War and Peace: A Case for Individual Responsibility?

This was originally posted on FutureChallenges.org...check it out here! ***

Is conflict a part of human nature?

An interesting question indeed.

The short film below illustrates what happens when you take individuals from opposite sides of the pack mentality and place them in a neutral environment.

There is no denying the human race is obsessed with conflict. Our history as a species is riddled with conflict; often great change is only ever achieved through periods of upheaval, also often characterised by conflict.

It would seem that conflict and war is one of the great catalysts for change. As humans it is so easy for us to disregard an injustice if it doesn’t affect us, however once the conflict reaches our circle of comfort we are then catapulted into action…so then perhaps it can be said that conflict is a part of ‘human nature’, or at least the human story.

Couldn’t it be argued however, that ‘anything humans do’ is a ‘part of human nature’? If so… does that mean everything should still allowed to be seen as acceptable?

Where is the line between blaming our collective actions on human nature and taking personal responsibility for our actions?

Conflict is inextricably linked to the concept of “War and Peace”; the age old battle between “good” and “evil” illustrated through decades of battle between empires, to grudges between siblings or the fight on the streets between criminals and the police.

Good versus Evil is perhaps example of an completely polarising dichotomy that is in fact, extremely subjective. Isn’t one man’s terrorist another’s freedom fighter? Who decides who is good and who is evil?  It is a concept also so all encompassing that it can be stretched to meet almost any agenda. Australia is one example where inter-communal tensions are sometimes framed within the “good versus evil’ concept. This often fails to highlight the true nature of any conflict, instead depicting groups as a single, monolithic entity rather than a number of human beings with humanised emotions.

The example of the relationship between mainstream Australia and asylum seekers perhaps, or the Cronulla riots in 2005 or even the fall out after the protests in Sydney (in response to the Youtube video made on the Prophet Muhammed PBUH) are examples of situations where the ‘pack mentality’ overshadowed individual thought processes and where those labelled as ‘different’ were now seen as the enemy.

This group think process is furthermore fueled by our environment. Shortly after the protests in Sydney last month, comments were made in the media highlighting that “ethnic tensions were set to explode” (source).

A key ethnic affairs adviser to the NSW Coalition government has warned that religious and ethnic tensions in western Sydney have the potential to “explode” the nation’s multicultural fabric in the aftermath of last Saturday’s Islamic riot.

Dai Le, a Vietnamese boat-person and former ABC documentary maker…warned that multiculturalism was threatened unless new arrivals continued to integrate into overarching national values… (source)

In the light of such rhetoric, you cannot blame individuals for perhaps thinking the worst…

So, on further reflection, there are three points that are being made.

Firstly, in situations where opinions are being shaped by a highly influential environment, it becomes very easy to see the world in a good versus evil, war versus peace dichotomy. We all know however, when looking at the facts that life is rarely ever that black and white and often it depends on the individual values and perspectives.

This then leads to the second point on dealing with “tensions” on a broader scale. There is no doubt that incidents such as the Cronulla riots require an investigation of the underlying currents in a community. But the discourse in which such a situation is dealt with must behonest. It doesn’t take a lot to find out what the issues are; often all you must do is ask.

Thirdly, on the question of conflict and human nature, in light of the above…

I believe that it is folly to say that conflict isn’t a part of human nature, given our propensity towards it in history. I don’t believe the ‘human nature’ argument however, can be used as an excuse.

It is our responsibility as humans to live up to our moral standards and take individual responsibilities for our actions, and that means choosing to not engage in conflict.

Conflict used for change is often a race to the bottom; brutality can extend its miserable tentacles and affect generations. Only when a cycle is broken by collective individual actions to act differently can ‘peace’ be found…whatever peace means.

The Weekly Grapevine: First Week of October 2012

 

Can you believe it is October? I spent the week learning about killing wells and trying to get decent phone reception… but enough about me, this is what I found on the net!

How politicians get away with dodging the question: The Pivot:  "Politicians," he says, "are exploiting our cognitive limitation without punishment."

This ought to go down well with my fellow uni students: why lectures are ineffective. 

 Top myths about the Iranian Nuclear Program

It is alleged that Iran has threatened to annihilate Israel. It has done no such thing. Iran has a ‘no first strike’ policy, repeatedly enunciated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has expressed the hope that the ‘Zionist regime over Jerusalem” would ‘vanish from the page of time.’ But he didn’t threaten to roll tanks or missiles against Israel, and compared his hopes for the collapse of Zionism to the collapse of Communism in Russia. Iran has not launched a conventional war of aggression against another state in all of modern history. Israel aggressively invaded Egypt in 1956 and 1967 and Lebanon in 1982 and 2006. The list of aggressive wars fought by the US, including the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, is too long to detail. So why is Iran being configured as the aggressor?

I know we have heard so much about the video and the backlash, but here is an interesting take by an American Muslim on the analysis…

…that’s not to say the film is an “excuse.” The film rather is a “last straw.” The attack on the embassy in Cairo following the one in Libya was not an attack on America but an attack on American intervention of Egyptian affairs. This is why it is so crucial for Egypt to establish its own democracy without Western influence. It restores a fundamental inseparable right of a people to determine their own government, and the morality of this principle on which America was founded means less war and less hostility. And it means more opportunity for us to focus on our own defense and build it in the event of an attack against a single nation (rather than five total wastes of military occupation).

They don’t hate our freedom; they hate that we think it’s ours.

10 favourite TED talks by a fellow blogger; these are great!

An interesting article: The Trouble with South Africa that highlights the issue of representation in the media of figures and groups not as “human beings with stories”, but more a collective that thinks and acts as a single monolithic non-relatable entity.

I’ve been puzzled and not a little disturbed by the lack of empathy on South African social media with the horrific events at Marikana, where 34 protesting miners were killed by police on August 16th. …

So what’s going on? Partly, it’s to do with people’s tendency to believe and react to images over text….

But it also has to do with the way most media have covered and continue to cover the strike. This was pointed out by academic Julie Reid, also in the Daily Maverick. Her piece also argues that the day-to-day event-based coverage has also helped obscure a very worrying much larger trend of police violence against citizens. Beyond a lack of investigation and intelligent mining of the data, I have not come across any article that has attempted to get into the lives of the miners, show them to us as individuals, and help us genuinely understand their daily struggles. Much (if not everything) of what has been written lately glosses over miners’ past, dreams, desires, frustrations, etc. Short: their lives. The failure to give attention to those details made it impossible to imagine what it would mean to live a miner’s life, which has allowed the debate to be sucked into a very ordinary South African debate — a spiral of numbers, acronyms, figures, maps and politicking that works as a cover to say: we haven’t got a clue.

This is sad: An interesting recent piece of research on farmer suicide.

The study revealed numerous male suicide clusters of high risk from across Australia, but generally not (state/federal) capital city regions. Only the capitals of Adelaide and Darwin were found to have male clusters, although these are the fifth and eighth largest of Australia’s eight capital cities, respectively. The Adelaide cluster has also been found to have a higher incidence of mental and behavioural disorders. Suicide rates tended to be highest in areas that were both of lower socioeconomic status and with a higher concentration of Indigenous inhabitants. Only one female cluster was identified and over 40% of statistical local areas (SLAs) had no female suicides at all during the study period.

“Win an Adventure to Africa”  -- Sounds exciting, but a it does frustrate me sometimes that going to Africa is seen as one single destination: Africa is a continent made up of over 50 wildly diverse countries…

This does sound amazing though: UNREASONABLE AT SEA

Aussie Racing Legend, Jack Brabham and a chat with SPEED

The Muslim Dilemma?

The West and the rest of the world will not know peace until critical thinkers in the Arab and Muslim worlds start speaking out and getting an audience from the global media. There is no alternative to native dissent to the suffocating culture of the sacred. Muslims are as intellectually capable as anyone else in the world, but their minds are almost hopelessly shackled by taboos, big and small, social and political. Instead of producing a culture of critical thinkers, Muslim societies are teeming with thin-skinned moralists.

Meanwhile, Muslim-majority nations, those whose flags display stars, crescents, and swords, can’t compete with a nation like South Korea in contributing to global scientific research, or invent anything to save their lives.

Muslims are struck in an impossible bind: They are totally dependent on the West for all the good things in life but are fanatically attached to religion as a marker of their separate identity. By being unable to be fully Western, they have forced themselves into an orthodox corner. Fanaticism is the result.

Westerners and Western-educated folk who apologize for Muslims by invoking the depredations of the West are not helping make things better. Muslims don’t need to indulge in a victim mentality; they need to develop their societies, build stronger economies, cultivate the arts and and encourage innovation and critical thinking in all fields. Neither self-pity nor piety will get them there.

A tune to finish off your reading: Skyfall from Adele, for the new James Bond film…

The Lady With The Crash Helmet

On a recent trip back from the States, I realised I had uncovered one of the best conversation starters on an aeroplane or in an airport. Carry a hard hat on top of your hand luggage.

Trust me, it works a treat!  Especially if you are a Muslim chick…

I didn’t quite fit the above stereotype…perhaps fortunately?

I think about 4 people asked me straight out: “So why are you carrying a crash helmet on to this plane?  What do you think is gonna happen?”.

It took all my self control not to crack an awful joke every single time; I am not sure if they would have appreciated my dark sense of humour in this particular situation.

A few others were just curious: “What’s a girl like you doing with steel caps and a hard hat?”

“Oh well, I work on the field…”

Quite a number of interesting conversations followed, and to be honest, one can sometimes forget how interesting the people on the plane can be!

I ended up meeting all sorts of people; some who work in the motorsport industry, some guy who works as a professional tree climbing equipment supplier (and got there in the most random fashion…) and another guy who used to work on oil rigs in the same area, in the 1980’s!

That was kinda a cool one.  He had a few stories, a couple of permanently crooked fingers and a life story which he prefaced with: “All we wore were steel caps and shorts…”

Ah, OH&S has moved on a bit since then.

It was a nice reminder in general though, that instead of walking around airports with headphones in my poor abused eardrums and a “don’t talk to me” look on my face as I struggle through jetlag while carrying too many pieces of hand luggage as per usual…I should take more notice of the people around me on a more regular basis.

You never know who might be sitting next to you…and the stories they might have.

***

Something occurred to me today.

Faces I sometimes forget, names I often do if I don’t write them down or spell them out.

Stories however… they sustain me.

Stories are the colour to the tapestry of life; the details are the richness of the pigment, the texture, the intricacies to something bigger than ourselves.

Stories are what make people people, and everyone has their own story that is worth listening to. 

Isn’t is a basic human desire to have our story be heard?  Perhaps not by everyone, but at least someone.  Perhaps…you.

The Perception of Heroism

Sometimes I wonder what the fine line is between celebrating heroism and punishing or shaming similar behaviour in certain situations.

For example, if a lady running late at night for exercise was abducted, commentary may run along the lines of personal safety and the opinion of “well, she shouldn’t have been running out that late anyway”.

However if say, the same lady aspired to be an athlete and ran at night “so she could train as often as she could, or when others weren’t” people may instead see that as inspirational.

What is the difference?

Another example may be the heroics of civilians in dangerous situations – a non fire fighter running into a burning house to save a child: if he comes out safely with the child, he is often lauded as a hero, whereas if he is injured or puts others in danger, again the commentary will be quite different.

Perhaps our current society’s emphasis on personal and individual heroism is at fault – it makes people believe they need to be the ones who make the difference, the individual who inspires or is the hero, regardless of how that may affect the people around them or the risks that they take in the interim.

Isn’t it almost selfish? To want to be the “hero"?

…or is it simply human nature?  Simply a way of finding meaning for our lives?

On another scale, when does fighting for a cause, such as overthrowing a government (think Arab Spring) go from “crazy” and “putting yourself in undue danger” (because of the likelihood of capture and torture) to becoming “heroic” and acceptable…and “worth it”?

Is it different because it is a cause?

Or is heroism just in the eyes of the society of the day, or the society that matters to you?

What’s on the net…

A little collection of a few things that caught my eye… Between the Flags: A great little Tropfest video that shows the humanity beyond the mob mentality, a throwback to 2005 and the Cronulla riots…

I honestly wish I had thought of this when I was in first year…I always wanted to do a massive practical joke but couldn’t think of anything exciting enough! Kudos to these cats.

I work in a male dominated field for sure…But I have never considered what it would be like to work as another one: a taxi driver? "What's a girl doing here?" from Narratively on Vimeo.

An interesting essay On the Joy of Giving

"For a lot of us, what really defines us in the world is having so much money. We're exceptionally wealthy compared to the average," he says in the precise, logical voice of the studious, overgrown schoolboy he resembles. "Once you get used to the idea, I think you realise, wow, this is a really nice position to be in, to be able to help people."

He suggests giving away 10% of your income might, like vegetarianism, one day become a social norm. And he suggests philosophers should pay more attention: "Quite a few people think obviously it's good to donate to charity, so we're not going to talk about it. I think that's a mistake, because you can go further and say, do we have an obligation to do it? Is it not merely something that's nice, but something we really have to do? And I think the answer is yes."

An oldie but a goldie…a little cynical perhaps, but a fair bit of truth there:

Gas is the next big thing in energy, and a few interesting articles in the Australian on this issue caught my eye.  It is quite a contentious area, especially here in Queensland where many of the gas wells are on prime farmland.  However, in today’s society, money talks, and when push comes to shove, will people be willing to reduce their energy consumption or be willing to pay more for their electricity?  In my typical fashion I am not one to side either way just yet, but more play the devil’s advocate…

Randomly, the first massive internet hoax…from the Museum of Hoaxes, an interesting and trivia filled way to spend an afternoon *cough*

This is a useful little infographic… How to make the most of Google!

QandA is a great show but sometimes without the level of sophistication and depth in the discussion that the issues require:

If the producers of Q&A were serious about their adventures in democracy, they should seek to include such experts in all of their discussions. This would make the show more productive and could bring it into its fuller potential as a place of critical, enjoyable, and serious political debate for Australia.

Until then, it will just be the contrived gabfest we tweet at each week.

I do love this blog:

The touchiness of Muslims about assaults on the Prophet Muhammad is in part rooted in centuries of Western colonialism and neo-colonialism during which their religion was routinely denounced as barbaric by the people ruling and lording it over them. That is, defending the Prophet and defending the post-colonial nation are for the most part indistinguishable, and being touchy over slights to national identity (and yes, Muslimness is a kind of national identity in today’s world) is hardly confined to Muslims.

In India, dozens of Christians have sometimes been killed by rioting Hindus angry over allegations of missionary work. Killing people because you think they tried to convert members of your religion to another religion? Isn’t it because such a conversion is an insult to your gods?

In Myanmar, angry Buddhists have attacked the hapless Muslim minority, sometimes alleging they were avenging an instance of the rape of a Buddhist girl (i.e. these are like lynchings in the Jim Crow South).

Or then there have been Sri Lanka Buddhist attacks on Tamil Christians. In fact, Sri Lanka Buddhists have erected a nasty police state and shown a propensity for violence against the Tamil minority, some elements of which have had revolutionary or separatist aspirations (not everybody in the group deserves to be punished for that).

And, militant Israeli Jews have set fire to Muslim mosques in Palestine and recently tried to “lynch” three Palestinians in Jerusalem. If Maher thinks only Muslims are thin-skinned, he should try publicly criticizing Israeli policy in America and see what happens to him.

Since Iraq didn’t have ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and wasn’t connected to 9/11, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that 300 million Americans brutally attacked and militarily occupied that country for 8 1/2 years, resulting in the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the wounding of millions, and the displacement of millions more, mainly because Iraq’s leader had talked dirty about America. Now that is touchy.

To wrap it up…France in the year 2000… from the early 1900’s. Super interesting!

Have a great day!

So Why?

A comment after I had written this piece did raise a point that I had forgotten to address, and a question that many non-Muslims are probably wondering: Why is there such a response in the first place?

For many living in authoritarian countries, the publication of a piece such as “The Innocence of Muslims” is seen more as a reflection of what the entire government and community believes in that country rather than the words, actions and beliefs of a single individual. Furthermore, it is easier for extreme and radical leaders to twist the actions of an individual and say that it represents “The West”, and usually that also means “America”.

For example, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah (the leader of Hezb Allah) publically stated:

“The ones who should be held accountable and boycotted are those who support and protect the producers, namely the U.S. administration,” Source

Whatever you think of the man and his policies, this is a clear illustration of the leadership using the actions of an individual as representative of the “enemy”.  This is how you will get people like Haji Samar Gul:

…an 80-year-old protester at the Kabul demonstration who said: "We shouted death to America, death to supporters of America, death to slaves of America."

If you’re source of guidance comes from your local leader and he says to you “check out this insulting video, it was made in America, this is what they think of us and how they treat our religion”…well, you can imagine you’d be feeling pretty put out and pretty keen to start shouting.

It still doesn’t excuse violence though, especially not in Australia. This is just symptomatic of a whole other kettle of fish to do with extremism, the leadership within the communities internationally, and the education levels of those on the street. A little more thought required on this issue…

(Thanks for bringing up this point Emile!)

The Innocence of Who?

Update: This post explains a little more of the “Why”… where as the below are more personal thoughts on the matter.

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Where to begin…

I am sure by now, you have heard about a 13 min film trailer named The Innocence of Muslims that has caused riots, death and violence throughout the world, peaceful Down Under included.

I had been trying to avoid the clip for peace of mind, but finally relented and looked up the video this morning.

Golly.  I couldn’t watch more than 5 minutes.  Yes, it is offensive, but thousands of Muslims are rioting around the world over such a poorly made production?  Have we sunk so low?

Ah, this is clearly not an issue to be belittled.  The film does insult the Prophet Mohammed (Peace and Blessing be Upon Him*) and his followers (and by extension Arabs and Muslims), depicting them as barbarian, savages and really quite Neanderthal…and because we Muslims see the Prophet (PBuH) as the greatest and purest example of a man who ever lived, I can understand why Muslims are insulted by it.

However…

Just because one is insulted does not give one the right to needlessly riot, act violent and kill innocent people.

(and guys, seriously? Getting insulted by a budget film that’s on youtube?  /sigh.  We should have slightly thicker skins).

There are two elements to my frustration here:

1. All the rioting does is further prove and support claims that Muslims are barbaric and backwards.  Yes, we can be insulted, however that does not give us permission to run riot. It makes us seem truly uneducated and ignorant, and makes me embarrassed (Allah Yastur) to call myself a member of the Muslim Ummah**.  How shameful is that?!There are Christian and Jewish based satires on the internet galore, but I don’t remember the last time I saw hordes of angry Jewish or Christian people on the streets.  Why must the Muslim community be the uncivilised one?
2. The second thing is that this shows that Muslims around the world are willing to rise up in anger over a video made by an ignorant and hateful individual, but are not willing to show the same passion and anger towards issues that actually matter and that affect the lives of their fellow Muslims and humans.  Things like:

• The death of hundreds of innocents in Syria and the truly abhorrent acts of the Shabiha (see this and this);
• The millions of asylum seekers around the world that are displaced with no where to go and no place to call home;
• The exploitation of women and children around the world and the disgraceful way in which many are treated in our own Muslim countries;
• The barbaric corruption and torture that occurs again, throughout Muslim nations around the world…

My mother told me as a child to ignore rude people, to brush off insults and to “be the bigger person”.  Those are essentially Islam’s teachings as well – there are many examples of the Prophet (PbuH) being insulted and denigrated, only to have him treat the perpetrators with kindness and mercy.  That is the example that we Muslims are to emulate.  That is what Islam (which comes from the word Salam, meaning PEACE!) is all about.    We are told in the Qura’an:

“Obey not the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and disregard their hurtful talk.” (33:48)

Disregard their hurtful talk!

Did someone miss that line?

If we truly wanted to make our Prophet (PBuH) proud, we would not shame ourselves and our religion in this way.

***

I have to make one thing very clear, so as there is no confusion among Muslims as to what I mean.

Speaking out against the violence is not the same as agreeing with the insult.  Just because I disagree with the violent protests does not mean I have decided to “serve the interests of the West”. 

No.

The world isn’t black and white, and issues are rarely a case of if you are not with us, then you are against us. 

Yes, the video was insulting to the Prophet (PBuH).

But no, this does not give us an excuse to act like uneducated cult-like individuals and wreck havoc.  Why are we, like a weak tempered town buffoon, so quick to anger?

It should instead be a time for us, as Muslims, to live the example of the Prophet (PBuH), to show kindness and understanding in the face of anger and to truly practice the teachings of our peaceful way of life.

"The sad thing is . . . it's a deceptive film, designed to provoke Muslims, which it has unfortunately done. For us to fall into the trap unfortunately shows that we have a long way to go in terms of practising what the prophet taught."  Silma Ihram, The Sydney Morning Herald

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* Whenever Muslims say the name of the Prophet (PBuH), as a sign of respect we say “Peace and Blessings be upon Him” afterwards, which is why you will see (PBuH) after every mention.  Sometimes (SAW) is used, and that is simply the Arabic version

** Ummah is just the Arabic word for “community” or “group of people”, and when we refer to the Muslim people we refer to the “Muslim Ummah”.

Suitcase Memories

“This is such a cold town,” I said to my mother, in between blowing my nose. But it took me a while to learn their reaction wasn’t a sign of disrespect or indifference, not the way I took it anyway. New Yorkers are unshockable, it’s true, but they also know that no one gets private space, and the best they can do is to leave you alone and at least pretend you have privacy, even if the crowded sidewalk affords you none. When I see someone in tears on the sidewalk, my instinct is not to rush over and help them—what would I do, anyway?—it is to offer them the dignity of not staring.”

Here is everything I learnt in New York

For years growing up, all I remember saying I wanted to do was travel.  I had this image in my mind of backpacking through hostels in Europe, traipsing about in the Amazon and long, dusty road trips into the sunset…but knew that would never really happen, because that wasn’t part of the “plan” – I had school, university, a career to get onto…

Sometimes when you get what you have been working towards for a long time, you don’t realise you are there until it is over.  Sometimes you realise half way through…and if you are lucky enough to do that, never forget to stop and enjoy it.

I realised in a conversation a little while ago that my dream of travelling frequently and often had been granted, Alhamdulilah.  The penny hadn’t fully dropped yet, but taking a step back and appreciating the larger picture was what I was missing.  It was happening; perhaps not in the way I had imagined, but in a way that was equally enriching, exciting and intriguing.

What have I learned? Ach, I ask this of others but don’t ask myself this question enough.  What I do know, right now, lying on a bed in a room that alternates between freezing and boiling (because hotels don’t like open windows?!) is that at the end of the day, you rely on yourself and whatever (or whoever) you believe in. 

You have to decide what is important to you and base all your decisions around that – if you have your priorities straight and truly believe in them, then decisions are easy.  Just join the dots.

Loneliness is a frame of mind… but it is always nice to have someone to come home and tell stories to, even if it is a fish or an uninterested sibling.

Pack light (easier said than done) because you will definitely go shopping (or maybe that’s just me?).

You are no where near as important or significant as you think you are. There are billions of people in this world, and travelling, in whatever capacity, opens your eyes to what is out there…if you are willing to let it.

That doesn’t mean that your life, my life or anyone’s life isn’t important in itself per se, but the world doesn’t revolve around us…and that is okay.

YOUR world revolves around you, but your world isn’t everyone else’s world.

What a penny to drop! That is honestly, more like a pound… but once I realised that, I began to appreciate how exciting life really is.

How every person you meet is an insight into a totally different way of thinking, a totally different life perspective, a totally different paradigm…and totally different world.

How is that not exciting?  It simply…*is*.  It means every single person you or I ever have the fortune to meet has their own story… and you have been given the gift of interaction, so why not find out what their story is?

After all, some of the most profound lessons I have learnt are from random interactions with people I only met once… and never seen again.  A chance interaction with another world.

***

I won’t ever be able to experience everything there is to experience in the world.  However travelling a little myself, and travelling a little through the eyes and minds of others…well, that is a start for now. 

Back in the days when men were men?

Ah, LOTR…Totally Irrelevant Photo =)

I was told by my work that I am only allowed to write about my personal life, not about work per se.  I am not totally sure what that means, but I am hoping they are just referring to “talking about the actual things we are doing” and not “talking about anything remotely to do with work/having a job/how I feel”.  It is a strange feeling, being beholden to a company or organisation which you depend on for money…I know that is really what “working” is all about, but I had never really taken it that seriously before (for all my sense of responsibility, having someone tell me what I can and can’t do has never been a strong point, just ask my parents =P).

Suffice it to say I work for a large oil services company and so my job is based on the oil and gas rigs, truly male dominated territory.

What is interesting about this though, is how different working in a male dominated field is from studying in one.  I had never even given the issue much thought at all, considering since from about grade 10 I had taken traditionally male subjects and studied mechanical engineering (with less than 10 girls in a class of a couple of hundred).  I honestly thought it wouldn’t even be an issue, I would be ‘all over it’.

Perhaps that was my naivety.

What is the difference? When studying, you grew up with your mates, saw them as colleagues, friends, community, family.  Gender seemed not to be an issue, because the guys saw you as just another student or friend.

Out here in the oil and gas fields, those rules don’t apply anymore.

I won’t say that it is an absolute either way – some people will treat women with kids gloves and try to do anything for them, while others will disregard us and think that we shouldn’t be on the rigs or simply incapable of doing the job as well as a man (not even jokingly…they actually think we can’t do a job because of our chromosomes)…but the fact is that our gender matters, and is a defining part of how we are seen and dealt with.

For someone who has spent the last seven or eight years trying to not make that an issue, that is galling indeed.

An interesting experience though nonetheless, and one that I am embracing.

…and hey, as the fellas say as they chew and spit their dip, “Welcome to the Oil Fields!”

Pandora’s Box…

Isn’t it interesting that the smallest things are what remind you of how far away from home you are? 

The odd choices in the grocery stores, the strange shows on television and the news anchors you don’t know if you should trust?

Need I say anymore?

The slightly different social expectations, like choosing to drive instead of to walk?

Even the time the sun sets.  It is all…new, and, well, different.

That is exciting, and also slightly uncomfortable.

But I am beginning to think only the uncomfortable forces you to grow and see how far you can stretch.

Isn’t ironic that we think of life lessons as hackneyed phrases and disregard only to appreciate their significance when we experience it directly.

It’s like we sometimes think we are the only ones who have ever experienced such difficulties and trials, and forget there is an entire history of humanity that has gone before us, generations of billions of people who also saw themselves at the center of their own worlds…

It is natural I guess, as we see the world through our own eyes, to think of only our experiences, but we should step back every once in a while to examine our own insignificance.  Scary, perhaps.

Also slightly liberating… 

Women in the East, Women in the West: Finding the middle ground.

Have you ever had your fundamental beliefs about your role in society challenged?

I never thought it would be so…confusing.

Having recently returned from a four month stint in Sudan, I have been trying to reconcile what I saw and experienced there with my experience growing up in Australia as an Aussie chick.  I think I am still figuring it all out…

I never really considered myself a true victim of the “identity crisis” issues that were said to plague first and second generation migrants that make Australia their home.  I considered myself ‘Straylian through and through, from the way I talked and thought, to my mates and sports of choice (except for cricket…soccer girl all the way).  I loved the fact that I could walk into a pump shop at a mine site in central Queensland as a hijabi-wearing-Sudanese-born gal and instantly relate to the old mates working maintenance because, well, I grew up here. This was my country, these were my people.

I felt comfortable with the choices I had made: my degree and career (mechanical engineer, pretty butch), my sport (boxing: yup, as feminine as they come) and the belief that my gender played no part in the role I was to play in society.  My mantra was pretty much “well if the boys can do it, I can do it too”.  My father was naturally horrified, but hid it well and mostly accepted that was who I had become.

Boy, was I in for a treat when I got to Sudan.

My first month was…interesting.  Not because of the heat, or the conditions or the lack of system…but because of the cultural expectations that were placed on me that I just wasn’t accustomed to.  I understood and accepted the bare bones of it all (after all, my parents brought me up as a Sudanese woman), but what frustrated me was the clear discrepancy between the roles of men and women and the unwritten rules that I was expected to adhere to.

Sport was a big one – my grandmother couldn’t understand why I wanted to train on the local track, competed with my uncle in pushups or was so interested in exercise.   It wasn’t even the obviously masculine things that were different: Apparently the way I walked, sat, talked, laughed…the issues I wanted to debate (politics isn’t for women!) and the interests that I had were all unfeminine and undesirable in a respectable Sudanese woman. 

I used to joke to my aunt: “Someone should write a rule book on “How to live life as a Sudanese woman” so I don’t keep putting my foot in it and doing the wrong thing”

She would just laugh.  “This is how it is here…”

At first, I found it funny.   I loved being the odd one out, flying in the face of what was acceptable, just being me.  Then it began to frustrate me.  Why was I being judged on things that had nothing to do with my true character? Why weren’t my cousins fighting for their rights as women!

It isn’t as if my cousins were “oppressed”.  Hardly.  My cousins are all studying or working and my aunts all have higher degrees.  Their English is great and they are all well educated and well read.  In fact, one aunt is running one of the biggest businesses in Sudan!  So the opportunity for women to do things is there. Yet… I still couldn’t understand how the women were living with such cultural restrictions.

My cousin shed some light on her perspective one night and said something that I had never considered before.

“It is so cool that you are travelling and doing all this stuff and seeing the world Yassmina, but that is your world.  You have to accept what we have accepted that this is our world and we have to operate in it.  It’s not as bad as you think! We know what we have to do and the role we have to play to be a good woman, a good wife, a good Sudanese and a good Muslim, so we do that.  We don’t want to make our lives harder by looking for things that we don’t really need…”

My aunt echoed a similar sentiment.  “You might look at me and say woah, she has a degree but she is sitting at home taking care of the house, how oppressed is she!  But I love doing this! I love taking care of the house, cooking and being there for my family, and many others do as well.  I work [she has a teaching job], but I work hours that will suit the family because at the end of the day, the family is most important.  You might disagree Yassmina, but the woman is better suited to bringing up a family; you can’t have a home without a mother…and I am happy to fill that role”.

Hold up! I thought.  Yes, there were some societal inequalities that women had issues with and were wanting to have resolved…but by and large they were happy with the role they were playing in life? They **wanted** to be caregivers and homemakers? Wait…does this mean our entire definition of success differs? Huh? Didn’t they want to be liberated?

Yikes.  Now I was confused and I began to wonder…

Maybe there is some validity in the way my family see the role of a woman. Maybe it is too crazy for me to expect a man to have an equal share in the housework. Maybe, as a woman, I have to think about my role as a procreator and a homemaker as just as, if not more important, than my career…

If you know me at all, you would know those thoughts are truly at odds with how I tend to see the world.

There is another aspect to it too, one that I haven’t talked about here, and that is how the women see it as their Islamic duty to be the caregivers and the homemakers.  This was harder for me to deal with, because I don’t have the scholarly Islamic knowledge to confidently refute what they were saying.

So I reached a point where I was at a loss.

Do I forget about everything I saw and learnt in Sudan and continue living life the way I had been in Australia, with gender not being a factor in my decisions because “that’s how I grew up”? 

Or, do I follow the path described by my cultural background, where all my decisions are largely based on gender and gender roles… because that is “where I am from?”

I had – and sometimes still have – difficulty reconciling what I grew up with and what my background encourages. The thing is, I think the expected role of a Sudanese woman in society is at odds with the expected role as an Australian woman in society.

How does one deal with that?

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I guess for me, I think I am beginning to realise that the idea that “women can have it all” is fair enough, but perhaps for me should be amended to “women can have whatever they want”.  If they want the house and kids that’s great, and if they want the career that is within their rights as well.  Having it all at the same time though… that might be a little more difficult.

I don’t have a concrete answer to my mental dilemma just yet. All I do know is that I feel there needs to be a middle ground, and that is the one that I choose to take, inshallah. A path that takes into account that I am a woman, but that doesn’t limit my choices, it informs them.

If there is one thing I took away from the trip, it is this: It is important, as a woman, to recognise that if (and inshallah when) you choose to have a family, the role as a mother is invaluable and cannot be substituted… and that gender does play a factor in the family dynamic, whether we like it or not.

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How it will all play out and how much will I take from that lesson? I guess only time will tell…

What about you? How do you see the role of women in society? Have you ever had your views so challenged?

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Covers: Come As You Are

Yuna, a Muslim Malaysian singer with a soulful version of Nirvana’s classic.