Ramadan

My mother forgets to feed her animals
because it's only fair.
She rushes to them when
she hears hoarse roosters crowing
and billy goats butting
over a last straw.

This month the moon becomes a princess.
The stars fan her,
Jupiter pours cups of wine,
Mars sings melancholy mawals.
Bearded men holding prayer beads
and yellow booklets stare at her
and point aching fingers at her waist.

In our house we break a fast
with dates from Huun
and glasses of buttermilk.
Then on to bowls of lamb soup
flavored with mint, trays
of stuffed grape leaves,
spiced fava beans drenched
in olive oil and lemon juice.
And that is only the beginning.

The spirits of Johnny Walker and gin
hide in the trunks of white Peugeots.
In the nightclubs of my city, waiters
serve only non-alcoholic beer
and belly dancers cover themselves.

Father of sixteen children, our neighbor
visits bringing two kilos of baklava.
He washes them down with a dozen
demitasses of sweet sage tea.
Before dawn he runs to one
of his two wives, both named Salma,
and loves her hurriedly,
his hands barely touching a breast.


Khaled Mattawa

My only weapon was the word

The beautiful short film Good Night Sarajevo explores the slices of an individual’s humanity that are jeopardised, but also that which is retained and preserved, in times of war and conflict. Woven through the story of one man’s life and wartime experience are both explicit and oblique questions of what it means to tell stories, as an affirmation of what is meaningful in life, rendering the whole film a paean to verbal communication.

Indeed, in one of the most memorable lines of the film, its protagonist, Boban Minic, reveals his creed with the solemnity of an incantation: mi única arma era la palabra.

My only weapon was the word.

Such weapons, it is clear in this context, seek not to wound but to heal. Minic’s relationship with the city he loved and eventually had to leave is threaded with stories of personal loss along with recollections of the social and cultural ties that bound together a place that he describes as having once been a bastion of diversity, replete with art and beauty. He risked his own health and safety to preserve a little of that through his radio program, where talk of the arts, an imagined future and news of estranged families floated on the air, throughout and beyond the city, even as snipers lurked high above its streets.

Director Edu Marín takes pains to emphasise that the story he wanted to tell was not the story of the Balkan wars in any definitive sense, repeating that such a story was not his to tell. Rather, this is the tale of the storyteller himself, of a man who has lived his life according to the maxim that giving a voice to humanity’s highest aspirations helps to free humans from the prisons of our own minds, especially in times of great cruelty and suffering.

Watching this film for the second time with a Serbian friend who lived through the wars, I was struck by her immediate response after it had finished. While Sarajevo as a physical space was completely unknown to her, so much in terms of the common language, songs playing in the background as people talked, short film clips, exerted a nostalgic pull over her senses.

And there is the essence of storytelling if it is done well. In hearing another’s story, we feel a tug at our own memories and perhaps, if we can allow ourselves, our own hopes. To imagine that we humans will ever forget all of the differences that proliferate to create such bitter disputes among us seems naïve, in this era more than ever.

But it is so good to be reminded that everyone has their story to tell.  

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The trailer for Good Night Sarajevo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82p7GXLFsYA

Choices

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey describes a moment where, in encouraging his daughter to share a toy, he inadvertently robs her of her agency and her right to choose. He makes the point that, to really share something, one must first have a full sense of possessing it, of it being ours to give.

It is similar with me and choices. For me to fully live my choices and be at peace with their consequences, I must feel that they are mine to make. I don’t think I realised until tonight how important it is to me to feel that my choices are my own, and how much the feeling of doing something because it is expected of me makes me feel like a hollow shell of a person.

Choosing what I want to do and then acting on that choice feels like the most empowering thing I could possibly do, even if the choice has really terrible consequences. I wonder if it is possible now to reframe my choices, and reframe the narrative of my life that plays in my own head, to remind myself more frequently, and more clearly, that everything I have done in life has been a choice. That even if I didn’t feel that much of what I have done in the past was of my own choosing, that the very process of declining to choose or evading choice is in itself a decision (just not one that I should be very proud of).

And most of all, in reframing those past choices and understanding my reasons for making them, perhaps I can reinforce to myself the message that every moment I find myself in constitutes a choice, that situations can always be altered, that my fear of being trapped or stagnating is a misplaced one. That moment to moment, situations can be altered and different choices made in the future than in the past. Meaning not that bad decisions are reversible, but just that better ones can be made in the future. 

After Eight

I am dancing, one of a mass of rhythmic gyrators in a Downtown bar that calls to mind early illicit house parties. Everyone is drinking (now not-so cheap) beer. We are soaked in sweat and smoke but we smile beatifically at one another.

A wiry man with abundant hair moves across the dance floor, through the pulsing mass of bodies. The track changes to a popular sh3bi song and I start to shimmy, as the music seems to demand it. He looks at me and throws his head back, smiling at the ceiling, raises his arms and shimmies with utter abandon. 

Returning from his moment of solitary communion, the smallest of nods accompanies an impish smile, as if to say to me “Your shimmy wasn’t so bad really”.

Hemingway

Write hard and clear about what hurts is the injunction and I touch the pain with tentative, inquisitive fingers. Like all living things, it breathes.

And it tells me dark things. Whispering my inadequacies; tempting me with half-suppressed desires; taunting me with images of the ideal, of the person I cannot be.

There is no escape. This blade will cut my eyes so I can see clearly, and I will embrace it.

Confronting the paralysing fear of an empty screen or hackneyed, clichéd words. Speaking in half-truths has become second nature to me and my candour assails people as I hold it out as a last desperate weapon. You never used to speak like this, their eyes tell me, you’ve changed.

But my internal voice equivocates, trying to chart a course through tumultuous waters. Some days I am consumed by all the things I cannot alter, the raw unfairness of a world where the colour of your passport matters more than the size of your intellect, where worth is measured by Facebook likes and children die in their beds.

And passion flickers, elusive and intermittent and inconstant as a moth.

Intoxicated, I crave the heady rush of seeking out my fears and I revel in their sharpness. For the first time, I understand people who find pleasure in pain.

A series of thoughts cycle through my churning, restless mind. Times I have let people down, not been what they needed me to be, not been able to give them what they deserved. The stupid decisions, and the brave ones. Words spilled in a reckless, overthought torrent of feeling. Moments of silence, when words should have been spoken. The wrench of intimacy, like ripping off a layer of skin. The person whose touch made me tremble.  

There is no reasoning away the contradictions or the conflicting impulses.

And the pain is clear, and cold, and sweet.  

Only Connect

A beam of white light touches a prism and suddenly both are transformed by a flood of colour.

   

Connection is fear and longing. It leaves me shaken but nourished. How could you ever predict who will utter a word of the language spoken in the deepest recesses of your mind? An ordinary person touches the pressure point unlocking a place you keep hidden and when you look up they are ordinary no more.

And you are soothed in wounded places. And you scratch at them.

Weight of the most powerful life force. They taught me that Namaste was the way of saying “I greet the part in you where we are one”.

And you talk for six hours.

And as you dance the music enters two bodies like a breath. You are suspended in time and space.

And a stranger speaking in a crowded room fills you with such emotion that you don’t trust yourself to reply.

So you rub desperately at the rawness inside you - as if a visceral reaction, any more than an overplayed thought, could possibly offer protection from the corrosive nature of your own self-doubt.
  

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A hand shifts our birdcages around. Some are brought closer. Some move apart. Do not try to reason it out. Be conscious of who draws you, and who not.

International Women's Day

I wish that there did not have to be an International Women’s Day, because the very premise of equality should be that no one group is singled out for special treatment. I wish that a truth which should be self-evident – that we are all equal in our value, regardless of gender, nationality, sexual preference, political persuasion or who our favourite Beatle is – was manifest in the world we live in.

To me, equality is not about trying to make everyone the same – it is about respecting pluralism and giving people the right to have choice and agency in their own lives. And tragically, so many people around the world are still denied this. Why focus on empowering women above other marginalized groups?

Firstly because gender inequality is so pervasive. Women are subject to judgement, scrutiny and a lack of equal opportunities everywhere from the boardrooms of the wealthiest companies to the homes of the most poverty-stricken villages, from government offices around the world to the shops, restaurants and streets of every country.

Secondly because this gender inequality has a negative impact on every other crisis we are facing globally. Undermining the choices and rights of women is not only unethical – it is helping to compound and worsen every problem faced by humanity. Empowering women helps economic growth, improves the health of communities, reduces violence, helps to stabilize population growth and helps with resource allocation (feeding hungry mouths, etc).

Every person should be able to make choices about their own body, who they marry and when. Everyone should be given the chance to receive a good education and to choose what they want to do with it – whether this means working and generating an independent income, using the benefits of that education to raise a healthy, well educated family or both. Nobody should have to live in fear of violence or discrimination – especially not for wanting to live in a world where they have autonomy and agency in their own lives.

Too many people are not given these opportunities. Too many women especially.

So for as long as there needs to be an International Women’s Day – and a Women’s History Month – for us to draw attention to these issues and speak out about them, it makes me hopeful to see how many people have their eyes facing forward, on all the things we still have to work on, but also how many are taking the time to celebrate the strong women in their lives – and the strong men who are not threatened by strong women, but want to work together to build a world where every person has the ability to freely choose how they want to live.

I celebrate all the indomitable women I know and have known. My adventurous mother, who travelled to the UK from New Zealand in her twenties and made a life for herself in an unknown country, little knowing she would one day inspire a daughter to do the same. My beautiful and fierce sister, who has been scaring people who tried to give her crap since she was three years old (and has only got better at it with time). My two grandmothers, whose lives have been so different, but who have handed down to me directly and through my parents the values of hard work, treating people fairly, being part of a community, appreciating what you have and never, ever giving up. My boss, whose great passion in life is women’s empowerment and who earlier today held a conference room full of people completely attentive, rendering them virtually speechless, when talking about it. Um Abdallah: she can electrocute rats, undergo an operation, work nine hours, manage her family and still find time to joke around with me – all in a day’s work. The many smart, creative, unconventional, funny, irreverent, soulful, questioning, compassionate women I know – often deeply stressed and not sure if they’re getting it completely right (who is?) but still so full of inner power.

I also celebrate the many men I am lucky enough to know who support equality in all its forms by supporting the rights of women and being our advocates and partners. My father, who has always supported every (seemingly crazy) career decision I’ve ever made and the change of country it has entailed – even if he didn’t agree with them. An old and dear friend who was the first man I’d ever met to openly proclaim he was a feminist. The incredible guys of Dignity Without Borders, Tahrir Bodyguard, Shoft Ta7arosh, OpAntiSH and others who risked their safety to help ensure that Egyptian women had the same opportunities to have their voices heard as their male counterparts. Men who support the women in their lives to make their own decisions about their education and career prospects and who proudly celebrate their successes. Men who are not afraid to question established beliefs about gender roles and enter into discussions about equal opportunities – even when they know they might receive a tirade from frustrated feminists.  

I can’t wait for the day when International Women’s Day isn’t needed because equality for all is enshrined in our institutions, our ideology and our behaviour – but until that day comes, happy International Women’s Day everyone.