Author: JC

Two White Women Buying a Table from an Iraqi Family

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On a rainy November evening a few years ago, me and my flatmate took a bus to the other end of our city to buy a second hand couch table we had seen an ad for online. We were scraping together to buy things to furnish our flat going all over the city to collect second hand furniture from richer people that traded off their old stuff, and we were happy to finally afford a table for our living room. It was a long way to go to this neighborhood, where small houses replaced the rental flats in our area, and we searched for a while before finding the house. A pretty little brick house with an accompanying garden, was supposedly the correct place according to the address we had been provided with.

As we rang the doorbell a small boy opened. “My mom is coming” he said, then adding, unasked: “She only speaks little Swedish.”

A woman dressed in a black abaya appeared in the doorway, introducing herself in broken Swedish. We realized it was an Iraqi family that we had come across. It was obviously not one of the Baghdadi families, liberal in the urban kind of way – it was a conservative, religious family we could tell from the woman’s appearance and the religious scripts on the wall. We were surprised, then felt stupid being surprised. Why couldn’t a conservative Iraqi family stay in this upper middle class area? Here we were: two white women still buying second hand furniture because we couldn’t afford the new things, still sharing a flat in what someone could have called a “socially deprived area” where water leaks in the house made our flat smell of mold, and shootings was such a regular happening it hardly made headlines. Your own prejudices can have a way of coming back and slap you in the face sometimes.

The woman introduced us to the tables they were selling off and we chatted a bit. It turned out they were from Diwaniya, a city in Southern Iraq, and had arrived to Sweden a few years before. Selling all they had in Iraq before fleeing the escalating violence, and her husband starting to work as soon as they had arrived, after a while buying a small candy shop, had made them being able to buy themselves the house and put their children in nearby reputable schools.

Her husband and his brother came home, we agreed on a table on a price, then it was time for us to go. The woman started to propose that we had to drink tea first, we must be tired from the long bus ride. Or maybe eat something before leaving? We explained we were in a hurry and that we had to call a taxi to transport the heavy table to our place.

“Taxi?” the man asked. “You don’t have a car?”

“No.”

None of us actually even had a driving license, but we withheld that so as not having to lower ourselves even more in the eyes of the sellers – we had already told them the area we lived in. Without further discussion the man and his brother carried the table to their car, announcing they would bring us home.The woman kissed us both goodbye and, when we declined tea or dinner a second time, welcomed us back anytime. None of the people we had bought our furniture from had been that nice.

We squeezed into the car (damn, it was even a Volvo) with the brother of the husband and the big table, and at our house he helped us to carry the table into our living room. When he had left we looked at each other, baffled. It had been a trip of surprises, not only over who stayed in the house, but over the ride. None of our fellow Swedish countrymen would ever have done us that favour.

Photo: Copyright Sweden and the Middle East Blog

The Syrian Children Sleeping in the Park

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In the park outside our house in Damascus, Syria, new families regularly come to sleep for a couple nights before being escorted away. The few belongings they keep themselves with; blankets, clothes and plastic cups, are being hauled away at the same time. Where do they go? To the temporary camps in schools or mosques? Will they be one of the families living in unfinished buildings, without electricity or water, with no protection from strangers?

One afternoon when I was meeting up with a friend, a teenage girl saw us walking on the street. She came up, asking for money.

”No, habibti.”

After a couple of weeks here I have improved my skills in saying no. And if I gave to someone living close to me, I might be harassed every day.

“Ahmed!” the girl called out and a little boy, maybe 5 years old, ran between us. He didn’t look like the kids I usually saw sleeping in the parks, he was different: even though being barefoot he easily crossed the pebbly street, and no adults were to be seen around. When being approached by kids in other cities, I sometimes ask: “Why are you on the street like this? Why are you not with your mom?” That usually makes them back off, feeling a bit ashamed of their parents sending them out to beg. But I had a feeling that wouldn’t take effect here.

“Please khala, we’re hungry.”

”No.”

The girl was dressed like an adult even though she recently must have entered her teens. Her long dress was ripped, her black scarf hung loosely around her head, displaying her hair, as if she didn’t care anymore.

“They have been in our house too, banging the doors, screaming for money,” my friend told me.

The little boy pulled my blouse, aggressively: “Please!”

I freed myself from his grip and turned around. We tried to speed up the pace to get away. After a few steps, stones and other small things started falling down on us.

“Khallas!” (Stop it!) I yelled to the one closest to me, it was the girl that had ran up behind us.

“No, I won’t stop!”

More stones came swirling through the air, the boy had catched up with my friend and suddenly struck her in the back.

“Hey!” she turned around and raised her hand, appearing a bit stronger than I had.

First then the kids slowed down, but they didn’t stop. It wasn’t until then that I realized they were not afraid of being hit. The girl already had traces of a black eye and scratches in her face. After a while the children seemed to lose the energy to harass us. They stopped, only throwing some small sticks at us as we left the park.

Later that day I saw them again, this time accompanied by two other children. The little group followed people on the street, pulled their clothes, pulled an old woman’s long robe. They received nothing from no one. In a state of conflict, no one is willing to give up whatever little they could spare. One of the boys was now being dragged along the sideway by an older girl, she half carried him. He was beyond tired; exhausted. Another boy, maybe 11 or 12, carried a long stick, violently swinging it back and forth. One man yelled at them, others got scared by the boy and his stick, and crossed the street.

I caught myself thinking, as if I wanted to tell them: “We can’t blame you, you’re just ordinary children. It’s not your fault that you had to become like this.”

The Rise of Kurdistan

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Photo: Copyright Sweden and the Middle East Blog

A few years back, what did you associate Kurdistan with? If you had the same idea like me, an isolated war-torn place in the mountains might be what came to your mind.

In the few years after receiving it’s independency, Kurdistan has rised from it’s broken past and is now a developing region with a booming economy. Tourist resorts, 5 star hotels and fancy restaurants has taken the place of the refugee camps that we got so accustomed with on TV. If you’re in Erbil and looking for a night out, you can go to “Salsa Erbil” or any of the other Facebookpages dedicated to entertain young and bored people.

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Photo: Copyright Sweden and the Middle East Blog

I love to show Iraqi Kurdistan in photos, because it proves that a country or region can build itself up from a broken past and turn into a beautful place.

To Kurdistan now Iraqis from Baghdad and Basra go for vacation, to get away from the violence and unstability in the South. It used to be the other way around.

Photo credit: WOMEN NEWS NETWORK

What Iraqis Think About Sweden

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Irakier i sverigeSince the American invasion and the following gradual collapse of Iraq, many Iraqis has applied for asylum in Sweden and in 2007 constituted the largest group of asylumseekers among the many different nationalities that applied.

In my city Malmö, sometimes called “Little Baghdad”, many Iraqis have settled and formed their own communities. In small shops in the middle of our city you can now find things like halal meat, wonderful carrot-marmelade with 80% sugar (that Swedish health freaks would report to the police if they could) and other products that I would find in my local baqala in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. Globalization is a great thing when you can find your favourite marmelade from another part of the world in your own hometown.

Host communities usually has opinions about newcomers, but I think the other way around can be more interesting. Iraq I dare to say is quite the antithesis of Sweden: a large country with a weak central state, where religion plays a major role for many, hospitality is highly valued and your family is the main social network to rely on. The clash is quite big for some – Sweden being very secular with a strong legal system where many people can feel controlled by the authorities; from the housing market to the humiliating procedures at the unemployment agency. If I ask though I might not receive the true answer – critizicing someone’s home country being such a taboo for most people. But what does Iraqis really think about Sweden?

A while ago I joined this interesting Facebook page, “Iraqis in Sweden“, to see what was going on. The group is nicely illustrated by a Swedish and an Iraqi flag intertwined, with updates in both languages. On the page news about Sweden and Iraq are posted, often in an informative way about Sweden. One of managers of the page, Mohammad, tells me that the aim of the page was to create a meeting point for Iraqis in Sweden/Europe and that the group aims to serve people who might need help in Sweden, for example legal assistance or to rent a flat. Quite a nice idea, isn’t it, especially if you think about the many hate groups online, dedicated to bring down other people?

Checking the updates, one post caught my attention: “What advantages/disadvantages are there in the Swedish culture/society do you think?” The answers to this post arrived quickly.

“That everyone pretends to be PERFECT while they’re worth nothing!” one man writes, the comment getting three likes.

Someone replies:

“There is no disadvantages everyone goes his own way, and there’s nothing better than the Swedish society!!” Two exclamation marks, 15 likes.

Other people add upp to the bad list: the politicans, the wheather, there is no summer, it’s hard to find a job. Then another one, the profile picture showing the face of a young woman in a hijab, comes up with a long, reflective post:

“There are both advantages and disadvantages in each society and this is the case for the Swedish society. But I think that the advantages in the Swedish society are more than the disadvantages (…) The RESPECT, FREEDOM, EQUALITY (social), HELPFUL etc… The disadvantages are that parents have some problems raising their children here since the parents wants to raise them according to their traditions/religion. This often leads to a big problem that in its turn is a big disadvantage!! Me myself I have all love and respect for SWEDEN”

Who knew that such a subject could bring on such strong feelings? I wouldn’t, if Ihadn’t found this page. Or as a post reads when scrolling up to another heated discussion: “Do you think you can say anything just because now you’re in Sweden?”

Well on this page, obviously yes. And what better is, everyone gets to share their views without censorship or feeling held back. How I love the dynamics of the diversity sometimes. In Iraq or in Sweden.

Photo credit: Irakier i Sverige

First Civil Marriage Registered in Lebanon

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mixed loveSo this week all Middle Eastern-freaks like me noticed that the first couple ever were able to register their marriage as a civil marriage in Lebanon – something that mixed couples have been advocating for ages. Cyprus have been the choice for many mixed Lebanese couples if they had the money – otherwise one of them had to resign to marry under their partner’s religion (usually the man’s).

I meet people that says “it’s not possible” about interfaith marriages. Why? Some religions don’t accept it; sometimes the two religions clash when it comes to the childrens’ religion (in Judaism the children inherits the mother’s reigion and in Islam the father’s – so what happens if a Jewish woman marries a Muslim man?); sometimes it’s simply the society and family that says “it’s not possible”.

Well I have come across so many mixed marriages that I can conclude one thing in this messy discussion: you can’t make people stay away from each other. As often as societies puts up rules for love, there’s always someone that will break them.

A Swedish-Lebanese family that I know were so determined to stay together that they married in the midst of the civil war, despite the danger of being a mixed Christan-Muslim couple. During the first years of their small children’s lives they were living in hiding from militias, until finally being able to escape to Sweden. They now have three children that has been raised celebrating Christmas and Ramadan, learning about both religions, and they take pride in their mixed background. Sometimes maybe a mixed marriage is the best way of preventing a civil war? Unfortunately Lebanon is still a place where such an effort is extremely difficult to carry out.

So when the news about the registered marriage broke, I hurried to get online. What kind of groundbreaking couple was it that decided to make a point out of not register in one religion? Maybe a Muslim-Christian couple? If not, could it be Druze-Christian? No, it was a Sunni-Shia couple – two branches within one religion. Not accepted by everyone, but not the major breakthrough that I had hoped for. If it was, I’m not sure that they would have been able to have the marriage registered.

But let’s hope it’s a first step for Lebanon to heal from it’s intolerant past and the horrifying events that took place under the excuse of sectarian divisions. If Lebanon really wants to move on, there’s only one way, the way forward.

Photo credit: www.biculturalmom.com

Xena the True Lebanese Feminist

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Xena Amro

This article is published in an edited, Swedish version in the feminist magazine AstraNova’s October issue 2013.

When Xena Amro started the True Lebanese Feminist Facebook page in July 2012, it created turmoil. Xena’s own Facebook page had been reported and blocked several times, so she wasn’t surprised.  On her desk in high school, random insults were written in the beginning of her school year: “Xena is stupid”, “Lesbian”, “Feminism sucks ass”, reads the messages that she shows to me when we meet at Starbucks in Beirut, pictured on her smartphone.

Why was it so provoking to her fellow students that Xena was an outspoken feminist? Was it because of the success of her page? Or was it because of her uncompromising position? “I am a feminist, because those ignorant rapists out there, have limited my Freedom! They have ruined my childhood! And made me lose my mental innocence!” says one post from September 2012.

Despite the harassments in school and on the Facebook page, Xena kept up her page and now it has over 6.000 followers. She has support from both men and women, and she says she loves it especially when men become feminists:

“That’s what’s keeping me strong” she says.

Xena became a feminist early in 2012 when she was one of the winners in a competition for young writers, on the topic “In Lebanon”. “True Lebanese Feminist” was the story’s name and it was chosen to be in the top 12 list nominated for the prize. After the story and the competition, it was impossible to look back.

Xena explains on how stories about domestic violence reached her and that the general suppression against women was what made her become aware at such a young age.

“The purpose of the page is to raise awareness about women’s issues not just in Lebanon, but also globally” she says. “There are too many stereotypes placed on women that I want to fight against.”

I started to follow the page myself in the beginning and have seen it explode in to what must have been a previous vacuum, where a similar feminist page didn’t exist before. On Facebook there are many pages for women’s rights, but few that create as much discussions. What makes the page different is also that when someone attacks Xena or her statements she often don’t reply, but let the discussion have its course, relying on her supporters on the page, and makes a point out of not insulting anyone back.

Every day the self-taught 17-year-old Xena updates the page with pictures combined with quotes; invites the followers to discussions; and shares other women’s stories. Female Arab writers like Joumana Haddad and Nawal El Saadawi inspired her. The numbers of followers quickly increased and the page turned into a place full of heated discussions. Not shying away from any subject, Xena brings up religion, sexuality and mass media from a feminist point of view:

“Today is the international day for safe abortion!” reads a post with a link to “Women’s Rights to Abortion in Lebanon”

“True?” over a photo that states “Girls see over 400 advertisements per day telling them how they should look”.

“Calling myself an outspoken dictator wouldn’t get me as much hate as I’m getting for calling myself an outspoken feminist” says another one.

Despite being as provocative in a society as Lebanon, one of Xena’s goals is to increase the number of Lebanese people on her page – out of 6,000 followers only 528 are from Lebanon (in comparison with 1,532 from US). It might not be a coincidence since her posts on religion and its links to patriarchy provokes many, and she has been accused of being a westernized atheist that hates religious people – a quite harsh insult in a society where religion plays a crucial role. Still Xena wants her page to stay relevant in her own country.

“I don’t hate religious people” she says. “They have the right to think whatever they want, and so do I – this is freedom.”

Since the beginning also emails for help has poured in. Many women from different countries have been writing to her about violence and rape, desperate for support, probably not knowing Xena is only 17. Xena takes her time to answer all emails, urging girls and women to seek help and not to feel ashamed.

I ask her how she handles it all. On top of managing the page on her own and the publicity it has given her, she gives feedback to all the members writing to her, and is also trying to finish high school to hopefully be admitted to nursing school this year. She admits that her parents, although very supportive of her feminist page, are worrying about the toll it might take on her grades.

“It takes all my free time… But the page is not pressure, it’s relief. I see a lot of injustice in the society, and I don’t want to hold these grudges in my heart.”

Photo credit: Xena Amro

Beirut Revolution Now!

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Street in the area of Hamra, Beirut, Lebanon

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Photo: Copyright Sweden and the Middle East Blog

Maryam the First Kuwaiti Woman on Antarctica

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Maryam Aljooan

I saw Maryam Aljooan in Kuwait Science Club, holding a presentation for an enthusiastic group of young Kuwaitis, for the first time back in 2008. The club was located out in the desert, far away from residency areas and shopping malls. A bleak building from the outside, colorful posters describing the earth and models of the planetary system decorated the inside. Small, claustrophobic stairs led to the roof where a telescope offered opportunities to watch the stars at night. The place was a refuge for young, smart people who wanted to do something else but shopping or eating. In weekends the members went on star watching trips to the desert and gathered to watch space related movies.

Maryam was the supervisor. Her main interests were space, earth and environment; she had studied engineering in US, one year in Russia at St Petersburg Polytechnical University; and was dedicated to share her knowledge.

“In Kuwait I met many young people that say ‘it’s not possible here’ about anything. There’s a lack of believe in themselves” she says.

Kuwait is a wealthy country where oil, expats and American-style malls have put the country on the map for many. But Maryam’s own childhood was characterized by the Gulf War, when the quiet little country suddenly was invaded and subject to horrible abuse by Iraqi troops. She retells how the society changed afterwards into a hopeless place. Many had lost family members; with the Iraqi army targeting the young boys, almost every family lost at least one of their sons.

“Before the invasion we had a little farm in our school, we did music and learned about arts. After the war everything was put aside.”

According to Maryam, materialism replaced curiosity and involvement in the community. The influence of American culture brought fast food chains and malls popped up with food courts and imported designer clothes, adding to the growing consumer culture. In a few years obesity had become a general health problem (today Kuwait ranks number 1 in obesity internationally). Many young people had lost hope and saw no importance in accomplishing. Everyone’s goal seemed to be to finish school and getting married. In her own family, there was no history of education: own father had only finished high school and her mother had dropped out when she was 12.

“My grandmother didn’t really care about my mom’s education; she wanted my mom to help out with her younger sisters and brothers at home.”

Her grandmother had herself no schooling at all and had been married off in her early teens.

It might not have been likely that Maryam would continue at university; she also went to a public school, not one of the high-ranking American or British private schools. She retells how her family, although being kind and even accepting her marrying a European man, never encouraged her, and she didn’t tell them her dreams about being an astronaut – she nurtured the dream since receiving a small telescope and books about space when being a small girl. In school she was shy and didn’t know how to do things on her own, and until the last year of high school she didn’t know that there was something called university or scholarships to apply for. When her class went on a tour to the university she was surprised: “Oh, there’s something more”, she remembers thinking to herself.

Now she started to wonder if it possible for her to pursue her studies in the space field. A scholarship made it possible for her to move to US to study her bachelors degree, and a NASA conference in 2003 made her decide what she wanted to work with.

“Space, earth and environment are all connected,” she explains to me with enthusiasm on Skype from Belgium, where she lives with her husband Alex, whom she met on a space conference in Japan. “I want to contribute to science and do something for climate change.”

For long she wanted to be the first female Arab astronaut in space and kept an acclaimed blog about it. But her involvement in the Kuwaiti community took a lot of time; she became the supervisor of the Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Kuwait Science Club and dedicated her free time to help the young members, at the same time she was travelling a lot and starting up her own NGO Lazurd (Arabic word for Azure, a hue of blue representing earth). She also put her efforts in to being the first Kuwaiti woman to go to Antarctica, and succeeded. Photos of Maryam with penguins; Maryam triumphantly holding up the Kuwaiti flag on an ice berg; Maryam in a small boat on her way over the chilling sea, fills up her Facebook page “The Antartic Expedition of Maryam Aljoaan”.

I ask her why she is so dedicated to the young people in Kuwait now that she has a career of her own and is living outside of the country.

“I was in this situation myself that I see many of the young people in today. If I wouldn’t do anything for the young people in Kuwait I would feel like I would disappear. I know I can set my own example for the kids.”

If she would be able to help another woman to be the first Arab woman in space, she would now appreciate this as much as being the first one herself. I ask her what her parents think about her, the shy girl from a public school who became a celebrity in Kuwait; the supervisor of Kuwait Science Club; and the first Kuwaiti woman on Antarctica.

“My mom is proud” she says. “And as for my dad, well he don’t talk much, but when I was in Russia he made a point out of calling me when he was in the Diwaniya” (gathering at someone’s house). “‘I’m speaking to my daughter, she’s in Russia! She’s studying space engineering!’ he would tell his friends. That’s how I know he’s proud of me too.”

Photo credit: Maryam Aljooan

We Hate Refugees

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UNHCR poster

I’m in Beirut, Lebanon. One thing has changed since I was here the last time: the refugees. Everywhere, children in plastic shoes and torn clothes selling chewing gum; women on the brink of exhaustion slowly dragging around their children, asking for money, then falling asleep in street corners as as the night falls, tucking their children under their abayas.

“Don’t be humanitarian now”, my Lebanese friend said when a young boy approached me. “There are so many of them, you’ll never be able to help them all.”

Sweden complain on how many Syrian refugees that has been applying for asulym the last year, and as an escape route, issued only temporary three-year-residence permits in the hope of being able to send everyone back later on. Well Swedish authorities should visit the neighbouring countries of the source of conflict – these are always the ones that carries the greatest burden of refugees. Nevertheless the authorities of my country are not the only ones that doesn’t want the refugees. In Turkey, they are locked up in camps next to the border, suffering under horrible conditions, so that they won’t travel to the inland and bother the local population. Why don’t we just admit it, that we all hate refugees? We never seem to reflect upon the fact that it could have been us that had to flee our homes.

When I was on my own again another small, dirty boy approached me, holding out packets of chewing gum.

“We’re sleeping on the street miss, we live in the street, we have nothing to eat.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

I tucked a few bills in his hand, hoping noone saw. I know I’m a stupid humanitarian person, but I just can’t be a part of the rejection – at least not all of the time.

Photo credit: UNHCR

Saudi Women

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Saudi Arabia is being ridiculed world wide for their ban on women’s right to drive; vote; work in various number of professions; sitting next to men in coffee houses, etc. I pity Saudi sometimes as their backwards regulations prevents the international community to see the other sides of the country. Saudi supposedly has many beautiful places in the country side and the city of Jeddah would make an excellent tourist city with it’s long boardwalk along the seaside. But Saudi authorities refuse to open up the country like it’s fellow Gulf neighbours have done, despite the financial advantages it would entail.

What I would like to bring to your attention is the strive for development that do exist within the Saudi community itself. Not everyone are satisfied with the regulations that prevents freedom and drains resources from the development of the country. Only on Facebook there are a number of pages supporting women’s rights: Saudi Women to Drive and Free Saudi Women for example. In 2011 the women’s rights activist Manal al-Sharif filmed herself driving and posted the video on Youtube, in which she discussed the problems the ban on driving caused women and how it could lead to dangerous situations when women might need to drive somewhere in case of an emergency. For this she was arrested and released on bail, on the conditions that she wouldn’t speak with media.

Also last year, a female film director named Haifaa al-Mansour released the movie Wadjda, that portraits an 11-year-old girl who dreams about riding a green bicycle -culturally this is not accepted even for small girls.

I do feel for poor Saudi when it’s being ridiculed internationally, but the other day on April 1st, the ban on women riding bicycles was lifted, and Saudi Women to Drive posted a link from Al Arabiya with their own comment on their newfound freedom: “At last, Saudi women are allowed to cruise on bikes and buggies!! What a joke! Happy April Fool Day!“