Multilingualism is the shit

How many languages can you speak? I can speak two apart from this one, though pretty shitly. My Arabic is generally comprised of swear words and basic vocab, learnt at school, like colours and numbers, or stuff I picked up while living in the Middle East, like how to order a plate of falafel, easy on the oil. The rest is an amalgamation of ‘Facebook Arabic’ – conversational or slang – and heavier words, ingrained into my memory as a result of a well-intentioned, but ultimately failed attempt to read the Quran when I was 17. Then there’s my French, which is really an Algerian patois I was forced to adopt during the few summers I spent in Oran as a kid. I like to big-up my language skills, pretending I’m much better at either of these two than I really am, because in the UK, the idea of bilingualism is pretty impressive.

Kids at my high school found it pretty cool, me being able to speak something that wasn’t straight-up BBC English, so I learnt to play around with them a little. In Year 11, I taught my Spanish teacher to say ‘kol khara’, promising her that the phrase would go down well when she went to Egypt for her summer holiday; and in Year 9, I fluked an entire module of my GCSE in Expressive Arts by pretending to be an Arab delegate at the UN in a play about climate change. I didn’t have to learn a script, and since no one else could understand Arabic, basically repeated the words of a Mahmoud Darwish poem 13 times until my monologue was up. (I still love that poem now – “'An al-Insan”, it’s called.)

I used to waste away my high school-era weekends in an area of the local city centre famed for its multiculturalism. Here, I convinced quite a few second-generation Pakistanis and Arabs to be my friends (idiots), and was duly impressed when I found out they could ACTUALLY speak another tongue. It was pretty embarrassing, cocking up my tenses while they could do cool shit like be ironic in Urdu or sing some Marcel Khalife and actually get what the guy was saying. It was then that I realised that the fascination my claim to multilingualism provoked in the UK wasn’t just a result of the rampant cultural-deficiency that my teeny tiny village-based school suffered from, but a pretty reasonable thing. To speak another language well enough, to the level that you can express your most random of thoughts in it, is fucking cool. Only speaking one language, in my opinion, seriously stunts your ability to communicate, to give a voice to that little part of you that no speaka de English. If you are one of those cringe-inducing individuals who believe that everyone in this world should learn English, just so that you don’t have to make a special effort on holiday, take heed from the fact that even George Dubya can speak something other than Texan Drawl (I honestly doubted he understood English for the majority of his presidency).

Currently, the linguistic makeup of every major English-speaking nation on Earth is undergoing a monumental shift, with 1-in-4 Americans being fluent in another language (more than half of whom are Spanish-speakers), compared to the tragic 62% of Britons who can’t even speak another language at the most basic level.

Trying to do my bit to combat this ignoramia epidemic, I am currently attempting to bring my Arabic up to an intelligible level by conversing with the Lebanese guy who makes my shawarmas every Friday, and am also working on fashioning something out of my French, but I think I’ll wait until the results of their presidential election before progressing any further on that one.

They Hate Us? Who?

“They don't hate us because of our freedoms, as the tired, post-9/11 American cliché had it. We have no freedoms because they hate us, as this Arab woman so powerfully says.

Yes: They hate us. It must be said.”

These words are from the now infamous “Why Do They Hate Us?” piece by Mona Eltahawy. If you’re reading this, then you’ve already read her article, and are probably aware of the Twitterquake that struck earlier today, the after-shocks of which are still rocking op-ed columns and blogs (like this one) all over.

Having read the article, I have to say, I wasn’t immediately struck by any bristling anger; nor did my blood boil. I found a lot of the piece rang true with me, and I recognized the effects of the “misogynistic hate” Mona describes on my own life, like the frustration experienced during my youth in Saudi Arabia, where I wasn’t permitted to drive (FYI, it’s really immoral for a woman to drive. We might go mental with all the freedom and accidentally commit adultery 28 times in the first few hours). I didn’t really agree with the core of the article – that men hate women – and it seems I’m not alone. My main qualm with the piece is that, in my experience, the men of the Middle East are some of the most loving towards the gentler sex, a realisation I came to make when moving to Europe and discovering the objectification of women. Obviously, you can’t live in Saudi Arabia for a good while without coming across some weirdos, re: my next door neighbour’s dad beating her and her sister up regularly for absolutely no reason whatsoever – or the charming security officer who told me to cover my hair up when I was EIGHT (eight is a really hot age) lest I tempt any of the (married) men around.

However, other than these few idiots, who were clearly motivated by something other than all-permeating hate for the ladies, I’ve never found a man who detests women in the Middle East. Now, I can admit that I absolutely do not speak for the experiences of the millions upon millions of Arab women in the world, a good portion of whom have suffered at the hands of the sexism and chauvinism that Mona lambasts in her article. This aside, and, keeping in mind I’m no Snape at Occlumency (ignore if you aren’t a Harry Potter freakaloid), I don’t see the motives of this men as being grounded in hatred for women. I think they have other things on their mind – the movement to restore the Islam from the Prophet’s (pbuh) time to Muslim society, the preservation of the status quo – as has been clearly demonstrated in the ruling regime’s violent oppression of every single local Arab Spring movement – whatever, but I don’t think it’s hate.

I’m pretty sure there’s some fear somewhere hidden in there, a fear that I can’t really make out; but I’m positive that there are some men, higher up in Arab political circles, who would like to see women sit the eff down over women’s liberty and the basic human rights they demand. These men won’t hate women though, they’ll hate the idea of women disrupting the status quo, the way things always were – “why can’t you be like my mother?” – that type of thing. The old mentality still exists in our aging politicians’ brains, no matter how hard they try to hide it. But these are just a few, albeit extraordinarily powerful men, so it’s certainly not valid to taint all Arab men with the woman-hating brush. I literally cannot think of a man – whether he be Syrian, Moroccan, Jordanian or Saudi – that doesn’t love the family matriarch (mother, grandmother, whatever), his sisters, and all of his female friends to death. I’ve experienced the feeling of safety when out with male friends in Egypt, who I am positive would let no harm come to me (let alone hurt me himself) in contrast to the isolation of some of my friends in Europe, who are caged in by their unwillingness to show their emotional attachment to female friends, lest they be called “whipped” or “gay”.

But whatever, may I just found the good ones, the Arab men that love women and hate the rare species of brothers who would lay a finger on a girl or box her in emotionally. I know my dad is a good one, I know my brother will always look after me, and I know that I am extremely lucky to have not been one of the women who’s had to suffer emotional, physical or sexual abuse at the hands of any male. I don’t think it’s a symptom of being an Arab man that you automatically want to grope a woman or deny her the right to dress how she likes – after all, aren’t instances of sexual assault massively high in the Western world, and aren’t women more condemned for what we wear here than in the Middle East?

I know that everyone’s experiences are vastly different, that every woman will have her own opinion on this, but I think it’s especially needed today, of all days, for a woman who’s been blessed with the caring love and protection of our Arab men, to stand up for them and say that I don’t think you hate us!  

All the Saudi Ladies

A couple of days ago, having just landed in Amsterdam Schiphol, and with only an hour until my connecting flight was due to board, I found a seat in the airport’s quiet lounge and reflected on my recent trip. I was returning from a 10-day visit to Saudi Arabia, which had seen me take in the air of the town I grew up in – Al Khobar. Since moving away ten years ago, I only really visit sporadically, to see family, and enjoy it every time I go, despite the mild cabin fever that spending more than a long weekend in Saudi induces. The place still strikes me as dusty and a little bit stunted in terms of socioeconomic growth, but it was my first home and I always feel a sense of heavy nostalgia when I visit. Saudi is a country that hasn’t really been touched by the fervor and violence of the Arab Spring, and has managed to scrape through by appeasing the unhappy (or at least attempting to) with very minor reforms. These have been slightly eclipsed by the publicity surrounding some of the ridiculous arguments being slung across the battlefield over the issue of women being allowed to drive – women still can’t in Saudi, bizarrely, and apparently gearsticks will provoke too much excitement and may lead a good pious girl astray (thanks male logic!!). 

One of the reforms that has been passed, though, is this – the change in law that permitted (Saudi) women to work in certain areas of the public sector, namely lingerie shops (How no one had addressed the hypocrisy of men measuring ladies for bras in a country where they wouldn’t even be allowed to speak in any other circumstance before baffles me!) and department store make-up desks. Previously, women could only really work in health, education, housework or childcare. I was keen to witness this for myself, and went out of my way to wander into La Senza and Debenhams whenever I was out. A couple of times, I spoke to one or two of these women and asked them how they felt about the changes that have allowed them to work in their current occupations. The answers I heard weren’t emotional; they weren’t triumphant feminist speeches or suggestions that the reforms had not gone far enough (a sentiment much-expressed by many others), but simple thanks and comments that suggested, to me, that this wasn’t a political matter for these women. They weren’t gushingly grateful for the opportunity, they were just glad that they could earn a bit of a living instead of relying completely on their husbands’ wage-packet. The women that work in these jobs aren’t affluent Saudis – admittedly, one lady on a make-up counter seemed to be a bored lady of leisure, seeking a bit of occupation – but in the majority, these were ladies from Saudi’s working-class, who needed jobs more than wanted them. Having not heard mention of any other similar changes, and given the publicity the lingerie shop story had been given, I was surprised when I witnessed Saudi ladies, in full niqab, serving on checkout desks in supermarkets, although they were only allowed to serve other women.

I was becoming constantly more aware of a marked change in the social atmosphere of my old home. A few hours window-shopping pointed out to me the increasing level of risk that clothes shops were now daring. Shop windows are, in many malls, now adorned with mannequins striking bold poses, wearing strappy tops and ruffled mini-skirts. Call me a philistine, but even living in Europe for the past 10 years hasn’t numbed me so much as to let this fly without a second glance! Of course, there are still the usual emblems of theocracy and morality around, as muttawa (religious police) still prowl shopping malls and women who dare to forego the abaya attract fierce stares and bemused glances.

I left Saudi knowing that it was, very slowly, transforming into a place quite different from the one I had grown up in. With this in mind, I can’t deny I'm excited for my next visit - whenever that will be - and will be on the lookout for more signs that Saudi is approaching a more liberal stance in social affairs.