UAE curriculums must lift the veil off female thinkers

As a young student enthusiastic about literature my school’s curriculum although included great works, it was noticeable to my young mind even then that they were mostly by male authors, poets, and philosophers. Being a young Arab girl the only rare glimpses of female works came in the form of novels by the Bronte sisters and other Western greats, and while I drank every drop of their ink I was mostly left unsatiated and ever yearning for a familiar female voice. For all the genius of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights neither their authors nor their protagonists shared much in common with this young Arab girl, although the cultural restrictions of England’s 1800s might have slightly resembled some of the aspects we as women lived through at the time, neither the political backdrop of my surroundings nor the struggles of my region were reflected in their foreign works, these women had never even felt that distinct burning that only the Arab sun can leave on one’s skin.

I experienced first hand the drought that our school curriculums suffered from when it came to the female mind. It left me searching for it on the stacked shelves of my school library and making the effort to hunt for those names that were not being introduced to me by the system. It is an ongoing search for after the many great female Arab minds that I have read I am still discovering greater ones that somehow I have still not come across. Since then the number of female Arab minds who have contributed generously to the literature, political and philosophical landscape of the region has more than doubled, yet the eager young ears today are still oblivious to these voices.

The UAE has seen impressive, one could even say unimaginable, advancements in all sectors and has cemented its position as a cultural hub for aspiring thinkers, artists and musicians from across the region and beyond. The Emirati woman has been offered opportunities that other women in neighbouring countries can only dream of, worse yet have to fight for, but it is not enough to give the opportunity without cultivating the mind. It is essential for the young generation to not only know that women can do anything they aspire to they must also understand the mindset that brought them there. Let them interpret and critique the ideas that brought about change, teach them to compare the poetry, the language and the stories and arm them with positive female examples that counter the assembly line of clichés the media has to offer.

Impressionable young students must be given true examples of the Arab woman through her own words, and when I say students I do not mean young girls alone for in order to raise a generation that truly believes in gender equality it is the young boys that have to listen first, those boys who will grow up to have female rivals at every stage of their professional careers. In order to foster greater respect for their future interactions as equals at par with each other in every way we must introduce them both to those female thinkers, those female warriors who have fought to create a distinct voice, that voice that emanates from an agony, a sense of injustice and suffocation from years of silence, that no male thinker, no matter how great, can mimic.

 

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper May 29, 2016 http://bit.ly/1NVNw90

Arabic version of this article was published in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1TNzCoG

Generation ‘Share’ knows nothing about privacy

It used to be that when one wanted to keep a conversation private all they had to do was shut the door, when one felt strong enough about a memory it was locked in a drawer and when moments were utterly precious they were appreciated instead of being documented for future enjoyment.

Those days are long gone, for the private generation is dwindling to make way for generation ‘share’. It is evolutionary I suppose, but with all the moments, memories and conversations being streamed, beamed and uploaded into clouds has the idea of privacy been mutilated? Slashed at and cut through by the hands of all the Tweeters, Instagramers and Snapchatters out there?

Having to explain to a child of today, who has learned to swipe before they can speak, that certain aspects of a person’s life must remain private for the preservation of one’s sanity is almost frivolous. At one point in time privacy was so sacred that the world agreed to make it a fundamental human right, we agreed then we forgot. The need for privacy is a universal human condition that is essential to the growth process of a human being yet somehow our obsession with sharing has blinded us to the most human of behaviours.

It used to be that the world had to come up with ingenious ploys to pry information out of our clenched hands. Privacy pirates even resorted to reverse psychology deploying efforts to convince us that having access to our information is in fact for our own safety. No schemes needed now for we divulge all without a care in the world, without a moment’s thought, because life is not lived if it’s not being shared.

Steve Jobs’ Apple Inc. was recently under fire for refusing to unlock and extract data from an iPhone at the request of the FBI. While the debate raged on whether or not Apple should adhere to the FBI request most people did not really care whether or not a company could hack into their personal devices and retrieve any information they wanted and more of them believed it was being done already! Let’s face it, nobody ever reads those lengthy privacy agreements and none of us really know what we are accepting when we eagerly click the ‘I Agree’ option on any of these products. We do that not because we are incapable of reading but rather because the lure of technology is such that it has made us indifferent about our once revered privacy.

The messaging service WhatsApp, which has been operating since 2010, has only last week assured its one billion users that their “private” conversations have now become “safe”. What that means for us users is that six years’ worth of private, intimate or critical information have been up for grabs to anyone, to WhatsApp’s defence they do mention that in their privacy agreement which of course none of us have read.

The question here is not whether or not companies are keeping our data secure once they have acquired it but rather do we really care if they are? Because in a world where one is identified and rewarded not by their productive input but rather for how much of their private lives they are willing to reveal, the more you share the more you become. And so it is inevitable that the day has come when we write about privacy with such nostalgia, analysing it as we would some unearthed fossil of a creature our human eyes had never fallen on. Our children might never understand why their parents’ conversations should not be broadcast and that their future selves would probably regret publishing every thought that ran through their young heads because privacy is a concept that must be relearned in an age where it has become a currency that cannot be cashed.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 17 April, 2016  http://bit.ly/1p8cWEb

Arabic version of this article appeared in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1SmLQHl

I never said Je suis Charlie

There was a time before last year’s gruesome attack when not many outside Paris had heard of a satirical publication called Charlie Hebdo. The terrorist shooting that left 11 people dead delivered a harsh blow to those of us who hold freedom of expression to be a birthright. The cold-blooded assassination of the Charlie Hebdo staff sent shockwaves throughout modern societies causing their leaders to flock to Paris and rally in solidarity with the French people in denouncing the attack on freedom of speech. It was also the reason the hashtag #JesuisCharlie trended worldwide with many Muslims using it to reiterate the fact that these monsters in no way represented the views of true Muslims.

The issue following the dark ordeal was published on schedule and in solidarity people, those who had never heard of Charlie Hebdo and those who do not agree with the publication’s opinions or find its “satire” funny, went out and bought the issue. The post-attack issue went on to sell one million copies.

Last week Charlie Hebdo was in the news again, not as a symbol of freedom of expression, but as an example of how racism can be deviously disguised as art. After the alleged harassment ordeal experienced by German women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve at the hands of migrants Charlie Hebdo published a caricature which depicts the body of 3-year-old Syrian migrant Alan Kurdi, which washed up on Turkish shores after his boat capsized while seeking refuge, as growing up to become a monkey-faced rapist attacking German women. The photo of young Alan’s tiny body lying face down on the shore shook the world to the core, it was the physical embodiment of the absolute horror that human greed, ego and lust for power can create. Somehow, while the world tried to make sense of this child’s unfathomable fate Charlie Hebdo’s artists thought it would be “funny” to point at this lifeless tiny bundle of innocence and call him a rapist. Soon social media was abuzz with shocked reactions to this heartless and racist caricature which could not be seen as anything other than a hate-mongering piece of propaganda which has no place in the world we are living today.

I was not shocked at seeing such filth being churned out by Charlie Hebdo, as a matter of fact I was not expecting anything less. Like I said, most people had not heard of Charlie Hebdo before the attack and therefore had no way of knowing how unimaginably vile its work can be. The work being published by Charlie Hebdo is not unlike that of white-supremacist or religious extremists’ propaganda, subjugating any idea which it considers as ‘other’ and inciting segregation. Today, the United States government is considering removing racist terms from great works of literature and is being pressured to take down statues of prominent figures in American history for their involvement in the slave trade. For even though the US amendment lists freedom of speech it specifies that it is not, and can never be absolute.

We are living in a world which is being torn apart by intolerance and hate therefore the utmost care and sensitivity should be taken when approaching issues of great social or political impact. That is exactly why although horrified by the viciousness and unjustness of the attack on Charlie Hebdo and despite the intense fear I felt at the thought of losing journalistic freedoms I never once said je suis Charlie because let’s face it, neither you nor I are Charlie. We would never walk into a room and at the sight of a person who is different hurl profanities at them comparing them to animals. We would never be sat with people from different faiths and insult one’s religious views and idols. And you and I would never in a million years think of a child’s lifeless body as a funny joke to laugh about. 

I never said je suis Charlie because I am not Charlie and will never be. 

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 18 January, 2016  http://bit.ly/1PkNKQW

Arabic version of this article appeared in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1OzVajS

Dying to escape death

In the past year the Mediterranean Sea has once again borne witness to the atrocities that mankind has committed against its own race. Thousands upon thousands of people fleeing abuse, poverty and impending death chose to cross the Mediterranean despite the unsafe and overcrowded boats, for the uncertainty of the sea seems more comforting than the certainty of their land’s future.

The UN Refugee Agency reports that more than 219,000 migrants have reached European shores in 2014 and considering the deteriorating situation of their region it is likely to double in the future. The majority of migrants come from corrupt or war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East. The Arab Spring whose seeds failed to bloom anything other than a chaotic mess that requires only blood to grow has contributed immensely to the rising numbers of these migrants. These perilous journeys have seen thousands die at sea and many abused on these boats. The European Union is now being faced with the powerful wave of people approaching its shores and the human rights issues involved in their refusal of granting them entry. Predictions show that this problem is likely to escalate taking into consideration that this great migration has made a profitable business for human traffickers.

The powers that be must realise that the instability and destruction their actions have caused are bound to spill over. Geography should be the ultimate deciding factor for every political dilemma, for proximity to an ailing land is bound to result in one’s infection. It is the natural human survival instinct that drives a person out of a burning building and so when political decisions fail to foresee further into the future and choose to burn entire continents in the process, scours of people will flee and head towards the safety of those nations immune to man-made disasters. When an entire segment of the world is burned and reduced to a lawless battleground for thugs and mercenaries, a land where government does not exist, where the slate of history is being wiped out and hope has drowned in gallons of innocent blood, the only respite comes in the form of the open seas and what lies beyond the horizon. So ships are boarded and pain is tolerated just a little while longer.

The EU is looking to increase the number of migrants/refugees granted entry to their countries yet although this is the immediate humane response to the crisis it is another example of governments seeking band-aid solutions based on reactionary decisions rather than long-term ones taken out of a more future-oriented outlook. Taking more people in will not end the increasing flow, as it is the EU is suffering from an ailing economy where bankruptcies and bailouts have become common. Those governments suffering from the war overspill must put pressure on the world to tackle the problem at the source. Taking effective measures to end these raging wars and help these people rebuild their lives is the only permanent solution, for only when the suffering of these nations is lifted these boats will cease to sail.

It is said that for legal purposes governments must distinguish between a migrant and a refugee, the difference being their “motivation”. If one flees a country with the intention of improving their future then he is considered a migrant, if he flees in order to survive then he is a refugee. Governments must label to distinguish, but migrant or refugee, one must not lose sight of the fact that they are people. Men, women and children who board those boats, whatever their motivation, they carry with them hope and considering the risk they are willingly taking it is hard to believe that even one of them does not have the “motivation” of improving their future.

Those 800 who perished when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean were not migrants or refugees, they were not a mere number flashing on our television screens, they were 800 people whose lives were determined for them by a group of politicians whose severing, dissecting and reattaching of their lands has turned their world into a monster that not even its creator can control. Coast guards watched them drown because they were not legally bound to help them and as their bodies sank slowly into the depths of the Mediterranean, the sea took them in knowing that there will be many more to come.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper June 7, 2015 http://bit.ly/1G3kP26 

Arabic version appeared in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1Gszlnu

Judgment Before Justice

In 1973 India, a young nurse was brutally attacked, raped and left for dead at the hospital in which she worked. This monstrous attack left her in a vegetative state after being strangled by chains which cut off the oxygen supply to her brain. Her struggle began on that day and lasted 42 years. Aruna Shanbaug was 25 years old and engaged to be married, she was a bright nurse who cared for patients as if they were her own family. 

This crime was not registered as a rape by the doctors at the hospital for fear of it bringing shame to Aruna, it was a case of robbery and attempted murder as far as the courts were concerned. The monster (for no other word comes to mind) who committed this heinous attack was sentenced to seven years in prison, meanwhile, Aruna was sentenced to a lifetime of suffering. She remained in the hospital in which she used to work, cared for by the nurses who were once her colleagues. Every seven years or so the hospital would suggest freeing her bed only to back down after these nurses held a protest on Aruna’s behalf. The juxtaposition of this story reflects human nature at its best, the monsters that dwell among us and the angels who are there to ease our suffering, humanity is an ironic thing.

Aruna Shanbaug died last week. Forty-two years her fragile body lay on that bed, eyes open through the pain, silent, ageing. Those years should not be dismissed, Aruna survived to remind us that rape is not a crime like any other, rape is murder. The violation of one’s dignity and the vile inhumanity of the act leaves its victims alive yet dead inside and Aruna was the physical embodiment of that feeling. For 42 years she remained in order for us to witness that the scars these ‘crimes’ leave behind never fully heal. They never go away. 

Societies have a peculiar way of relating, or more accurately non-relating, to rape maybe because it is so vicious, they choose to live in denial about it. With no other crime do people associate shame to the victim except with rape, why is that? Forty-two years on people are still debating this question. Society’s view of rape must be altered in order for laws to be enforced and severe punishment implemented. To this day, all over the world the victim of rape is not seen as just a victim. Questions linger around how the rape victim brought it upon herself, dissection of her background and attire takes place as if to look for any evidence that will assign a shared responsibility for the crime. There is nothing being shared, there is only something being taken, forcibly and without mercy. There is no rhyme or reason for such monstrosity, such darkness. It is all around us and it must be eradicated not excused.

There is no point of relaying statistics on rape because for every figure given there are thousands missing, unreported. It is a shameful state we have created where a victim chooses to endure the pain and suffering, silenced by fear that judgment will come before justice.

For every Aruna story we hear there are hundreds of thousands that will never be heard, swept under the great rug of shame societies have so eloquently woven. It is up to us to speak up, to lift this heavy rug and reveal the ugliness it conceals. It is up to us to teach our children not to be afraid and to defend instead of condemn. Governments must be forced to take great measures in ensuring that this pandemic is wiped out through stricter laws, education and awareness campaigns. 

Viciousness is part of the world we live in, some of us choose to ignore it with the rationalisation of wanting only positivity to flow our way. How selfish we have become! That the pain of others has become a hindrance to the fulfilment of our positive selves. Turning one’s head away from the world’s darkness does not make it disappear, facing it head-on does.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on May 24, 2015  http://bit.ly/1ArFr4T

Arabic version of this article was published in Al Khaleej Newspaper  http://bit.ly/1enB2WQ

The Cyber Cemetery: A virtual headstone for each one of us

IF you can imagine a world before the Internet you would picture a place where your thoughts belonged to you alone, a world that is governed solely by your physical presence. To be heard in this world you were required to prove you had something worth listening to and only if you were talented enough, well versed enough and committed enough would your thoughts garner an audience. Through this meticulous journey towards making your voice heard you must have weighed and measured every word before it was uttered, every action before it manifested. Through this examination of one’s self you would’ve eventually etched your legacy, one that will remain long after you have gone. 

If this virgin world seems more like fiction than reality, you are probably one of the many who have grown accustomed to the ease with which sharing your every passing thought with the world has become. These thoughts will never know the struggle of being caged and your voice will never feel the strain of continuous shouting. This schizophrenic world requires us to live in two separate spaces, one physical and the other cyber. Many of us fail to make the connection between the two, losing ourselves in this newly formed identity we choose to project. In this world where I sit at my desk writing these words, people die, they pass on, people are mortal. In the cyber world we inhabit they do not. The immortality of one’s social media persona is real, for we leave behind years of comments, images and interactions that can never be taken back.

According to a report recently released by the research firm Internet Monitor, dead users of the social media world will soon outnumber those of the living. It estimates that at the moment there are some 20 million Facebook profiles that belong to people who have passed on. Through social media one becomes immortal, he continues to be. 

These sobering figures are worth reflecting upon if only to reassess our online footprint. Does the social media persona you control reflect how you want to be remembered? 

The spontaneity with which we tend to share our musings with the world makes our online person more prone to spreading hasty generalisations and at times even hateful comments. The false security the glaring screen provides allows us to let our ugliness through. And the fact that this haste, hate and ugliness will remain floating through cyber space long after you are able to defend it is reason enough to make us take a step back from our keyboards and smartphones. 

After meeting many of my social media friends in the world of the tangible I can safely say that for some, their online personas do not do justice to their real life selves. I have come to realise that the most critical of the social media accounts are the least verbal in real life and I can assure you that most social media trolls have no physical troll land to dwell.

As this cyber cemetery grows bloated with people’s endless thoughts, existing in a virtual limbo, we must do ourselves justice and try as best we can to be true to who we are. We must find a balance between our real selves and our cyber ones for, like it or not, it is the legacy we will leave behind. Make it one that you wish to be remembered by, one you would be proud of for it will be the shrine your loved ones will visit when their longing for you becomes at its heaviest. 

Your words will continue to live, make them count. 

This article was first published in The Gulf Today Newspaper, March 10, 2015  http://bit.ly/18x2SMN

Arabic version of this article was published in Al Khaleej Newspaper http://bit.ly/18x30fn

An open letter to The Guardian

Dear Guardian,

For years you have taken it upon yourself to single-handedly defame my country the United Arab Emirates. For reasons unknown the UAE has had to endure your endless bombardments of smear campaigns and ugliness in the name of free journalism.

In articles dating as far back as 2000 you have attacked the Emirates in all your sections from politics to travel. You have sent reporters with a mission to excavate only the negative no matter how minute it may be and inflated it into certain truths. You have only to enter the name of any Emirate in your website’s search box and watch as the archives of ugliness start to unfold. Pages worth of headlines that will make anyone who knows the UAE shudder. Your commentators and news reports have called our buildings “the nastiest you’ve ever seen” our lifestyle “a place where the worst of western capitalism and the worst of Gulf Arab racism meet in a horrible vortex” labeled our rulers “dictators” and even advised Dr. Who not to film on our land!

All this unsubstantiated drivel we have heard from you throughout the years and have remained silent simply because we have taken it as just that.

Eventually when your army of pen-pushers failed to paint the bleak image of the UAE that they have set out to do you stepped up to this one-sided battle and wrote an editorial denouncing my country, but why?

For anyone who has ever been to the UAE or chose to make it their home, for the people of UAE this is mind-boggling to say the least. The UAE is a peaceful country; its rulers are as much of the people as the people are a part of this country. Emiratis are a welcoming, tolerant people who have in only 41 years opened up their doors and overcome the culture shock that comes with such a transformation with class and grace. 

The country’s foreign affairs are solid and its worldwide humanitarian efforts are ones all nations must strive to emulate. One has only to visit the UAE, talk to its people and the people who have chosen to raise their children in it to know what it truly is.

We understand your bewilderment at the success of this great nation’s experiment in unity and peace. We do not blame you for feeling a tad bit confused about its resilience in the face of economic adversity and the continuous drive of its people. But does that really warrant all this resentment from you?

Granted, there are many aspects to our country that need to be developed and revised and we are well on our way to doing so. 41 years old this December the UAE’s achievements, cultural sophistication and tolerance transcends its young age as a united nation. In our 41 years we have not waged wars, we have sought peace, we have not divided our land based on race, we have embraced more than 200 nationalities as our own. We have tolerated judgment and criticism from nations who have fought and aided wars on either side of the globe and listened to them preach their version of democracy while they take actions of which hypocrisy is ashamed.

We are an educated nation with a 97% literacy race and we have heard you loud and clear. Now it is time for you to hear us. Twelve years of this one-sided reporting is putting a damper on your impartiality and frankly hurting your credibility as a respected paper. Any person in their right mind, whether they have been to the UAE or not, cannot believe that a country as popular and loved as this one would not have one good aspect to report or comment on. How could people from all walks of the earth flock to a nation that is as ugly as you say? That is a true anomaly, a real wonder of the world, a mystery that has yet to be explained and based on your reporting I think it never will be.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 18th November, 2012.
Arabic version of this article was published in Al Khaleej newspaper on the same day: http://bit.ly/TQXwPY

                                                 
                                 

Free media: an oxymoron

For decades the Arab world limped through life maimed by the brutality of regimes driven only by greed. The previous generation lost hope in a better future, and the new one had none, but overnight and without any substantial signs a storm took over the region, uprooting the most ancient of dictators. Hurricane Arab Uprising has hit and as we watched it swoop through in utter shock and disbelief we knew our world was never going to be the same again.

The aftermath of storm Arab Uprising has left many dead and made brave those who remained, but like in the passing of any storm the most obvious remnants are in the form of rubble. Yet even amidst all the chaos and in spite of the confusion we could see new lines being drawn and new words etched to form our new reality.

The political world was altered to an almost unrecognisable entity. Every branch of governance is currently experiencing a transformation and if we believe that the press is the fourth branch of governance then it is safe to say that the Arab media landscape is being reshaped as well.

Strangled by the heavy hands of bureaucracy and political agendas Arab media was just like the people, gasping for air. The revolutions revived what was once forgotten, that the media in itself is a freedom fighter and the teller of truth. History has seen the Arab media awaken and then slip back into its coma many times; such is the impact of great events on journalism. All media channels experience slow news days but in the Arab world the days dragged into years.

Today the Arab media is reawakening once again, rising from slumber it is taking its first steps towards more courageous coverage, treading on areas only a few years ago would have meant the end of a media establishment.

Many who have been in the fraternity prior to the revolutions can vouch for this newly found freedom however mild it may be. Having said that, one must not take the word freedom in vain. Freedom of the press can never be the licence to say anything one desires. Freedom of the press is not the freedom to slander and attack and must never be used to fight other people’s wars. It does not mean manipulating a story into speaking your views. One might think it common sense but in the world of journalism a lot of what makes sense is lost to the lure of favouritism, greed and fame. Sadly, in this truth-telling business truth is hard to find.

It is unfair to undermine Arab media and compare it to the West because the climates both operate in are drastically different. The profession is the same but not the rules of the game. When we say the media in the West is free what freedom do we speak of? You might be quick to reply that governments do not overshadow media in the West, yet that is not technically correct. Corporations govern the Western media, corporations owned by powerful almost governing figures. Therefore substitute one governance for another and you shall see that while the hands might differ the grip is one and the same.

The media world taught in classrooms is an idealistic representation of a world very far from the reality of the profession. Manoeuvring in the media, whichever part of the world it may be in, is akin to being a diplomat, adapting, evolving and finding a way out of the maze of social and political interactions that come with the job. It is not just a question of black or white and right or wrong. It is a grey political world, this world we call the media.

Freedom in the press means freedom from bias, it means telling both sides of the story but it also means responsibility. Just like the government, the press is responsible for the community and its people. Media channels that are concerned about the welfare of their people must adhere to the social and cultural sensitivities. Media being global is not an excuse to be insensitive to the local. The press is not there to offend, it exists to inform and educate. The media should report the chaos not create it.

Say what you wish about media in the Arab world, but say it knowing that no media channel in the world is absolutely free.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 10th June, 2012.

Arabic version of this article published in Al Khaleej newspaper on 10th June, 2012: http://bit.ly/KX3RYc