Girl Germs

Arab women bloggers have been speaking directly to my heart this week! Amal at Improvisations: Arab Woman Proggressive Voice writes:

I was reminded of such a life-changing moment this morning. I was 14. Your typical painfully self-conscious, self-centered, angular, awkward girl. A "good girl" to boot: the "from home to school" type, with the occasional visit to a friend's house. One day on such a visit, I ran into my friend's parents sitting with other relatives. Doing what I'm expected to do, I approached them to shake hands, as it is the habit. When I extended my hand to the father, my hand just hung there. All alone. Not met. Spurned. Rejected. Embarrassed. Humiliated. The man muttered a quick greeting that I didn't hear. I went deaf. I became all Hand. Hands don't have ears or mouths or eyes. But, god, do they feel!!

The whole encounter took seconds but lasted a life time. That was the first time I learned that some Muslim men won't shake my hand. Even at 14 I have shaken many a man's hand--cousins, uncles, family friends, neighbors, strangers--but this was my first encounter with a Muslim man who refused to shake hands.

I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit. I wasn't interested in knowing the theological justification for it; I didn't do research to see which Muslim school allowed a man to shake hands with a woman and which didn't. I didn't give a damn. I only cared about how it made me feel--about my body and my female being. It wasn't a good feeling. I wanted to disappear and wished the ground would open and swallow me. I shrank, physically and psychologically. I wished I had no hands, no breasts, no lips, no eyes, no thighs, no vagina. I wished I were nothing.

And I smarted for weeks. Exactly the way I smarted years later when a jerk grabbed my breast in a crowded street in the Old City of Jerusalem.

I don't have anything more to add at this time, but this post did get me thinking about Muslim and Arab cultural niceties expected of young women. I am Arab American, emphasis on the American, and when I went to Amman in 2000 I was sixteen and hadn't learned these niceties. I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of being the only one in a large group of people for an extended period of time who isn't acclimated to their social mores and modes of interaction--if you are an immigrant maybe you know what I'm talking about--but it's not easy. When I accepted gifts from people and was later told that when someone offers me something, I am supposed to refuse it at first and only accept if they insist, I was so embarrassed. When my Tata hissed at my cousins and I, saying we were like whores because we were laughing on the street, I felt stifled by all the rules. When I kissed a distant uncle, who I hadn't seen since I was nine, and my aunt told me I shouldn't greet men that way, I thought, "Damn, I can't do anything right." And to this day I get slightly upset when strangers [who are Arab or who I perceive to be Arab] offer me things, like for example their chair at a crowded event, because I almost feel as thought I'm being tricked! On Fridays when I pass the men leaving the Islamic Center by my house, I keep my eyes down, but when I am in the street with my friends I talk and laugh as loud as I want to.

Happy 65th to Muhammed Ali

Muhammed Ali turns 65 today. From the BBC:

I am America. I am the part you won't recognise. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.

“We’re friends?! You can’t even pronounce my name."

Earlier this evening I saw Kal Penn in a commercial for "24," a show I have never watched and didn't know he was on. As I learned, he plays a character that is new to the show, but familiar to viewing audiences worldwide: The brown Muslim terrorist.

You can read a recap of the episode at Sepia Mutiny, here: My Neighbor, The Terrorist. My favorite part?

When Mr. Wallace’s teenage son asks, “Why are you doing this? We’re friends,” Amar responds, “We’re friends?! You can’t even pronounce my name. It’s not Aw-med. It’s ACCCCCCH-med.”

Hahahahahahahaha!!! While the rest of this character's portrayal is riddled with stereotypes, this piece of it actually rings so true to me. I have actually said this to people before! And here we have the root of increased identification with terrorist groups among Western Muslims and other assorted brown people: The West's collective inability to pronounce our names, to show us respect and to count us as humans and citizens.

Evil Villainous Brown People

the message isn't usually spelled out as clearly as this:

via Women of Color Blog, from "www.firecoalition.com (an anti-immigrant website)."

TONIGHT: Little Mosque on the Prarie

Don't miss "Little Mosque on the Prarie," tonight on CBC at 8:30pm. If you are a Comcast subscriber in Detroit, it's channel 99, and I think it's channel 9 if you don't have cable. It airs again tomorow (Wednesday) at 8pm.

CBC's Little Mosque to break new ground

n a show that will be the first of its kind on North American TV, CBC plans to begin a new comedy series about a small community of Muslims living in rural Saskatchewan.

Yasir (Carlo Rota, left) and Baber (Manoj Sood, right) discuss the beginning of Ramadan, the month of fasting.

Little Mosque on the Prairie doesn't come to air until Jan. 9, but already it has attracted attention from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN and satirical talk-show host Stephen Colbert.

The show's creator, Zarqa Nawaz, says she hopes the cheeky send-up of stereotypes and the clash of cultures will show Muslims in a new light.

"That Muslims can be funny and are just like everyone else," she said in an interview with CBC Television.

Little Mosque on the Prairie creator and producer Zarqa Nawaz.
(Sophie Giraud/CBC)

A Regina-based mother of four, Nawaz says she hopes her children will see the new face of Canada in the show.

"I'd like them to be able to watch TV and see people who also look like them. So they can also connect that way," she said.

Shot in Toronto in 2006, the show focuses on a Muslim community in the fictional Prairie town of Mercy, following family conflicts and the community's interaction with their neighbours.

"It's based on my own observations growing up as Muslim in North America," she said.

Toronto-born actor Zaib Shaikh plays a young lawyer turned religious leader in the series.

The show isn't meant to be political, he said, and doesn't deal with political themes.

"It's a show that's meant to be funny, that shows an aspect of Canadian culture that just happens to be Muslim."

In one episode, a father fights with his adolescent daughter over what she can wear to school. In another, a battle of sexes erupts when a spiritual leader wants to put a divider between men and women in the mosque.

The show is a half-hour sitcom with humour arising out of the situations, Nawaz said, adding that her main goal is to get people laughing.

"Muslims have reacted very favourably to the show, because they want to see themselves on screen as real people," she said.

Nawaz was born in England, grew up in Toronto and moved to Saskatchewan 10 years ago. Her BBQ Muslims was a hit at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1996.

Actor Carlo Rota, who has a part in this show, as well as the hit U.S. series 24, says he thinks Little Mosque on the Prairie could only be made in Canada.

"I get heavy guys, bad guys, guys that garrotte, guys that strafe with machine guns," he says of his usual roles for TV.

American TV is too timid to make a show with such a fresh perspective, he said.

The show premieres next Tuesday and then will air on Monday nights and be repeated on Wednesday nights.

What to Read

I read "The Taqwacores" last summer, after hearing about The Kominas. I am undecided about what I think of the book, whether I liked it or not, but it didn't elicit very strong feelings for me. I have so much free time now that I think I might read it again tomorrow to reassess it. When I heard about this Muslim Punk style of American Islam, I was excited about it, but as someone who is completely uninterested in religion, it would have been much more exciting for me at age fifteen when I was 1) punk and 2) searching for religion.

I heard that the author of "The Taqwacores," Micheal Muhammed Knight, will be releasing a 2nd book Blue-Eyed Devil: Road Tripping Through The United States Of Islam, which looks extremely interesting. (EDIT: I assume the title is a reference to Nation of Islam, but it immedietly made me think of Inga Muscio's Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society, which I'm not really in any hurry to read.) It is definately going on my reading list, along with this one, and a whole stack of them I've been planning to read since last year.