Please enjoy another lovely tribute received from Tariq Al-Meeana:
My Spoken Word
I’m passive, weak, uneducated
Veiled from head to toe
One of his four wives
Work in the kitchen all day
And spread my legs wide at night
That’s what you think, right?
Funny how the devil spreads ignorance amongst a “civilized people”
The Orientalist whispers in so many ears
To him, I’m the mistress of the harem
Black-hair, olive skin, eyes that glow, hips that don’t lie
Hold up
Sexual exploitation- There’s nothing exotic about that
Or
I’m poor, cracked feet that never touched soft designer shoes
Dirty, hungry, cold, alone
I’m calling out for help, America save me from my fathers, my brothers, my backward culture, America– save me from myself,
Let me tell you something
You don’t have to be a woman to hear my stories
But you have to be a woman to understand them
The blood that boils in my veins is the same as yours
My story is a testament of my struggle
My struggle is a testament of my faith
I am a Muslim woman
Muslim woman.
I made Prophets weak in the knees,
Fought alongside my man in war
Then went home to nurture my baby
Does that surprise you?
You say I need liberation
What do you call it?
Oh yeah…Furthering women’s rights in the Middle East
I have one thing to say to you
My liberation won’t come from the one who has oppressed me
Bringing me democracy
You think you’re really gonna send Condi
to tell me how to be free
But wait, I’m not here to play the blame game
Let’s make this more real
Not only do I take this hate from you
But I take it internally from the close-minded bigots of my own society
So my Muslim father tells me how to dress, but so does BCBG
So my Muslim brothers tell me how to act, but so does MTV
Yea… so it’s this double bind I face
When I realize that if I do what I want,
I won’t make anyone happy
Too good to be bad, too bad to be good
But wait, why this dichotomy
Since when did my identity become a zero sum game
Why do you insist on labeling me?
Putting me in boxes simple and easy only for you to understand
Countless books and movies dedicated to uncovering me instead of just letting me be
What’s in free will when my spiritual will isn’t allowed to be free
Just look at France and Turkey
“Unveiling the Muslim Woman”
Why don’t I unveil your sexist patriarchal ideology
Remember The golden rule—treat others how you’d like to be treated, if you’re so keen to educate then please be educated,
Enslaving not our bodies now but our minds,
Eating disorders and depression, no love and not that much attention
This equality talk is cheap and the price expensive
Using my body to sell everything from cigarettes to automotives,
Confusing my flesh for my spirit
Confusing my humanity as weakness
When I say something in protest
Standing against trafficking, hunger, poverty, violence, you know “women’s” issues,
they brush it aside to…oh, she’s just a Femi-NAZI
So Don’t confuse my silence as submission
nor my covering for oppression
Don’t confuse my peaceful battle as lack of conviction
When you ask what sustains me
I say: not man, not America, But God, our God
Am I American, Kashmiri, or an ABCD,
On applications, I check none of the above, all of the above, some of the above, but ultimately
I am a Muslim woman.
Filed under: America, culture, gender, islam, politics, relationships, religion, Saudi Arabia, Saudi customs, Saudi education, Uncategorized
[...] Today Hot Report wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptPlease enjoy another lovely tribute received from Tariq Al-Meeana: [...]
This is an eloquent exposition of the complexity of the Muslim woman who knows herself on many levels. I think it portrays not only Hafsa Kanjwal, but many modern Muslim women of diverse backgrounds.
I agree…I found myself nodding my head when I read it through for the first time.
What a great composition, truly depicts the modern muslims of today,,,
Um Mohd,
Welcome to the blog and thank you for your comment.
wow , even if i know this already i appreciate seeing it written in such a matter , thanks !
As salaamu alaikum, loved it so well said.
Great Post
Welcome all to the blog and I’m glad you enjoyed this post!
Regards,
Carol
I am not muslim, but this is excellent!..and Beautiful!
Do you mind if I blogroll it?
I like this..alot!
haha@ “hips that dont lie!”
People fear what they do not know…
Good poem. I agree; would fit some of my friends too
Hellakali,
Welcome! Yes; you are welcome to blogroll it (with credit to the author of course).
Glad you enjoyed it Aafke.
yes, fighting in the battlefield with your man, against the unbelievers…
bringing that battlefield to the US now?
Right On! This is what sooo many of us Muslimah sisters are trying to get across in every post we write and everything we say and still it’s not heard. this poem sums it up thanks for posting it for our attentions!
Mash’Allah!
really interesting
It’s really something that i wanted to write too. I am so sick of being judged bcs of my muslim woman lebals. But i personally think muslim women seek knowledge more than westerner women and they’re aware of their femininity too. They know a woman doesnt need to expose her body or act like man for being successful and fruitful in the society.
The same they say about Iranian women, but they’re ignorant that 65% of Iran’s universities are filled with women every year, in all fields, including science and engineering..
Thank you for this post, Bedu
Swwwwwwwet
.. so he wrote this?
I’ve always found Mr. Tariq’s writing better then his bro Mr.Khalid
I esp loved his recent articles abt Pakistan
Thanks for all the comments!
Actually Muneebsaaed, While Tareq passed this on to me, I believe it was written by a muslim woman, Hafsa Kanjwal.
I want to welcome all those who are new to the blog and commented on this post. I hope to see more comments.
Shahrzad, I can relate to most of your comment and can have yet to meet an Iranian woman who is NOT educated or very knowledgeable and conversant on so many issues. One thing though that I have noticed in regards to quite a few Saudi women I have met though is that at least in the women-only gatherings, their choice of dress oftentimes is very risque with much more skin exposed than I would have expected…and I am not referring to only wedding parties but in general. This is something that after two plus years here in the Kingdom I’ve still not adjusted to.
Nice blog bedu, just stumbled upon it a feqw days ago
as for creeping, it was actually the US who brought their battlefield to iraq and afghanistan and now r paying the price of their foolishness.
Samir – of course you should know that jihad began long before there was a United States of America…and of course your jihad has nothing to do with the US being in Afgan or Iraq…Muslims didn’t have a problem when the US was there giving you money and weapons to fight the Russians and almost everything you use in your daily life is Western if not American from computers to telephony, to cd’s to cars, to medicine…no jihad against all those things by hypocritical Muslims…even the blogs you use…but any excuse for jihad is valid in islam…peace be upon the honor killers and child marriers
Very nice….
I’ve often wondered why the West has such pity for women in the Middle East.
I’ve watched Kuwait over the years, and know for a fact if women truly wanted to vote, or be members of the Parliament, they would fight for this right.
Women in the West have achieved their rights through blood, sweat, tears and being tortured in jails over the years. No man on earth will relenquish their power willingingly, if women wants rights and power–lazem they fight for it.
Simple logic.
creeping- these inventions u r talkin about were built on an economy based on oil, Arab oil. And u r killing arabs. Think about it.
And jihad against the US first started because it supported the zionist terrorists in killing innocent palestinians.
‘So my Muslim father tells me how to dress, but so does BCBG
So my Muslim brothers tell me how to act, but so does MTV
Yea… so it’s this double bind I face
When I realize that if I do what I want,
I won’t make anyone happy’
This sums up what bothers me the most about those who try to make a case for hijab or modesty. Who the heck is BCBG and MTV? Why in the world would anyone even consider for a moment that a television station or a billboard or a magazine or anything else that does not have power over you could have any real influence or needs YOU to please them? The only ones you need to worry about are the fathers and brothers that are telling you what it means to be a muslim woman. Talk to them, not us. Don’t pretend that depression, eating disorders and sex-ploitation does not exist in the Muslim world. What does the high numbers of plastic surgeries in the Middle East say to you?
I am a non-Muslim American woman I can do what I want, I can wear what I want, I can think and speak my mind FREELY with no worries about what people might think of me as a person or a woman. I don’t dress to impress with designer labels and heavy makeup. I don’t care about what the people in the magazines or on television wear. That is just one option available to me. It is not an order. I don’t dress to please anyone but myself. I don’t need to impress people with my jewelry or my expensive clothes to keep or build my self esteem. I don’t have to worry about false family honor or traditions that I don’t want to continue with my own family. I am free, I am liberated. I can be anything I want to be, a powerful woman executive in a large corporation or a stay at home mom or somewhere in between. But most of all, I don’t need to write poems to try to prove to myself that I’m free I am a self sufficient American woman and that is all I need to be in order to be free.
I think that those particular lines of the poem perhaps do illustrate the impact the media has on some individuals.
I wish that people would quit complaining about the media when the real issue is a lack of confidence and self esteem. If you have that it doesn’t matter what you might run across in the media. Teach your kids not to play that game! Teach your kids not to judge people based on their appearance or their ‘things’ and not to respect the people that DO judge based on those things.
It just bothers me that the media’s impat could be compared to the impact that a father or brother has on a Muslim woman. Not even comparable in my view. One can be ignored, the other might KILL you if it’s ignored.
Lynn, have you spent any time in Saudi Arabia or in the Arab world? I’m by no means defending but sharing what I’ve seen and that is with fewer choices for young women/girls, watching tv and favorite icons can and do make an impact with the young women. Some of the young women will turn on MTV or some other similar channel and let it go non-stop. There’s also some other arab show that is quite popular, some kind of arab reality tv show with wanna-be performers. The younger generation watch the show avidly and will tend to mimic their dress, their talk and actions.
I think few will disagree with your well-intentioned words but speaking from experience, when the words come out too strong you may not achieve the desired results.
Carol,
I didn’t see that poem as speaking about M.E. Muslim women only. Maybe it was intended that way but you will hear the same speech being used when talking about an American Muslim living here in the heartland. As if that is the way they have to dress to protect themselves from these things.
And what does this part of the poem mean?
-Why don’t I unveil your sexist patriarchal ideology
Remember The golden rule—treat others how you’d like to be treated, if you’re so keen to educate then please be educated,
Enslaving not our bodies now but our minds,
Eating disorders and depression, no love and not that much attention
This equality talk is cheap and the price expensive
Using my body to sell everything from cigarettes to automotives,
Confusing my flesh for my spirit
Enslaving not our bodies now but our minds,?
Eating disorders and depression, no love and not that much attention?
This equality talk is cheap and the price expensive?
You say that they have limited choices so they sit and watch MTV all day long? My kids were discouraged from watching MTV and they never got to watch any TV all day long. Where is the parenting? That is where the self-esteem is built. The problem does not lie with the MTV and it doesn’t benefit anyone to allow the blame to be left there or on magazines.
What desired results would you think that I have? I am only giving my opinion and personal experience as an American woman.. I believe opinions only have value if they are honest. I have no dog in this fight so I have no desired results. I am not affected by how women in the Middle East dress or act and whether or not they want a change is up to them. But I don’t like when they use an inaccurate description of the American woman’s life to justify their choices.
Unfortunately a lot of kids in the region are brought up and influenced by housemaids. The culture is so very different from the States.
No doubt parents should be taking active roles and serving as role models. But in my view a big obstacle here in the society and culture has to do with the segregation which also results in fewer choices and young women sitting around watching too much MTV. But again, when someone from a different culture and background points a finger and says this is not right or you should be doing “that” they will usually bond together… and in my view, that is part of what the poem is really all about…a means of protesting why others from different faiths, cultures and customs are quick to judge and want to change.
At least in the East and particularly Saudi, the women will change when THEY want to change. Believe me, Saudi women can be strong minded and strong willed when they choose to do so!
I appreciate your views and glad for your comments.
“Believe me, Saudi women can be strong minded and strong willed when they choose to do so!”
Hehehe… I remember being told basically the same thing by a middle eastern guy once and he ended the sentence with “…which is why we keep them under such tight control”.
Ouch!!
Like I said, I don’t care if they change or not. That is their business. I just don’t appreciate them making false accusations about MY society and culture in order to justify them maintaining their customs.
‘This equality talk is cheap and the price expensive’ ! Sounds like it’s regurgitated right out of the mouth of a man afraid of losing power! Makes me cringe to hear it coming from a woman.
I may be opening up a can of worms, but after living here in the Kingdom for awhile, I see so much coming from the West (yes, American society) that is so false and inaccurate about the Eastern/Muslim culture. It certainly seems to be going both ways but more so from the West to the East which perpetuates the misunderstandings and mislabeling.
That may be so. But what we are talking about here is one society/culture that lies about another to justify the continued oppression of the female population. I don’t see a comparison between that and whether or not the average American has misperceptions about Saudis.
I don’t think it is a matter of one society lying about another to justify continued oppression of the female . Where there is oppression, the society where it is taking place has done its own good job of “enforcing” it.
Two Thumbs Up!
-Brother Dash, Muslim Spoken Word Poet
http://www.brotherdash.com
Thank you and welcome.
good profile and looking