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

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