Tololy's Box

Londoning

I spent the day in London today, walking around and asking random strangers to take pictures of me striking the same pose over and over again next to different monuments and attractions. I was never good at asking strangers to take pictures of me, but today I devised a strategy not unlike that of your common criminal: target individuals, not groups, and preferably a female of your size or smaller. It worked!

Between my fetishistic fixation on the iconic red phone booths and the little street cafes, the things I was grateful for today are as follows, in no particular order:

1-Google maps: even though I still imagine the distances to be more than what they really are on Google maps, I managed to get everywhere I needed to go.

2- Free printing at the Centre for Women’s Studies: because otherwise I would have had to pay to print out my Google maps.

3- Student discounts: this goes for the train ticket, taxi ride, and the Whopper I had for dinner.

4- Other tourists: because they are always helpful and a couple were creative when they took my picture today. The police were also very friendly and I even had my picture taken with two officers in front of Buckingham Palace, with the third officer taking the picture.

5- My feet and super duper Airwalk sneakers: I swear by my sneakers, which are unfortunately starting to come apart after two years of almost daily use.

6-Luck: I was literally the last person to get on the train from London to York tonight, due to my usual gambling with time (did I really have to stop to buy a piece of cake a minute before the train took off?). There was also another very lucky coincidence today: I got to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace! Since they only do this on odd days in the Autumn, I was delighted that I attended it!

7- Luck (again): I reached Westminster Cathedral just in time for mass and attended it. I love attending mass, it feels right out of a Medieval story. The dim lights of candles inside the cathedral and the various chapels make it a wonderful place to watch people at prayer.

8- The weather: it was such a beautiful day today, even though only a few days ago the BBC forecast rain in London today. Then they changed their minds and said it will be sunny, and it was! It’s much warmer in London than it is in York.

9- Mobile internet: I spent the train journeys listening to internet radio on my phone, because my iPod doesn’t work at the moment.

10- Quiet at Hyde Park: although I am not much of a park person, it was wonderful to sit on a bench and have a quiet lunch, or semi-quiet. Pigeons sprung up out of nowhere and wanted to bully me into giving them my sandwich, which I had made at 4:30 AM. No, I said, NEVER!

I am now in love with London. I haven’t been able to move around a lot because I didn’t have much time, but from what I have seen around the Victoria area, it is a city bustling with energy and diversity. It makes you want to do things, it makes you want to be things, because you see all that history and beauty combined in one place and being enjoyed by people from all cultures. It is truly magnificient. I love it more than NYC, if that’s even possible.

Check out some of the pictures that I took today. There are a couple of videos of the guards change and other randomosity in there as well:

London

Now You Know

A relative of mine passed away yesterday. I got the call today while walking to the city centre, enjoying Noor Mhanna’s cover of Alf Leila w Leila. It was one of those calls when upon seeing the number on your phone your heart shrinks to the size of a button and you know something has happened. You look for hints of it in your caller’s voice and then, as if relieved by the delivery of sad news, you sigh and take comfort in the fact that now you know.

I took it well, with my usual numbness and inability to fully grasp events when they first unfold. After the suddenness of it wore out, my sole thought was that I will never see this woman again who always featured in every familial gathering, who always had something interesting to say, who was probably a hypochondriac, and who always wore the most beautiful Palestinian dresses. She was always graceful and well put-together, albeit too hung up on appearances. But whatever her faults, she was a lively character and she always made excellent conversations.

Then I felt distant. This is the first major event to take place back in Amman after my departure, and I felt that I should be closer. Then I remembered the obligatory nature of most events of this type, and the way they turn from sincere grief to shows of social status and displays of phony emotions, and I was glad that I wasn’t there. I can’t tolerate the disfigurement of the loss of a loved person. Why do we mutilate even death?

So she’s gone. And although she was always in the background of my memories, at least this way I will be able to retain her image as a colourful and stylish conversationalist who so often told stories of old Palestine.

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Layers of Identity

Ever since I started my program, I’ve been getting the chance to stand at a distance from my culture and re-evaluate it in a new light. A light that is not heavily charged with the antipathy that so often accompanies the desire to rebel. This has allowed me to really appreciate some aspects which, previously, I found to be stifling.

One of the main reasons why I am developing this retrospective leniency, if you will, is because I am physically distant from the daily pressures of conformity and resistance to critical thinking, which normally pushed me to extremes of rejection while I was in Jordan. Another reason is that I found out that it is not only Jordanian or Arabic culture that suffers certain ailments, particularly in relation to women, and that these are all too common. This might seem obvious, but I am surprised at the level of similarity that women’s oppression across the world assumes.

My third reason is a person. I’ve been taking classes with Haleh Afshar who has been continuously emphasizing the value of differences and similarities within a feminist political context. I already subscribed to that point of view, because it is both necessary and logical that we appreciate the differences in approaching women’s situations and evaluating them globally in order to bring about real change. However, reading Western feminist texts, I’ve become more convinced than ever that there are constructed discourses inside feminism, just as there are constructed discourses inside all human experiences. I found that arguments advanced by Arab feminists that I’ve read in the past carried similar and profoundly different arguments from what I am reading currently.

This is where Edward Said steps in, yet again, and this is where Afshar has been really instrumental in raising my fellow students’ consciousness. Her experience as a minority member, a Muslim, and a woman, in the UK resonates with me personally although I have not been in the UK for long and do not subscribe to Islamic thought per se. However, there are many points of similarity between her experience and mine. I am finding myself more and more giving credit where credit is due to certain aspects of Jordanian culture, while at the same time recognizing its shortcomings (which previously were the focus of my attention for political reasons.) This is largely due to Afshar’s comments about “how things are done differently” in Iran, which reminds me of how things are done differently in Jordan and that different is not necessarily bad.

There is that, and there is also a recognition that feminism takes on different forms that do not always have to be confrontational. As a socialist I am wary of the word “reform,” but I can still appreciate that there are many ways to do revolution and believe it is crucial to recognize that Western feminist thought may not be applicable in other cultures, and certainly not without taking into account culture-specific values. Where we draw the line between culture-specific values and misogyny is a contested issue that often gets muddied by politics.

Another amazing discovery that I made a couple of hours ago is that I am my culture. It may sound naive but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Today in class I found myself explaining the differences between Islamic and Islamist, Mujahid and Jihadi, Muhajjaba and Hijabi, although I do not consider myself Muslim any more. I found myself explaining what the label “anti-Semitic” actually means from the standpoint of a non-religious Arab supporter of the Palestinian cause.

I was all sorts of things from my history in one go, and people saw me as all these things combined: Muslim, Atheist, Arab, Political, Woman. I thought you shed identities when you change, but that is not the case. You build layers.

Blog Health

Notice of Life

As the title suggests, I am writing to inform the internets that I am still alive. I have been active on twitter during this prolonged period of absence of my blogging-self, so those of you who have been keeping up with my tweets will know what I have been up to. Mostly being social and settling down, that is.

I am still amazed at how life channelled itself as I have always wanted but never imagined that it actually would. I am here, the break with my Jordanian history took place and I started living elsewhere and pursuing what has been my ambition for a long time, but I still cannot wrap my mind around how it all happened and when it started. It’s like a flow of events, now that I look back at it, and there are no dramatic breakages.

Obviously that is not true, because there were several dramatic breakages along my journey here. To this point in my life. But I am numb and I am unable to compel myself to distinguish what happened when and how. I will look back at this marvellous period with awe one day; awe at my ability to distance myself from my own self and look at myself from without, like an observer and not a participant. Awe and wonder.

I have been in the UK for almost two weeks now, I am perfectly settled and I started my program. This time is full of newness; things to learn, ways to think, people to meet, food to cook. I am taking it all in, every last drop of it, because I feel a sense of accomplishment just by being here. I feel that I have successfully overcome the emotional, financial, and social hardships that obstructed my ambitions for years. I feel that I am proud of myself for sticking with myself and for fighting for my future and my present. I feel rewarded.

Lest this turn into a self-congratulatory narrative, I will move on to say that I sincerely apologize for not being around much lately. Obviously I have been quite busy back in Jordan after I got my studentship during the summer; seeing friends, enjoying Amman, being with family, organizing my trip and finalizing travel and accommodation arrangements. And then I left, somehow, in circumstances that could not have been any stranger and started acclimating myself to my new life.

I say strange circumstances, yes, because during the last two weeks of my stay in Amman magical things happened. These two weeks were a surreal chunk of my personal history and gave me memories that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Then on the night before my flight, my brother got into a fight and got stabbed in the back of his head which, needless to say, forced us to stay up all night partially at the hospital with police officers hovering around, and partially at home, worrying.

I hadn’t slept properly for two weeks and not at all the night before my travel, so when I did actually leave home my parents and I were too sleepy to understand that I was leaving. That of course cut back on the amount of tears and softened the heart-wrenching nature of our goodbye. It was like watching a movie, because I really had stepped outside myself during that time. I wasn’t even myself. I was a person leaving home and family after years of struggling to do so, but being incredibly detached about it. I had no feelings.

If I can venture a guess, I think that that was due to the fact that my brain was sleeping at the time. It was probably that, and this survival habit that I have which makes me go numb whenever I really shouldn’t. I think my system is not used to being pumped with too many, or too strong, emotions. It simply puts itself on numb mode and sees to it that it records the littlest details with the utmost care, for replaying later down the road, when the event itself is distant and when it is safe to feel things about it.

Anyway, my brother is fine. He wasn’t badly stabbed, as in he luckily only got a flesh wound, and he got stitched up. 13 stitches I think. But, as you might agree, that definitely was not the healthiest way to say goodbye to Jordan. Going to the hospital at 12 AM, thinking you’re going to identify your brother in a morgue because his friend who called you would not tell you what happened and would only say “do not panic and just come to the hospital,” and then seeing him alive but all bloodied up, then when he turns you see his head awkwardly shaved and crudely stitched up, all of that is not very pleasant when you have a plane to catch in a few hours.

There is much more that I want to write about, but for today I think this post is long and rich enough, even if I say so. I really hope that this would break my silence and prompt me to blog again, because quite frankly, I miss it. How have you been?

Lists, Lists

Whenever I find myself in the unpleasant position of having to make a big decision, the kind that determines major steps in my life, I make lists. I discovered this technique when I was 16 and at the first real crossroads in my life: determining which way to go in high school; the literary stream or the scientific stream.

My upbringing didn’t prepare me for either, really. I always thought that was because I never went to any summer camps largely because my parents couldn’t afford to send me to any, and also because they never bought into the idea in the first place. I am not sure that argument makes any sense now. I loved physics and biology equally as I loved Arabic and English. I hated math and chemistry as much as I resented geography. It was a tough call. So I made my first list.

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Status Quo

Now that I am unemployed, I really should devote more time to writing, maybe even blogging. But as with everything else, I am a creature of whimsy. There are no guarantees that I will do what I say or express what I do unless, I suppose, someone’s life depended on it. I doubt you will attach your life to the words of this insignificant, whimsical blogger. You’d be dead by now.

The Race

In my race against the clock (or calendar), I’ve put myself in a state of mind which is exhausting to maintain. Since I will be leaving, and since I have a tower of unread books tucked safely away from dust and humidity in my closets and bookcase, I decided that I must read as many as possible before my departure.

It’s a sort of pleasurable pain, if you will, with the pleasure outweighing the pain by folds. The pain itself is minimal (headaches, stress, continuous calculation of time left, sometimes a tinge of boredom) but the pleasure is immeasurable, acquiring almost physical qualities. The sensation caused by the rapid expansion of my horizon (whatever that is) and the way I can feel my knowledge stretching is second to none. It’s beautiful.

I suppose if this wasn’t a race I’d have been lethargic at some level, I wouldn’t be exactly racing against time but using it. I am not sure which scenario is better, but given the circumstances I don’t have much choice but to accept the race. On your mark, get set, go!

CEDAW: Pseudo Science & Pseudo Care

There’s a lot going on lately in Jordan and the Arab world to tempt one to claw their faces off. But I won’t claw my face off, because I obviously need it.

It seems to me that there is a growing tendency for Jordanian conservatives to pose as pseudo-scientists of late, and this is most evident in their refusal of the CEDAW (Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) which, interestingly enough, was not even signed within the last decade (signed in 1992) and was ratified in 2007. The uproar caused by the country’s recent lifting of its reservations on one of the three articles it originally objected to has been quite telling. It sort of opened Pandora’s Box of Medieval retardedness.

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