I was scared. Sometimes, I thought you would let me go, would forget about me. It had been months since you judged me and my belly got bigger and bigger. The bigger it got the closer I came to my due date, the date of my execution. I ate almost nothing and drank little, hoping that my belly will stop growing and you will forget about me. Some hopeful mornings I was certain that I will die in childbirth, the way my mother did. She gave birth to me and rushed away, leaving me all alone with you. I was a nobody. You would forget about me. You had guns to buy and wars to fight. What do you want with a woman like me?

I was scared when I felt the first pains. I closed my eyes and waited for mercy. The women's voices urged me to push. I pulled it in. I knew that if it stays in me long enough you will forget about me. I held to it the way a drowning man hold on to a dead body floating by. If it stays in me it will only hear the stories I tell. But it betrayed me again. I felt it slipping from between my legs, silent. Death came and missed me. My scream reminds you that I am ready for you.

I am scared when you force me to watch as you dig my standing grave. My water breaks again. How many deaths am I to give birth to? Other people are watching too. It's almost festive. It reminds me of Eid days, when as children you and I used to gather around storytellers in the marketplace. Today, I'm the her... [Read More]

Yes, gay Palestinians are too hot to handle for the Israeli gay community! They were not allowed to speak at the recent anti-homophobic demonstration that was held in Tel Aviv following the shooting of two gay youths in the city. A representative of Aswat, the Palestinian lesbian organization placed in Haifa, was denied access to the stage to speak to the crowd, so was a former Arab Kenesset member, Issam Makhoul. The response of the organizers was "we can't go so far."

Oh, could this be true?

Ahmadinejad owes the Iranian opposition big. In fact, all Iranians, even those who disagree with Mousavi's supporters, should be grateful that they exist, that they are loud, and that they are pouring into the streets of Tehran.

Because it is this green opposition which is protecting Iran from Israel and those in the US itching to bomb. Yes, these women and men are the human shield that can protect Iranians better than any nuclear arsenal can. They also expose the neocon doctrine of regime change as farcical for they demonstrate that the best change comes from within.

The world can no longer think about Iran and just see Ahmadinejad and grim looking mullahs frowning into the camera daring them to bomb. Now we see a different Iran: youthful, energetic, creative, determined, joyful, hopeful. And Islamic. 

The women of the Iranian opposition stand out. They are kicking ass and need no one to save them baby. They have enough spunk and courage to start exporting revolution. No wonder the Islamic Republic needs so many rules to contain them. They know what they are up against!

Some Americans like to take credit for what is happening in Iran. The liberals say this is the effect of the Obama Speech. The conservatives say this proves Bush was right in going into Iraq, because look, the desire for freedom, which we have patented, is spreading. Of course, Ahmadinejad too has his version of this line: he accuses the western media of stirring trouble. Next, he will blame twitter. All three are arrogant and blinded by their power. 

As a Palestinian, I was moved to hear that Iranian students were chanting that Iran is now Palestine after being shot at in their universities by armed militias. I recognize the affinity: like the Palestinians, these Iranians are staging an upris... [Read More]

World leaders are talking about Muslim women again. First, it was Barak Obama, and now it's Mu'ammar Al Qadhafi.

Let's begin with Al Qadhafi. On his historic visit to Italy, the Libyan leader asked that 700 Italian women, leaders in the economic, cultural, and political fields, be assembled to hear his speech. They did. During his speech, he told them that Arab women have no rights, that they are treated like pieces of furniture, and the situation is so terrible there is a need for a revolution.

I appreciate the fact that Al Qadhafi wants to champion Arab women's rights. But how is dissing Arab women in front of a crowd of accomplished Italian women help further the cause? After all, don't Italian women (or at least a significant number of them) already believe that Arab and Muslim women are nothing but pieces of furniture and that they have no rights whatsoever?

Haven't Arab feminists been fighting for years on two fronts: to gain women's rights in their countries and to fight against racist stereotypes that dehumanizes both Arab women and men but showing the formers as "pieces of furniture" or beasts of burden and the latter as their cruel masters and oppressors?

That was one speech. The other is the impossible-to-avoid Obama speech, given during his historic visit to Cairo. Let me first say that I've been resisting writing a post about it mostly because I have been irritated by a good number of posts, especially by those who apparently were expecting Che Guevara to show up in Cairo, and were stunned and heart-broken that it was Barak Obama, the Preside... [Read More]

A man falls in love with a woman. He comes from a prominent family. She is poor. He wants to marry her anyway. But his father says no way. He tries hard to convince his dad, but the father insists.

In the Egyptian cinema's version of this story, the father (usually Farid Shawqi)  would threaten to disown and disinherit the son. He will also get several strategically-timed heart attacks that will take the son on a gut-wrenching guilt trip. Eventually, the father would relent (usually a grandson conveniently brings this about) and the film will have a happy ending. Sometimes, the father would not relent and he is punished by becoming a witness to the suffering of his heart-broken son.

 In a recent real-life version of this story, the Egyptian man in love  chops off his penis to protest his father's refusal that he marries the woman of his dreams. Not a happy ending.

In fact, an exceptional one.

What intersts me about this story is the way it is reported. For some reason, a chopped off penis is always big news.  So one man's self-mutilation in a small town in Southern Egypt becomes fodder for global consumption. The feminist in me detects a sense of universal patriarchal loss here.  He wouldn't get the same attention if he cut off a finger or an ear (unless he's a famous painter) or if he drowned himself altogether. But a penis is different (so to speak). It's as if people are saying: "How could he? Lucky enough to be born with a penis and he throws it away? What a waste! What horror!"

The Arab in me is uncomfortable with the  non-universal way the story is framed.  Here's, for instance, how one of the articles reporting the incident concludes:

"Traditionally, marriages in these conservative part of southern Egypt are between similar social classes and often within the same extended families — and are rarely for [Read More]

Gaza is getting out of control. Now that the bombs are not falling (as much) and people have only grief, disability, illness, starvation, and embargo to deal with, they seem to be getting out of line!

Here's when the Islamists come to the rescue.

Being so alert, they did it twice in the past two days:

The Hamas representatives in the Palestinian Legislative Council (which is dysfunctional since all other groups have been boycotting it from the time of the Hamas armed take over) felt the need to make their presence felt and finally turned their attention to what really matters: they approved new laws that punish those who misuse computers and cell phones. Specifically, they are targeting anyone who uses electronic devices to spread "al Fahisha," a baggy-bogy term that refers to sexual transgression.

This intervention allows them to score on two fronts: first, they present themselves as protectors of the people, concerned about their moral well-being, just as they were protecting them against the Israeli attack. The political capital gained from those tragic events get to be spent on advancing hamas's social agenda.

Second, this allows Hamas to exercise more censorship and surveillance of their rivals and of the population as a whole. They are hardly innovators in this field: those in power often find that censorship and surveillance are essential to maintain an iron fist. I'm particularly suspicious every time I hear a government say it wants to protect the people from the internet. It usually means it wants to protect itself from the people.

The other intervention came in the form of [Read More]