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!