Archive for January, 2008

January 20, 2008

Maher’s Parallel lives

January 20th 2008 Posted to

   

 I ran into Maher this weekend… Maher is an assumed name . He is one of my most liberal acquaintences…and I really really mean liberal. But…and there is a big but here he comes from a very conservative family.  Mind you it a prominent one. And since I have not seen Maher in a while. We had a lot of catching up to do, Therefore, he decided to brief me about his latest … hmm… how shall we call it … a challenge maybe? It is simple really … His parents would have been thrown into an awful flutter had his in laws brought up the request of alcohol in the wedding… he said that alcohol would have been more offensive to his parents than suggesting that everyone should come nude to the wedding! The in laws still don’t know that the issue is not alcohol at all… the issue is a tinnnnny bit more complex… well ….his family won’t attend his wedding  at all...if it is mixed… They gave up on mixed weddings, since they went to the haj a few years ago.

Story does not stop there… his fiancée’s family will go MAD once they hear… and he is worried they won’t attend the wedding if it was not mixed! They have only one daughter and since they themselves never had a wedding, this will be the wedding of their dreams!   I understood that Maher lives two complete separate lives… he is this modern, liberal non-religious person  when with his in laws…. he drinks, plays cards, dances…. but he is conservative… does not drink …fasts Ramadan… does not allow Fiancée to wear anything revealing when with his parents….  … apparently this extends to the whole family… his brothers, sisters and cousins are all like that…. they are very open and liberal when they are on their own… or with their girlfriends/boyfriends, wives, friends, work colleagues… ….yet they are all super conservative in family events.  They all collectively conform to every single family rule…  As a matter of fact… if you are looking for them they can be found drinking in Trader Vic’s Thursday nights and in Al Kalouti Mosque praying every Friday noon!

I was really amused talking to M. Not because of all these stories that I am very used to, I mean we are all hypocrites one way or another………but what amazed me  is that I realized  how compartmentalized  Maher’s life is…. this guy leads two parallel lives that have nothing to do with each other… actually we can safely say he is two people!My Flat mate in London asked me once a hypothetical question…. how our lives in the Middle East would have been if they were not compartmentalized?? How would they have been if we suddenly became open without judging each other? If everyone did what they wanted without feeling the need to hide or be something else in order to be accepted?….. He asked me to imagine the effort we go through to remember the different stories we tell… the different personalities we create to deal with different people from different compartments….different lies… different standards… different values… different variations….different alternatives… different emotions involved….Then he asked me to consider how that effects our mental health…

He then asked me to imagine how life would be without all that!

Ufft… I was Dazzled!! 

ted two weddings… one for his family and one for hers… I also told him that I shall be charmed, to accept a wedding invitation…given to the mixed one… I just think that people at least women behave in a much more civilized manner in mixed weddings, they sort of take their comfort a bit too far when the wedding is not mixed! Note 2: Abna’a il qal3a is a great book.. it is a pleasure to see how amazing Mr. Qassem’s Arabic is… Arabic is a slave that does what he wants…He was really really good….I am loving the book… Allah Yir7amoh. 





 


 


 


 


 


 


  

            

            

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January 13, 2008

Inheritance (uncles and daughters!)

January 13th 2008 Posted to

A close friend of my dad’s passed away last week.  Not only was the news shocking, they were also very upsetting.  His death came unexpectedly. He was preparing a salad alone at home, when he had a heart attack. He was found a few hours later, with his tomato half cut, and the tap water still running.


 His death brought many thoughts to my mind; among them is that he left a young wife and three daughters to struggle with life alone.  I always thought one of the reasons for getting married is that I wanted my husband to grow old with me…  (This will sound tacky and mushy.) But my illusions about marriage revolved around wanting my husband to tell me I am pretty in my forties, when men no longer try to flirt with me.  To need me in my fifties, when my children are independent and no longer need me, to be my companion in my sixties when I am too old to make new friends, and to be kind and tender with me in my seventies, when it is the only thing that really matters… and of course for the taboo sex as well.  I realized that it just does not work like that… Here is this woman in her forties… she must have had similar illusions, when she first got married, but ended up losing her illusions in a split of a second. (I am not saying that women get married only for these reasons…we get married for love, companionship, children, stability,  freedom from society’s tyranny, , sexual frustration,  bank accounts, status,  power, family name, loneliness,… and many other many reasons  but this is not our topic)


This lady is still in her forties.  As a mother of three young ladies… and a woman who had been married for almost twenty years…. well… lets be honest here, her chances of meeting someone to be tender in her seventies ( A number that is still thirty years away)  are a bit less than zero!  In all cases…  it will be considered inappropriate for her to remarry, let alone have any form of a relationship with a man.  


Tomorrow her daughters will all get married, or find their paths in life, and she will be left alone… The sad truth is that woman has been condemned to loneliness and isolation the moment her husband died.  ( not that this is the issue now, I am sure she is too sad to even think about food … so of course she is not thinking about these intellectual exercises I am applying here… I mean she might never even want to leave the house again, let alone thinking about marriage or men or anything of the sort… I am just arguing a hypothetical case here.)


I just remembered someone I met while living in the states. A sixty something man, who was moving in with his fifty something girlfriend… they were both widowed. They met, fell in love with each other and moved in together. This makes me wonder… How come society in the west is kinder and more merciful to people? How come standards in our society are too high for our own good? How come society does not acknowledge our needs for intimacy, love and companionship as human beings?


(I am reading The Citadel Children by Ziad Al Qasem these days… and I just came upon a character whose son in at the university and had just been widowed… the point where I stopped yesterday is that someone came to ask the son for his mother’s hand… so maybe widows chances are more than zero?)
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Let’s forget this long term thought and get to more pressing issues. This woman does not work, and the only source of income until last week had come from her husband’s work… however this is not a problem since her husband made enough money to permit her and their high school daughters to live comfortably.  During his life, he also sustained his old mother and supported his brothers and their families … (They are not as comfortable as he was)
 

The problem is that he had no sons.  This automatically means that his brothers have the right to inherit a certain percentage of what he left. A right that would have been lost had only, one of the many X chromosomes in their daughters been a Y… alas… the Y chromosome was illusive and with it their full inheritance.


The question is:  what happens now to the wife and daughters when the uncles come and take the money? They might not be forced to go hungry, or work for living or any of those horrific stories that we hear about every day of our lives…. no… But with that percentage gone, they will no longer be able to afford the comfortable life that their father spent his entire life (literally) sweating so that they can have.


His work, all his dreams for them, will have to be compromised because they are not boys or at least none of them is a boy…well… of course the idea behind this law is that  their male folk are supposed to see that they are well taken care of, this is why they take their money…. however in this case,  their men folk are barely making ends meet… and have enough on their plates to chew….  and this money would not help anyone, once it is distributed this way, but would have made a difference for the daughters.


Ok will stop now,  to go work a bit more on our Zoo… I am not sure, who is enjoying the collage more… my nephew or myself! So far we have a lion, a sheep (which is supposed to be the lion’s food… only it is too cute to be eaten by the lion) two Zebras ( a mother and a baby) one Giraffe and one huge glittery Elephant!

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