A memorable adventure among Hezbollah people

How would it feel to see, right in front of you, the most hated man in the Western world?

How would it feel to mingle with the people who are the most demonized by the media?

Thursday October 13^th, 2010. Beirut, Lebanon. It is about 7pm when I turn my television on and watch on Al Jazeera a crowd that has started to gather in the south suburb of Beirut, about 15 minutes from my place, to welcome the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This is the first time that Ahmadinejad visits Lebanon since his election in 2005. This visit is all the more symbolical as it occurs in a context of political and social instability in Lebanon.

One after the other, I call my friends and suggest to them to go witness this exceptional moment that captures the connexion between Hezbollah and Iran. One after the other, my friends reject the invitation, either because they are busy or because they disapprove of Hezbollah or they argue that it is not safe to go to dahiet jnoubiye, the south suburb of Beirut, which is the headquarters of Hezbollah. Dahiet is mostly a Shia neighboorhood and probably the poorest area in the city.

I finally got to go to the Hezbollah rally with a friend.

On the way, in the taxi, I can see many signs of the Iranian president waving in front of a cedar, which is the symbol of Lebanon. Once we arrive at the entrance of the rally, the tension is less palpable that I expected. Some young men and veiled women, holding the flags of Lebanon and Hezbollah, are leaving the rally. My friend and I walk against the flow of Hezbollah supporters and enter a dark street, following the voice that emanates from the gathering. The closer we are getting, the more excited I become to see with my own eyes the people who have been labelled “terrorists,” the ones who have been blamed for attacking Israel and fomenting dissenssion within the Lebanese society.

One we reach the security check, I have to leave my friend and head to the women's line. I enter a little room in which three fully veiled women are sitting on chairs. Another woman, who seems to be in a hurry, enters the room and passes ahead of me. What is striking is that she does not have a veil and is wearing a flower dress with heels. I am all the more chocked when I see her black bra in her back because her dress is open behind. I seek some surprise or astonishment in the eyes of the veiled women sitting but do not get any single eyebrow movement from them. Once she leaves the room, a woman who is standing, smiles at me and asks me to open my bad. She checks the items in it and turns my camera on. All of a sudden, I have a short moment of panic, thinking she would look at my pictures with friends and alcohol! She tells me to proceed and I find myself in a completely unrealistic situation: I am walking to go see Ahmadinejad, surrounded by Hezbollah proponents.

You would think that these people are threatening individuals who are angry at the long socio-economic dispossession of the Shia community throughout history. You would think that these people are violent, hitting their chest the same way they do in Iran when they celebrate the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, Hussain, the most important figure in Shiism, the “Martyr Of Martyrs,” who died in Karbala in 680 AD. You would think that these people are Jew-haters burning the flag of Israel and calling for its annihilation.

Surprisingly, these Hezbollah supporters who are standing in front of me are men and women, mostly veiled but a few of them are not, children and elders, who are simply attending a political event. As far as I can feel the atmosphere, there is no emotional outbursts. There is no shouting. There is no screaming. I can see young people hanging out with friends and holding flags. I can see many children running here and there, around their mother. I raise my head and see men standing on a balcony, staring at the stage.

I leave again my friend to get into the women's part of the rally. Surprisingly again, any of these veiled women is staring at a blonde-hair girl wearing a jean. I stand for awhile in the back, behind the crowd, capturing every single scene around me. When I raise my head among the large number of people (large yet definitely less considerable that what you watch on TV), here he is, projected on a screen on top of the stage. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is addressing the Hezbollah supporters in Persian. When he is talking, I can feel that his words are suspended to the mouth of the people, waiting for a man to translate them into Arabic, every three or four sentences. This instant translation then triggers applause and a few screamings in the rally.

I start heading towards the the front to get as close as possible to the stage. I found a place next a little child who is trying to plant a Lebanese flag in the ground. I just cannot help myself and take my camera out of my bag, though no one is taking pictures. I ask the girl next to me if I am allowed to take pictures and she answers that she saw just a few people doing so. She is a young blonde-hair student from Norway who came to “feel the atmosphere.” Then, I start clicking on the button of my camera everytime I see a yellow and green flag floating above the crowd or hands raised to applaude the speech. Around me, some women are sitting on plastic chairs talking to each other and not paying attention to the scene.

When Ahmadinejad reiterates his support to Lebanon and pays his respect to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, there is unanimous outburst of happiness.

My phone starts ringing and my friend, who is waiting for me outside the rally, tells me to leave right now because a fight broke out between a Hezbollah supporter and an Amal proponent, the two Shia factions in Lebanon that unusually gathered today to welcome the Iranian head of state.

“Hamra, please!” We find a taxi and head to the Hamra neighboorhood where I live before the rally ends and all of the people head together to the exit. My friend starts discussing the event with the cab driver who is a Shia from dahiyet. The driver explains that he could not attend it because he is working but he has been hearing the speech on the radio. He expresses his happiness for Ahmadinejad's visit and approves the president's stances. Ahmadinejad signed 12 agreements to foster socio-economic development in Lebanon and the cab drivers refers to the electricity sector in particular. While he welcomes the Iranian influence in his country, the cab driver also insists that Lebanon should be free and independent.

He and my friend complain about the presence of children at the rally and underline that this is a dangerous environment to take young people to. They both agree that they do not mind any country helping Lebanon, no matter who this state is, as long as Lebanon remains free of making decisions related to its domestic and foreign policy.

The discussion shifts to the personnal life. The taxi driver explains that he was working in stock market in Fransabank, a Lebanese bank. He was so well-off that he owned four cars. However, when the 2006 war broke out, his partner ran away to Brazil with all the stocks of the bank. There is currently a law suit between them but until the court gives the verdict, he has no money and even owes money to the bank. His situation is all the more unfortunate as he has three children and his wife is sick that is why he cannot leave the country, though we thought of moving to Qatar for work.

This short adventure among Hezbollah people ends with the French song “j'ai envie de pleurer,” (I want to cry) that the taxi driver starts singing on our way home.

The logic of the Crusades is still alive.

What an amazing long week-end in Beirut and its surroundings! It seems that Lebanon is an island in the Middle East where various communities and religions coexist. On Hamra street, you find women wearing Islamic clothes walking along girls dressed up with short skirts and high heels. No disdainful look at each other. Instead, smiles are exchanged and path are crossed. Here, Shias, Sunnis, Christian Maronites, Druzes, proponents of Hezbollah, the March 14 Alliance, the Future Movement, Lebanese National Bloc, Amal, Free Patriotic Movement, the SSNP and the Lebanese Communist Party live together and share ideas in what can be truly called a democracy.
However, do the lessons of the longest civil war (1975-1990) have really been understood?

While driving next to a mosque that is being built in a Christian neighboorhood, I made a simple and genuine comment that sparked hours of vehement debate about Lebanese society and politics. I said to my friends that I found it natural to build mosques in Beirut and Lebanon since there are many churches in the cities and villages. Muslims and Christians live together thus, there should be an equal representation of the different religious groups.
The discussion between my two Lebanese Christian friends started as follows:
K. expresses his fear about the demography in Lebanon because, while Lebanon is a Christian country (according to the constitution, the Lebanese President has to be Christian, the Prime Minister Muslim Sunni and the Speaker of the Parlement Muslim Shia), Christians now constitute only 22% of the whole population and Muslims are steadily increasing. K. argues that the modern Lebanon is the result of the work of Christians only and not Muslims and, if Muslims were empowered in Lebanon, the country would become an Islamic state. Lebanon would then give up what shapes its identity: freedom and democracy.
Z. strongly disagrees with such statements and believes that Muslims have their share in the current success of the Lebanese society. He claims that he is ashamed of his Christianity because, when he was younger and living in Beirut, his family had to run away from the country and settle in Jordan and in refugee camps in Syria because of their political affiliations. He explains that a Christian sold them, that is why he feels resentful towards Christians in Lebanon. He goes on blaming Lebanese Christians of siding with Israel during the civil war against Muslims. (In this respect, I strongly suggest you to watch Al Jazeera's 15-episode documentary about the Lebanese civil war: http://justice4lebanon.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/al-jazeeras-the-war-of-lebanon/)
K. replies that he does not care about history and that what matters is the current political and demographic situation in Lebanon today.
Both of them shift to an emotional political talk that ends up with the conclusion: we agree that we disagree. The discussion goes back to the components of the Lebanese society and the respective role of Christians and Muslims in Lebanon followed by a hopeless religious conversation.
K. believes that Christians are threatened by Muslims all over the region. He wonders why Christians are not allowed to build a church in Saudi Arabia for foreigners while Muslims can build a mosque next to the Vatican (though not in the Vatican). It seems that this argument is quite weak because there is no point in building a mosque in an fundamentalist Islamic country which applies verbatim the Sharia and where no Christian lives.
K. finally contends that he finds the Bible, which makes entirely sense to him, better than the Koran that, according to him, preaches war and belittle Christians.

This three-hour talk that I tried to condense was more worthy that hours reading books about the Lebanese society. It did raise a tremendous point: how can you learn from the mistakes of the past if you refuse to learn about history?
Before travelling to Lebanon, I thought that the Lebanese society, which had been deeply affected by the civil war, was now ready to live in peace together. This is true when it comes to fighting a common threat, such as Israel. However, it seems that there is a long way to go before trust can be regained between Christians and Muslims. This also applies to the Middle East, and even the entire world, because Lebanon is a microcosm of the whole region.

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!