Or Not To Be

It seems I have tilted lately towards personal-reflective type posts, and that can get annoying and make me lose my focus and join the ranks of “them bloggers who are female, maintain personal blogs, and think everything is right with the world when they go shopping.” I have always resented that stereotype because female bloggers add as much, if not more, value as their male counterparts and especially so in the Arab blogosphere (we’ll argue over the validity of calling a group of blogs a “blogosphere” later).

This isn’t a post about bloggers and their stereotypes and all that jazz. Nor is it about women and their undeniable contributions. This is a post about my own demons and how they relate to and affect this space I call my blog.

Last night, I had a reading marathon of sorts. I had stopped reading extracurricular books almost since the start of this semester under the excuse that I barely had time to finish class readings and work. That was a lie I told myself to make myself feel better about spending hours chatting online or thinking of my future, which are all good activities, but ones that have consumed me with an appetite lately.

So as I was saying, yesterday I started and completed Amin Maalouf’s In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, which prompted, or re-fueled, a number of questions I had and also answered many I was challenging myself and others with. Maalouf articulated my thoughts for me, clearly and precisely, and that lifted a load off my brain. But, like any good argument, it also left me with other questions.

In the Name of Identity is a book about identity and how it plays a role in our behavior, reception, and perception of other people and of changes in the world. The book looks at things historically and logically (as Maalouf has an affinity with history) and attempts to dissect the current situation of the world, yes –the world, what a big arena!, from that perspective but also with an inevitable touch of evolutionary rhetoric. It does so using a personal tone and it explains the obvious which most of us cannot quite put our fingers on.

I enjoyed reading Maalouf immensely, and I wondered how come I never read my father’s copy of hisThe Crusades Through Arab Eyes. I suppose it was because when I was younger, history was synonymous with things long gone that I should not bother with, events which are both dull and draining to remember, and names of dead people. But not anymore do I think that way.

According to Maalouf, with whom I agree, our current plague as a global village is the holding-on to tribal identities. At the sight of the word “tribal” people will imagine tents and camels and an atmosphere strictly Arab, but that’s not an accurate picture. What he means by tribal is the idea that we must be belong, that we do belong, to one tribe almost exclusively and above all others: religion, nationality, gender, you name it. It is when this “tribe” is most threatened that we resort to classifying ourselves under its flag with vehemence. This classification changes according to the various threats, actual or fictional, that we observe, and it leads us to stress points that were once negligible, and it leads us to close ourselves up. It’s reflex supreme.

Lest this post turn into an analysis of Maalouf’s work, I will stop talking about it here. It has influenced what I am about to say, though: this blog was started as an attempt to fight stereotypes (mainly of veiled women, Arab women, and Arab people and culture). Now I know why it was so. Because when I started this blog, I felt threatened as a veiled, Arab woman and I felt greatly marginalized both in the Arab world or what I received of it, and in other places where I had been where people would either look down at me with disgust and mistrust or with sheer pity. Nobody, not here or there, could pierce through my appearance to know that I liked piercings, fine arts, and modern languages, or that I had severe doubts about what set of beliefs I had which kept secretly yet dramatically changing over time. Nobody bothered, and nobody knew who I was.

That was the thesis of this blog: to show “them” that I can think and even excel at it, use English extremely well, and have discussions with whomever I want about whatever subject. Thus, I thought, I would achieve balance between upper and middle class Jordanians, and between the West and the Arab East, and by that I would have acted as a bridge and resolved conflict within my capacity.

So since that was the driving force behind my entering the blogging scene, and I continue to adhere to the same principles, what new do I bring? Why does the not-so-occasional personal rant sneak in here if this is a strictly serious and mission-oriented space? My ideas have changed, why do I let myself be confused with someone I was and no longer am? How come I can’t express my opinions as bluntly as I shoot them when asked about them in real-life? I mean, my real-life opinions have earned me quite a reputation and a load of problems starting with family and ending with school, so why can’t I risk having that reputation and those problems through this blog? Why not transmit the same issues I worry about and fight over on a daily basis through here? What do I fear?

I don’t know yet. It could be a distant relative suddenly realizing I am someone they know and then telling my parents I am sharing family issues online. It could be an ex-acquaintance realizing I didn’t portray them as perfect and leaving me angry comments. It could be a stalker, old or new, out on the hunt for anything that can be turned into abuse. It could be futile dialog that takes an unpredicted turn in the comments section. It could be anything. I really, and honestly, can’t point it out.

Still, this uneasiness makes me want to stop blogging. If I bring nothing of value and nothing new, unlike others who obviously do since they enjoy a lot more popularity (and I keep my opinions of their contributions to myself), then why bother? If the people like chirpy entertainment junk-food-for-the-brain type things or hardcore extremism, would it matter if a moderate rational tried to sell her stuff? If I can’t affect change like I set out to do, then why sit idly by and watch my blog become filled with little quirky tales about my eccentricities and other trivia? If I do not have a distinct voice amidst the masses, what’s the point except satisfying my own ego? And isn’t that petty?