Some of us Wear our Passports!And some of us cannot be “naked”!
Who is an Arab?
Politically if they live in a country which is a member of the Arab League and this definition covers around 300 millions; and linguistically if Arabic is their mother tongue, then the definition covers around 200 million… I tend to follow the second. Like any other affiliation they are not geographically restricted anymore! They are everywhere!
I am an Arab, and I lived the majority of my life in Arab states. I come from a Muslim Shiite family from the southern part of Lebanon.
I am not a Muslim, and I have nothing against Islam that I do not also have against other religions. It is just that according to the definition of Muslims, that is to say people who adhere to Islam as a religion (and that is irrespective of nationality), I am not one.
I have spent some time in Western Europe hearing all kinds of remarks when I answer about where I come from. From “Really! You are an Arab!” (Visualize a dropped jaw, a hand flat on the chest, and eyes wide open), via “As an Arab, do you feel integrated in Europe?” (Here visualize eyes narrowed, focused, and starring deep to fake intellect) … to “I always wanted to fuck an Arab!” (Well here I did not stay long enough to look into the man’s eyes in fear of any violent reaction on my side)! All are statements that I have encountered, the first two were said to me in different rephrases in many places.
I frequently meet people who ask me after they know where I’m from, “So how is it like to grow up in that region, Iran, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia? Though one day I’d like to visit and see for myself! It must be an interesting experience to be from there” Now how stupid can that be! Well, let me play it your way, “Wow, you are from Denver, I would like to visit that region one day and see what is it like, in the USA, Britain, Spain, Germany, Finland. It must be an interesting
experience to be from out there”
I wear my passport
I will start from the arrival gates to fortress Europe; airports. There are two queues where you get your passport (more accurately mine) checked? Do you notice the two labels saying EU citizens and non-EU citizens? Well, I queue for the second.
It is surprising how good my treatment is compared to that of other Arabs who do not speak English nor enjoy the color of the peel I have. Usually it takes an immigration officer a bit of time to realize that I am one of “them”, and this is the moment he/she sees my passport, and by then I would already have gotten my smiley greeting; heaven forbids he/she treats me bad at that moment, for that is racism!
Three days ago I was in an Easynet café, a giant chain with a long list of easy ways to rip your pockets and violate every right on this planet. At Easynet, pickpocketers are prosperous; so the corporation started employing undercover “security” ready to jump when any tourist screams (most of the time too late). On that day, three Gitano women walked in with a baby asking for money. The “Security” jumped at them, held one in each hand shacking them violently and used his chest to push the third out. Then he started pounding on their backs, cursing and shouting at them to leave! I jumped in between them shouting back at him to stop. In response, he raised his fist in my face threatening and ordering me to move! He did not hesitate for one second to beat the women, yet he did not dare punch me though I called him a fascist and a shit-head! The scene was escalating, the women went out, and I was still facing that man with his fist up in the air, and still he did not dare punch me. A policeman in civilian clothes pulled his card in my face as he stood between me and the easysecurity, lets call him EasyBully – making sure no harm is done to me, explaining to me in broken English and calming tone that these women are thieves and there is a misunderstanding for Easybully is a “security” employee of Easynet!
My point is why did Mr. Easybully hesitate to punch me in the face, yet did not hesitate to pound, shake and insult the three women? To solve this riddle you need to know that I have no martial arts training (nor interest), and a physical structure that would not scare a five-year-old, while Mr. Easybully is the reincarnation of Chuck Norris! I say skin color! I am almost sure that if my physical looks matched the media definition of an “Arab Muslim” I would be writing this article to raise money to reconstruct my nose and jaw… and maybe fundraise for a wheelchair because of my big mouth, let alone be on a deportation plane for obstructing “justice”.
All through my travels I was interrogated at a border entry point only once! Once only in more than 30 flights (not proud of flying so much, and working on cutting down) and uncountable border crossings by land. Of course this cannot be said of most Arab Muslims who fit the description marketed by media and governments alike! But in the public eye, the majority, I am none of those! For your curiosity I was interrogated in Stansted, Britain; and in that time I was traveling with two Palestinian companeros and I stated we are traveling in one group. During the interrogation, the immigration officer asked me what my religion is, to which I replied “I am an atheist.” He looked puzzled at me, then at my Lebanese passport and my clearly Muslim family name, and asked me again, “Do you have any special rituals or something you believe in”! I held myself hard as not to say that I put a lettuce on my head, a chicken under my arm and run in circles ten times on Tuesdays!
“Racism” an antidote to Racism!
Why do not I get stopped, why do I feel empowered enough to walk with a confidence that portrays innocence, despite my “guilty as charged”? Again,something I did not ask for and Michael Jackson paid a fortune to get! But the interesting part is where did I learn about my special powers! Wild guess? Baghdad, 2003, in the hands of U.S. occupation troops!
In November 2003, I was sent by IMC Beirut to help set up IMC Baghdad and report back on the ongoing occupation. Upon arrival I met two activists, one from Britain and the other is British/Polish! Both of these inspiring women touched my life deeply, and both of them were there as a loud voice against occupation and war - both locally and internationally, engaged in solidarity projects with the Iraqi people, and using their passports as a buffer between the brutality of the occupation and the people of Iraq.
During heavy protests in Baghdad, “international activists” were acting as deterrence for the U.S. troops as not to open fire on the demonstrators – something the International Solidarity Movement have been doing for years in Palestine, though the Israeli military machine already cost them two dead and uncounted injured. The occupation troops are less likely to open fire in the presence of media or “westerners”! Jo and Ewa were “westerners” but what about me? I am an Arab, a “Muslim”, a “Shiite”, and from a country that is on the U.S. blacklist of terrorism (notice the color of the list). Why are the Iraqi protestors under the risk of live ammunition while all I got was a push by the soldiers only after I repeatedly refused to move out of their way, and a firm “sorry sir, you have to move, this is not your place sir, please move”? I can tell you; because I do not fit the visual image of an Arab drawn by the racism and terrorism of the west and the narrow-minded patriarchal fundamentalism of the Arab regimes. For the soldiers, I was one of them; to my good luck, they did not tell them, that there are Arabs who might look like “their” middle class white preppies.
I spent a month and a half in Baghdad during which time my “western-ity” was never questioned, nor was I stopped for being an Arab “Muslim” suspect! I hated myself for a while as I felt I was betraying all my loved ones for having the safety of this un-chosen privilege! It took me some time, and extensive discussion with friends, before I realized that if this is what it takes to make them think twice before shooting at people resisting the occupation then I would be a self-righteous airhead if I do not use it in that context.
All of us, who have been to war and occupation zones as “human rights monitors”, “human shields”, “solidarity activists” or what have you, from Palestine to Iraq, from India to Kosovo, from checkpoints to refugee camps, from border actions to deportation centers; we have to admit that we hold the answer to why our blood is deemed more valuable than that of the millions facing the war and capitalism machines indiscriminately. Our white skin, or affiliations with white Northern governments, is our passport to be worthy of living, or at least creates a fear of global dissent. A world that is as racist as the governments themselves.
Reality Check!
We profile people racially everyday; we judge whole populations and millions of people to one image that WE decide on. Racism is there, and here and everywhere! Racism is ignorance, and ignorance is racism, and this vicious circle cannot go on. It is inside every one of us, be it people of color or whites. It is outrageous how white is not even a color when it comes to skin and everyone but white people, are people of color.
To be accurate we should start calling ourselves people of the privileged color. To watch our language when we refer to anything clean, innocent and peaceful as white, and to evil, criminal, and violent as black! Racism is rooted beyond our belief and it is not a matter of law passing to eradicate it.
The USA passed civil rights laws a couple of decades ago, and by this we changed terminologies! We no longer derogate in our language, we racially profile. Nothing changed, ”they” still die in bigger numbers, jailed in bigger numbers, drugged in bigger numbers, driven out of schools, society, and jobs in bigger numbers, and denied any equal chances as white people all over the globe. And yet the US government (followed by the British) dares to instate another color, Arab Muslims! Now, we too, die in bigger numbers, jailed in bigger numbers, drugged in bigger numbers, driven out of schools, society, and jobs in bigger numbers, and denied any equal chances as “white” people all over the globe.
My white face is an enough evidence of innocence for the society around me wherever I go, and if I happen to be an Arab and a Muslim, then it is worth shock, admiration and examination! In what way is this shocking besides the fact that it is pure racism? The fact that you are not checking your bag rather shyly pulling it closer under your arm or legs every time a person of color sits next to you does not mean this is not racism.
My eulogy
Three days ago I read in a Lebanese newspaper an almost four-line news piece. Above it was a picture of a 19-year-old woman dangling by her neck from a balcony, dead, she is black and she is from Sirilanka. The news read “The body of the Sirilanki woman Soshar Adel Rousky (born 1987) was found yesterday morning after she tied a bedsheet around her neck and threw herself from the balcony of her employer Hilal Nasser in the third floor of Zeidan building in Sidon. She died on the spot. The Lebanese Red Cross with the Civil Defense used a crane to take down her body. Coroner Khafajah check the body then she was moved to Sidon Mortuary. It was known that Rousky arrived in Lebanon on the 22 of last July. She was crying all the time asking to call her parents. The housewife got her to call her parents in Sirilanka two days before." (note that the news in Arabic is exactly 3.5 lines)
I wonder if it was me dangling there how big the news would have been, and if they wouldn’t have interviewed a psychologist, a social worker, a religious figure (most probable Muslim as my family is) and a police officer; all reflecting on the drama of the situation (the social worker might cry), the deteriorating situation of “our youth being victims of loss of goals and perspectives in life”, and “the lack of parental guidance and morality in a world of materialism”. Not that any of these people will make my death more interesting, nor that what they say make any relevance to the fact that I am dead, but why my death would be worth more than the death of that woman… even by the number of lines in the news report, and maybe on which page it is posted?
The funny thing is that if I dangle from my neck here in Europe, I will be in the same picture with the exact three lines; the only difference would be Arab Muslim instead of a Sirilanki! Yet if you dangled from the balcony here, they would interview a psychologist, a social worker, a religious figure and a police officer. It is sureal this change of human value! When you look in my face I am a “first world citizen”, and when you see my passport, I queue with the children of the lesser gods! Isn’t that funny?
I am dead; now laugh!
Politically if they live in a country which is a member of the Arab League and this definition covers around 300 millions; and linguistically if Arabic is their mother tongue, then the definition covers around 200 million… I tend to follow the second. Like any other affiliation they are not geographically restricted anymore! They are everywhere!
I am an Arab, and I lived the majority of my life in Arab states. I come from a Muslim Shiite family from the southern part of Lebanon.
I am not a Muslim, and I have nothing against Islam that I do not also have against other religions. It is just that according to the definition of Muslims, that is to say people who adhere to Islam as a religion (and that is irrespective of nationality), I am not one.
I have spent some time in Western Europe hearing all kinds of remarks when I answer about where I come from. From “Really! You are an Arab!” (Visualize a dropped jaw, a hand flat on the chest, and eyes wide open), via “As an Arab, do you feel integrated in Europe?” (Here visualize eyes narrowed, focused, and starring deep to fake intellect) … to “I always wanted to fuck an Arab!” (Well here I did not stay long enough to look into the man’s eyes in fear of any violent reaction on my side)! All are statements that I have encountered, the first two were said to me in different rephrases in many places.
I frequently meet people who ask me after they know where I’m from, “So how is it like to grow up in that region, Iran, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia? Though one day I’d like to visit and see for myself! It must be an interesting experience to be from there” Now how stupid can that be! Well, let me play it your way, “Wow, you are from Denver, I would like to visit that region one day and see what is it like, in the USA, Britain, Spain, Germany, Finland. It must be an interesting
experience to be from out there”
I wear my passport
I will start from the arrival gates to fortress Europe; airports. There are two queues where you get your passport (more accurately mine) checked? Do you notice the two labels saying EU citizens and non-EU citizens? Well, I queue for the second.
It is surprising how good my treatment is compared to that of other Arabs who do not speak English nor enjoy the color of the peel I have. Usually it takes an immigration officer a bit of time to realize that I am one of “them”, and this is the moment he/she sees my passport, and by then I would already have gotten my smiley greeting; heaven forbids he/she treats me bad at that moment, for that is racism!
Three days ago I was in an Easynet café, a giant chain with a long list of easy ways to rip your pockets and violate every right on this planet. At Easynet, pickpocketers are prosperous; so the corporation started employing undercover “security” ready to jump when any tourist screams (most of the time too late). On that day, three Gitano women walked in with a baby asking for money. The “Security” jumped at them, held one in each hand shacking them violently and used his chest to push the third out. Then he started pounding on their backs, cursing and shouting at them to leave! I jumped in between them shouting back at him to stop. In response, he raised his fist in my face threatening and ordering me to move! He did not hesitate for one second to beat the women, yet he did not dare punch me though I called him a fascist and a shit-head! The scene was escalating, the women went out, and I was still facing that man with his fist up in the air, and still he did not dare punch me. A policeman in civilian clothes pulled his card in my face as he stood between me and the easysecurity, lets call him EasyBully – making sure no harm is done to me, explaining to me in broken English and calming tone that these women are thieves and there is a misunderstanding for Easybully is a “security” employee of Easynet!
My point is why did Mr. Easybully hesitate to punch me in the face, yet did not hesitate to pound, shake and insult the three women? To solve this riddle you need to know that I have no martial arts training (nor interest), and a physical structure that would not scare a five-year-old, while Mr. Easybully is the reincarnation of Chuck Norris! I say skin color! I am almost sure that if my physical looks matched the media definition of an “Arab Muslim” I would be writing this article to raise money to reconstruct my nose and jaw… and maybe fundraise for a wheelchair because of my big mouth, let alone be on a deportation plane for obstructing “justice”.
All through my travels I was interrogated at a border entry point only once! Once only in more than 30 flights (not proud of flying so much, and working on cutting down) and uncountable border crossings by land. Of course this cannot be said of most Arab Muslims who fit the description marketed by media and governments alike! But in the public eye, the majority, I am none of those! For your curiosity I was interrogated in Stansted, Britain; and in that time I was traveling with two Palestinian companeros and I stated we are traveling in one group. During the interrogation, the immigration officer asked me what my religion is, to which I replied “I am an atheist.” He looked puzzled at me, then at my Lebanese passport and my clearly Muslim family name, and asked me again, “Do you have any special rituals or something you believe in”! I held myself hard as not to say that I put a lettuce on my head, a chicken under my arm and run in circles ten times on Tuesdays!
“Racism” an antidote to Racism!
Why do not I get stopped, why do I feel empowered enough to walk with a confidence that portrays innocence, despite my “guilty as charged”? Again,something I did not ask for and Michael Jackson paid a fortune to get! But the interesting part is where did I learn about my special powers! Wild guess? Baghdad, 2003, in the hands of U.S. occupation troops!
In November 2003, I was sent by IMC Beirut to help set up IMC Baghdad and report back on the ongoing occupation. Upon arrival I met two activists, one from Britain and the other is British/Polish! Both of these inspiring women touched my life deeply, and both of them were there as a loud voice against occupation and war - both locally and internationally, engaged in solidarity projects with the Iraqi people, and using their passports as a buffer between the brutality of the occupation and the people of Iraq.
During heavy protests in Baghdad, “international activists” were acting as deterrence for the U.S. troops as not to open fire on the demonstrators – something the International Solidarity Movement have been doing for years in Palestine, though the Israeli military machine already cost them two dead and uncounted injured. The occupation troops are less likely to open fire in the presence of media or “westerners”! Jo and Ewa were “westerners” but what about me? I am an Arab, a “Muslim”, a “Shiite”, and from a country that is on the U.S. blacklist of terrorism (notice the color of the list). Why are the Iraqi protestors under the risk of live ammunition while all I got was a push by the soldiers only after I repeatedly refused to move out of their way, and a firm “sorry sir, you have to move, this is not your place sir, please move”? I can tell you; because I do not fit the visual image of an Arab drawn by the racism and terrorism of the west and the narrow-minded patriarchal fundamentalism of the Arab regimes. For the soldiers, I was one of them; to my good luck, they did not tell them, that there are Arabs who might look like “their” middle class white preppies.
I spent a month and a half in Baghdad during which time my “western-ity” was never questioned, nor was I stopped for being an Arab “Muslim” suspect! I hated myself for a while as I felt I was betraying all my loved ones for having the safety of this un-chosen privilege! It took me some time, and extensive discussion with friends, before I realized that if this is what it takes to make them think twice before shooting at people resisting the occupation then I would be a self-righteous airhead if I do not use it in that context.
All of us, who have been to war and occupation zones as “human rights monitors”, “human shields”, “solidarity activists” or what have you, from Palestine to Iraq, from India to Kosovo, from checkpoints to refugee camps, from border actions to deportation centers; we have to admit that we hold the answer to why our blood is deemed more valuable than that of the millions facing the war and capitalism machines indiscriminately. Our white skin, or affiliations with white Northern governments, is our passport to be worthy of living, or at least creates a fear of global dissent. A world that is as racist as the governments themselves.
Reality Check!
We profile people racially everyday; we judge whole populations and millions of people to one image that WE decide on. Racism is there, and here and everywhere! Racism is ignorance, and ignorance is racism, and this vicious circle cannot go on. It is inside every one of us, be it people of color or whites. It is outrageous how white is not even a color when it comes to skin and everyone but white people, are people of color.
To be accurate we should start calling ourselves people of the privileged color. To watch our language when we refer to anything clean, innocent and peaceful as white, and to evil, criminal, and violent as black! Racism is rooted beyond our belief and it is not a matter of law passing to eradicate it.
The USA passed civil rights laws a couple of decades ago, and by this we changed terminologies! We no longer derogate in our language, we racially profile. Nothing changed, ”they” still die in bigger numbers, jailed in bigger numbers, drugged in bigger numbers, driven out of schools, society, and jobs in bigger numbers, and denied any equal chances as white people all over the globe. And yet the US government (followed by the British) dares to instate another color, Arab Muslims! Now, we too, die in bigger numbers, jailed in bigger numbers, drugged in bigger numbers, driven out of schools, society, and jobs in bigger numbers, and denied any equal chances as “white” people all over the globe.
My white face is an enough evidence of innocence for the society around me wherever I go, and if I happen to be an Arab and a Muslim, then it is worth shock, admiration and examination! In what way is this shocking besides the fact that it is pure racism? The fact that you are not checking your bag rather shyly pulling it closer under your arm or legs every time a person of color sits next to you does not mean this is not racism.
My eulogy
Three days ago I read in a Lebanese newspaper an almost four-line news piece. Above it was a picture of a 19-year-old woman dangling by her neck from a balcony, dead, she is black and she is from Sirilanka. The news read “The body of the Sirilanki woman Soshar Adel Rousky (born 1987) was found yesterday morning after she tied a bedsheet around her neck and threw herself from the balcony of her employer Hilal Nasser in the third floor of Zeidan building in Sidon. She died on the spot. The Lebanese Red Cross with the Civil Defense used a crane to take down her body. Coroner Khafajah check the body then she was moved to Sidon Mortuary. It was known that Rousky arrived in Lebanon on the 22 of last July. She was crying all the time asking to call her parents. The housewife got her to call her parents in Sirilanka two days before." (note that the news in Arabic is exactly 3.5 lines)
I wonder if it was me dangling there how big the news would have been, and if they wouldn’t have interviewed a psychologist, a social worker, a religious figure (most probable Muslim as my family is) and a police officer; all reflecting on the drama of the situation (the social worker might cry), the deteriorating situation of “our youth being victims of loss of goals and perspectives in life”, and “the lack of parental guidance and morality in a world of materialism”. Not that any of these people will make my death more interesting, nor that what they say make any relevance to the fact that I am dead, but why my death would be worth more than the death of that woman… even by the number of lines in the news report, and maybe on which page it is posted?
The funny thing is that if I dangle from my neck here in Europe, I will be in the same picture with the exact three lines; the only difference would be Arab Muslim instead of a Sirilanki! Yet if you dangled from the balcony here, they would interview a psychologist, a social worker, a religious figure and a police officer. It is sureal this change of human value! When you look in my face I am a “first world citizen”, and when you see my passport, I queue with the children of the lesser gods! Isn’t that funny?
I am dead; now laugh!
posted by Qursana at 4:56 AM
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