We are not more vile than our neighbours

I am not more vile than my neighbours but this disbelief in oneself is like a taint that spreads on everything one comes in contact with; on men, on things- on the very air one breathes. That's why one sometimes wishes to be a stone-breaker. There's no doubt about breaking a stone. But there's doubt, fear-a black horror, in every page one writes.

Joseph Conrad

He is widely regarded as one of the finest writers in the English language, students who have suffered through Heart of Darkness in English 101 would especially attest to that. He is the anomaly of linguistics, not having English as a home language, he writes as only a master of the language can. Back in murky 101 days, I remember this whizz of a woman, she really was brilliant, constantly drawing the rest of us, minions' attention to the fact that she was much more qualified to interpret Joseph Conrad's work because she shared a heritage with him, Polish ancestry and Jewish. The lecturer of that particular part of the course, an ardent admirer of Ms Brilliant, also Jewish, frequently punched out jibes about Palestinians in that class. I was antagonised. Later when I spoke to my granddad about the jibes, he angrily demanded why I hadn't responded to the jibes. Armed with hindsight, I should have but you see, therein lush Muckleneuk, in the seat of academia, the dividing lines were drawn. While we learned of the politics and philosophy of self and othering, there remained a distinctive sense of us and them.

And yet years before that, as a child of no more than six, my father had many Jewish associates, many of them became family friends, some still are. Uncle Ronnie was a particular friend. He once invited us to a fun day somewhere in the northern suburbs. My memory is not altogether clear, I remember throngs of people, I remember a windy day and sandy conditions underfoot, I remember rides, but what I remember most clearly is being stared at. Did I feel out of place? I was a kid; my place was wherever I was taken. There was something so incongruent in being stared at, something untoward that I could not understand. I don't remember attending any other such events with Uncle Ronnie's family. Post 1994, Uncle Ronnie emigrated to Perth, Australia. We lost all contact with him until last year when he pitched up unannounced at our front door. He had been visiting his ailing mother and was looking up old friends. While we all excitedly caught up, after the incumbent, "Jeez I knew when you were this small", we soon found out that Uncle Ronnie had traded his wholesaler's blue van for a confectioner's hat, making nougat, Sally Williams style, only yummier, his daughter was happily married in Sydney, his son was in a kibbutz in Israel after recently being ordained as a rabbi and qualifying as a chartered accountant. My brother was over in Saudi Arabia, on a field trip with his Islamic seminary, after just having written semester exams for an accounting qualification.

We are the same and then we are different.

There are those who are happy to say, 'aint my problem, and contentedly go about their lives unperturbed by recent events, and I am in no position to fault them, but I am not that person, perchance I'm too far away to matter, but I cannot be aloof to my own heart being ripped apart. Klna Gaza. We are all Gaza.

The girls who call ‘rape’

There is no difference between being raped

and going head first through a windshield

except that afterward you are afraid

not of cars

but half the human race.

Marge Piercy

Watching the afternoon dwindle away from my bedroom window the other day, Cousin Flighty and I spoke about, politics (the kind generated from a girls high school), plans for the future (the December holiday), how I should be getting married soon so that she can get a new wardrobe and then back to the less significant parts of school, studying for exams. She left me aghast with this, 'My timetable's going to rape me.'

In my other life, y'know the much neglected non-blogging one, I'm meant to be putting a microscope to the way my carefully selected pocket of society manipulates language to serve its own nefarious ends since there exists a close relationship between the historically and socially determined circumstances in which a community lives and the language it uses. Basically, the society we live in is reflected in the language we use. So rape, it would seem then, is so much a part of this society, so much a norm, so passively accepted, that the word has now taken on another shade of meaning. Cousin Flighty insists everybody is using it, 'We don't mean rape like rape but like we mean it's really bad.' Zapiro's infamous cartoon showed Jacob Zuma about to rape the justice system. Surely there's something insidiously amiss in a society where rape is so passively accepted in public discourse and used with such indiscriminate aplomb. Is it bound to raise awareness of rape as a crime, as an injustice, as oppression?

An Eidish status quo

Little Zaid spent Eid morning with The Times, trying to wrap his tongue around the new president's name, giving his burgeoning reading skills a fair go.-Kgalema- He tries, 'kir-jaarmela...'- And his face lights up- 'JAMEELA!- The new president has a girl's name!' Aamena, meanwhile a bundle of energy keen on four wardrobe changes thoughtfully asks, 'So because Ramadan is over all the devils are now free?' She's caught me off guard, I think for a moment and then say, 'Yes...' 'Oh dammit!' she says crossly and before I can reprimand her colourful language, walks away in a huff.

Eid started off a halcyon day- the obligatory biennial hugs, the tables teeming with all things yum, the peroxided hair lapping up the attention its bearers so desperately craved, the kids hounding after anybody with a wallet, and generally a good time was had by all-until we got to the highway and were quickly reminded that the rest of the country was not sharing in our indelible cheer. Ultimately, crawling along to Pretoria in rush-hour traffic did not a merry family make.

At granddad's house much, much later that evening, I watched the small battalion of Malawian domestic workers scurrying among us. Something about their presence reminded of the sheep-like herding of home-bound expatriates I saw at the airport in Manama, Bahrain as a thirteen-year old. The sight then detracted my thoughts from pining for my fist class seat to Karachi long enough to consider that there was something terribly wrong, something entirely untoward about herding people as though they were animals. Watching the Malawian workers on Eid night, it struck me anew that ours is indeed the most unequal society in the world and the very presence of these workers in our homes is borne of the unrelenting slant toward cushioning our lives above the masses.

Earlier that day the last of the remaining shelters for victims of the xenophobic violence was closed. A provincial government official, talking on Talk Radio 702 (a perennial companion through traffic), intimated that the shelters had been taken advantage of- He explained that some who were employed, owned their own cars and had access to other accommodation continued to use the shelters these past few weeks slurping up the handouts. At the height of the cruel Cape winter, parcels of food, clothing and blankets donated to the refugees by the local government had been found in rubbish heaps. 'We want the UN,' was the cry from one passionate Somali voice-'And free passage to Europe,' added one disillusioned observer.

The raison d'etre of Safiyyah's recent guest, a sociologist-cum-security guard comes to mind: "I am here to understand the construction workers, because like everyone else they too, have dreams and aspirations, and I need to know why they come here, so I know how to help them."

A 702 reporter talking from one of the defunct refugee camps described how some who, despite financial assistance from the provincial government, obstinately refused to vacate the area, and were intent on spending the night beneath stars- the men, sitting in groups drinking beer and the women getting fires stated to cook.

Poverty

(D.H. Lawrence)

The only people I ever heard talk about my Lady Poverty
were rich people, or people who imagined themselves rich.
Saint Francis himself was a rich and spoiled young man.
Being born among the working people
I know that poverty is a hard old hag,
and a monster, when you're pinched for actual necessities.
And whoever says she isn't, is a liar.
I don't want to be poor, it means I am pinched.
But neither do I want to be rich.
When I look at this pine-tree near the sea,
that grows out of rock, and plumes forth, plumes forth,
I see it has natural abundance.
With its roots it has a grand grip on its daily bread,
and its plumes look like green cups held up to the sun and air
and full of wine.
I want to be like that, to have a natural abundance
and plume forth, and be splendid.

‘The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends.’ Samuel Johnson

We all have our moments of madness. I venture out, guided only by my capacity to get into too many situations. I enjoy solitude, my own space- what Virginia Woolf termed a 'room of one's own', but how wonderful to emerge from the depths of my inner self to the smiles of my father. There is something humbling in the love of family, something that rises you to lofty heights but keeps you grounded all the same. May it always be so.

I'm using too many Samuel Johnson quotables.

I not watch tee vee today

I'm wary of imposing my own standards on others. Just because I choose a certain path for myself, I've learned not to expect likewise from all and sundry. It's a lesson we can glean from the life of Prophet Muhammed (saw) – My brother, a first year student at the local Jaamiat al Uloom al Islamiya, University of Islamic Studies, a burgeoning institution housed within the premises of the Council of Muslim Theoligans that seeks to break the mould from traditional methods and curriculum at our local Dar al Ulooms by constantly adapting to the needs of the society its graduates will serve. So my brother, mash'Allah 3leihi, is something of a mine of information of late and he and I have taken to lingering yet longer at the dinner table engrossed in deep discussion and debate. I don't recall how the topic came up but recently he cautioned me to be mindful of the difference in lifestyle RasulAllah (saw) chose for himself and what is expected from the Ummah. An example, RasulAllah (saw) slept on the floor, yet to his daughter Fatima (ra), he gifted a bed. Clearly, he did not impose his standards on the rest of us.

Not much of a movie buff, I am a tee vee junkee- I think it's a sustained knee-jerk reaction to my mum banning TV on school days when I was a kid. In her defence, I did display an unusual deference for KTV, blocking out the sound of her voice as soon as the KTV theme song filled my ears- Earlier this week, I realised that even though I hadn't watched any TV since the dawn of the month, I haven't missed it at all. That realisation was liberating. Sub7anallah, the wonders of Ramadan! So when I called a relative a couple of nights ago, my little heart was tugged to something akin to bereavement when I heard the television blaring in the background and one of the kids shouting, 'This is the best song ever!' I sense I ought to issue a caveat here, yes, there are many social ills plaguing Muslims and a spot of telly may seem rather insignificant in the broader scheme of things. Yet, it is as George Bernard Shaw intoned, 'Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.' Also by no means am I intimating that anybody is any less of a Muslim for having watched television in Ramadan, Allah knows our true conditions.

My mind occupied thus, curiosity was stirred by a link on Global Citizen's blog, 'No more TV in Ramadan for me, what about you?' Now Ramadan TV in the Middle East and particularly Saudia is something else. Out of Ramadan too, TV has this unique ability to unite so that when people are not watching a particular show, they are uniformly trying to imitate its characters. It is quite a spectacle in itself. Where else in the world are the streets literally emptied when a particular favourite is on air? Over there, networks choose Ramadan to bring out new seasons of old favourites and air new shows. Something of an advertising revenue bumper crop. A few years back, while in Saudia, I myself was hooked on the street emptier du jour, I don't recall the name of the show, but it was about a man with four wives, one dies or something... my memory of it is sketchy... and he gets ready to marry another... What was it called? Can anybody help me here? And Tash Ma Tash, enough said. The networks frustratingly play reruns all year only to oblige its adoring public with new episodes in Ramadan.

There's something inherently wrong with that timing. Ramadan, a month of restraint, of sacrifice, of spiritual rejuvenation ought to be treated with more reverence. Another caveat, I'm not at all echoing the Saudi cleric who last night said the owners of television networks broadcasting "depravation and debauchery" may be killed. I'm distancing myself from that extremism. I'm just saying let's all rekindle the spirit of Ramadan away from the TV, not just in Saudia, here too. That's why I'm supporting the ad campaign.

My beloved Liverpool are playing Man Yoo in a bit and insha Allah I'm going to try to keep up the TV fast. But still, it's only my choice.

I’m reading , I’m reading...

My granddad called me yesterday. 'You don't call me anymore,' he said. It wasn't a rebuke, I sensed hurt. I was duly rebuked. I mumbled some feeble excuse, ridiculous even to my own ears, but he only laughed, his hearty laugh. It made me smile. 'I love my granddad,' I thought. 'Have you heard of a poet called Mahmud Dharwish?' he asked. I smiled again, 'I love my granddad'. And we spoke of Dharwish, Rumi and Said, of poetry and prose and the Israeli school curriculum, of diasporas and modern nomads. I promised to send him my copy of The Essential Rumi and some of Dharwish's work too.

When I was eight, my English teacher, Ms. White, insisted I either join a library or buy a book. Mum and Dad, unwitting of the obsession they were about to foster, took me to CNA and chose for me an anthology of Enid Blyton short stories, The Fairy Shoemaker (I shudder to think what I might have chosen had I been left to my own devices). As I bumbled my way through the book, so too, the book was hauled around with me. So when the weekly trip to Mama and Papa came about, so too, The Fairy Shoemaker was hauled to Laudium. After jostling for granddad's attention with cousins and siblings, I proudly showed off my literary wares. He looked at it, nodding his approval and then said, 'Read whatever you see.' I was intrigued. Whatever I see? In hindsight, I think it was the thrill of seamlessness to a child so used to limits and restrictions. And so that afternoon, during the drive back to Johannesburg, I stayed awake, making a conscious effort to read whatever I saw. And so it began, billboards, traffic furniture, toothpaste boxes, and a book or two, I read. I'm still reading.

If yesterday I had claimed ignorance of Dharwish, I would have been reprimanded as so often in the past I have when granddad asked my opinion on something I had not theretofore heard of, 'You don't read!' Indeed, I don't read as much as granddad. He reads four newspapers a day, five on Sundays. When once I ventured to give him credit for my bookish ways, reminding him of his advice to me, he laughed and said, 'I didn't mean everything...'

I introduced friends from Jeddah to the delights of Rosebank yesterday and in my haste to get going before the venerable workforce hit the highway I forgot to send granddad the books.

"Where did she go, the little girl who was me? I became who I am, because she was here. But when did she go, that girl who was me and leave me in her place the Woman who is me?"