History cannot remain masculine

Women are mostly kept out of history books, and if they are marvellous enough to have made it into them their images most likely did not 

History is a past retold, a series of events that have been documented by those who have witnessed their occurrence. It is human nature to write of that which interests us, of facts that are deemed essential at the time of inscription and that is why history as is documented, is as much an interpretation, as it is a collection of facts. The names and events that have made it into history books have changed the world one way or the other, their existence and our knowledge of it is essential, but what of those names that were never uttered by history teachers, are their world-altering actions erased? Or do their trials and tribulations factor into the shaping of the future whether they are remembered or not?

If we casually flick through the history books we are most likely to see pages filled with iconic figures that have left their imprint on the world, most of which are men. Great and not-so-great men have both maimed and healed our world simultaneously and from their experiences we have much to learn. Even those of us who are not prolific in politics, sports or technology are instantaneously able to recognise an image of such men as Che Guevara, Maradona and Steve Jobs. Though just as it may be, to have such figures made iconic and embraced by pop-culture how many of those faces we see on posters, T-shirts and spray-painted on walls are of women? Does that mean that throughout history no woman has ever been iconic enough? Or is it that the telling of her story was not deemed essential to those documenting at the time of inscription? No female face would be so widely and easily identified except maybe those of whom who made it to the silver screen. Could you point out Florence Nightingale in a series of photos like you would Marilyn Monroe? Would you know the great Fatima al-Fihri’s contribution to the world just as you would Umm Kulthum’s?

Throughout the world and specifically throughout the Middle-Eastern one, much to do with women is concealed. Women are mostly kept out of history books, and if they are marvellous enough to have made it into them their images most likely did not. This makes it impossible for people to know of them and for those searching for them it makes for an absolutely exhausting task, in turn their accomplishments and impact on the world are rendered obsolete and the chance of people learning from them non-existent. Just as is the way of the world, change is inevitable and for women’s struggle with history, change is coming. 

Recently Muslim women have become more visible than they ever were, standing up to oppression and advocating the plight of minorities around the world. In a visual world where icons are required their images have helped immortalise their work. Malala Yousafzai’s survival and perseverance has become a representation of all women facing the horrors of extremism and the plight for female education. Young girls today have forces such as seventeen-year-old Ahed Tamimi, whose brave defiance in the face of Zionist settlers landed her in prison, catapulting her to icon-status for resistance against occupation around the world. Women have become revolutionary icons, Iranian Neda Agha-Soltan, a student, who died from a fatal shot to the head during protests in Tehran has become a symbol of an entire revolution. Along with Egypt’s Ghada Kamal Abdul Khaleq, known to the Western press as the Girl in the Blue Bra and affectionately dubbed Sitt el Banat (Leader of the Girls) in Egypt, whose image being dragged half-naked by police has become a source of artistic representation of oppression. 

During the Women’s March against the Trump administration in the United States an image of Munira Ahmed wearing the American flag as a Hijab (headdress) became the representation of American tolerance and pro-immigration ideals. And the latest brave soul who was unfortunately taken too soon is Palestinian Razan Najjar, a twenty-one-year-old paramedic, who spent her days saving the lives of fellow countrymen and women peacefully protesting the Israeli occupation. She was killed in cold blood by an Israeli sniper while attending to the injured, she will forever be a symbol of humanity amidst bloodshed.

Because we have borne witness to those women who have shattered glass ceilings and died for their rights we have the obligation to correct the errors of the past, to not let their work go unnoticed, to broadcast, interview, write and teach about those women who are changing our world. In the near future the images in history will differ and the faces who changed the world would no longer be reserved for the masculine. We always knew history to be a story told by him but the future will have one that is written by her as well.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper 10 June, 2018 http://bit.ly/2JCRplR  
Arabic version of the article appeared on the same day  in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/2McgVg4

A World of Books and Bullets

Somewhere in the world a shot is fired, a girl falls, she is silenced. Fourteen-year-old Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head by Godless men who claim to know God. Malala is not a politician or a lawmaker, she is a girl whose bravery instilled fear in the hearts of heartless men. She grew up in a world where education is not a right, a world where a woman is a second-class citizen. School grounds are off limits for girls of Malala’s age. Girls in Swat Valley are only allowed an education until the 4th grade. While other children celebrated their educational advancement Malala loathed reaching the 5th grade and described it as the saddest point of her life. Yet instead of accepting this vile injustice she spoke out against it. Despite the deaths her people have witnessed at the hands of the Taliban this brave girl refused to let them win. She went to school with her books hidden under her shawl disguised as a fourth grader when in fact she was not. She was determined to learn and she was going to do it by any means necessary. 

School was her only outlet for expression, the place where she could share ideas and absorb them, school is where young girls are allowed to dream. Who of us can’t recall his younger-self sitting in the schoolyard dreaming of changing the world? Malala was fighting for her right to dream. She wanted each and every girl in her village to have that, for even at her tender age, Malala knew that only by dreaming could we alter reality.

Malala’s school bus, the one that drove her closer to her dreams each day, that seat she occupied as she gazed out of the window at the moving world was to be the same place that was to cradle her body and soak up her innocent blood. A bus riddled with bullets, not a bus carrying soldiers or weapons, but a bus carrying young girls towards enlightenment. 

Heinous as the act may be we find solace, because one must in such tragedies, in the fact that the shooter was more afraid of Malala than she of him, for a woman’s voice is her most powerful weapon and Malala’s voice was louder than the sound of a thousand guns. Its echo surpassed the borders of Pakistan and resonated throughout the world and brought on an avalanche of support. 

Most of the time we forget that women around the world suffer on a daily basis for the most basic of requirements. We tend to think that injustice based on gender is a thing of the past, and then we hear a gunshot. Reminding us that an ongoing battle still rages, maiming and killing our sisters all over the world. That bullet was not meant to end Malala’s life alone, it was meant to end the lives of all women to ensure that they would remain crippled by fear and silenced by ignorance. 

As I write these words I have two images of Malala in my mind, one of a girl fighting for her right to an education and the other of a girl fighting for her life. In both she maintains a common virtue, Malala is a fighter. Speaking about the importance of education Malala said, “I know the importance of education because my pens and my books were taken from me by force.”

Some of us might have been lucky enough to have books forced upon us instead of taken away, lucky not to have endured the struggle for equality, this privilege gives us all the more reason to be fighters too. If a girl can single-handedly stand up to oppression and speak up against the violence of ignorance then it would be shameful, if with all the education we acquired, that we should stand idly and remain silent while a pool of blood slowly dried up and darkened in a school bus far away. 

We must fight because a scattering of equality is not enough, gender equality must reign all over the globe for the world to be perfectly balanced. Until then, this skewed planet must listen to the Malalas of the world and their plight must be echoed by all of us until this united voice becomes too loud to be ignored.

We pray for Malala’s recovery because it is girls like her who bring courage to an otherwise dastardly world.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 21 October, 2012. 

Arabic version of this article published in Al Khaleej newspaper 21 October, 2012: http://bit.ly/RMerBT