Celebrating the death of innocence

It used to be that for an issue to become the subject of worldwide debate it had to be investigated, fact-checked and exposed yet today all it takes is a video gone viral. This month, a video of 11-year-old Yemeni girl Nada Al-Ahdal made the rounds on social media sites and after hitting over 7 million views the story was picked up by the media and the doors of debate were flung open. 

This video showed young Nada eloquently telling the world that she has escaped the horrors of home seeking refuge at her uncle’s house because her mother intended to have her married. The passionate child addressed each and every one of us and asked, “What happens to a child’s innocence?” She expressed her wish to die rather than be sold to a man and feared for the lives of other young girls like her who have had their lives ruined. All of a sudden the child bride had a face and that in itself moved the world more than any statistic could.

The media pounced on the story based on its circulation and once again failed to do journalism’s basic requirement, that is, investigate. Turned out Nada’s video was staged by her uncle who works as a graphic technician in a TV station. Nada’s mother never intended on marrying her off and the girl never escaped from home. After the media vilified Nada’s parents in an attempt to save face the story was dismissed as a hoax and the world moved on and away from Nada. 

As this story fades away its remnants still linger on and one wonders, so what if this video is a sham and Nada was never to be a child bride? The facts remain that according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) a staggering 52% of girls in Yemen are married before the age of 18. Adding insult to injury in 1999 Yemen’s parliament abolished article 15 of its Personal Status Law which set the minimum age for marriage at 15. Simply put, Yemen has no minimum age for marriage. In a study conducted by Sanaa University it was revealed that in some areas in Yemen girls as young as eight are married off. 

Faced with these frightening figures does it really matter that Nada’s video was staged? Has the world missed the larger picture with regard to this story by dismissing it as a lie? Nada’s story might have been fiction but the crimes she spoke of are very much a reality. In 2008 the world was shell-shocked after hearing the story of 10-year-old Nujood Ali who approached a court in Sanaa asking the judge for a divorce. The words spoken by Nada, scripted or not, depict the lives of many young girls in Yemen who remain helpless because of the poverty compelling parents to sell their children to the highest bidder and the lack of laws which have aided these inhumane acts. 

Yemen is not alone when it comes to the normalisation of child marriages for the likes of these injustices are prominent in all countries suffering from endless political unrest and devastated by poverty. Countries like Niger, Afghanistan and Pakistan among many others rank highest in percentage of child marriages. This pandemic exists all over the world and must be combated. Cases of child marriages reveal many forms of physical abuse and violence, premature pregnancies and a high rate of infant mortality. The psychological effects on the young brides and the eternal feeling of isolation have led to many taking their own lives. 

It is predicted that 100 million young girls will be married in the next 10 years. Child protection laws must be enforced and greater efforts exerted in educating parents and providing a safe haven for children who have no choice but to escape the dismal future forced upon them. Adults should not be given the right to throw parties celebrating the death of their child’s innocence.

An 8-year-old girl should not be denied her childhood by living a life carrying out the duties of a wife. 13-year-old girls should not be raising children for they have yet to live their own childhood. These young girls represent our future and what a ghastly one it will be if we continue allowing these injustices to happen. 

Nada Al-Ahdal is not a child bride and we pray she never will be, but her question to the world still echoes in my mind and should do so in yours as well, when we allow for such crimes to occur she asks… “What happens to a child’s innocence?”

This article was published in The Gulf Today Newspaper on 4 August, 2013. 

Arabic version published in Al Khaleej Newspaper http://bit.ly/1914uxN

                       

Mandela's Boat in Machiavelli's Ocean

The world suffers not wars, famine or injustice but the lack of courage and the sudden death of moral responsibility. We live in a self-involved world governed by greed and guarded by hypocrisy. A crumbling world destroyed by the very reason it was created. It is a world where mirages of courage are glimpsed every so often but alas they are nothing but the trick of a mind longing to quench its thirst. Yet among all the falsities at times we find truth. We hear it in one’s words and witness these words come to life through one’s actions. This is a rarity, an anomaly if you wish, which makes the Mother Teresas, the Gandhis, the Martin Luther Kings and the Mandelas of the world names we will not soon forget. 

The world has lost many of those lone warriors and as I write these words I fear for one of the remaining few as he battles for his life. Nelson Mandela is a man who at a time when the world forced him to remain silent shouted at the top of his lungs, a man who fought oppression and won, a man who for the sake of freedom lived most of his life a prisoner. At 95 years of age many argue that there is not much left he can offer, but it is not what he has yet to give that is at stake, it is what he stands for. 

Today’s world cannot stand to lose the likes of Mandela for without them the future seems even grimmer. A few remain who can inspire us with absolute determination and endless devotion to their beliefs, and even fewer remain who will not falter at the pangs of pain or succumb to the lure of money. For no matter where your faith lies today’s world will find it and either beat it out of you, or buy it from you, it is as easy as that. 

Mandela lived on his land but adhered to a foreign man’s law, he grew up witnessing the marginalisation of his people and the abduction of what was rightfully theirs. On Mandela’s land the white man differentiated, segregated and oppressed on the basis of colour alone. Mandela believed that no man should be silent in the face of injustice yet also understood the grave consequences of such a belief. Undeterred by doubt and propelled by the hope of freedom he took on a journey that no ordinary man can undertake, he walked through the thorny path of freedom and came out the other side bloodied, bruised but free. 

The blood will wash away, the bruises will eventually fade yet the only thing that shall remain is a legacy of a man who unburdened his people, helped them take back their dignity when little was left of it and set them free.

Mandela became South Africa’s first black president in 1999, seems unfathomable for an African nation to get its first black president only 14 years ago but such is injustice, the greater its irrationality the stronger it becomes.

In 2001 Mandela visited Dar Al Khaleej Printing & Publishing in Sharjah and there he recalled his first visit to the United Arab Emirates in 1995. He explained his reluctance to visit a region of which he heard had no freedom, yet after visiting the UAE he told the attendees: “I found the complete opposite, I found a country that treats its people with greater respect than many ‘democratic’ nations in the West.” He pointed out that the great number of women in the audience shows just how progressive the UAE truly is.  

In a world devastated by wars and bled dry by greed people are lost in a sea of Machiavellian grey where only the end matters and nothing else. This dreary fact makes it all the more sad to see the Mandelas of the world perish with little hope of others of their kind surfacing from these murky grey waters. In his quest for his people’s freedom Mandela discovered his hunger for the freedom of all people, he believed that even his oppressor was not free for he too is shackled by the chains of prejudice and bigotry. He sought to free his people and in the process also unshackle his oppressor. The world only hopes that more people would seek justice knowing that it can never be achieved by allowing hate to cloud one’s vision. 

I leave you with Mandela’s words that have never left me: 

“I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.”

We wish you well Madiba, may you continue to inspire and enlighten forever.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 21 July, 2013. 
An Arabic version of this article appeared in Al Khaleej newspaper on the same date http://bit.ly/158vLt3

Feminist before her time

We knew her as a mother of men, a mother to all but back when she was younger she was a girl who would not conform to what she believed was unfair, to what she saw as unjust. She was a girl who possessed the courage to put an end to what was in her eyes, even then, demeaning. It was a time when this country was nothing more than a gathering of tribes. She grew up in it not as we know it today, she lived in a UAE that was tight-knit, sheltered and unexposed. 

It was a time when child marriages were the norm, a place where a sign of a man's wealth was revealed by the number of wives he had, and women’s rights were those that were given to them by men. Even then, she stood tall, resisted an early marriage and refused to be treated like a possession. It was her choice to raise her two boys as a single mother, two boys who grew up to be men who played a pivotal role in shaping the country we know today. 

Everyone has heard of her two sons but not many have heard of the great woman behind these great men.

My grandmother was the first feminist I have ever known. She spoke of a woman's right and the preservation of her pride and dignity at a time when such ideas seemed taboo. She believed that a woman's education was her most prized possession and that her independence is a right not a luxury bestowed upon her. As a child I grew up listening to her stories of the harsh yet innocent times of her youth, of her struggles in raising her boys with the help of only her mother. I heard many times of her heartbreak at sending her boys off to Kuwait to get an education that she could never have. And about the many years she longed to see them at a time when communications were confined to letters that she could not read. 

She was a woman who loved life and the people in it. She recited poetry, loved music and had a sense of humour that remained with her to the very end. She was the woman who taught me that speaking one's mind and standing up for one's rights should be done gracefully and without disrespect for opposing views. She was a mother to all who knew her and to this day fondly call her "Mama Sheikha". 

I know that my words will never do her justice for she was the greatest part of my life. The void she left can never be filled no matter how many words I throw into it. She was my link to a life I never lived but, through her eyes, grew to love.

Loss is the absence of a part of you, you hold dear. In life, death is the absolute loss. We are taught that death is inevitable yet that never makes it any less cruel. Death is always sudden no matter how prepared you are for it. Death is always sudden, death is always cruel. 

My grandmother lost a son eleven years ago, his absence broke her spirit and she was never the same again. Eleven years later and only one week before her son's death anniversary she chose to leave us. And just like in life, in death she left gracefully and quietly. She was by my side since the day I came into this world and when she left it I was by hers.

She was my father's mother, she was my mother, she was and still is the strongest woman I have ever met. 

May she rest in eternal peace knowing that she will forever remain in our hearts.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 12 May, 2013. Arabic version was published in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/10P6vT3

  

One-way ticket to Mars

There was a time when people looked up at the sky in bewilderment, felt humbled by its vastness and intrigued by its unattainable wonders. It was the one place that allowed a human being the courtesy of a boundless imagination. But that was then, and this is now.

This month, a Dutch company named Mars One has made the dreamers of us an offer they cannot refuse. It is to send people on a one-way trip to Mars to start a human colony on the red planet. With no way for return, setting foot on this elusive planet means they are eternally on their own. Left to their own devices and vulnerable to whatever dangers lie ahead, they are to fend for themselves. So who would be brave enough or mad enough to take this trip of no return you may ask?

According to Mars One there have been 10,000 applicants so far. Ten thousand people found this idea alluring enough to venture into a place of no return. Fearlessly accepting to take this one-way journey, leaving behind everything and everyone they have ever known and bidding farewell to their mother, Earth. They are expected to fly, four at a time, living on limited supplies of canned food and to drink water made of their recycled urine. Even if there was an atom of a chance that these people could return, Mars One explains that once their bodies have adjusted to the mere 38% gravity level on Mars they would be physically incapable to tolerate Earth's much stronger gravity.

According to Mars One, this project is to be financed through media sponsorship. The company aims to create a reality-TV show around this mission, transmitting the daily lives of these Martian converts who have willingly left us behind to live the rest of their lives on a planet far, far away. These real-life Jetsons will instantaneously become the celebrities no one on Earth could ever get to meet. The fact that this endeavour is to be a media spectacle somehow diminishes its integrity and gives off a dark aura of blatant exploitation of cosmic proportions.

Bizarre as I might think this journey is, the more I ponder it the more logic I see.

We have succeeded in destroying earth, infecting it with disease, abusing its resources and are now counting down to its slow but sure demise. The idea of being able to escape all the devastation we have created and start anew could be compelling enough to propel people into the darkness of the virgin skies in a tiny pod fuelled by their sheer hope and naïve optimism. 

Yet to think that this expedition is a mere escape would be looking at the subject from a one-dimensional perspective. The egotistical compound of the human psyche shines another light on this endeavour, man as conqueror of Earth is not enough, man must conquer the heavens as well.  Our narcissistic nature keeps us forever ready to plant a flag on foreign territory, our pens anxious to draw boundaries sectioning any place we choose to inhabit. After all, this might not be about the journey but about the spoils.

For the romantics of us, this journey could be about man the explorer, man the adventurous. It could be the culmination of the ultimate dream that started as a sketch in Leonardo da Vinci's notebook. It could restore our faith in human determination and achievements after we have come to believe that all man can achieve is death and destruction.

Whatever the reasons for the journey may be and setting aside the physical and psychological damage that can occur, if these Martian pioneers were to actually carry out this mission successfully, would they do it differently? Would they learn from their earthly mistakes and strive to build something better?

Will they be able to set aside religious disparities, will they erase racism, eradicate hatred, and will they shed the ruthless skin of greed? Or will the weaknesses of mankind prevail and they would end up starting a journey similar to the one we have taken? A journey that ends in a bruised and battered world.

I wonder if these 'chosen ones' have thought about the responsibility they shoulder, I wonder if they even care.

This title was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 28 April, 2013. Arabic version published in Al Khaleej Newspaper http://bit.ly/188wGbY

Remember Remember the Twenty Fifth of November

In 1981, the 25^th of November was designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This day was chosen by the United Nations in honour of the Mirabal sisters, political activists who were assassinated by the president of the Dominican Republic in 1960. Since then thousands of acts of violence have been committed against women and continue to be committed to this very day. 

I write these words with the painful realization that at this very moment hundreds of young girls and women are being beaten, raped and murdered, which makes these letters all the more heavier on my page. Sadly, staggering figures show that violence against women is a common thread that cuts through all races and nations. It’s absurd that people cannot agree on many issues, yet are unanimously comfortable with committing crimes based on gender discrimination.

Just like all evils, violence against women has many faces and takes many forms. Iraqi poet Ibn Nabatah Al Saadi said, “causes are many but death is one” and nowhere is this saying more potent than in the discrimination and violence against women. When a woman is abused death is inevitable, be it physical or emotional, a part of her dies and can never be revived.

 Domestic violence is one that seems to span the globe, statistics show that reasons as trivial as ‘burning dinner’ is enough to warrant aggression. Being abused by a loved one is the greatest of all pains for it shatters trust in people and diminishes self-worth.

Throughout history societies have managed to either legitimise or belittle the abuse of women in the name of one thing or another. Religious, economical and political issues continue to be abused in order to diminish a woman’s role in society, and keep its boundaries that of the backyard’s fence. For every woman who breaks out of that fence there are hundreds who live and die within it. 

The figures are shocking, many of which have left me dumbfounded. In many parts of the world young girls are forbidden education for no reason other than that they are girls. As a result two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women. Instead they are married off as children in return for a meagre price as if they are a commodity of sorts; the number of these child brides has reached 60 million worldwide. The UN estimates that 700,000 young girls and women are trafficked and subjected to the most horrendous acts of exploitation every year. In the Middle East, what is known by ‘honour’ killing has taken many women’s lives. If a man feels that a woman has been dishonourable in any way he is not only allowed, but also expected, to kill her and end the so-called “shame” she has brought to the family. In Asia a growing trend of acid attacks have left many women maimed and disfigured. Since 1999 there were about 3000 acid attacks in Bangladesh alone. If these reports show anything, it is that no matter what the circumstance men seem to take a chance at abusing women. Even during the revolutions in Egypt random groups and policemen alike were sexually assaulting women, leaving nowhere for these women to seek justice. It is nauseating to say the least that women cannot feel safe in their own skin.

So why do many men around the world act so blatantly on their aggression towards women?

Inequality is at the core of such aggression. When one gender, race or group thinks itself supreme then crimes will be aplenty and aggression will be the norm.  Only when women are seen, as equal to men will these injustices be a thing of the past, remembered only as a black mark on mankind’s history that shall not be repeated. Until then, every aspect of society remains hinged to these scales and as long as they remain tipped the law will lean as well.

Governing laws in most countries are not put in place or implemented to fight crimes that violate women’s rights. For example, most cases of rape go undocumented because women are afraid that they would either be implicated in the process or that their case would be dismissed as another statistic.  Women believe that the law, society and the media are unsympathetic to rape victims, it is no wonder then that women choose silence over protest. All laws must be amended and others put in place to ensure the safety of all human beings especially those whose rights are infringed upon daily and for the most ludicrous of reasons.

Today is a day for the world to understand these crimes and know that they are still being committed. We women must remember our fallen sisters and keep upright those who are about to fall. Today is a day where we lend our voices to those who have lost theirs in fear of flying fists and bloodied faces. The 25^th of November is a day chosen to speak against violence on women and I say each and every day should be the 25^th of November.  

This article was written as a contribution to the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office in honour of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Published on their blog on 25th November, 2012. 

Here is the official link to the article: http://bit.ly/UlIFPQ 

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