Apology to my Western friends.

My dear Western friends,

I am apologizing today because I fooled you. I did not fool you once. Nor twice. But hundreds of times, when I was defending the Arab world, the Muslim world or the Middle East (same shit).

I do not feel anger. I do not feel disappointment. I do not feel frustration.

I am actually filled with ire. I am actually filled with despair. I am actually filled with hopelessness.

The point of writing a blog is to explain one's perspective so here is my truth.

The Middle East is the most backward place you can find on the face of earth. I spare you the details of the failure of the economy (despite enormous resources) or the centralization of politics and will focus mainly on the retarded culture of the majority. (Fortunately, there is a mino-mino-minority of educated people who are aware of this state of decadence, decay and extreme conservatism but are too busy benefiting from the sharp socio-economic gap and enjoying the status quo to open their mouth to bring some change.)

Imagine what it is to be an open-minded and unveiled woman walking in the streets of Middle Eastern countries, facing daily the persistant and judgmental look of veiled ninjas who believe that they hold the absolute truth, being verbally harassed by men who are driving, cab drivers who are staring at the mirror of the car, or neighboors when you are just, simply hanging your laundry on your terrace. What are the consequences of being simply a free woman?

Well, today, I was told that I was kicked out of my apartment because my roommate and I are foreigners and, because we have troubles with the super-super-super conservative superintendant of the building, we are bringing a bad reputation.

This mentality, my friends, will never taste what freedom and democracy are. Not in ten years. Not even in billions of years. Actually, global warming and the end of the world are most likely to happen before.

Forget when I was saying that the rise of conservatism in the Arab world is a defense against US foreign policy and the creation of the state of Israel. (Well, to be true, it certainly has to do with the Sykes–Picot Agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement)

Forget when I was claiming that cultural diversity needs to be respected and arguing that Middle Eastern people have their own conception of freedom.

Conservatism and backwardness are in these people's blood. It runs through their veins. You were told that cancer and HIV are the worst diseases you can get? Here is another misinformation. Actually, conservatism is way worse than cancer and HIV both combined in the same body. It spreads quickly, reaches the brain and annihilates any ability to think and criticize.

Finally, if you are wondering how one can deeply love and truly despise its own culture at the same time, please read the above letter of despair. After all, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism," as Thomas Jefersson put it.

Kam. July 21, 2010. Sitting at her desk. Torn between jumping out of the window or taking that challenge.

Imagine a world...

Find a very comfortable couch. Sit on it. Actually, lie down on it. Are you comfortable? Perhaps a cup of tea would help you slow down, think about John Lennon or Richard Dawkins and... imagine. Imagine a world... Imagine a world without religion:

No 9/11

No honor killings

No Talibans' rule

No Israeli-Palestinian conflict

No Roma-Vatican issues

No gender discrimination based on religious figures' sayings

No Crusades

No Northern Ireland 'troubles'

No jihads

No guerrilla warfar

No Protestants-Catholics fight

No Sunni-Shia fight

No Ashkenazi-Sepharadim fight

No Islamic conquests

No French Wars of Religion in the XVIe century

• No First War (1562-1563)

• No Second War (1567-1568)

• No Third War (1568-1570)

• No St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572)

• No Fourth War (1572-1573)

• No Fifth War (1576)

• No Sixth War (1577)

• No Seventh War (1580)

• No War of the Three Henries (1584-1589)

• No Wars of the League (1589-1598)

No Reconquista

No Indian/Pakistan partition

No Inquisition

No Lebanese civil war (1975-90)

No veiling issue and debate on national identity in France

No Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres

No worldwide demonstations due to the caricature of the Prophet

No fatwas

No witch-hunts

No “I'm dumping you because you're not Jewish, Muslim or Christian”

No blasphemy

No “separation of the Church and the State” issue

No death stoning

Hopefully No Saudi Arabia (and some other countries...)

No terrorism

As John Lennon sang it, “you may say I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one.”

When religious fundamentalism hits... I hit back!

Have you ever found yourself in a police car chasing a guy who has been harassing you?
Well, another exciting adventure happened to me in Amman.

I live in a four-bedroom apartment with four girls. The superintendant of the building happens to be the noisiest and most conservative man. Since I moved in, about a month ago, he knocks at the door several times a day just to “check on us.” He says that we want to “protect us.” He also allows himself to make inappropriate comments about the way we live and the people we see. After my Lebanese friend came over to really check on me because I had surgery at the hospital, the superintendant met my roommate in the lobby of the building and started lecturing her about how inapropriate it is to welcome men in a female's apartment (even though it was during the afternoon).

Yesterday night, when I went to bed, my male friend's roommate came over during the night (for one hour) because she wanted to talk to him about some issue. When he left the building, the superintendant started to chase him outside and shout at him. When my roommate went down in the street to see what was going on, the Egyptian man required that her friend never shows up again in the apartment. He insulted her and told her that we do not have an appropriate behavior and we are not respectable women.

When my roommate told me the story this morning, I immediately suggested to go talk to the police because there is an administrative office with policemen across our street. When we went there, the cops advised us to go to the neighbooring police station. We went back to our apartment to take our bags before catching a taxi. When the superintendant saw us in the street talking to the policemen, he knocked at our door afterwards, angry, to ask why we talked to them. He even tried to force the door to get into the apartment to talk to my roommate. I started to scream at him (in Arabic!) and told him that our lives are none of his business, that he is neither our father nor our brother and we do not need his help or protection to follow the right path in our life. I think that I have never shouted at someone that loud in my life!

We finally got a cab and headed to the police station. The policemen were very friendly and one of them wrote down a complain. The first question he asked me was whether the superintendant was Egyptian or Jordanian. I learned that Egyptians are troublemakers in Jordan, certainly because those people are conservative and tried to impose a certain way of living here – the righteous one, of course...! When I told the policeman the name of the superintendant, he turned to his colleague and said that we was known... very comforting !

I felt suspicious when the policeman asked me my religion and whether I was married. Indeed, relationships between women and men in Islam are pretty sensitive and not so liberal. However, after all, we did not do anything wrong so the law should be on your side. According to the law, what happens in our appartment is a private affair and it is certainly not the superintendant's job to interfer.

We ended up in a police car to go to our apartment to take the superintendant to the police office and deal with this problem. When I heard the Koran on one of the cops' cellphone, I again had a moment of doubt, thinking that they might side with him because we were women who have male friends coming over sometimes. Actually, these policemen were very helpful and I really felt secure with them. While the two were talking together, one of them asked: “Is he a Muslim Brother?” (talking about the superintendant) with a tone suggesting that he disapproved of his behavior.

Not surprisingly, the Egyptian was not in his room and he had turned off his cell phone when one cop tried to call him.

What follows is truly hilarious...

When we went back to the police station to get a photocopy of the complain, the superintendant called the policeman who had called him earlier. The superintendant, thinking that he was talking to someone else about the same matter (because he probably got the phone numbers mixed up!), agreed to come to the police station to “apologize” to us. Actually, the cop wanted to catch him and used this trick to attract him to the police station! Such a funny moment!

We might go to court to solve this issue.

I would like to underline three interesting points:

First of all, I have never felt so secure and never met such friendly and chearful policemen who are really willing to help you. One of the two who was in the car was even funny when he was throwing some words in English. Jordanian policemen are serious people and, most importantly, they do not seem conservative because they did not automatically judge us because we are Arab women having troubles with a man. This does not often happen in Muslim countries!

Secondly, this story proves that SPEAKING OUT is tremendous. A country can aspire to be democratic and liberal only when people fully understand the necessity to express their voices and claim their rights. It is unfortunate that Arab societies are rooted in a traditional conception of authority (either paternal, religious or political) that prevents them from speaking out about the issues that matter the most (religious extremism, violation of human rights, gender discrimination and so forth). A vibrant civil society promoting the respect of fundamental rights can only lead to a political change.

Finally and most importantly, do not mess with me!

Being Moroccan in Jordan

Throughout my stay in Jordan, there is one question that people from various countries have been countlessly asking me. This is one of the most intriguing question that puzzles everybody. One specific question that is at the heart of our identity, as Moroccans. One question that arouses the same astonishment among the people who ask it:
“Wait... you come from Morocco and you don't speak... How come?”

Well, first of all, do not get me wrong. I did go to French schools in Morocco and, thus, I do not master the Arabic language. However, the question deals with the perculiarities of the Moroccan dialect, rather than my ability to speak Arabic!
As an example, I went to buy vegetables at the market last week. While I was shopping, I forgot that I had to speak Jordanian and told the seller: “3afak, 3indek matecha?” (Please, do you have tomatoes,” in Moroccan). I swear to God that this man's answer was the following: “I don't speak English.” Since he did not understand me, he probably thought that this foreign language could only be English.

Also, it seems that Jordanian, Palestinian or any other Arab people consider Moroccans different from Arabs in their way of living, though we are Arabs. When I was at the hospital of the University of Jordan, in Amman, I could not understand the Arabic documents I had to fill before seeing a doctor, that is why the woman at the desk kindly (or desperately?) asked me to come behind the desk to help her fill the papers. “What are your names,” she first asked. I told her my first and last names. On the computer screen though, there was still some space for two more names. She and her colleague stared at me, puzzled. “You only have two names?” Now, I was the one looking at them, confused. “Well, yes, I come from Morocco and, in my country, we just have two names.” Obviously, it seems that in Jordan, and in other Arab countries, you have to write down the first names of your father and mother between your first and last names. Interesting... While the woman was printing the hospital document, people had gathered behind the window of the desk, and were whispering to each other, wondering why it was taking so long. Among the whispers, I caught a woman, who was observing the way I was dressed (meaning curly blonde hair without hijab, jean and and uncovered shoulders) telling the person next to her, “Oh, it's because she's Moroccan...”


I will always wonder why Arabs cannot understand Moroccans. Or, let us put it this way: why do we have such a different language? To this question that people have been relentlessly asking me, I answer that the Moroccan dialect is made of French and Spanish words, due to our shared history and geography. However, is this a fair answer? Why do Lebanese and Syrian people understand Iraqis and Egyptians, knowing that the first ones have been colonized by the French and the second ones by the British?
I have also been striked by the Moroccans who are glad that we speak a specific Arabic dialect that cannot be understood by other Arabs. Are we so desperate to distance ourself from the Arab world and broaden our economic, political and diplomatic ties with Europe? Are we halucinating that much (like the Turks!) to the extent that we believe we have more legitimacy to belong to Europe or be a specific partner to Europe? Similarly, are we so special to Europe, as an Arab and Muslim country?
The truth is that, as far as Europe is concerned, we are just a bunch of noisy immigrants who make troubles wherever they settle, and deeply (negatively?) affect the societies which were generous enough to welcome our uneducated and uncivilized immigrants.
In France, even though the government is also to blame, our immigrants do not integrate to the society because they refuse to bind by the rules. In Spain, they impose their own religion despite the current jurisdiction. Even the Netherlands, which is one of the most open-minded and tolerant society, starts to have qualms about the rate of Moroccan immigrants on its soil.


One advice (that the Turks should also listen to): Go East! We belong and we will always belong to the Arab world. Let us keep our liberal customs (compared to the ones of other Arab countries) and way of living, but let us think about the alternative that the East offers.
In the end, being Moroccan and not being able to be understood by other Arab countries is like sharing an identity that is not fully yours.

What does not kill you makes you stronger !

This is the story of a careless girl who always ends up in tricky situations.

Sunday July, 4th: The Emergency Room of the Hospital of Jordan. I am sitting in one of these chairs, on which you usually see weaping families waiting for their relatives. The smell of sickness is unbearable. The rush of doctors is frightening. I am not alone: My overwhelming teeth pain came with me. I am very negligent though. When I first felt this pain when I was in New York, then in Morocco, I did not want to lose one precious second of my time with my friends and family to go see a doctor.

Consequences: I am in a foreign country, I barely understand the dialect, and it hurts very much! The employees of the hospital send me from one desk to the other. They ask me administrative documents in Arabic but I do not understand one single word. None of them speak English. I now have reached the apex of my fear. I am really hopeless.

I am crying so much that a doctor feels empathy (or pity?) for me and takes me to see a dentist. After checking me up, the verdict is simple and cruel: I have to get an extraction of my upper and lower widsom teeth, as soon as possible.

After going back and forth between the clinic and the hospital of the university, I finally get the papers that allow me to have a free surgery and free medicine. The doctor at the clinic of the university writes me a prescription for a pain killer before the surgery. In the same building, there is a pharmacy and students can get all the medicine they need, and it is free! The educational system in Jordan really takes care of his/her students. Even though I could not undestand what these doctors and interns were telling me, I could see that they genuinely wanted to help me and felt for me.

Monday July, 5th: After one hour waiting in front of the dentist's office, reading Ahmad Amin's “Letter to my father” (in Arabic!), a sweet girl finally calls me and takes me to the scanner room to see how my wisdom teeth grew. “Well, says the doctor, it is going to be easy. We can do that right now.” “Right now?!” I answered, petrified.

I came to the hospital for a simple scanner of my teeth. I left the hospital with two missing teeth, no stiches, no prescription for a strong pain killer and no letter for my university allowing me to skip classes the next few days. What is worst is that, even though I have a local anesthesia, I am too scared to talk to the dentist afterwards because I am terrified by the view and feeling of so much blood in my mouth. “Don't worry, it is going to bleed A LOT the first day,” the doctor tells me.

Well. What. An. Experience.

It is 40 degrees outside. I find myself walking down the hill, on which the Hospital of the University of Jordan is, looking for a taxi. When I finally find one, I can barely pronounce the name of the street I live in so the cab driver, thinking that I am kidding him, starts laughing at me.

Conclusion of the story?

I had the wonderful chance to meet the sweetest people at the University of Jordan and in Amman and they really took care of me. Among them, a young doctor who prescribed me a real pain killer and really cared about me; a lovely roommate who took me to the pharmacy and buy soups and ice cream, and made me laugh more than once; amazing American guys and a Bolivian girl from school who came to visit with presents, medicines and advices; and a sweet Lebanese guy who kept texting me to know how I was feeling; and several other people who kept asking if I needed help. This is definitely the best part of the story.

After all, what does not kill makes you stronger!