I Saved Shahrazade : My response to Joumana Haddad’s Book

by farahhashim

A Direct response to her Book, “ I killed Shahrazade”

By Farah ALHashem

Location: New York

I don’t live in Beirut anymore, but I have come up with a routine that have kept me up to date with what was happening there. I have decided to buy books in Beirut every time I was there, then I spend my 11 hours flight reading those books until I arrive safely to my Manhattan apartment.

The airplane was crowded; I sat on a very comfortable window seat and decided to start reading Joumana Haddad ‘s book “ I killed Shahrazade.”

One page after the other, I found myself at times happy and wanted to applaud her in my mind for her insightful analysis of the Arab world and women to be exact, but there were times where I wanted to shake her shoulders and ask her “ What the hell were you thinking?”

I was not in New York yet nor Paris, I was not on land and I was kind of in the air, so nothing could affect my opinion and what I’m about to say may be brutal but honest. At least that is what I believe in and freedom of expression protects me the same way it protects Haddad.

I have so many reasons to protect Shahrazade from murder, but I will leave you with 6 reasons only. Haddad discussed her relationship with sexuality, men, religion, her family, her city and her identity as a woman, and as an Arab woman.

I support some of the thoughts she has expressed in the book, but I come here to disapprove on some reasons and I will tell you why.

I don’t think it is healthy or correct to start a relationship with murder.  The ability to murder a part of your past, will give a direct negative reaction to your present and it will affect your future.

Starting a relationship with yourself by murdering a part of it will not save you from the guilt trip that you will go through, nor it will save you from your flaws and mistakes.

Killing shahrazade is not the answer for Arab women to over come their flaws, their mistakes, or their mistreatment in their Arab society.

Killing someone or something is a sign of denial or running away from the problem and it shows weakness. I believe that facing the problem is a better way to deal with it.

I understand Haddad’s anger, I understand her reasoning about the representations of women in the Arab world and I understand the suffer women have to go through in Arab countries in order to live a normal life, but this kind of racism is not only found in the Arab world, it is everywhere so why associate this to a race? or a religion or an identity?

I believe that blaming human kind is a better way to understand our issues all, as a nation, and I believe that the first mistake Haddad made is dividing the nations into west and east and falling in the trap of western and eastern world and the division politics have created all those years. I believe that a writer should unite people with words about the common problems we all suffer from and not differentiate backgrounds, because we are all in the same boat.

Haddad describes Beirut as a destructive city, where dreams are shattered and lives are meaningless, but somehow the irony here is that she has succeeded in creating a career for herself, working as an editor in An-Nahar newspaper, having two beautiful children, falling in love with man of her dreams I presume, publishing her words, publishing her magazine. I mean where is the destruction in this?

Dear Haddad Beirut gave you so much, and others like us had to escape somewhere else to find it.

I understand that one of the major ideas Haddad mentioned in her books or writings is the idea of the middle eastern man and that she does not fall for his effect or control, yet she kept falling in the Freudian Trap where her tongue slipped more than once by rewriting about her father and his influence on her and how his opinion mattered or did not.

I believe that writing about something over and over, and saying it or mentioning it everywhere, means you have a conflict with it. So I truly believe that Haddad did not get over the idea she was asking other women to reject: Man’s approval

I understand the beauty of Sex, although I understand that it is still considered a taboo in some areas of Lebanon and part of the society still believes in sex after marriage, so what is wrong with that?

 

For example, if I reject the idea of eating French fries, because it causes me indigestion issues, should I start writing about it that it is danger to society? Maybe others enjoy eating French fries. All I have to do is just find myself a substitute for French fries like beet salad so I can please myself physically and mentally.

Haddad speaks about the importance of sexual freedom and expression and I salute her for that, but she should not apply this to all mentalities in Lebanon or the Arab world.

We are living at times where everybody can say their opinion no matter what, there are Facebook, twitters, blogs and you tubes for anyone to speak up their mind, there is a social awareness campaigns all around us and the world has become like a small global village.

If some people choose to be sexually conservative let them be.

What I like about the United States is that 50 state although one president and one constitution rule them; they have different identities, tiny ones.

The Amish people have their own rules, people from Texas are conservative enough to enjoy eating meat, holding beauty competitions, marrying in a church and supporting the Republican Party.

Should we say they are wrong?

No they are not but that doesn’t mean other states agree with them. They are simply living their lives the way they want it.

Telling people what to think about sex or how to use it or what to feel about it is an act of dictatorship and not democratic nor liberal.

I believe that if Haddad wants to enjoy having sex without matrimony that is not wrong at all, it is her natural right for example to enjoy her body. But it is not allowed for her to ask everybody to think likewise.

I’m not here to judge Haddad in fact I don’t have a problem with her opinion about sexuality but what I have a problem with is her trying to project her opinion and force it among the rest of us. One time I discussed the subject of virginity with her in a chat box on Facebook, I found it strangely enough that she is inviting me to liberate myself and indulge in the pleasure of Sex, but what confused me is that why did she relate sex with liberation?

Why not consider that I’m liberal enough to protect my body from promiscuous life, and try at least to enjoy myself with a man who I truly love. I mean with all due respect but humans tend to hunt and chase. We like the idea of going after something, and I believe having everything available to us will kill this desire and lose its magic.

I remember watching an old opera entitled “L’elisir d’amore” at the Lincoln Center few months back, it is a very beautiful romantic Italian opera some how portrayed our human race so perfectly and especially the relationship between a man and a woman.

There is a part where the girl is walking around a garden, she is beautifully dressed and she was covering her hair, and then she took the scarf off and placed the it on the floor and sat under an apple tree, the hero kept following her, observing her as she walks around and her dress was beautiful, then when they got closer and he touched her hand she felt shy enough to run the opposite way. I was blown away by this action and the music that followed. The intensity of this flirtatious act made me wonder what ever happened to it?

Understanding the sexual pleasure and our body sometimes can ruin the act itself. If you scientifically research every sexual position it will kind of turn me off honestly, and I will feel like a lab rat instead of a lover. Gerard Damiano a director who made a very early porn film called deep throat in 1972 said that the recent porn industry films are too outrageous and too obvious and are not sexy. Said in a documentary called “deep throat” and you can easily find it online.

Writing about sex, publishing a penis on the cover of a magazine can ruin this magical intensity of knowing the unknown, there are women up until this moment where they refuse to define what a G spot is and like to test their sexuality and role play during sex. I mean the idea of hiding yourself in someone else’s or shifting your identity means you like to escape yourself when having sex. The pleasure is always hidden in the unknown.

Haddad always said that sex is part of us and it is a desire just like water and food and should not be an obsession. Well I agree but she is contradicting herself, and I believe that not talking about sex doesn’t necessarily make us a backward thinkers.

Having sex is a personal subject and I have discovered that finding a virgin now in Beirut is like trying to find Waldo in where is Waldo.

Maybe some people still reject the idea of opening up about their sexuality and the only solution we have here is to be patient and move on with our lives and things will fall into place and people will start talking, but forcing them to talk or pointing fingers at them or attacking won’t make them talk.

There is an idea that slipped my mind I want to share with you, Let us ask ourselves why do porn stars want to create a story in a porn film like Teacher and student, or Doctor and patient or Police and criminal. This classic professional relationship that is based entity on certain aspects of someone’s life, if they get to make it sexual and break that professional boundary it will become extremely sexy and desiring. Why?

Because breaking boundaries is sexy but if we break all boundaries, there is nothing left to break and we won’t have that pleasure of accomplishing the unknown or the “banned”

It is a human nature to desire to break the unbreakable.

Everything that becomes too available becomes undesirable.

Publishing a photograph of a French passport on your Facebook wall dear Haddad, then criticizing and damning your Beirut, what does this say about you? If you see yourself French then you are not entitled to call yourself an Arab woman.

If you are happy in France why not go there? And I’m saying this with all love and care and wondering how come you are criticizing a country that you refuse to represent? Or a nation that you refuse to be part of?

Insulting the Arab identity is not the answer to solve the Arab identity crisis, in fact insulting Arab women, and men, and its history, will not solve the problem nor will progress in our lives.

 

I would like to list to you few reasons why killing Shahrazade is a mistake 

First Haddad said that our background does not necessarily need to give us a reason to be bad, yet in other sentences she contradicts herself by saying that being an Arab means we need to be hypocrites and schizophrenic, and that your ideas are repressed and you cannot speak the truth, but I wonder how did she find people to edit and proofread her book, publish it and promote for it?

Aren’t those people Arabs? Those who interviewed you on TV to discuss your ” repressed thoughts”?

Denying this is hypocrisy itself. 

I think Haddad has a very unhealthy relationship with her city Beirut, and I believe that the first step into creating a healthy relationship with the people around you, and your city is by starting to fix yourself first.

What I truly believe is that Beirut is corrupt not because of hidden and repressed thoughts on the contrary it is corrupt because of the obsessive expression of different ideas, and sometimes too much democracy can ruin a nation. Just like too much honesty can ruin a relationship, sometimes knowing too much or seeing too much can ruin us.

What saddens me is that a woman like joumana Haddad who speaks 7 languages and traveled the world comes to a conclusion that being an Arab woman means facing unemployment, political corruption, economical catastrophe and backwardness. Even though I have been living in New York for the past 3 years I come to a huge realization that NYC is like an egg, very light surface; covered and protected by what seems to be strong laws and speaks about modernity and development yet 4 million of its 8 million are homeless or depressed, or repressed under the capitalist lifestyle, and stuck.  They do not know where to go!! 

A nation that walks by a homeless and does not care, a nation half its population consider staring at the other in the eye is an invasion of privacy. Yes those people exist!

 

I can’t count to you the days, I found myself by mistake looking back at someone in the subway just because our eyes met in the same direction since standing in the subway waiting to reach your destination is no fun, and it is bound to happen and see the other. I was confronted with curses and swear and disrespect for their privacy.

What I mean is no one is perfect.

So I started imitating them, and holding a book and stuffing my vision between papers so I won’t commit the mistake and look at the other or even smile.

I guess being an Arab is considered backward to some, if we still believe in the intimacy of human relations, in smiling to strangers and I remember that day in HAMRA STREET where an entire street was grieving the loss of Ali, the homeless man who died from cold weather.

It is true that we are a nation filled with misconceptions and mistakes, we are a nation that hold so many different people but instead of attacking each other one has to step back and think why did this happen in the first place?

If the Europeans don’t want women to wear veil in France then I blame the French system. Not the veiled women.

There is something called freedom of expression and freedom of choice, I think the French and the British then later Americans have bragged about it in their constitutions and their media outlets and movies and TV programs yet they control and hide those who are different from them, they interrogate their Arabs and Muslims in their airports, they make racist films and cast Arabs as terrorists and write books about Arabs as being third world.

Colonization had a lot to do with how we see the world and I think we should sit one day and start reading and analyzing our history before trying to murder it. 

There has been a study made by an environmental expert who happens to teach at university of Sweden he has created a digital system; a program that can show the progress and development or under development of countries around the world in terms of culture, politics, economy and so forth.

He sent a direct message in the UN charter accusing the UN of manipulating the truth and asked for the cancelation of the term ” Third world, and first world. “

According to him those terms do not exist anymore and should be deleted, as he started comparing systems he said that let us say America is economically a first world country, but according to Mexico, it is considered a third world when it comes to its medical insurance.

The world has changed and we should follow this change.

I believe, from my knowledge that studying in a catholic conservative school can lead to an explosion later. An emotional one.

Reading Islamic fatwa from weird websites or hearing them in strange media outlets that are obvious to the eye and its stupidity, and quoting them in your book means that your desire to hate is not powerful or solid enough, and you are giving yourself a reason to hate religion, thus taking over your objective logical thinking and that will not make you better than those weird extremists.

I’m not saying I’m religious, but I learned something from college back in Beirut that I should doubt everything I read, and look for an explanation and not take anything for granted.

I spent 15 years studying Islam, as well as studying biblical studies and for the past 3 years I have taken courses in New York about Judaism.

I came to a realization that religions are books! They are pieces of papers, series of words created to organize one’s self like a philosophy book, it does not mean, it needs to control your life, and only those weak can let a book control their life or the way they think. 

It is true that I personally do not believe in any religion and I’m not controlled by those books, but I chose to believe in an ultimate power I shall call god, I mean if I want to scream out of pleasure, or scream out of anger, who shall I call? ? I need to have someone to blame my miseries and lucky fortune on, we humans are imperfect and we tend to blame others, and having a god watching us can allow us to do that, but that doesn’t stop us from living the life we had planned for ourselves.

Why do we read about yoga? And do it?  I mean this is a physical and mental treatment that was created to help us in our stressed times yet it is considered a meditation tool in Buddhism.

Why did we allow ourselves to take it? We were selective when it came to Buddha

I agree with what I have read in “identity” by Amin Maluf when he described people as “those who change a religion and their societies can change a religion only but not the opposite.”

So I believe Haddad should not look at those people who pretend to be religious, those are not the real face of religion!!

It is ok to be an atheist or a non believer we all choose at the end to believe or not to believe but it is a bad decision to attack religion or to be exact, to attack those are misusing religion and generalize that religion sucks!

If you hate Beirut that much, and you feel it is strangling you, I think you need a break from it so leave Beirut. I think that is the perfect solution to your phobias and your insecurities about the city. Leave it and never come back.

We all tend to leave sometimes!! To somewhere physically or mentally

Loving Beirut is an effort itself, understanding it and embracing it without getting anything in return is the idea of love and what it stands for. If you ask too much from someone who cannot give a lot is a selfish act. I truly believe that Beirut has so little to offer and the rest is left for us to explore.

It is a very old school of thought where your voice is born in its streets, where you meet different people and realize this city is multicolored and has so many faces to show. I believe Haddad has failed to see Beirut as a city and took it for granted just because she was born in it.

I realized through experience that those who are born in Beirut some of them condemn Beirut until they leave it. Sometimes if you love something it will come back to you, so my advice Haddad if you hate Beirut so much, if you believe Beirut has destroyed you, the best is to leave it maybe someday you will run toward it and accept it the way it is.

 Why I saved Shahrazade 

I believe that shahrazade is like my Plato, no it is not my Plato literally, but it is a historical symbol that somehow her philosophy with men and life surprised me and shook me to my core, I truly believe that Shahrazade was witty and smart, she used her skills and used it against Shahrayar.  I believe she was intelligent enough to use his weapons against him. And I would love to represent shahrazade anywhere I go.

Why?

Understanding where we come from will help us know where we want to go. And that means not killing any part of our history so we won’t be condemned to repeat it.