I'm Angry!

I guess this headache I’m suffering is a result of today’s Injaz session, which extended for two hours instead of one. I love it when this happens and when I get the chance to discuss more with the girls in class, but there was one story that really disturbed me, and I’m still trying to figure out if there’s something I can do about it.

Basically, some girls came to me in the break and told me that one of their friends, whom I’ll call Saba here, has been locked up in the house by her brother and not allowed to come to school. He had discovered that she was in a relationship with a guy – by seeing her talking to him one time, and has since decided that she is not to go to school anymore.

“When did this happen?” I asked

“Two weeks ago, and she hasn’t come to school since,” they told me.

They told me that her parents actually want her to go back to school, but that her brother is not going back on his decision. When I asked how old her brother is, they said “oh he’s old, he’s like 19”

Apparently, it doesn’t matter what her parents think, because as her oldest brother, he has full authority over her. Her friends tried to visit her at home and talk to him, but he kicked them out.

Saba asked her friends to tell me the story, and they were like “What do you think we should do? Can you help her? Can you come with us to her place?”

I do have the sense to acknowledge that if there was any chance her brother would listen to someone, this someone would NOT be me. I told the girls that perhaps they can talk their school counselor or principal and see if they would pay Saba a home visit and talk to her parents. Perhaps someone from the school would convince the father to talk some sense into her brother.

I’m guessing that her brother will not keep her locked up forever, and that eventually, he’ll let her go back to school after he thinks she’s learned her lesson or something… but what’s killing me is the fact that he has the power to do this in the first place!

Isn’t education in Jordan compulsory until 10th grade? So how is this law enforced? Can legal action be taken against parents (or brothers) who force their children (or sisters) out of school before 10th grade? I mean, ideally, if the law were to be applied, what’s the way to do it?


I need to go get an aspirin, and find a punch bag.

Morning Roundup: Media Matters, Women Candidates, and more Snippets!

I have a cold and I’m sleep-deprived and should be working at this pre-dawn hour rather than blogging, so I will refrain from attempting to write coherent personal opinions on the snippets of news I’m about to share :)

- A New Jordanian TV Station, WTV (Watan TV), launched yesterday. It’s headed by previous member of Parliament Raed Qaqish, who said in a press conference yesterday that the station will “highlight tourism attractions and economic achievements in the Kingdom in a bid to support the national economy”, as reported by the Jordan Times. It will also feature special programs on the upcoming Parliamentary elections. Interesting how the main thing Qaqish chose to say about the station is that it will highlight tourism attractions and economic achievements! This is definitely the main thing Jordanians are thirsty for in a private TV station!!! Who needs investigative journalism that would expose anything negative and tarnish the image of the country, right??

- Meanwhile, new ATV director Zaid Rashdan said that the station is working on settling “financial and legal obligations with concerned authorities to pave the way for the start of both terrestrial and satellite transmission”. Al-Ghad reports that Radi Alkhas, regional manager of ART and general director of Jordan's Media City, has been appointed Chairman of ATV, who will go by a new commercial name soon.

- Still in media, a new Arabic-language weekly newspaper Assijil (meaning: the record) will be launching soon. It’s chaired by Mustafa Hamarneh (previous head of the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies, and current parliamentary candidate for the first district of Madaba). Vice-Chairperson is theatre director and social activist Samar Dudin.

- In other news, Toujan Faisal was informed by the governor and head of the elections central committee that her application to run for parliament was rejected, because she had been convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2002 for “insulting the dignity of the state, spreading lies, and offending religious feelings”. She was released back then with a special royal pardon, but was not allowed to run for the 2003 elections. According to reports, last may the court issued a decision allowing her to run. Toujan will appeal the rejection decision but says she is certain the court will not judge in her favor.

- 46 women in Irbid registered to run for parliament! According to the current women’s quota system, the six winners have to get the highest percentage of votes to the total number of voters in their district. This is what enabled previous MP Insaf Al-Khawaldeh from Tafila to get into parliament with only 365 votes (whereas Hayat Massimi, the IAF candidate from Zarqa, got more than 7000 votes). Perhaps women now think that with the quota, it is easy to get into Parliament!! But for a city like Irbid, with a large population and a large number of registered voters, it’s very difficult for a woman to get a percentage of votes that would secure a win, let alone when you have this number of women running! Forty-six!!! (In 2003, the total number of women running all over Jordan was 54, out of 756 candidates)

- In cultural news, there’s a classical music concert tonight at the Hussein Cultural Centre - Ras Al Ain at 7:30pm. There’s also an Iraqi festival week starting at Al-Balad theatre, with screenings at 6:00 pm and at 8:30 pm today and tomorrow.

Good morning :)

Official Election Campaigning Starts

Candidate registration for next month's Parliamentary elections started yesterday, and will run until tomorrow afternoon.

- Total number of registered candidates yesterday was 805
- Out of those, approximately 15.8% were women
- The women's quota is 6 seats out of 110, around 5.5% (there were hopes and suggestions to raise it to 12, one seat per governorate)
- Five of the six women who were in the previous Parliament registered to run again

A great resource for updated news on the elections is Abu Mahjoob's Observatory for the Parliamentary Elections (Oo3a), as well as Ammon News.

On Wadi Rum, sleazy guys, and why you shouldn't trust travel agency trips!

Some tourist destinations should remain as low-profile as possible. This was one of the conclusions I came out with after our family trip to the south of Jordan during the Eid Holiday.

The main purpose was to go camping in Wadi Rum. It had been ages since we went on a family trip, because it’s just very hard to find a time that works for eight people – with different school, universities, and work schedules.

Dad had been spotting a lot of newspaper ads for trips to Wadi Rum, in most cases including Petra and Aqaba, so he contacted a bunch of them to explore the options. The day before the trip all of us realized that it would’ve been better for us to get some 4x4 car and go on our own, but it was a little too late to organize such a thing, so we went with one of those tourism agencies.

We left Amman at 7:00 am, headed to Petra first where we spent a little over three hours, followed by lunch, then went on to Wadi Rum before sunset, had dinner along with a musical evening at the camp, and spent the night there before heading to Aqaba at 9:00 am the next morning.

I had a brilliant time. It was an interesting trip, with “interesting” being the loaded vague word it usually is ;) here are some of my thoughts and observations:

- One or two people told me Wadi Rum is overrated! That is not true!! It gives an absolutely awe sparking experience... hiking, rock climbing, watching the stars at 4:00 am and then the sun rise from atop a mountain in the middle of the desert… it’s all very serene, and the perfect getaway from everyday life in Amman.

- That said; DO NOT go with large groups of total strangers. Get your own car, and if possible your own tent and camping equipment. Well, at least take your own car if you don’t want to have to put up with unbearable obnoxiously loud music for three and a half hours while you’re desperately trying to either sleep or simply enjoy the desert highway.

- Our campsite had around 30 tents (if my memory serves me right), and it was one of four or five campsites set up around one of those big rock mountains. While you see many people going for the 4x4 rides in the desert, very few leave the camp vicinities to walk and climb. My sisters and I did run into some people while we were out in the desert exploring and watching the sunrise, but generally, most of the people in our camp attempted to sleep after the evening party and got up the next morning to have breakfast and continue to Aqaba afterwards.

- Why oh why do guys become such annoying creatures when they are within guys-only groups?? Why do many guys become sleazy jerks? Why is it that, for example, at the first sight of girls stepping on the dance floors, guys take out their phone cameras and start filming so 3ainak-3ainak, causing the girls to immediately step back?? The guy who was running the camp threatened to take the cameras and kick the person using it out of the camp. I felt I was in 1st grade, but it was somewhat effective. It was also amusing how this person who was running the show would give turns on the dance floor; first it’s for the “shabab” – the guys alone, and then it’s for “3a2ilat” – families, i.e. girls alone, groups of guys and girls, kids, and older people. This sort of categorization is very common place in Jordan, but I still find it amusing and odd at the same time… for example you’d have restaurants that say “families only”, but “families” means any group that includes a female. All-female groups are identified as families. Two guys and a girl are a “family”. Two guys alone would not be allowed. Sometimes I think this is very discriminatory. While I did just say that most guys have the tendency to become sleazy when they’re in all-guy groups, in many cases people are quick to incriminate all-guy groups simply for being.

At around 4:00 am, my sisters and I woke up. While walking towards the toilet, we ran into a woman and her daughter. The mother was a total wreck. She was like “I had no idea it was going to be like this, I don’t know what got into my head to bring my kids and my sister’s family on this trip. Never again!” She said was terrified when she heard some guys walking between the tents and being very loud. She couldn’t bare to sleep in the tents anyway, so she took her family and went into the big common tent (!!) She kept saying how she didn’t know this is what camping in Wadi Rum was going to be like, and I wanted to ask her “what exactly did you think it was going to be?? A hotel in the desert? 5-star tents?” When we tried convincing her that there is nothing to be afraid of because she was part of a big group here, she asked me “do you work? What do you do?” I told her I’m a journalist and she was like “aaahhh… that explains it!”

That explains what??? That I’m not terrified and hating everything about the trip?!!

When we told her that we wanted to watch the stars and that this is one of the most amazing things about being in Wadi Rum, she got all sarcastic about it, looking up at the sky and saying “oh look there are three stars aligned!! Since we’re here we might as well look at the stars.”

When we were leaving Wadi Rum, the trip coordinator pointed out to some construction taking place at one side of the mountain saying that this is a campsite that their tourism agency is building. They were building small cabins rather than having tents, I just felt sad. Obviously this was great business for them. But it got me wondering how well this whole thing is regulated?? What are the criteria for giving out a license to set up a commercial camp site? How many of those is it reasonable to allow?

While it’s a very positive thing to see local tourism on the rise and people wanting to explore different parts of their own country, it’s a bit scary to think that a peaceful quiet place like Wadi Rum might eventually become overcrowded with camps, bringing in lots of package-trips where people don’t really know nor appreciate what it is they’re going for. That woman we saw was not very much an exception. And that agency we went with was bringing in something like 400 people every day!!! Of course it’s just one of many travel agencies that do this kind of thing.



PS. The camera batteries died before sun rise, so I used a disposable film camera. I’ll share those as soon as they’re developed.

Axis of Evil Comedy Tour comes to Jordan

For the few of you who didn't find out through Facebook, I thought I'd share this. I'm actually very excited about seeing these guys in Amman. I saw a DVD of Ahmed Ahmed and Dead Obeidallah a couple of years ago, and some of their stuff are hilarious. (check out this Time Magazine article about them)

This actually reminds me of a very interesting article a friend sent me a while ago..

“They say Arab-Americans are the new African-Americans,” Dean Obeidallah says a few minutes into his set on the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour Special. The audience nods in acknowledgement. Indeed, Arab-Americans are now the minority of choice for racial profiling, discrimination and hate crimes in this country. But Obeidallah continues, “When I heard that expression, I was excited. I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re cool!’ Kids in Jersey are going to start acting ‘Arab.’ They’ll be smelling like lamb, wearing gold chains and open shirts, detailing their cars to look like taxi cabs.”

Obeidallah’s joke is funny because it taps into something true about being America’s persecuted minority of the moment. Yes, it is a terrible curse, but with that dubious honor comes a certain cultural capital. With keffiyehs wrapped around the necks of hipsters coast to coast, one of the hottest bands of the moment going by the name Beirut, and Comedy Central snapping up shows like the “Axis of Evil Comedy Tour” and The Watch List, it seems like America’s pop-cultural tastebuds are primed for Middle Eastern flavors—for better or worse, it’s becoming cool to be Arab-American.

Read the entire article. And call Play FM to book a ticket for the show, which run three days from the 17th till the 19th of November at the Courtyard (!!) No mention of ticket prices on the poster, the website, or the Facebook group.

...

It was 6:30pm when I took that photo yesterday, driving back home from work, and stopping by Cups and Kilos for a latte that I rarely get the chance to have these days.

Driving through almost-empty streets, I wrote up an entire blog post in my head; contemplating the visual icons of Amman, time, growing up, coffee, boredom, the fact that it’s almost two years since the Amman hotel bombings, the National Agenda that was due to be launched right after Eid in 2005, how the National Agenda was sidelined, the Bakhit government, the upcoming parliamentary elections, how disappointed and disenchanted I am thinking about them, looking back at college days, having given up engineering for journalism, loving Amman, hating Amman, loving Amman, being bored and tired of Amman…

If only one can write posts the moment they take form in one’s head…

Or may be the blogosphere has been spared one very long useless ramble!

INJAZ update: How do young girls see themselves?

I gave each girl two pieces of A3 paper, and told them: “The first one is for how you see yourself now, and the second for how you see yourself in 15 years. Use writing, drawing, and magazine cutouts to create this portrait.”

I’ve done this same exercise with my 8th grade INJAZ students last year. This semester, I’m back to giving this “Personal Life Planning” course to 8th grade girls in a public school in Al-Nuzha. The class has 47 students!!

It was quite a challenge for me to find a collection of magazines so they can get some cut outs. I didn’t want to bring lots of English-language magazines that they would not relate to or understand, but then I was faced with the obvious challenge; lack of Arabic-language publications that would interest this age-group, and lack of good imagery and visuals in existing magazines. I was mortified at the photos in “Rama” and “Sharqiyyat”… you know, photos of women who have all been to the same plastic surgeon!!

In the end, I get some copies of Sharqiyyat, JO, Venture, amongst some other things like Football World, Spectrum, and RJ’s Royal Wings (which is another story on its own).

It takes me forever to explain to the girls what they need to do, and they still find it so hard to reflect how they see themselves now or in 15 years through some creativity. They write the typical line “I’m a 13-year-old girl in 8th grade…” and then they stop!

“What makes you special?” I ask

I get blank looks

“What would you love to be doing in the future?”
“I want to be married and be a perfect mom and raise successful kids” one girl said.

That’s noble and all, but wouldn’t it be totally illogical if every kid’s dream was to raise successful kids?? I mean, what about YOU, I ask! What do YOU want to do? You can’t as a kid wait to have kids so that they would give meaning and purpose to your life!

I go around observing what each girl is doing, and it turns out most of them just filled up the entire A3 space for the “15 years later” with an image of a woman in a wedding dress, or an attractive woman, or a couple, or some cute poster kids.

When one girl asks me how I would fill up a sheet like that, I tell her “I’d like to imagine myself 15 years from now having published a book; a novel that portrays having grown up here. I’d also like to have made a couple of good documentaries. At 40, I’d like to be as insane as ever…” I’m starting to get quite into it when she interrupts me saying “Oh miss you have such a wild imagination!”

!!

As they’re flipping through the magazines, I point out to one cover casually “see this, this is Majd Shweika, the CEO of Mobilecom”, and one girl gets excited and cuts it out saying, “I want to be like this 15 years from now”. I point to another cover “This is Suraya Salti, managing director of INJAZ Arabia”, and another “this is Lina Attal, a pioneer in theatre arts”…

I may be biased because I work at JO, but the truth is that I’ve always admired how the cover is always a local face… a Jordanian star. If only it was in Arabic! If I can give my students articles about Jumana Mustafa and her poetry, Natalie Hijazi and her beautiful jewelry design, Ruba Saqr and her amazing music…

Since that class, I can’t get this issue out of my mind; the fact that young people don’t have local role models to look up to, the fact that you don’t find Arabic-language youth magazines with proper outreach that can inspire kids, and the fact that kids don’t read, to start with.

I don’t watch Ramadan soaps so I probably shouldn’t comment on that, but the other day I saw ten minutes of “Bab El 7ara”. If this is the kind of thing these young girls are glued to, if this is what shapes their culture… I can’t help but see a bleak image of what their future might look like.

I’m not saying they’re not supposed to aspire to marriage and being good moms, but I’m trying to point out to them that life doesn’t stop there.

Then again, I’d hate to be spreading the “super woman” illusion!

I guess it’s all about choices, access to choices, freedom to make one’s own choices, and freedom to realize one’s potential to the fullest.



PS. Interested in volunteering with INJAZ? Click here.

I cannot stand it when...

... people assume moral superiority!