestinian in a room, and that needs to count for something, I’ve consumed enough of being the token of diversity. I’ve consumed enough of promises of change. I’ve consumed enough of hatred because if we can’t deal with one another, then we’ve got to hate one another. I’ve consumed enough of avoiding connecting with anyone, because I’ve consumed enough experiences to learn that trust means honesty. I’ve consumed enough lies to understand that everything that we live amidst is a lie, that everyone consumed a little bit in it that it became our reality. I’ve consumed enough assimilation to fit in my Lebanese surrounding, that my need to return home had grown tremendously. I have an unmistakable urge of returning home. I want to get out of here, if “here” will not change.

Dear Adrienne and Audre,

I’m old as my wounds are, and they seem to be growing older but preserving their freshness. I’ve been meaning to write to you both, but now that Adrienne too has left and the letter I’ve been meaning to write you both became a metaphor, of having this urge to write to those who wish to listen; a metaphor of good will and wishful thinking, that words build bridges, and words destroy them too, that words are the gems of survival and salvation, they are manifestation of faith, they have the ability to shift what is stagnant into motion, they are the components needed to heal, of all potions, of all healing recipes, words are the catalyst of change. .

I live in Beirut, a city that is the living and breathing example of the world we live in today, a city that represents short memory, with an outstanding privatized downtown that screams in your face: nothing happened here. Nothing of importance at least. A city that hosts migrant workers and shove them off its balconies, a city that is welcoming and generous to the visitors from the west, that it caters to all their needs, and transforms itself into their homes, even at the expense of its local sons and daughters while they leave the city slowly to those who can afford living in it. Soon, Beirut will know no poverty, soon Beirut will hide them well in its peripheries, suburbs and towns, with houses and balconies overlooking Beirut, as it becomes an ultimatum for internationality .

I’ve been meaning to write to you about an outline of a story concerning a group of friends, a group of friends that once had the ability to create change and sustain it. A group of friends that represented the core of what you both talked about, a group that understood queer, feminist and the baggage that each brings on the table. A group of friends each with a talent, each with a history of her own, each with a shadow of insecurities, and fears. A group of intellectual and artistic talents, of witches, seers, visionaries, healers and so much more, a group of friends, that understood that womanhood unfolds to become the secret of life itself. But I couldn’t. I was afraid if I had a vision of this group, and this vision doesn’t become true, it could kill me. Kill us.

II.

I had a few questions for you, but it’s too late now. I wanted to ask you about your communities, were they harmonious as they sounded? Did you not belittle each other’s work? Did you not betray one another? Did you exclude one another, until everyone excluded everyone? Did you become what these wounds made of you? Did you try to survive against all odds, but also against one another? Did you take in all the violence, all the discrimination, all the tactics of patriarchy and reflected it onto one another? Did you? Did you become a feminist version of your own societies– resources and power in the hands of the few? Did you hate one another, and did this hate drive you to silence each other? Blackmail one another? Did you fight, and did those fights preoccupy you from challenging what’s out there? Did you have to protect yourselves from your communities as much as you protect yourself from racism, sexism, and homophobia? Did you forget about what brought you together in the first place? Did you not learn how to forgive one other, and have faith in one another? Did you use your privileges against one another? Did you host parties and screenings in your own private houses so that you intentionally isolate one or two individuals? Did you use language against one another? Did you use academic achievements to delete the experiences learned by another through surviving what you theorize about, but never experienced? Did you compromise what is not yours so that you seek revenge against one another? Did you not read each other’s stories in a book that you all worked on and understand that you all came from such battles, and some of you are more bruised and more wounded than others? Did you mirror each other’s fears, and feared what you saw in that mirror? Did you make alliances with brotherhoods that neglect, belittle and use women’s presence in the struggle as it fits their apologetic politics, so you guarantee a space for yourself? I wonder if you did.

III.

I think about what I lose on a daily basis, if I’m not conscious and aware of how feminism is multidimensional, how it penetrates to the details of the details of my everyday life. How much do I lose, when I don’t understand that sisterhood is what saved me, from myself at times, and it’s what broke me at times. How much do I lose on a daily basis when I don’t make the effort to protect myself, by protecting others, by understanding that no (wo)man is an island, that anything without a sense of community to contain it and to engage with it, will not liberate me or my sisters.

Dear Audre and Adrienne, dark times are coming. I don’t know if you can see it from the other side, times where we need to make use of every single individual that believes in change, were we need to change something amongst ourselves, fear each other and one another less, for we complete each other.

I want to write more, but for now, I can’t write about any vision until I have the guarantees that this vision, will not kill me. Will not kill us.

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

Nasawiya

Tags:

Featured:

Syria: Abundance of Images but Absolute Lack of Frame of Thought

Azadeh Faramarziha — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:38:12 +0000

Sawt al Niswa

Nayrouz Abu Hatom

(Nazareth-Palestine)

The waves of revolutions in the Arab world have challenged so many assumptions, opinions, political streams and even political structural relations around the world, on macro and micro levels. Some link the revolutions to the same point of origin, some think they are product of global processes and others think they are informed by local political, economic, religious tensions.

The different revolutions that multiplied through specific fertile fields did not produce as much political tensions and radicalizations as did the ongoing Syrian protest against the rule of its dictator.

The case of Syria, like other Arab states, is complicated. Yet, one simplicity of analysis floats on the surface of many political streams. The simplicity of binary thinking, that is a product of long terms imperial and colonial discourses imposed on this region (and others), has been internalized and reproduced by many of the Arab intellectuals to this day.

Here in Palestine, Palestine of 67 or of 48, most political parties used the scenes and stories from the Syrian revolution to show off their commitments to these binary structures. We have political parties (I refuse to mention their names or post links or videos of their positions) that support the revolution against the secularist colour of the Syrian state; others support the revolution hoping for a neoliberal version of Syria, while a third faction voice their support for Bashar al Asad’s regime and celebrate his so claimed “anti-imperialist and anti-Israeli” stand. And some political individuals and groups stand beside the new (I claim neoliberal) constitution. We also have these forms of different political stands on Syria going out to the streets of central cities in Palestine and becoming a mini battle with verbal and physical violence.

The hegemonic narrative is of two camps reduced to two meta-narratives: One envisioning a pro-Islamic anti-Secular, anti-Asad Syria on the one hand and another of the Pro-Asad anti-imperialist Syria persuasion. This division also implies that pro-Islamic is also pro-Imperialism. It also implies that Asadist Syria is actually secular and stripped from religious sectarianism and that Bashar al Asad in specific is good for the Palestinian cause (as a Palestinian, I never could figure out this is the case) against the Israeli and U.S imperialism in the region. The fields of politics between these two camps are absented.

I choose to focus on those who always disappoint first: the Arab intellectuals of the so-called anti-imperialist position.
There is a tendency among many ‘leftists-anti-imperialists-socialists’ in the Arab world (Palestine and Lebanon and obviously in Syria) to believe that what they see on television or hear from the news about Syria is in fact external-Islamists pro-American forces destroying the stability of the socialist regime, of the great Syria that many Arabs are proud of.

This tendency, however, comes only to reaffirm this binary thinking that modernity, and the shadow of modernity that many Arab intellectuals find their comfort-zone in, brought to the world. These are binaries of ideologies that are sustained through sharp swords: that one is either is pro the Asad regime or pro U.S-Imperialism; as if one cannot generously and genuinely be against the cruelty of Asad’s military regime and against imperialist, capitalist or colonial regimes.

To my mind, this is a specific illustration of the way defeated intellectual and political positions inform and are informed by this binary discourse. It is beyond the concept of propaganda. You say ‘Syria’ and you invoke a rich political history of a hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Syria the representative of remaining Arab nationalism and the Moqawama (resistance) to the neighboring Zionist entity. You say ‘Syria’ and you relate to how so many Arab countries are sellouts to U.S imperialist regimes, but forget about the colonization of Iraq.

Yes, Syria represents all that, but its Asadist regime has also sustained a particular level of political oppression that has prevented the news of the massacres from reaching out to the world’s consciousness, and then comes the current slaughtering of thousands people and the bombardment of whole towns and cities.

This binary thinking is not only an ignorant judgment or an uninformed framing of the revolution in Syria, but it is also a defeated frame of thought. It is these internalized sentiments that claim that ‘Arabs cannot handle change’ or that ‘Syrians are not capable of leading a revolution.’

The minority of us, those of us outside Homs, Dar3a, Idlib, Hama and the longer list of all the brave Syrian towns, cities and villages, have a critical complicated humanitarian sense of both sadness and pride at the same time. A sense of honest anti-imperialist ideals as well as anti-Asad propaganda. Even the majority of Palestinians are torn about their support of the revolution in Syria and hesitant to express their full support for the Syrian people, while those same people in Syria have often showed ideological and national solidarity with people in Palestine.

Not surprisingly, being here, in Palestine, I have noticed that it is mostly people with feminist, anti-oppression, critical and freethinking ideologies who have broken this binary of “either one supports the U.S camp or the Asad camp”; they have reached a conclusion that, between Asad’s oppression and U.S imperialism, there is an invisible thin line or a lie. A lie, a hegemonic narrative, that Syria is a rule of heroes, while in fact it is a rule of the defeated hearts. The real heroes are on the fields attending one funeral after the other of men, women, and children. Sometimes whole families are killed by political suffocation.

Once, perhaps, an image was thousands words, it moved people to the streets. Today not even one thousand images can bring words to those who are sadly defeated from inside and to those who have internalized the reaction of silence: a thousand images are worth zero words.

The saying ‎’seeing is believing’ was never really accurate. People come with a frame through which they see the image. This is how you can view an image of a thoroughly bombarded city like Homs, with dead bodied everywhere and tanks invading their own lands, and pro-Asad subjects watching these images or those who are suspicious of the intention of the revolution can say:”it is external forces who have bombarded Homs and killed everyone there”!

We live in an age (perhaps a post First Gulf war age) where we have an abundance of images but an absolute lack of frame-of-thought, of anti-hegemonic thinking that knows that what we see is filtered through many oppressive-political frames.

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

إسقاط النظام الطائفي – نحو العلمانية

Tags:

Featured:

Speaking Up

Azadeh Faramarziha — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:30:12 +0000

Sawt al Niswa

Suzanne MZ

“You have the right to stop taking this survey at any time without any penalties”… I read before I start taking a consumer survey… this is funny I think that they are reminding me of my right to my time and privacy, of my right to express my opinion about a product without any penalties… very funny I think… I want to thank them and let them know about all my stripped rights.

Maybe I should tell them that my government does not even protect my basic human right to safety, that there is no law to protect me from a husband who beats and rapes me… marriage is sacred and private they say… I chuckle.

Maybe I should tell them that my society is immune to sexual harassment against me, that it has become the norm for me to hear harassing comments as I walk the streets of Beirut. I should tell them that sometimes I feel threatened by these sexually harassing comments, that sometimes I am afraid when a man exposes himself to me on the corner of the street or in a taxi, that sometimes I run to the first man in uniform (a member of the darak or the amn 3am) to seek security only to have him shout: “I would like to lick your pussy”.

Maybe I should tell them that my years of education and hard work are not as valuable because I am a woman and not a man, that my value increases when I am taller and thinner, when I dress and act like a sex symbol as long as I keep my purity and virginity, and when I am younger and more attractive (Note: beauty is in the eye of the beholder so more attractive is used here based on Barbie standards with plastic surgery as a plus)

Should I tell them? Should I speak up? Or should I just repeat the slogans of inaction and helplessness that I hear: At least you are not in Iran or Saudi where you have to cover yourself up, at least you are not in Afghanistan where you cannot get an education, at least you are not oppressed in Lebanon?

I put my head down and decide to stay quiet and then I look at the survey again: “you have the right to stop taking this survey at any time”… I can’t help it, I hold my head high and shout: I need to speak up!

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

Body Image

Tags:

Featured:

زوج صديقتي المش مجرم

Azadeh Faramarziha — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Sawt al Niswa

ن.ب.خ

ما حدا بيعرف ببيت الثاني شو في!

شو مظبوط هيدا القول، لمدة عشر سنين أنا ومتصورة إنو صديقتي مرتاحة مع زوجا وما عندن مشاكل، عندن عيلة حلوة وبحبو بعضن.

من فترة للتانيه كنت شوفا تعباني نفسياً وأوقات منهارة، بس ولا مرة خطر عبالي إنو عندا مشاكل زوجية.

كنت فكر إنو قعدت البيت ومسؤولية الولاد هني السبب، وأوقات كنت إحكم عليه، لما تقول أنها مش طايقة زوجها ولا سئلاني عنو، لأن إذا بتشوفو زوجها، وبتتعرفو عليه بتقولوا شو رايق، شو مهذب، شو تقي.

ما بقفي قداس، والصلاة فرض يومي عندو، مأمنلن كل شي بالبيت مش ناقص شي.

وهيدا الرجال يلي هلق وصفتلكن ياه، مش انسان، والحيوان أحسن منو، هيدا المخلوق بيغتصب أعز إنسانة ع قلبي، مرتو !!!

بالصيفية لي مرقت كان عندا صديقتي عملية جراحية لبيت الرحم، ولما كنت عم زورها ببيتها لقيتها منهارة وعام تتمنى الموت وكانت أول مرة بتفش خلقها وبتحكيلي الحقيقة. قبل بليلة من العملية تحمم المسيو وعيطلا ع غرفة النوم ،متل كل مرة،: “يلا شلحي تيابك وعجلي شوي ” ذكّرتو إنو عندا عملية ومزعوجي وموجوعة، بس ما فرقت معو “ايه وشو يعني، ما بكفي رح تبقي يومين بالمستشفى، خلصيني بلا غنج كلن عشر دقائق، ما طليعلي صوتي“!!

عشر دقايق بكي وعذاب وإحساس بالإحتقار، عشر دقايق إغتصاب !ما خلصت الخبرية هون، أول ليله رجعت عل بيت من المستشفى، كمان جبرها تنام معو ، قالتلي” ترجيتو و ما فرقت معو، فرجيتو الجرح والقطب وما كان يحس“.وبعد شهر ونص تقريباً بتتصل فيي عم تبكي وبتخبرني أنها حبلي، ولو شو ما صار ما بدا الولد.

شجعتها إنو تجهض هل جنين وتعمل يلي بدا ياه، شجعتها تواجه زوجها وهي تاخد القرار.

قهرها وعذيبها قوّها وراحت عند طبيبها وطلبت الاجهاض، أول شي بهدلا الطبيب كيف بتحبل بعد العملية وكان نبهن ممنوع الحبل قبل ست أشهر ورجع عملا وعظة عن الإجهاض. خبرتو الحقيقة، تفهم وضعها وأجهضت الطفل.

أكيد زوجا ما كان موافق عل إجهاض لأنو “خطية“، وبضل يقلا “إنت خاطيي والله ما راح يسامحك ع للي عملتي“. شو هل مهزله!? بنظرو الإجهاض خطية بس الاغتصاب لأ، وبنظر دولتنا وأديانا نفس الشي، الاجهاض جريمة بس الإغتصاب الزوجي لأ.

هيدا لي اسمو مجتمع خبيث.

صديقتي ما خلصت قصتها هون، بعدها تحت رحمة زوجها وقادر بكل سهوله يهددا بولدها تيجبرا تنام معو، تيغتصبا.

ويمكن هي تمردت ورفضت تربي ولد حبلت في نتيجة إغتصاب، بس كم مرا بمجتمعنا قادرة تعمل متله؟؟؟

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

Gender-Based Violence

Tags:

Featured:

سأشتري مسدساً اليفاً وأدعوه دولة

deema kaedbey — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:00:00 +0000

By Shantal Partamian

سارة اميلين ابو غزال

بعد شبه التأكيدات على تشويه قانون حماية المرأة من العنف الاسري، وتحويله الى قانون حماية الاسرة او بالأحرى قانون تجاهل العنف الاسري في لبنان، سأشتري مسدسا اليفا وسيكون لونه زهريا، وسأرسم عليه زهورا وقلوبا.

سأحفر داخل هذه القلوب أسماء النواب المشاركين في اللجنة الفرعية التي عدلت القانون و سأحفر على رصاصته التالي” بحبك يا لبنان” وسأطلق النار على كل من يحاول ان يتعدى على امني وعلى محيطي الشخصي، كائنا من يكون.‪

‎سأطلق على مسدسي الاليف، اسم “دولة” وسأضعه في حقيبتي واتنقل به، سأمشي به على الكورنيش في ساعات الليل الاخيرة، وفي السرفيس ايضا، سأستعمله لانه سيحميني، لانه سيصبح الدولة التي احلم بها، الدولة التي تحمي النساء‪. ‬سأمضي برفقة “دولة” اجمل سنين حياتي وحين أكون راضية عنه سأغنجه قليلا وادعوه بإسمه المحبب” دولي”. سأسأل المتحرش الذي يقف على شارع الحمرا ويظهر لي قضيبه عن شعوره اذا رأى “دولي”، هل سيخاف؟ ويرتعد من الخوف ويعتذر ويكف عن إظهار قضيبه للمارة- النساء‪. ‬
‎سأخذ”دولة” معي اين ما ذهبت، وسنكبر سويا وسنقتل ونجرح ونخوّف كل من يعترض على طريقنا. سأحاول أن أقنع نساء لبنان، بشراء مسدس اليف، وتسميته بأي اسم تردن ، “حماية” او “لولو” او “قشطة”.

سأحاول ان انشئ حزبا سياسيا، ولكني لن اسمح له بأن يكون فوق القانون، فلن اسمح لحزبي ان يطلق الرصاص كلما القيت خطابا عن الديمقراطية وحقوق الانسان، ولن اسمح لمؤيديني ان يقتتلوا في شوارع ويطلقون النار على بعضهم وعلى غيرهم، ولن اسمح بتفكيك العائلة اللبنانية من خلال قوانين تفكك الاسرة من خلال تجريم العنف، بل سأدعو الى الدفاع عن النفس من خلال قوانين تسمح بحمل المسدسات الاليفة، لن اسمح بتجريم العنف، سأسمح فقط بترميل الضحية‪.‬

سأشتري مسدسا اليفا وسأدعوه “دولة” تيمناً بالمؤسسة الاحب على قلبي، الدولة التي لا ترى او تحسب حساب إلا لأولئك الذين يحملون ما يدافعون به عن انفسهم، طوائفهم ومعتقداتهم الذكورية.

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

Gender-Based Violence

Tags:

Featured

Featured:

شو بردَا ع بيت اهلا؟

deema kaedbey — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:00:00 +0000

By Yara Mansour

نسرين خليل

خلال زيارة لإحدى المراكز الاجتماعيّه ، ضمن دوام عملي، تفاجئت أول وصلتي بإحدى الموظفات، الممرّضة المسؤولة عن المركز، عم تبكي و تنتحب!!!

هيدي لي عم تناولا كلينكس وهيدي لي عم تراضيا، ومن الحديث فهمت إنو خطيبة خيّا بالمستشفى والعرس بعد شهر.

قلت بقلبي: أف هل أدّ بتحبا؟! وسألتا نشالله مش شي خطير؟

قال بعد ما طلعت نتيجة الفحوصات، بس إمّها معا مرض مزمن sclerose en plaqu، بركي طلع معها هي كمان !!

ورجعت تشهق بالبكي : يا دلّي عحظ خيي المعتّر ، وبعد شوي مسحت دموعا وقالت: كتّر خير الله إنو بعد ما تزوجو ،إذا فعلاً طلع مظبوط إحساسي وعندا هل مرض،،

لو بيّن بعد الجازه، مصيبة

شو بردّا ع بيت أهلا؟

هلأ صحيح القرار صعب بس بدو الواحد يحكّم عقلو .

وصل التمييز والعنف ضد النساء ، إنو نحاسب صبية على مرض يمكن مصابي فيه و نخربط مشروع حياة. بيخطر ع بالي سؤال : لو خيا هوي للّي كان مريض أو عندو مشكله معيّنة، ما كانت قتلت حالا هي وإمّا وعمّتها والعيله كلا تيلقولو شي بنت حلال ، ست بيت ، يزوجو ياها وتخدمو بأخرتو؟؟

وسؤال تاني : بركي هي بيوم من الايام مرضت، بتقبل ع حالا زوجا يردا ع بيت أهلا ويحرما من ولدا؟

بزمن وصل العنف والتمييز ل أقصى درجة بمجتمعنا، بزمن نساء عم تناضل كل يوم ل تاخد حقوقا، بزمن لازم تتحد في النساء وتتضامن مع بعضا، بتلاقي إنو في نساء ذكوريين أكتر من الرجال.

أجيال عم تتربى ع هل أفكار، وبدي احلم بوطن في مساواة؟ بصير فكر بستراتيجيّة عمل لنشر التوعية : من وين لازم بلّش؟

- بالمدارس،فكرة منيحة، بس بالمقابل في كتب القراءة ما بتفرجي الام إلّا بالمطبخ مع الوزرة ع خصرا وهي لي بتطبخ وبتكنس.

-بالامهات؟ كيف بوصلن؟وسائل الإعلان والبرامج، والله فكرة عظيمه، بس كيف؟ إذا كل الإعلانات بتشيّئ المرأة وبتنمّط دورها بمجتمعنا.

وإذا البرامج بتكون للتنكيت ع المرا لي بيضربا زوجا، أو مقدمين هالبرامج كلن ع شكل مالك مكتبي وصلت معن البلاهة والسّخافه يستقبلو مجرم شوّه مرتو لأن الأكلة ما عجبتو والتاني كسرلا اجرا لأن بدا تروح تزور أهلا.

لتفكير بتعّب بس ضروري, و الحلم اوقات كتير صعب يتحقّق بس اجمل شي انو الانسان يحلم

ف ايه رحّ ضلّ احلم بوطن المساواة.

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

Women's rights

Tags:

Featured

Featured:

Collective Push of the Elephant

hiba — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Nasawiya

Sometimes it takes a collective of feminists to spot the patriarchal elephant in the room (and to show it to the door).

Battling patriarchy is difficult, particularly when you try to do it alone. If anything was learned from the Jan 14 March, solidarity is both empowering and inspiring. Change will only come if we work together to identify problems and construct positive solutions.

On Thursday 19 January 2012, Nasawiya member Sarah Abou Raad posted an image. It was of the ‘Parental Consent Sheet’ for the Beit el-Taibat (women’s dorms) at the University of Balamand. On this form the parent’s were asked what ‘level of freedom they would like to grant their daughter’. The options were ‘Full Freedom’, ‘Partial Freedom’, or ‘No Freedom’. Outraged, Sarah posted an image of the form with the caption ‘That’s how education is supposed to free our minds!! Im indignant!! I cant believe it!!’

Roughly an hour later, another Nasawiya member, Christine Lindner, saw Sarah’s post. Being an Assistant Professor at the University of Balamand, Christine was immediately frustrated by the image that she saw. During the past few months, Christine, with the help of many dedicated students, has helped start the debate about gender discrimination on campus. Farah from the Adventures of Salwa led a great discussion, while the student newspaper covered a number of important topics related to sexual harassment. Christine met with the Dean of Students to revise sexual harassment policies and felt a general interest for change. However, this form, it is language of ‘no freedom’ for female students was a huge step in the wrong direction.

An interesting exchange took place between Sarah and Christine that night, over the implications of the application and its wording. As a result, Christine sent an email to the Dean of Student Affairs asking questions about the application, which she posted to the Nasawiya wall. Other members posted responses to the image’s comment thread. Some mentioned that similar forms are used at dorms for other universities. This needs to be researched further and pursued for change.

Christine met with the Dean of Student Affairs and the university counselor on Monday 23 January 2012. Both positively received the complaint, stating that it was only when Christine had identified the strong language of the form that they realized how counterproductive it was to their goals of empowering the students. As such, a replacement form was created emphasizing not the disempowerment of the female students, but the level of supervision that the university would play, upon the request of the parents (many of whom live abroad). It was also agreed that this form would be signed by the parents of students resident at both the women’s and men’s dorms. The updated version can be found at

http://www.balamand.edu.lb/english/OSA.asp?id=2705&fid=160

So while this does not mark the erasure of patriarchy at the University of Balamand, it does mark a small victory, while illuminating a few important lessons:

Firstly, a variety of tactics are needed to bring down patriarchal systems. At times, large protest marches are needed. In other times, it is a stern email from a member of faculty asking questions about a problematic practice. Others, it is the threat of images going viral on the internet. Sometimes, all three. Patriarchy and social injustice manifest themselves in all facets of life. We need to keep all tools ready, harnessing the appropriate tool for the specific situation and specific audience.

Secondly, identifying and challenging patriarchy is a collective effort. Sarah’s posting of the image prompted Christine to write the letter, which illuminated the problem to the Dean, so that the form was changed and the discriminatory practice equalized. This is the collective at work. This is its strength. This is why it works. We cannot stand alone, for the elephant is too big sometimes to even see, let alone push out the door. And if one project fails, we are there to catch each other, provide an umbrella when it rains, or a tissue for the tears. This is the strength of the collective and this is why it will succeed.

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Story

Category:

Activism

Tags:

Featured:

ايجار رخيص مع احتمال الموت: بيروت ترحب بك

hiba — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:00:00 +0000

سارة اميلين ابو غزال

أتمنى ان تتحول صور المبنى المنهار الى بوستد كارد، نرسله الى بعضنا البعض للاطمئنان على سلامتنا. فنحن ان لم نمت في انفجار سيارة، قد نموّت اثر تحطم طائرة، وان لم نمت في تحطم الطائرة قد نموت في حادث سيارة، وان لم نمت في حادث سيارة قد نموت في حوادث فردية، وان نجونا من الحوادث الفردية قد نموت في انهيار المباني. علينا، وكل يوم ان ننتبه الى الاعجوبة التي تنجينا من الموت السهل، الموت الذي قد يسببه “المطر . فكل شيئ وارد في لبنان.

انهيار مبنى الاشرفية يحاكي ازمة حقيقية تمسنا جميعا، ان السكن في بيوت آمنة اصبح امتيازا للذين يستطيعون تحمّل مصاريف السكن، فالايجارات اكثر من خيالية، وقانون الايجار الجديد يحمي المؤجر لا المستأجر. رغم هذا، نسكن هه البيوت وندفع ٨٠٪ من دخلنا كي نعيش في بيروت، لان كل ما نريد يوجد في بيروت. فلو استطع الناس الحصول على نفس الخدمات ونفس فرص العمل ونفس مستوى التعليم، لن يتركوا مناطقهم بالضرورة، فبيروت جميلة غير ان العيش فيها متعب و مكلف جدا.

ما الذي يدفع ٦ عمال سودانيون الى العيش في الطابق الخامس، في مبنى قد يعرضهم ( وقد عرضهم ) للقتل، مقابل ٣٥٠ دولارا في الشهر. ٣٥٠‪ $ بالكاد تؤمن لك غرفة نوم في منزل تتشاركه مع ٣ او ٤ اشخاص‪، وفي اغلب الاحوال يكون منزلا يعاني من مشاكل في المياه والنش والصرف الصحي …الخ. لكننا ورغم هذا، ندفع ٧٠٠ و٨٠٠ دولار ونصلح بيوتا لا نمكلها على حسابنا الخاص و نحمد الله لانه بيت “لقطة”، حيث نجد انفسنا في مرات كثيرة ضيوفا مستدامين عند اهلنا، او على كنبة احد الاصدقاء، آملين ان يحالفنا الحظ في ايجاد غرفة او شقة صغيرة لن تسقط كل ما “هب” الهوى.

تتبارى القنوات الاعلامية و السياسيون في الحديث عن مبنى الاشرفية المنهار والضحايا والقتلى وتبدأ الاتهامات وانتهاز الفرص فيسرع اصحاب الاجارات القديمة “للنق” عن الظلم الذي يتعرضون له وعلى ضرورة ان ينصفهم القانون كي يخلوا مستأجرين عندهم منذ ٦٠ و٣٠ و٤٠ سنة، بحجة اصلاح المبنى والسلامة العامة، الكل يريد ان يستفيد من الانهيار بطريقة او أخرى، فالمستأجر بعقود جديدة “يربح المستاجر جميلة” ان مبناه لن ينهار، وعلى المستأجر عن يكف على التذمر من ارتفاع الايجار، واصحاب العقود القديمة يريدون اخلاء مبانيهم وبيعها وبناء اخريات مكانها تدر لهم الاموال التي “حرموا” من الحصول عليها، الاموال التي تجعل الافراد يذلون انفسهم في عمل واثنين للحصول على سكن لائق.

في خضم هذا، لا أحد يتساءل عن ازمة السكن في بيروت، ولا عن تفريغها المتعمد من الفقراء الذين لا يستطيعون تحمل الايجارات الجديدة. لا احد يبادر في ان يكون له له نفس الخيال الواسع والتي تتمتع به الدولة حين “تلوم” المطر على انهيار المبنى، او يتسائل عن ضرورة تعديل الايجارات الجديدة وربطها بالاجور وبنوعية البيوت وسعتها، او ان يتسائل عن الترخيص للبناء جديد قرب بناء قديم والذي يتعلم طلاب الهندسة سنة اولى بأنه قد يؤذي البناء القديم ان لم تأخذ تدابير مناسبة. الخيال الواسع في بيروت لا الهندسة التي تحدد كيف ينهار مبنى او يتعمّر، او كيف تحرص الدولة على تفريغ بيروت من فقرائها، فليذهبوا الى مكان اخر، خارج المدينة، وليذهب العمال الاجانب الى بلادهم ولتبقى العاملات الاجنبيات في المنازل وليبقى الفلسطينيون في المخيمات وليرجع الاكراد الى كردستان، فلا نريد ان نزعج القادمين الاغنياء عندما يحتسون القهوة في شرف منازلهم الجديدة والفخمة ولا نريدهم ان ينزعجوا من منظر الابنية القديمة، فلا شيئ يذكر قد حصل قبل ان يسكنوا في منازلهم ولا مكان او وجود لاحد يعاني يشاركهم مدينتهم. أهلا بكم في بيروت – مدينة خالية من الفقراء

Publisher:

Sawt al' Niswa

Section:

Opinions

Category:

Tags:

Featured: