Who am I, but a complex amalgam of contradictory identities?
Two, which exist paradoxically, yet never seem to make you feel complete.
They glare at you for one,
Snarl at you,
Insult you,
Hunt you down,
You stand up,
They knock you down,
Reduce you down
To hurtful names,
To animals,
To parasites,
To a disease,
Making you feel like the world would be better off without you,
Constantly resonating the bitter warning:
“You will never be one of us.”

Others say you are the reason for everything bad:
War,
Poverty,
Endless torment,
Destruction,
Eviction.
Stealing everything that can fit into a Black Hawk helicopter.
They fight you,
Spit on you,
Shame you,
Blame you,
Beat you,
Burn you,
Destroy you,
Knock down your buildings,
For what?
Why?
“Because habibi, you are the problem.”

Is this the plight I have to live with?
This constant burden of living as two things that cannot simultaneously exist,
Just because me and those like me were born this way?
As this apparent hybrid monstrosity of alienation?
We never asked for it,
We never begged for it,
It was ascribed to us on day one.
Why is this our fight?
Why can’t we ever go “home?”
Where is home!?
Why can’t we be proud of who we are?
How can we!?
Why can’t we just be normal?
We are always in the middle.
Misunderstood,
Trying to fit in,
But we are the new marginalized.
Patriotic on one hand,
Public enemy number one on the other,
We are the enemy,
Even in a place we call home.

Who wants us?
We are foreign both here and there,
Neglected,
Misfits,
Tainted,
Always an outsider,
No matter where we go:
Undesired,
Unwelcome,
Uninvited;
Constantly carrying a cross embossed with a crescent,
Chained to the baggage begotten to us by both nationalism and ethnicity;
Embodied by a passport that is our contrast,
Our weight,
Our contradiction,
Our privilege,
Our prison.
We are prisoners to our own country,
To our own identity.
To hyperbolic politics,
Empty shepherding,
And abandoned relics.

We belong nowhere…

We’re never good enough for anyone!
And no matter whom you ask,
Or where they’re from,
Regardless of their religion,
Their eye color,
Their skin,
Their accent,
Their ID card,
This is always who you are in their eyes:
Arab as a sickness,
American as a curse.

The other day in Jordan, my mother made the day of a young Spanish woman with whom we were chatting by telling her she could be Audrey Hepburn’s double.  This was true enough, but what struck me was how quickly the woman

Faten Hamama

blushed and said thank you,  banging on her tea cup to make sure her boyfriend had heard the compliment.  Audrey Hepburn was before my time, let alone this younger woman’s.  Yet the three of us shared a common language:  Hollywood films.  What we didn’t learn of this language on the big screen or at home, we were taught via the video store, TV, or iTunes.   Or for those of us who wanted to perfect the language, our knowledge grew through classes—and through access to a film library.

Jordan’s Royal Film Commission is in my favorite part of Amman, Rainbow Street, which fits because the street is named after the city’s first cinema, the Rainbow Theatre, now long gone. I love the film commission because it has given Jordan a genuine film fan and filmmaker community.

But perhaps more uniquely, it has a cozy film library over looking old Amman.  It’s not big or comprehensive, but if you’re looking for film that brought Syrian cinema to an international audience in 1972, you can scan the shelves and find it:  The Leopard.  Arabic films have a language of their own and very few people learn it because the Middle East has no significant film library and no effort has been made to educate students about Arab cinema.

While everyone laments the decline of reading in the world, particularly the Middle East it seems, one forgets that good libraries also house novels and films, perhaps both truer windows into who we are and who we were than any text or history book could ever be.

Before Kramer vs Kramer made divorce a topic to carry a movie or Broke Back Mountain told of the tortured deceits of closeted homosexuality, Egypt’s most famous actress Faten Hamama was dealing with them in the 1974 film Oridu Hillan  (I Need a Solution) . (Honestly, I haven’t seen it recently, so I can’t verify the gay issues that my cousin said were implied in the divorce.)  The movie in fact changed Egypt’s divorce laws.

When looking for the roots of today’s revolutions, much of it can be found even in the poorly produced and directed very broad comedies and melodramas of Egypt over the past decade—rife with farcical scenes about men not being able to afford marriage because jobs are always illusive, scenes government institutions and the absurd rules applied to the Everyman when he tries to feed his family or take care of their health needs, and scenes of the brutal consequences of speaking out against the corruption.

Arab cinema is not always at level of most Western cinema, but it has a long history that lays scattered—and damaged by time—because libraries don’t have the importance they should.   Arabs have a long film history that is their history.  Yet sadly, Arabs don’t have as much as they should a language in which they can say, “You remind me of Faten Hamama in….”

Gingerbread Palace in Abu Dhabi, Xmas Arabian Style

When I was a child in Minnesota, I used to get worked up into a Christmas nightmare over the fact that my family’s house wasn’t decorated and festooned, that we had no huge Christmas plans, no big gathering with our relatives planned.  All the merry was not for us, the secular Muslims who never seemed to have anywhere to go or anything to do during the holidays.  The Weirdos on the block–that’s what the child saw.

Today, the adult me finds Christmas a joyful time, a day off from work, a slow month at work to catch up on life, get some extra yoga time in.  It’s my celebrating friends that seem to be stressed. Most of the Great American Christmas has nothing to really do with religion, Christian or Muslim or otherwise, but Islam makes a fine excuse to avoid the all the merry pressures.

It was years of having variations of these conversations with my friends, starting around college and into my late twenties, normally sane young women who took on a chic lit aura, becoming more hysterical than an elf getting stepped on by Paul Bunyan, that made me embrace Islam at Christmas:

Friend:  I can’t afford to buy everyone everything they want.  I’m going to be in more debt than the U.S.      government.

Me:  I’m not buying anyone anything.  I’m a Muslim.

Friend:  Seeing everyone again reminds of all the crap my parents put us through.

Me:  My family is not doing a big gathering thing, so I will not have a meltdown remembering my childhood anymore than I usually do.  I’m a Muslim

Friend:  Everyone is going to keep asking me why I’m not married until I cry.

Me:  This is the one day of the year no one, aside from my mother, will ask me as I will be invisible.  I’m a Muslim.

Friend:  What am I going to wear?  I want to look like life is going well, that I’m okay about not being married.

Me:  I shall be wearing sweats.  They suit my apartment.  I’m a Muslim.

Friend:  When am I going to find the time to decorate?

Me:  I don’t decorate except for weddings.  I’m a Muslim.

Friend:  What am I going to do if they delay my flight any longer? I’ve already had to make five different connections to get this far.

Me:  Sorry, not traveling…now can I go back to “It’s a Wonderful Life” DVD?  I’m a Muslim.

Friend:  I’m going to gain so much weight sitting around eating all day

Me:  Got to go.  They’re waiting for me at the Chinese restaurant—the Muslims, the Jews, the other misfits.

Friend:  If anyone else asks me one more time what do you have planned for New Year’s Eve, I’ll cry.

Me:  I just tell people I don’t celebrate that either, and no one questions me…because no one has a clue what I mean when I say I’m a Muslim.

Friend:  Who should I re-gift my presents to?

Me:  Not moi.  I don’t have the need to do re-gifting or be re-gifted.  I’m a Muslim.

Friend: (sometime around the end of January)  I need some help taking down the Christmas tree before it sets itself on fire.

Me:  Oh, okay, time to get into the spirit.  I’ll be right over.  Being a good friend is the right thing to do, especially right before Valentine’s Day.  Which I don’t have to celebrate either:)   I’m a Muslim.

There are wonderful things about holiday celebrations, about connecting with old friends and family, but feeling bad about not being merry enough isn’t one of them.  So if Islam gives me my excuse, I’ll take it.

Give us adequate images. We lack adequate images. Our civilization does not have adequate images. And I think a civilization is doomed or is going to die out like dinosaurs if it doesn’t develop an adequate language for adequate images.–Werner Herzog

Making a film that dares to literally light something that no one wants to talk about it is a brave and bold act.  It requires more courage, more thought, and more compassion than picking up a gun.  Arab female filmmakers have been among the bravest in this area.  Neither the narrative filmmakers or the documentary filmmakers have gotten the exposure or support they deserve.  This link to Ozge Calafato’s generous overview of the documentary filmmakers covers so many of these women, and still there are more, such as Iraqi filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi.

http://www.abudhabifilmfestival.ae/en/year-round/magazine/2011/12/05/female-arab-voices

In Beirut last week, I was reminded that defining life is happening at every corner, from running into an enfolding pro Assad demonstration, to a flash mob erupting at a staid academic conference on media freedoms, to people gathering at various hip cafes (even ones that have managed to survive more than 50 years are still hip) in search of an Internet connection that could remotely keep up with the speed of their lives, to a young, handsome waiter at a beachside restaurant earnestly telling you he is pinning his hopes on marrying a woman in the Gulf, where jobs are plentiful.

During this new wave of Arab revolutions, Beirutis continue to express themselves everywhere in every mode, some modes good, some not so good.

But on the street, Beirut’s walls allow for some of life’s better advice.

Thank you, Steve Jobs

been my Apple. Along with one of those apples that grow on trees, turning on my Mac has been part of my morning ritual wherever I have been and in whatever state-of-mind I have been in, minus a couple of war zones that have made it impossible. But even in those times, I would sometimes move my hands like they were going over the keyboards writing my thoughts.

I have never been addicted to my Mac, but I’d say we’ve been pretty co-dependent—or let’s say the best of friends, a reliable friend I always cleaned up with only the finest soft cloth, a friend I could count on to help me stay bond to my other friends and family, a friend I never cheated on once, no matter how many times a PC tried to get my attention. A friend who would only abandon me when it was his time to go, like Steve Jobs today. But my Macs always left memories behind, a hard drive that recorded our history together and the history of my life for the time we were together. And I am glad none of them tried to erase me from their memory, at least until we were no longer together .

It hasn’t always been the same Mac, but it has always been the same genius bringing me my new model—as well as smaller ones, ones that were phones, ones that meant I didn’t have to endure the same 10 pop songs on the car radio, ones that are what I now use to read all the books I love, new and old. Some Macs have been better to me than others, but overall, I would be less of a person for not having had them all in my life—even the big, bulky ones that weighed me down, that refused to move with the times, that were serious baggage, but only in the best sense.

I’m old enough to remember life before the various Macs that have lived with me. I would be a different person without them, as we would have all be. The way I stay in touch with people, read, listen to music, watch films, study, figure out my bills—all the paper and machines that would be cluttering up my world if my Macs hadn’t helped me get it together. They have also been fun–playing with my Macs in all their forms is something my nephews and I have bonded over, unlike video games (their choice) or baking cookies (my choice).  Apples are our happy middle.

Most importantly, my Macs helped make me who I am today. I wouldn’t be a writer without my Macs, whether for fiction, nonfiction, for film or television or print. And if I weren’t a writer, I wouldn’t have discovered peace of mind. Whenever my Mac and I have been writing, truly hard as it is everyday, I have felt that I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing. It couldn’t have done it without my Macs: I have weak hands and it is quite painful for me to write with pen or pencil and hard for anyone to read, including myself. It was only when I met my first Mac that I felt free to write.

So if you are wondering why this is posted on this blog dedicated to Middle East culture, it is because I would have never written anything about this part of the world if I hadn’t come here with my Mac. (And of course, because Steve Jobs was part Arab American.)

Work Horses in Egypt

So what about the animal rights in a world with limited human rights?

Arabs don’t have a lot of indoor pets, but outdoors, animals remain their friends and often their livelihood, especially horses.  At a place thousands of tourists go every year.  This is one of Natasha’s stories, which resulted in an Australia animal relief organization stepping in to help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUFUdf1iUB0

I have a lot of Muslim friends that agree and disagree with me on all of the above.  Most of the Muslims I know have no idea what I think about my religion, although some have tried to tell me what I think (“You don’t drink because you’re trying to be a good Muslim” someone once told me, and I didn’t bother to explain that I wouldn’t drink no matter what my religion was and I don’t actually think Islam categorically forbids alcohol).

Just as few Christians, Jews and others know what I think about my religion, although some of them have also tried to tell me. (“You’re one of those white Muslims, so we know you’re not like the others,” was the comfort I got from a co-worker on 9/11, as apparently I didn’t appear brown enough to be bad.)

No one ever asked me, not even other Muslims, until after 9/11, what I thought about Islam.  I’d venture to say many of my American friends could barely recall I was a Muslim.  For a while after 9/11, I felt it was something that like Mona Eltahawy said in a recent op ed piece for the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/09/muslim-post-9-11-america) I had to mention early on in a conversation.  In my case, so no one would say anything bad in front of me and feel like crap later when I then I told them I was a Muslim.

I don’t look like a Muslim not because of the color of my skin but because I don’t wear a hijab.  That’s the giveaway in the post-9/11 US and Europe, but not in much of the Middle East, where many choose not to wear the hijab.  (Actually, more correctly is that many women choose to wear it).

As a non-wearer, I’ve really come to appreciate the hijab because it gives me a chance to always be the undercover Muslim:  In crowded rooms, classrooms, and parties, I get to hear what other people really think about Islam because they don’t think I’m one one of them.  And mostly what I hear shocks me, almost as shocking as the dangerous radicalization of Islam in disenfranchised parts of the Muslim world that led to 9/11.  Horrific as the terrorism is, it comes from ignorance, from people deprived of education and hope.  That’s not something you expect in the West, and yet most of what I hear about Islam is pretty ignorant, mostly boogey man like.

Maybe one day, Muslims will be transformed like the Russians, who under communism could only produce women in our social studies class textbooks were sullen peasant wrapped in fur skin hats, to their general acceptance in all media as hot babes, for better or worse, in a variety of professions.

That’s not necessarily something to aspire to, but until then, here is some Pew polling on American Muslims that might be a little more enlightening.  Muslim seem to be more upbeat about being American than others, not that I disagree or agree with any of  them. (http://people-press.org/2011/08/30/muslim-americans-no-signs-of-growth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/)

For further readings on Arab Americans 10 years later, I recommend the following:

Alia Malek in Granta:  http://www.granta.com/Online-Only/Of-Moustaches-and-Megalomaniacs

Moustafa Bayoumi in the Nation  http://www.thenation.com/blog/163284/rites-and-rights-citizenship

Carmel Alyaa Delshad  http://bustedhalo.com/features/being-the-%E2%80%9Cother%E2%80%9D-on-september-11-2001

“Can’t you find something American and tasty to do with these?” she asked when I arrived.  I knew she meant bake something, and the American part referred to the use of fruit in desserts. In the Middle Eastern fresh fruits are eaten fresh, dried, or as jam or as an ice cream flavor.  They are not baked into desserts usually, unless they’ve been dried first.

My first thought was peach cobbler, summery and simple.  But if you’ve never heard of peach cobbler, it pretty much looks like its name implies, something cobbled together.  Not particularly appealing to Middle Eastern guests I discovered.  Which is how they also they reacted to my next endeavor, the peach crumble.  “Didn’t quite come out like you hoped it would,” my aunt said to me sympathetically.  “Maybe you didn’t put enough butter in the crust and that’s why it’s all broken apart like that.”

It had come out pretty enough for any TV chef to pose with, perfectly crumbly and buttery on top, juicy and sweet filling with a hint of cinnamon.  But aesthetically, the Jordanians couldn’t get past the appearance to get to the taste.

My next venture should have been pie, but I could see that the aecetics reaction would be the same.  Then I remembered the one Western dessert that all people appreciated:  the birthday cake. I’d make a peach cake, and cut the peaches small enough that they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the fruit-in-dessert concept.

It was too hot to spend hours creating a layer cake, so instead I took a basic coffee cake and an apple bread recipe and combined them, and called it peach coffee cake.  Anything with the word coffee goes over big in the Middle East.

For Americans, for whom peach crumble, cobbler, and pie say summer, the coffee cake may have less appeal.  To the American half of my taste buds, it welcomed in fall.  Very tasty but a little early in the year to let go of summer.  But freeze for winter, when the hint of peaches should be a welcome surprise and thus save them from landing on the ground, their glory untapped.

PEACH COFFEE CAKE

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 t. vanilla

1 ¾ C sugar

1 C vegetable oil

1 ½ C white flour

½  C. whole wheat flout

1 t. salt

1 t. baking soda

2 t. cinnamon

¼  t. nutmeg

3 C. peeled and diced fresh peaches (this seems like a lot of peaches, but it’s not)

Topping:

For the streusel:

½ c  packed brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ c. chopped walnuts

6 tbsp. (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

ALTERNATIVE TOPPING/ADDITION: Drizzling with icing sugar when slightly cooled

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.   Grease a 13x9x2 inch pan.

Add sugar and vanilla and oil to the eggs and mix thoroughly.  Mix together dry ingredients, then fold into egg mixture until combined.  Add in the peaches.

For topping, mix together nuts and sugars.  Cut in butter until topping forms into little pieces.

Pour cake batter into pan.  Sprinkle on topping.  Bake about 35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  I used a glass baking dish because the usual baking pan would have looked like I didn’t have enough to serve it in decent kitchenware.   Add alternative/additional icing drizzle when cake is almost coool.

Jordan: "Yes, I don't know."

continued to point in opposite directions as if they were both giving me a legitimate answer. Which, perhaps on higher philosophical plane, would be correct—after all isn’t life of a circle we all spin around?

Alas, there was nothing metaphorical in their response, at least not intentionally.  And really who wants philosophy when its hot and dusty and you need directions?  But Amman can feel very much feel like a vicious circle when you ask questions—and take the answers seriously.  That’s because no one seems to be able to say the simple phrase, “I don’t know.”

Even “Do you have green tea?” got me the response at a café.  “Yes, no.”  It took me several more questions to figure out whether the yes was more correct than the no. The truth was he didn’t know if they had tea at all, which I gathered from the various other “yes, no” responses.

Never saying “I don’t know” seems to be a phenomenon among the 20-somethings of Jordan.  There are questions in Jordan for which they have no answers but these are matters strangers don’t discuss in public—“Is it likely I’ll get a job?” “How will I pay for heating this winter?” “Which one of our neighbors –Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria—will be the most unpredictable this week?”   Big questions for which people are afraid of the answers.

But people want to be able to answer something. So maybe that’s why a less earth shattering question like “Do you sell Jason Shampoo?” gets answered “yes” by the cashier and “no” by the clerk in a shop the size of a big living room.  The real answer was no, but that didn’t make the yes man feel bad.  He just shrugged, like he had a 50-50 chance at being right.  “I don’t know” just doesn’t have that definitive power of taking a 50 50 chance of being right, which are about the same odds for a long lasting marriage, all Jordanians take that risk.

After more than an hour and a half of elaborate directions from about 10 people who “yes,” knew where to get a Blackberry battery and then finally running into the Blackberry store by complete accident, you just want to throw some one for a spin by asking, “What do you think are the advantages of the Blackberry over the iPhone?”   If no one knows the answers to the little questions, then dare to ask the big questions.