WHORE WARS: ARABIC POP DIVAS TAKE ON THE HOMOSOCIAL ORDER

The post below is a research paper I made for school. It is in no way meant to degrade anyone. On the contrary, it is an observation made with the utmost respect in mind. The word "whore" is used as an appropriation, to talk back to the people using this adjective.

It's a little censored to avoid problems.


I. BACKGROUND/THE ARABIC MEDIA SCENE
The past decade has seen a great increase in the number of pan Arabic satellite TV stations. This wave started with Lebanese stations going International and regional, and then everyone followed. The biggest and most successful of those stations are either based in Lebanon or run by Lebanese talent. Egypt also plays an important role, especially in the music television field. A lot of these stations are backed by Saudi money. The effect of this phenomenon has been what I call the regionalization of local moral codes. The Internet has multiplied this effect, with clips from the major stations available on such sites as You Tube. A quick look on the comments on some clips on You Tube shows the huge difference in moral codes among Arab societies. In addition to alarming the status quo, this media “mass literacy”1 is producing effects such as exposure to different cultures, need for programs that can compete ever increasingly and hence feeding on controversy, and attempts at censorship. In February of 2008, Egypt and Saudi Arabia succeeded in passing an Arab League resolution attempting to censor Arab satellite TV stations.
This liberalization is not a new phenomenon in all Arabic speaking countries. In the 60’s through the 80’s, Lebanon’s TV and music scenes saw some attempts that didn’t seem to raise any eyebrows. In Lebanon, stars like Howeida, Mishka, Taroob and even the great Diva Sabah made some TV clips and songs that are controversial by today’s standards.2 Lebanon has historically played the role of the liberal outlet of the Arab world. Egypt saw some classic films as Abi Fawqa al-Shajara, which debated virginity and the differences between generations. In that film, the hero (played by Abdel Halim Hafez) gets tired of his girlfriend’s avoidance of being ‘alone with him’ and falls in passion with a prostitute who takes him to Lebanon where they experience sexual liberty together.3 The liberalization slowed down probably due to the political mess and the many wars that the region has seen, and also the rise of right-wing Islamist movements.

II. OBJECTIVE AND METHODOLOGY
As part of a larger project, which needs further investigation, and starting from the homosocial nature of Arabic societies, I will argue in this paper that, in the world of Arabic pop music, this very ‘nature’ is being challenged. The ‘old system’ of ideas and of homosocial men and the women who support them is being called into question by a ‘new’ one championed by bombshell divas and the men and women who support them. I will focus on examples of pop songs and videos stemming from the Whore Wars, the mediated competition among Arabic female singers stirring up a feud of who breaks more taboos faster. The methodology of this paper will be to, first, take an introspective look into the terms ‘whore’ and ‘homosociality’ and to get a grasp of what they mean in practical terms. Then I will proceed to describe this ‘war’ and to pin point its tactics and weapons.

III. WHORE
The Arabic pop scene has recently been the playing field of a fierce feud among some female singers. Those singers are often socially branded as ‘whores.’ While some of the female -and male- singers that have appeared recently on pan Arab TV stations may very well be prostitutes, the term ‘whore’ does not necessarily seem to correspond to the working habits of those people. It has indeed been used before. From where I stand in society, I have repeatedly heard the word ‘whore’ used socially on a long list of famous female singers. So what exactly is a Whore then?

A. CODES AND CONVENTIONS
My laptop’s dictionary says that a whore is “a promiscuous woman.” It adds that, when referring to a woman, the verb ‘to whore’ means to “work as a prostitute.” The verb can be used for a man if he “uses the services of a prostitute.” But there is a third, general meaning for the verb, which is to “debase oneself by doing something for unworthy motives, typically for money.” Therefore, the word ‘whore’ may or may not be used to mean ‘prostitute.’
In her Yapping Out Loud,4 Mirha-Soleil Ross succinctly asks the question: “Who wants to be the one having to face the battalions…?” Who else will have the courage to stand up against an entrenched social system and make “social pariah(s)” out of themselves except for someone who already feels the weight of the name/branding on her shoulders? In this paper, I will show that in the Arabic media context, those “pariah(s)” are the pop divas in question. They are being branded as whores because they are doing just that.
Myrha Soliel Ross adds that “the word whore is still used to keep women in line. “ It is therefore the “punishment” used by society as “the example set by this system” whereby “if you don’t bow down to men, then you will get what’s coming to you.” In other words, whores “are used as scapegoats” to scare other women into conforming to the rules of men’s society.
So, To recap, whores have debased morals, they are social pariahs, and they are used as a social lesson to keep women in line.
What is meant by debased morals? The best way for me to understand how someone would have debased morals is if they break social taboos. A woman with debased morals is probably one who is leading a sexually liberated existence. Joan Mellen attributes to Robert Altman the hypothesis that this “sexual freedom” is linked to “a rejection of bourgeois morality.”5 By that standard, all the videos and song that are being discussed in this paper are linked to a movement towards sexual freedom because they seem to be championing such a rejection. In the Arab world, a mediated woman’s body is, by any count, taboo. That taboo may not be such a big deal in Lebanon for example but with the appearance of the pan Arab stations, the issue is now at the forefront.
“Oh my God, I’m a body,” cries Mike Hoolboom in Positiv.6 In that article, if Thomas Waugh had been writing in the Arab media context, his statement would probably have been: “The artist’s cry…could have been echoed by…”7 a lot of Arabic female singers on pan Arab TV stations today. Waugh’s bottom line in his “Conclusions” about shame and desire is the body. Perhaps this also applies to taboo breaking. One of the first singers to break the body taboo in the pan Arab music video age was probably Elissa. Elissa’s first hit was called Baddi Doob39 (I want to melt, 1999). It may well be the video that ignited the issue being discussed in this paper. In that song, echoing Richard Dryer’s argument8 in a most sensuous way, Elissa, ‘immorally’ draped in white sheets for the majority of the video clip, sings: “...my eye is on you, my lashes are around you, let me drink of your love and I will shout Labbayk.” Labbayk is an ancient Arabic word mostly used in religious (for example, in pilgrimage answering God’s call) and heroic contexts (answering calls for help) meaning, I will do whatever you tell me to do.
In the afore mentioned article, Richard Dryer talks about the “untrhreatening”9 sexuality of the “desirable playmate” which does not insist on “sexuality for itself” but rather as dependent on a man’s desire. Elissa’s rising to fame was probably because she presented herself in that role. In a recent interview, an interviewer on the Lebanese station LBC showed Elissa an old video of a famous Lebanese drag queen making an impression of her.40 During the show, the drag queen, who always goes by his male name (Bassem Feghali) says that “ever since I wore the sheet, they “published me” (Lebanese slang for spoke badly of me but also literally meaning they ‘published’ me). He proceeds to unravel a long line of clean laundry including underwear hiding under his sheet. Elissa lovingly says –of Bassem’s act- that he is cute, acknowledging what he said about her not being an insult.
Just like the Marilyn Monroe and the playmates of the 1950’s, whose male-oriented sexualities carried undertones of the ‘verge of a revolt.’10 Elissa’s sheet wearing may also carry such undertones as it may very well be considered a cry reminding herself and whoever is listening to her that she is a body. In her song, she asks her man to assume, to tell her that he “loves her madly” and to “sing and raise his voice” saying: “I understand.”
The list of music videos with women breaking taboos and acting proud of their debased morals is amazingly long. I will just mention one more in this context. In the video for her song Sheel Idak (Hands off),11 Marwa ends the video’s narrative, in which she picks up a handsome man from the fish market, by paying the man money. By paying the handsome man, not only does Marwa reject being called a prostitute, but she also calls the man a prostitute. In addition, by seemingly paying a man for sex, she is owning up to her sexuality and, more importantly, to a perverse perception of a prostitute-paying sexuality that’s usually reserved for males. The refrain from her song repeats the mantra: “Just like you have a right, I have one.” In the song and video, Marwa is in the fish market shopping, she says no a total of 14 times before setting her eyes on the man with the –literally- biggest fish on the market. We will come back to this video later in this paper.
The Social Pariah Status is not one easily claimed. Marwa’s case clearly illustrates the earning of this status. During a TV concert event in Egypt, in plain view of a policeman standing by and watching, she was attacked by what’s best described as a pack of horny men. The pictures and videos of this ‘event’ became famous through You Tube, with almost every comment blaming her for wearing a sexy dress. In fact, during an interview on an Egyptian TV station, Marwa found herself forced to defend the dress she was wearing at the event with her male interviewer saying that those “young men were provoked because they, as you know, are a bit frustrated.”12
In an interview that ran on the pan Arab Lebanese station LBC, Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe was brought face to face with her ‘social pariah’ status. Haifa had been divorced with her husband just before she became famous and had lost custody of her young daughter, presumably because of her reputation. When the interviewer asked her about her daughter, Haifa started to cry. One You Tube user made a video replacing the voice of the interviewer with his own voice calling Haifa “a prostitute who would get fucked by a Saudi” and that “the Saudi” “fucked Haifa in her pussy, ass and mouth.”13 “Saudi” in Arabic circles sometimes derogates a ‘rich’ and ‘filthy’ Saudi. Haifa may have cried in that interview but in a second –later- interview on the same station, when faced with magazine articles saying that the people of her village denounce her, that she has “blackened” her father’s face and that they “refuse to even speak her name,” a stronger Haifa stands up and jumps the interviewer trying to forcibly take the magazine eventually forcing him to put it aside and telling to only talk to her about respectful journalism.

B. POWER PLAYS
In River of No Return by Otto Preminger (1954), Marilyn Monroe plays a showgirl and an apparent prostitute. In the film, the climax of the relationship between her and a strong leading man is a forced kiss. The forcing takes place in a violent way. The resolution of the relationship in the film’s ending takes place when the square jawed hero played by Robert Mitchum, again forcibly, kidnaps Monroe from the saloon, hence saving her and claiming her as his prize.
This film carries and sets a tone that’s common in the mediated arts, which often suggests that a ‘whore’ needs to be saved and she needs to be saved by a handsome leading man. Mirha-Soleil Ross adds to the leading man category, the out-of-line “battalions” of feminists and social workers who feel the need to save whores from their living hells. The Arabic media are no exception. Egyptian cinema carries an endless list of films whose unlikely heroine is a whore, the daughter of a whore, or the boss of a whorehouse, all in desperate need to be saved. This topic is for another paper though. We will just take one example, which illustrates the case of the power plays and parallels the above mentioned Marilyn Monroe role, if not in an opposite direction. The example is a song by Suad Hosni from the movie Amira, My Love (1974). The song is entitled Bambi (Meaning pink in Egyptian slang; the song runs like an Egyptian La Vie En Rose). The film is a Cinderella style story, except the Cinderella in question is being called a whore by society because her man married her in clandestine and won’t assume their relationship in public. Suad Hosni was a role model and a multi-talented performer who is referred to in Arabic media as The Cinderella of the Arabic Screen. In the onset of her career, she often took on the role of a positive, life-filled young girl. She recently allegedly killed herself by jumping from a friend’s balcony in London. A lot of controversy surrounded her in her life and followed her well into her death. In Bambi, she sings: “…I used to run away and tell you yes and no, you took me by force and showed me happiness. I thank you my love, you are a thousand times right, love and passion are out of our hands.” Suad Hosni here plays the role of the innocent family girl who was saved by the leading man from a life of deprived innocence and shown by him the infinite pleasures of love and passion and hence suffers the ‘whore’ title as a consequence.
The similarity between Amira, My Love and River of No Return is an interesting East-West parallel, equal in value but opposite in direction. While western media has moved in the direction of rejecting this whole argument of saving the whore, the Arabic ‘Whore Wars’ tell us a different story. Suad Hosni’s screen character is in a way a precursor to the personas assumed by many of today’s Arabic female singers. Their answer to being called whores is not to reveal their innocence like Suad Hosni’s Amira but to assume the name and, like in the above-mentioned case of Marwa, sometimes even thrown it back at society.

IV. HOMOSOCIALITY
Simply put, homosociality is “The inclination to spend most of one’s time, most of one’s life, with individuals of the same sex.”14
Perhaps one of the most interesting insights into male Homosociality comes from Eve Sedgwick. Sedgwick hypothesized “the potential unbrokenness of a continuum between homosocial and homosexual” and the invisibility of this continuum to men. She gave the entire continuum the name “Male homosocial desire.”15 Perhaps the best illustrative example of this continuum is three works by Lebanese video artist Akram Zaatari. The three works are:
1. Majnounak (Crazy of you, 1997): A documentary with interviews of a few men from lower socio-economic classes speaking about their adventures and how they use, abuse, and sometimes rape women. Film ends with a song that the interviewees sing, facing a wall, backs to the camera. The song goes: “We get it out and pull it and stick it in the wall.”
2. The Red Chewing Gum (2000): A video letter expressing the sensuality of unspoken sexuality.
3. Shu Bhibbak (Not in circulation, Shown in private): A documentary about the ‘mundane’ details of gay sex.
The first and last of Zaatari’s three works would lie on the two far ends of Sesgwick’s continuum whereby, depending on your views, the 2nd one lies somewhere around the middle.

SYMPTOMS
One symptom of male Homosociality is strong socio-behavioral bonds among men, “The men participate in humorous interactions” which “send an unclear message that teases the participants and draws them to engage deeper in the interaction, generating a dynamic of seduction.” “It is suggested that although this homosocial staging attempts to erase hints of homoeroticism, it is this very erasure that produces desire as its emergent outcome.“16 In Lebanon, such sights of young men on the streets are common. They sit on cars and make living rooms of sidewalks. A Sunday stroll along Beirut’s Corniche, points to the mode and intensity of Lebanese male homosociality. Men of all ages compete in who can dive the best, they initiate their young brothers into the ‘art’ from very dangerous points, sometimes even from broken down barbwire fences.17 This Corniche can become lined up from end to end with men and boys in bathing suits showing off their young bronzed bodies, whistling to female joggers and hugging each other. Akram Zaatari once filmed those scenes. He was welcome by everyone. He then projected the same shots without editing on the same Corniche. His installation was destroyed daily. The men did not approve of a mediated version of their behaviors. Older men have their spaces also. The famous old glass cafés (minimal cafés with glass widow) are slowly disappearing from Beirut. But they still exist; hand in hand with the Hammams (public baths) and the cock fight parlors, as spaces reserved for men and where women are simply not welcome. Men are OK with closeness, but maybe there are limits. In the clip (from a movie) for My soul, my life, love is asking by Abdel Halim Hafez, we see him bathing with his friend in the room, of course at a ‘safe’ distance. It’s as if he stops at an invisible line after which he would be able to see the famous singer’s penis.18 Another example that illustrates the male-male bonding culture is in Marwa’s video for Sheel Idak. At the beginning of the clip, Marwa passes a group of young boys sitting by the wall, with a girl at the end, curiously seeming like she is incapable of getting into the boys’ line up. As Marwa passes by, the oldest boy looks at her sexually and another boy in the group smiles, only to suddenly lose his smile to a strange seemingly sexually realized expression. Meanwhile, the first boy looks at her behind as she passes him by. I think someone on Marwa’s crew, if not her personally, knew exactly what he or she was doing. They started the clip right from the beginning, from child homosociality.
Another symptom of male homosociality is the phenomenon of “degrading the female and the female body. (…) Homosociality entails fear of the other sex and avoidance or limitation of controls with it. (…)Moreover, any institution or practice that tends to degrade the female body may be considered homosocial.”19 I would add to that the ‘outlawing’ of the female body. In Arab societies, the female body is outlawed. Of course the degree and manner of this outlawing varies from such societies as Saudi Arabia to Morocco all the way to Lebanon. What the media did to such societies as Saudi Arabia was making strongly present what is unlawful. In Saudi Arabia, the use of a woman’s face, hair, and body in advertising or on TV s is under strict prohibitive rules. With the advent of satellite television, a new de facto law was enforced on that society. The Arabic speaking satellite stations, and wit them those female singers in question broke into their living rooms, causing a dichotomy within people’s lives. What they see and participate in on TV (through phone-in programs, pan Arab reality TV shows, etc…) does not conform to the way they are allowed to live.
The above example of Marwa being attacked is a good illustration of that new social issue. One You tube video of event adds titles such as “you’re the one who’s responsible,” “you act cute in front of hot youth, what do you expect them to do besides that,” and “if rape is a crime, indecent dress and behavior is a bigger crime, you did this to yourself.” Perhaps the most telling statement he makes is in his question: “do you know what people are saying about you, Hambolli girl?” Hambolli, besides being the name of one of Marwa’s most telling songs (Hambolli Singer),38 is also an Egyptian slang re-interpretation of the word Hanbali, after the historic creator of the most orthodox Sunni Muslim schools of thought. When someone is described as a Hanbali, they are being called stubborn and dogmatic. The man who posted this is called Alaa Ghandour. He is the “editor” the Alaa Ghandour News electronic magazine and also the “editor” of the “Grumpy Wife” electronic magazine. 20 Of course, this is not a ‘serious’ website and is intended to show how witty the “editor” is, but its existence is a testament to wife bashing being a running joke in some Arabic circles. Some of the article in this “magazine” are extremely chauvinistic and –at least in my mind- explain the wave of husband beating and murdering that took over Egyptian news a few years back.
Chauvinistic men aren’t the only ones assuming the role of degrading the female body. In fact, it is argued by many that the characters portrayed by those sexy singers degrade women. While I believe that the argument in Dryer’s article holds true for most of those singers,21 some of those videos are in my opinion degrading to women. Some singers unashamedly offer their services to the whims of men and hence can be considered demeaning to women. Dana, in the song entitled Ayy Khidma ya basha? (Any service, Basha?), blatantly asks the socioeconomically superior male viewer how she can service him. Basha is a historic title given by the Ottoman Empire to denote a feudal lord.22
A third symptom is disavowal of homosexuality. Through examples from made-for-homosocial circles classical stag films, Thomas Waugh explains how, “shaped by censorship” as well as “shame and disavowal,” those films produced a “consistent pattern of denial” of the male body and of homosexuality.23 Sedgwick agrees, saying that male bonding may be characterized by intense homophobia, fear and hatred of homosexuality.”24
In my opinion, Arab societies are still homosocial in nature. They are societies where “the public space was the exclusive domain of men,”25 where male homosocial desire is intense, and where women have traditionally been oppressed. And whereby homosociality is not “peculiar to Arab society,”26 it still is a distinct feature of it. This is more obvious in Gulf Arab states than in places like Lebanon for example. But even in the most modern circles of Beirut, men are physically close, their behaviors visibly befitting the descriptions cited in the abstract above.27 It is common in many Arab countries to see men holding hands in public, and men kissing hello and hugging is common all over the Arabic speaking word. Hammams (bathhouses) are common all over the Arab world, although in Lebanon they have become almost exclusively gay. Straight men do frequent those bathhouses but with the illicit approval of clandestine sensual activities befitting the not so far left far end of Eve Sedgwick’s above mentioned continuum. During an Egyptian TV talk show, Egyptian director Ines Deghedy mentioned that the Koran speaks of Ghelman (Boys, word usually used to denote sexuality, as in Ghelman Poetry basically meaning gay poetry) in heaven as a prize for believers. The list of attacks she gets as comments are long but the title given to the clip says it best: “Suhaqiyya (derogatory word for Lesbian) Whore claims that Heaven’s Ghelman are for sex.” In the clip, one of the women on the panel talks about how homosexuality is a natural part of our culture, with poets historically singing Ghelman praise and gets violent comments in return.28

V. WHORE-WARS: COMBATTING THE SYMPTOMS
A. Outlawing the Mediated Female Body: The tactic used to combat this symptom is reclaiming that body and its own sexuality. The number of videos by women celebrating their bodies and their sexuality is not small. I will focus on a few examples.
By all means, the very face of the idea of a woman celebrating her body and sexuality is Haifa. In a number of her videos and appearances, she plays the bombshell diva down to the smallest detail. Three examples are given in the Appendices: Agoul Ahwak (I say I’m into you), Mish adra astanna (I can’t wait any longer) and Mat’olsh le hadd (don’t tell anyone). In those videos, Haifa’s curves are put to the test of dancing, dress wetting, and bathing suit extreme close-ups to name only a few. In the latter, she is in a peep show style room, with her private life being watched by hungry looking men through little windows. Her world is lavish, fun, and sensual. Her inviting behavior contradicts with the prohibitive cold nature of the room.
Other examples of video by women celebrating their bodies are El’ab by Maria and ‘Awez Te’raf by Tina. Maria plays her schoolgirl persona and enjoys a milk and cornflakes bath while Tina, in an apparent ideal female masturbation session, wears her sexy satin negligee and is alone in her bedroom having cherries, caviar and Champaign and watching her producer’s image on TV.

B. Disavowal of Homosexuality: An emerging gay factor in the war goes to show us the tactic for combating this symptom. In a series of three videos of songs by Nancy Ajram, the gay presence makes itself very seen and felt. The first one is Ya Salam (How nice). In this video, Nancy goes backstage after singing a song. In the backstage area, dancers and show people interact. Many gay looking men say hello to the camera and stand on the sides of the corridors. This video surprised the gay community in that they saw themselves represented in it. The general public may have only seen lavishly dressed men though. In the next video, that for Yay, sehr ‘younou (wow, the magic of his eyes), Nancy has a gay hairdresser who turns out to be her friend and who ends up revealed as the one who’s hooking her up with the guy she likes. That same character continues on to the next video for Lawn ‘younak (The color of your eyes), where he’s focused on as a main figure, dancing with Nancy and crying and hugging her. Nancy is very popular in the gay circles, perhaps because of the above videos. Last year, a story rose to TV’s forefront of a young man who’s gone through a series of plastic surgeries to look like her.29
The gay factor is not just on screen. Many producers, directors, and talent managers are reportedly gay. They are playing a big part in the controversy of today’s Arabic music video world. Another gay factor is the success of Lebanese female impersonator Bassem Feghali who is helping shape up those singers’ personas and giving them publicity. Bassem’s popular characters and impersonations are funny and, more importantly, they are played and accepted in the mainstream media and hosted in popular family-time shows.
Other videos have also used gay characters but one example begs to be included. In the video of Yara’s Twassa Fiyyi (Take care of me),42 which we will talk about later on, an unexpected shot makes its way into the video. In the video, as Yara is performing on stage, she looks to her left to see off stage -in the same frame- an old man standing and behind him two leather-clad gay ‘bears.’ That shot illustrates very well the idea I am trying to prove, that of an under the surface struggle to overturn the old homosocial society.
C. The Strong Male bonds and the Impenetrability of the Male Space: has been attacked by Nancy Ajram and Marwa. In the video for Akasmak Ah, Aseebak, la (I fight with you ya, I leave you no), her first big video and break-in into the public eye, a just-out-of-plastic-surgery Nancy, clad in a sexy shoulder-less dress that showed her new cleavage, breaks into the last bastion of Lebanese manhood, the glass café. She comes into the traditionally not so clean place, cleans it up first, throwing water on the old tiles and polishing up the tables, then she performs for the men, plays cards with them, sexually intimidates them, causes a rumble, and escapes laughing her little heart out.30 Marwa does a similar thing. In her video for Motreb Hambolli, she invades a café and cockfight arena. With an insult and a snappy jerk from her tightly dressed sexy waist, she unseats the traditional male oud player (Hambolli Singer) and establishes herself in his place. The lyrics of the song seem incomprehensible at first, but a close inspection reveals a systematic yapping, criticizing the conditions that society is imposing on her as a female and a woman.31

VI. ‘WHORES’ VS. ‘HOMOSOCIALITES’: TACTICAL ANALYSIS
A. Are those singers creating “radical new ideas and shapes?”
At least in the case of Marwa, the answer is simply no. Marwa’s first album was made up of mostly remakes of traditional songs by an Egyptian folk singer named Leila Nazmi. Leila Nazmi sang ‘low’ level songs, carrying on in a tradition that is still going strong today called Shaabi music (people’s music). Shaabi music is characterized by repetitive simple tunes and uncomplicated trouble-free lyrics. Marwa in fact upset Leila Nazmi. In an interview on Egyptian TV she attacked Marwa for wearing “naked” dresses (Egyptian slang word for sexy dress), to which Marwa responded: “This is yours.” By “yours,” Marwa explains in her interview with LBC, she was referring to the fact that the dress in questions is a Baladi (Egyptian local) dress. In fact, Marwa’s mannerisms and way of dressing build on a persona that’s very common in Egyptian tradition and cinema and which is that of the Me’allema (Boss Lady). Examples of this persona are common and made famous by such actresses as Nadia El Gundi. In my opinion, the brilliance of Marwa’s persona is that she didn’t create anything new. She simply added her will to the equation. Marwa, who must have grown watching those on-screen personas, probably internalized and used them as her own and to get ahead in real life. In the same LBC interview,32 the interviewer would not stop interrogating her about her dress habits, making such statements as “if everyone says there’s something wrong with your dresses then there probably is” and “don’t you think there’s a society watching you at home?” to which she answered “I don’t see anything wrong with it.” He reminded her of an older shared interview where another star, an Egyptian actress by the name Athar AlHakim, who made a backstage derogatory comment about Marwa. Marwa’s answer in that interview was to dedicate her next song to Athar AlHakim. He then told her: “You can’t wear what you wear in private on TV knowing that you’re entering into more than one society that does not accept such dressing habits.” She answered: “you will see me like I am…I’m not going to hide who I am…If you don’t like what you see, you can always change the channel.”
Leila Nazmi and the traditional Me’allema persona are not the only historic inspirations for Marwa. I found a lot of similarities between the Motreb Hambolli video and a song clip by Suad Hosni from the movie Shafika and Metwalli. Marwa’s video seems to be an updated and more daring version of this clip. To attack her ‘controversy’ is to attack tradition.

B. Whore vs. Whore
The Arabic music media is undergoing a frenzy, feeding it’s rating on the Whore vs. Whore wars. Needless to say, those singers make a lot of use of the publicity. The war is happening through news and gossip articles, interviews, and also in videos. The subjects of those wars are most commonly “Who did what first” but sometimes it gets raunchier. One example is Dana’s video for a song called Inta Meen? (Who are you?) in which she prides herself on her natural beauty, poking fun of other singers undergoing plastic surgery. This subject is also very common in interviews. Another example is Yara’s song Twassa Fiyyi, which starts with an obvious making fun of the horrible singing voices of many of the other singers and of Maria’s schoolgirl persona.

C. BB: The Bitch Brand name
In the afore-mentioned interview with Marwa on LBC, after being cornered about her dresses and mannerisms, Marwa shows an interesting tactic. Each time she is nervous or cornered she switches to another persona, that of the Egyptian ‘whore’ /Me’allema persona. It’s as if she hides behind that title and finds freedom in it. She flip-flops between the two personas (that and the serious one) easily and quickly. That interview sees the interviewer attacking Marwa constantly and implicitly accusing her of being a woman with debased morals. He makes disrespectful remarks forcing his guest to get into the role that he wants her to play to raise his viewership numbers. A second example is Tunisian singer Najla’s song and video Batlakhbat fi ismak37 (I still make mistakes with your name). She sings: “Forgive me, I have to laugh…what are saying about me? I loved you so that means what? And till now I still can’t even remember your name…” A third example is Haifa’s Mat’olsh le hadd where she plays the role of a stripper in a peep show. As if she is acknowledging what is said about her. But she is in an impenetrable room and the ones committing the whoring are on the outside looking in.

D. Search for Legitimacy
Can be seen through three ways:
1. Associating with older divas and popular stars: Haifa and Rola Saad made duet remakes of old Sabah songs.33 In addition to those duets, a lot of the music many of those singers re making are remakes of songs by old ‘respectable’ divas. Associating with well-loved older generation cultural figures such as Taroob, Sabah, Warda, Georgette Sayegh, etc. those singers receive a breath of fresh air (as Myriam Fares tell Georgette Sayegh in a TV interview).41
2. Kids: They all did it at the same time. Within a period of a few months, Haifa, Nancy, Dominique, and Marwa, and even Wael Kfoori (Lebanese male superstar ‘accused’ of homosexuality) all included a child in their videos.

After those videos, Haifa is the only one that went back to sexy, others are trying to calm down their images.
3. Consolidation with the comedy in gay characters. Maybe having a funny gay character exonerates ‘whores’ and makes them look better in comparison. One example is the 4 Cats’ Ya ‘antar in which they sing about a man who pretends to be ‘Antar (like an Arab Samson) and who walks and prances and fails to perform at home every time. This song is a remake of a song by a loved comedian who died about 20 years ago named Ferial Karim. In the new video however, a gay scream adds a gay character that was only insinuated in the first version.34

Another example is the duet remake of a mix of old Sabah songs with Rola Saad. The video uses Bassem Feghali for comic relief. Bassem plays his well-known character Antiqua Sursock. He ashes his long cigarette, sticks Botox in his forehead, and utters the beautiful words in the climax of the video:
“Whose son is that, Sabah? He made my heart fall.” “Whose son” is a traditional way to ask whom a person is. Uttered by a drag queen, these words illustrate an issue that I discussed before: tradition, appropriated by the right people becomes down right controversial.

E. WMD’s: Weapons of Male-Ego Destruction: The castration of the traditional male figure is taking place in videos and TV interviews and variety shows. In a recent variety show on Egyptian TV, Haifa was asked to act out a scene handed to her by her –suspected- feminist host. She does it very well, making her partner, an Egyptian star of some sort, tremble and blush. The girls in the audience look extremely empowered as they wildly cheer her on as she converts him to a blushing little boy forcing him eventually to take off his jacket. This is a fun way of illustrating the strength of those women. A raunchier example follows.

Tunisian Singer Najla’s videos are broke an all-new record. One of her videos, of a song called Iw’a t’esh’hom ‘alayya35 (don’t live them on my account) shows her stealing a man from the comfort of his bed, and, helped with a bunch of leather clad masked women, subjecting him to an S&M humiliation and torture session, warning him not to live ‘that role’ on her account, and not to forget himself. In another video of a song called Ana Hatlob Idak (I’m gonna ask for your hand), she wears a small outfit, and flirts with a horse as she playfully says: “I’m gonna ask for your hand tomorrow, say yes without thinking…the rights have been equalized and the difference is very small.” She says all that as she throws water on the horse and cleans it. She adds that she wants him “at home, responsible for it, not going out at all, and to dress in an acceptable way.” Najla takes over the man’s role as the one who asks for the woman’s hand, but she also castrates him of his traditional tyranny, whereby a lot of men make demands of ‘decency’ and responsibility at home. I think she would have loved to add barefoot and pregnant to her list. Alas, the limitations of our biological make-up.36

VII. CONCLUSION
Is the above a coordinated effort, a conspiracy of some sort? Is it always intelligent and willed? The answers are probably no and maybe respectively. However, the videos and songs discussed come at a time of change as a reaction to age-old social behaviors, which are shaped and constructed like a system and are carefully tailored to produce systematic results. The results are changing because of the changing times. Therefore the reactions to that system will naturally look like a systematic coordinated response.

Those performers are accused of lacking talent and of dumbing down the music and cultural scene. This may be true, but aren’t the media responsible for dumbing down the scene by not being able to talk about real issues. Aren’t they the ones keeping the discussion on the level of plastic surgeries and dresses and inability to say to a woman: no one has the right to molest and abuse you. I believe that those ‘dumb’ songs carry a lot more value than many TV news and variety shows and are producing a lot more positive change than all the politicians in the Arab world put together. In fact, I believe that the establishment, especially in such countries like Saudi Arabia, which is financing a large number of Satellite TV stations, is hiding behind those divas in their fight against local fundamentalist forces. Perhaps the fact that a high Saudi judge has just issued a fatwa allowing the killing of the owners of satellite TV stations is just proof to that.


Footnotes
1. Frédéric Lagrange, “Male Homosexuality in Modern Arabic Literature,” in Mai Ghossoub and Emma Sinclair-Webb, ed., Imagined masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East. (London: Saqi, 2000), p.191.
2. See Videos under classics.
3. See Video entitled Gana-l Hawa.
4. Yapping out Loud, Mirha-Soleil Ross, 2002, Canada, 74 minutes.
5. Joan Mellen, “Reverse Utopias,” in In The Realm of the Senses (London: British Film Institute, 2004), p26.
6. Thomas Waugh, “Conclusions: Of Bodies, Shame, and Desire,” The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2006), p. 185.
7. Thomas Waugh, “Conclusions,” page 185.
8. Richard Dryer, “Monroe and sexuality,” in Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (London: MacMillan, 1987).
9. Dryer, page 50.
10. Dryer, page 51.
11. See Video entitled Cheil Idak.
12. Interview on Egyptian TV. See Video entitled Marwa’s molestation interview.
13. See Video entitled Haifa vs. Chauvinist.
14. Fatima Mernassi, in Reina Lewis, Sara Mills, ed., Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader; Taylor & Francis, 2003, p. 500.
15. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire; Columbia University Press, 1985, p.1-2
16. Danny Kaplan, “Dynamics of Seduction in Male Homosocial Interactions,” Symbolic Interaction (US) Vol. 28, No. 4, Fall 2005. Quote is from Abstract posted on http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/si.2005.28.4.571 seen Tuesday December 2nd, 2008.
17. See video entitled Corniche
18. See video entitled rouhi hayati
19. Mernassi, p. 500
20. See Screen captures entitled Alaa Ghandour
21. Dryer, p.50-51
22. See video entitled Ayy khedma ya basha
23. Thomas Waugh. “Homosociality in the Classical American Stag Film: Off-screen, on-screen,” Sexualities (UK) Vol. 4, No. 3, Fall 2001, p276.)
24. Sedgwick, p. 1-2
25. Lagrange, p.190
26. Mernassi, p. 500
27. Kaplan
28. See video entitled Ines deghedy
29. See video entitled Nancy copy cat
30. See video entitled Akhasmak Ah by Nancy Ajram
31. See translation of lyrics, appendix
32. See videos under Marwa LBC interview
33. See videos in Legitimacy folder
34. See video entitled Ya Antar
35. See video entitled Iw3a t3eshhom 3alayya
36. See video entitled Ana Hatlob Idak
37. See video entitled Batlakhbat fi ismak
38. See video entitled Motreb Hambolli
39. See video entitled Baddi Doob
40. See video entitled Bassem Faghaly - Parody on Elissa
41. See video entitled Georgette Sayegh
42. See video entitled Twassa Fiyyi


APPENDIX
Lyrics, Motreb Hambolli (Hambolli Chanteur)

Arabic lyrics (translation follows)
Sikadilli w mikadilli shadd sha3ri w canderelli
Alabouha samba, sammuha rumba
Za2za2 3ala weeka, kida 7ambartika
Yama 7anshouf lissa min ghona 3ala wizza

Mahu kullunnullu kawannuly bibi3 fi awanta
We gholubna nhadi kawannadi binadi fi malta
Bighannunnunnu kawannunnu we ba2ena fi za7ma
3awzeen enneeni kawanneeni yaba 7abbit ra7ma
Motreb Hambolli, la3la3 ya 7alolli
Wel kolli da2da2 wa hi zambalita
Warkab sawari, west el 7awari wa3mal kolleka kida fabratika
Ra2asni, atta3ni, dalla3ni
Ma32ool di 3eesha? Di ba2et forkesha
W dukhan 3ala shisha, tar zayy errisha
Yaba 2ool taralalli
We awam ya lalli dana asli sukkar sukkar we m7alli



Translation and Interpretation, keeping meaningless words the same:
Sikadelli and mikadelii, pulled my hair and my canderel (sweetener brand)
They turned it into a Samba, they called it a Rhumba
Chirping on a weeka, like that hambartika
We’re gonna see so much more, the singing of a swan
But all the nullu kawannull are selling bullshit
We got tired calming kawannadi’s calling in malta
They’re singing nunu kawannunu and it’s becoming crowded
They’re after the nini kawannini, people, a grain of compassion
A fanatic Chanteur, shouting oh 7alolli
And everyone joined in the beat and it’s a total mess
And I ride sails, in the midst of 7awari and I make kolleka, like that fabratica
Make me dance, cut me to pieces, treat me like a little girl
Is this a life? It’s becoming like a stumble, and smoke from the shisha flying away like a feather
Say taralalli and quickly ya lalli, I’m made of sugar, sugar and sweetener.

I'm dying, you see.

Yes, I am. I accept it. I embrace it. I realize it. I also keep forgetting it. The realization of my death came to me one day while I was in a movie theater. It was an indescribable overwhelming feeling. It was so overwhelming that I couldn’t react. I couldn’t share, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t even move. I wanted to leave but I froze in my place because I felt that there was no where to hide from this unstoppable monster, this terminator, madly running after me; and I’m in an empty desert where there’s no where to run or hide. Of course, as soon as something else caught my (short) attention (span), I forgot about the whole ordeal.

Until it hit me again.

It seems that there is a certain uncertainty about death, an uncertain certainty if you will. It’s as if we know we’re going to die, but we don’t really know it. We don’t truly realize that one day, possibly very soon, we will leave everyone and everything we fight hard to acquire. Our hopes, our opinions, our political and social affiliations will suddenly lose all relevance. But enough with the word game. I’m going to die soon. I need to use every moment I get. I’m just not sure what to use them for.

The realization of death can make you hungry for life, but only for a while. It will eventually lead you to stop and think, find a balance, stop doing things because you’re pushed into doing them or because everyone else is doing them. You gradually stop giving in to reactions and habitual tendencies and start acting with heartfelt intent. Of course it can also lead you into a frenzy of looking for God’s approval in extreme actions and places. This can be dangerous especially when coupled with stupidity.

So how can one use such a realization?

I believe the first thing to do is to reinforce it. Keep bringing to mind the idea of impermanence. Use it as an antidote to anger and other poisonous attitudes. The biggest illusion we have may be that we are permanent. Actually, from the moment we are born, it is truer to say that we are dying than to say that we are living. Birth is above all the first step towards death. So what’s the use of carrying around grudges and hatred and issues, and of constantly increasing the size and weight of our baggage when we know it will all be irrelevant one day soon?

Death reinforces the idea of life. It can be the crowning moment of our life. Of course, the interpretation of this depends on one’s philosophical approach to life, but I have come to see that, if taken from a certain angle, most of those approaches coincide in their interpretation of death. But this is a digression. The importance of the realization of death is not about death itself but about life. The level of fullness of life depends to a certain extent on the level of realization and acceptance of the fact of death.

The illusion of impermanence is not all that we can be relieved of with the realization of death. Other illusions that can be dispelled are:

1. We’re constant: In fact, every little moment brings another “me” into existence. Our body is made of matter made of molecules made of atoms made of particles made of energy that keeps appearing and disappearing. All matter can be broken down the same way. A Buddha and a trash can are the same in essence. The flame of a candle and the light emitted from a bulb are also the same. A very slow camera would show us that light appears and disappears trillions of times in a moment, giving us the illusion of continuity. Everything we see or hear or think about is made of the same thing: energy particles that keep popping up and burning out, trillions of times in a given moment. Solidity is nothing but an illusion. What we refer to as the I is actually non existent. It’s a label we use to refer to this illusion of a solid mass we think is who we are.

2. We’re pure and clean: Just go without a shower for a few days. Our bodies are inherently dirty. We are decaying. The daily shower is nothing but a -necessary, lol- mask for our inherent yuck. This is not about hygiene though. This is about us being component beings, not independently existing or created entities but relative and compound phenomena. This leads us to the next point.

3. We’re independently existing: “I” is nothing but a label that we use to create the illusion that we exist independently. In fact, I have been searching for years for this illusive “I” to no avail. It is nowhere to be found. Instead, “I” have found a set of ingredients and conditions that can be broken down infinitely. “I” exist only relative to those ingredients and conditions. Change one little thing thousands of years ago and “I” am gone. For example, “I” depends on all the food I have eaten, which depends on all those who made it and on all those who have planted it, made it, fed it, processed it, on the soil, on the animals and the animal feed and the rain water and the chemicals put into the soil and the farmers and their families and their families and the food they ate and the people who planted it, made it, fed it, and processed it, and on my parents and their parents and the food and the rain and the sun’s light and, and, and… In fact, “I” is made up of everything that existed in this universe until my formation. That means every phenomenon in the world except for one: “I.” The most mind boggling of truths is also the simplest. I am the only ingredient that’s missing from my I.

4. We’re free: Freedom is as relative as the rest of us. Absolute freedom does not belong in this world. As far as our mundane world goes, free will is a myth. If nothing, our habitual tendencies rule over us. How many times have I wanted to go eat a healthy meal, only to fall into the burger and fries habit? How many times do I decide not to fall into certain traps only to walk into them with my own “free” will? Are my opinions really freely formed? Don’t they depend on the media I watch and the people I know and in which part of the world I was born and in what part of society I was brought up? What we say and do is relative to the conditions around us. We cannot exist independently of them. The definition of freedom needs to be reconsidered. But that is a different post.

5. We’re happy: A re-examination of the term ‘happiness’ is long overdue. I remember a song I used to love a few years back. It went: ‘happiness seems to be loneliness.’ I used to love that song. Now I know why. I tried to see where my happiness is and I found that what I call happiness are nothing but momentary addictions. Buddhists refer to what we call ‘happiness’ as the ‘suffering of change,’ the addiction to small comforts that turn to suffering shortly after being acquired. I have reduced happiness to things that I acquire and places and situations I pretend to own and belong to. None of those things, places, people, or situations, has made me any happier today than I was a few days or years ago . They are just not it. Moreover, when I don’t get those things I subject myself to the suffering of being denied of them. I submit to anger and agitation. My teacher always gave the example of chocolate cake: waitress tells me they’re out of cake and I feel the empty hole in my stomach where that cake is supposed to be. On the other hand, she gets me the cake and I quickly realize I need something else to really take me where the cake couldn’t. So what is the definition of happiness? Happiness is not the opposite of suffering. It is simply the absence of it. This in turn leads to the next point.

6. We own: Objects come and go. The more we hang on to something the more likely we are to enjoy it and also to loose it or loose its desired effect. If anything, it will disintegrate, or be forgotten, or go out of fashion or just become useless.

The above can seem a bit depressing. On the contrary though, it is liberating. To see the truth and accept it is nothing but liberation. We can turn this knowledge into a launch pad, a starting point for another stage of living, the next level in the game: the level we call Living in the Know.

Why Illusions never change into something real…

It seems that wherever I turn my eyes these days, I see bad news. We have grown accustomed to equating news programs with distress. Catastrophes ranging from ‘natural’ disasters, to wars and armed conflicts are manifesting everywhere. It seems also that investigating and analyzing those problems easily throws us into bottomless pits of opinions and opposing opinions creating outer and inner conflict and resulting in anger and agitation. It is no longer a question of two sides to every story, but more like many, many sides to so the parts of each story. I have not found any definitive answers anywhere. I wish things were black and white and 1-2-3 but they aren’t. If I can’t embrace solutions to the problems, then maybe I can use these problems in another way.

Buddhists talk about problems being opportunities. Difficult phases are periods when windows are open to our minds, allowing us to see what’s in there. My country is going through a very difficult time. The ‘opposition’ has decided to up the tone of argument a few notches, leading to an armed struggle on the streets of Beirut and spilling into other areas of the country. This may be one of the most difficult periods of my life. In addition to professional, social, and personal obstacles that I face like everyone else, I am now also facing the obstacle of seeing my country going through a potentially destructive conflict. Being away is not easy. I worry about my loved ones, I worry about my business, I worry about my city. Problems are manifesting. The best that I can do is to use them as an opportunity to understand my mind. My emotions and reactions to these problems will be the looking glass that can help me see the state of my mind and its inner workings.

The antidote for emotions and reactions does not come from the opposite direction. It comes from the middle, from the comfort of non-engagement, the quenching non-taste of water when one is spitting cotton. My philosophical school and my experience have taught me that fighting emotions and reactions produces the same effect as running with them: agitation. It is better to use them to simply see the mind: accept what it’s experiencing and understand its processes in hope of recognizing its nature and becoming a better, happier person.

My reactions and emotions to the recent events have been buzzing in my head in the form of thoughts. I have been experiencing fear, anger, worry, depression, mental fatigue, restlessness, sleeplessness, confusion, and all out agitation. I have been fixated on the problem, which has in turn lead my mind to fixate on other problems and even expecting them. My partner often jokes about work being a sort of waiting for the problem de jour. In the past week I started to unconsciously become that waiting.

So where's that antidote?

Looking back upon the continuum of my life, it’s easy to see that everything passes. Good things come to an end, true, but, by that same logic, so do the bad. Everything moves and changes. It’s difficult to see that when we’re in the hole but we know that that’s the nature of things. Therefore, in spite of the shit that’s stirring in it right now, I can see that the nature of my mind is a clear, clean, non agitated, calm abiding. The problems and the happy events are like clouds moving along, constantly changing. They don’t and can’t stay and they certainly have no effect on the nature of the sky. Clouds keep coming back, of course. But when we see them for what they are, as passing phenomena that obstruct and enrich the visual of our sky but that can't hide the fact that it’s still there, they stop having any effect on us.

So I sit down and meditate. Thoughts come and go but I remain un-engaged. If and when I find myself unconsciously engaged, I simply and gently bring my mind back to the only thing I’m sure of: the breath. Free from fixation, my mind is calm, untouchable yet all around me, un-distracted, fully aware, and infinitely blissful. Free from fixation, my mind is one with God.

Realizing the nature of my mind is no easy matter though. The clouds keep hitting back. Sometimes they take me off guard and I forget for a while the reality of the sky behind them. However, reapplying the anecdote of realization again and again brings me ever closer to the truth and makes me more and more capable of overcoming obstacles. Problems become opportunities to receive and practice those blissful realizations. Obstacles and the people who cause them become compassionate manifestations of the Divine, helping me to come ever closer to His truth. When problems are transformed in this way, they are reduced to the illusions that they really are. Recognition becomes liberation.

Shantideva's Prayer

May all beings everywhere
Plagued by sufferings of body and mind,
Obtain an ocean of happiness and joy
By virtue of my merits.

May no living creature suffer,
Commit evil or ever fall ill.
May no one be afraid or belittled,
With a mind weighed down by depression.

May the blind see forms,
And the deaf hear sounds.
May those whose bodies are worn with toil
Be restored on finding repose.

May the naked find clothing,
The hungry find food;
May the thirsty find water
And delicious drinks.

May the poor find wealth,
Those weak with sorrow find joy;
May the forlorn find hope,
Constant happiness and prosperity.

May there be timely rains
And bountiful harvests;
May all medicines be effective
And wholesome prayers bear fruit.

May all who are sick and ill
Quickly be freed from their ailments.
Whatever diseases there are in the world,
May they never occur again.

May the frightened cease to be afraid
And those bound be freed
May the powerless find power
And may people think of benefiting each other.

Gravity -episode 1.3

Gravity -episode 1.2

Gravity -episode 1

On life, love, sex, and the (vain) pursuit of happiness

Am I living a good life? How do we measure how well a person is living? What measuring stick holds truest? When I’m on my death bed, will I be able to say that I lived well without suspecting secret disagreement from loved ones around me? Will my brothers and sisters agree? Will I imagine a smirk on my cousin’s face? Will I believe my friends’ pats on my shoulder? Will my partner break down and cry?

Fools may agree that a better measure of quality of life is not monetary or professional but that it’s about happiness. I may have a trillion dollars in my account and still be a miserable Scrooge. On the other hand, I could be a penniless struggling actor and be the envy of the world for the life I am living: the friends I have, the love I share, and the unfussy unadulterated happiness I experience every day in my life. Still I don’t think I am alone in wanting financial and professional success. It’s when I start sacrificing my happiness to get to that success that the alarm sounds. That’s when I would start having less life, if that makes any sense. I would lose sight of what’s important and slowly empty my life of joy and love. Life is about living with joy and love.

But what is this thing we call love?

Love can very well be the most sung subject in the world. The word ‘love’ may be the most frequently used word in the history of film, music, and religious discourse. If you don’t ‘have’ it you are likely to feel insecure, deprived, ostracized, and unhappy. If you do have it, you’re supposed to not feel insecure, deprived, jealous, and unhappy. But mostly we are not sure if we have it, and we feel insecure, deprived, jealous, and unhappy.

Is love over-rated? Have we been placing a little too much emphasis on it?

My earliest recollections of love are like fuzzy dinosaurs. They feel big but little is left of them besides the sweet feelings, which are still with me today, hanging around, like memories, like the corners of my mind. So sweet and tasty are those feelings that -I realize now- they are still the yardsticks against which I compare my feelings today. More than that, I think that they are affecting the way I deal with people I’m attracted to. I’m sort of still there on some level. What I feel must measure up to them or else it’s not strong or real enough.

My love life started at my pre-teens. At that time, I always imagined myself in love. Whether this love had an actual object was beside the point. The feeling was there anyway. I was moving from one person to another in my head, editing and perfecting the image and along the way using different personas to suit my mercuric moods and dispositions. Sometimes the person was real, but often it was a figment of my imagination. At times it would be a crush over a star or total infatuation with a song or a book and its singer or author. But most of the time it was an imaginary person. I’m not sure if I was actively cultivating those feelings or whether they were there by default and I was just basking in them.

As a teenager I went through several crushes, one after another, only abandoning one for the stronger force of another. Another way to end the crush was by some sort of consummation, which did not happen frequently I might add. Later, in my early twenties I moved to another realm, adding a physical element but losing something along the way. Love, now in the form of relationships, was not based on crushes but on needs and emotions. I found myself dragged into and through relationships for more reasons than I can assume. Love became a quest for satisfaction. I think I developed a need to be with someone. The need was about personal satisfaction as much as it was about a social need to be like everyone else. I think a lot of people are in relationships because they need a partner -be it for social reasons or sexual fulfillment. So many people are in love with love as opposed to in love with a partner. I understood much later that I had to discern my feelings. I learned to take a step back and look at them. At one point I decided I was never going to fall or be dragged into relationships, that I was going to only accept what I thought were real emotions. I wanted to be satisfied and I looked for satisfying relationships. That was a whole other issue.

With time and experience I rearranged the way I understood satisfaction. I found that small measures of satisfaction were a sure way to go forward in life. They are the toes in the water, the taste buds on the tip of the tongue, our defense against full-blown catastrophes. I divided my satisfaction target into smaller progressive units. I started to enjoy my life more. My relationships became more stable.

Needless to say, before I figured out this system, I went through a crazy period where I was looking for more and more satisfaction: higher intensity, more feeling, superior emotions. I was running faster and jumping higher and, in the process, falling harder. I didn’t notice that I was actually getting less and less. I do not regret this period. I think that the path of excess is OK too because it eventually leads us to our balance. Some people are luckier or smarter at using experience than others and will learn quicker. The danger is that a few may end up stuck in the excess, drowning in the ineffective quest of reaching new heights and not realizing that their highest point was at the very beginning.

So then, what is love?

My dictionary defines love as an 'intense feeling of deep affection' or a 'deep romantic or sexual attachment' to someone. Buddhists define love as the wish for others to be happy. They regard it as a step further from compassion which is the wish for others not to suffer.

What else? Love is the answer. You gotta have love. Love is pain. Love is jealousy and betrayal. Love makes the world go around. Love is a cliché. Love is all there is. Why can’t you get it through that thick head of yours that all you need is love? Love is a need. Love is need. We are needy for love.

Love is damaged by need. Take the need out of the love and you have a better relationship. Of course, we cannot easily do that. What we can do is recognize. That’s the surest way to liberation. When we recognize that we need, we start needing less. When we need less, we love more. Then, jealousy decreases, friendships become better, families become closer and more open to each other. Love becomes more about giving than expectations. It wouldn’t be so often transformed into hate because according to this definition, love is not the opposite of hate but the absence of it. No longer will love be about the search for happiness through others. Rather we will realize that love and happiness are one and the same. The illusion that happiness is a feeling equal in intensity to suffering but opposite to it in direction is actually what ruins our happiness. We search and search for it but it’s not anywhere over there. It’s right here. Drop the search and you will experience it.

Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone. Canadians, Americans, Brazilians, Palestinians, Israelis, Lebanese, Syrians, Black people, White people, Asians, Latinos, poor people, rich people, young people, old people, Muslims, Presbyterians, and Hindus all share this very same basic desire. Madonna, Haifa, Bush, Sarkozy, Carla Bruni, Ahmadinejad, and Bin laden are all moving out of the same exact place in their hearts. Why is it so hard to believe that we are all the same in wanting to be happy? It is not in wanting happiness but in the pursuit of it that we go our separate ways. The search for happiness is causing us unhappiness.

The basic mistake that we often make is excluding others from this search. We forget that terrorists are looking for the same things that we are. We assume that they don’t have mothers and lovers and that they hate their own children. We become so swallowed up in our search that when we collide with someone else who’s on the same search, we think they are only there to deny us our trophy. My precious! If only we can see that we all want the same thing and that what we want is inside each and every one of us. The supply is infinite.

I remember a song that I used to hate in the 80’s. It went: “What is love?
Baby, don’t hurt me.” In that lame song, I see meaning for life. Go figure.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me an undo button...

Do I always have a choice? Theoretically, I think I do, though it is quite often that I'm tempted to feel that I'm forced to do something. Is it because the choice is too difficult, so I make believe there is none?

However, even when dabbling in the illusion of forced action or situation, I find that I still do have the following choices:

1. Deny any responsibility in what's happening and surrender to anger and depression or wallow in self pity, never allowing myself to hear the end of the story. In this case I find I get stuck in trying to get back to what was before only to realize really late that I can't undo anything. No one can.
2. Open up to the possibility of personal responsibility but remain unable to find my share. In this case, I would be able to shake off some of the anger, depression and self pity and improve my mental state a little but I wouldn't be able to improve the situation drastically. Frustration builds up from day to day, in time returning me to the cycle of anger and so on.
3. Face responsibility head on. I understand that I must have taken steps along the way leading to something which led to something else which eventually led to where I am and that I have never been completely helpless or choice-less. In fact, anything happening at any point in time does not just suddenly appear out of God's situation bag. For anything to happen there must be a set of causes and conditions that can be traced as far back as the afternoon of the biting of the first apple. Therefore, I generate acceptance and make the best of the situation and move on. When I take this option I often find that the situation does change for the better. Many times I find good fortune where nothing but you-know-what was in view. I may not be able to undo but I can move things around a little to make them more suitable for me and others.

If only I can remember the third option all the time...

One of my teachers once asked: if a person gets shot at the door of your building, are you responsible? What if the person is hit by a car in another part of town? How about if someone dies in an train wreck in a far away country? My answers to the three questions were no, no, and certainly not. He proceeded to say yes you are. You are responsible. I didn't like that. He said as long as you are alive, you always have the ability to respond. Life and responsibility suddenly became faces of the same coin.

Responsibility is not guilt. It is not blame. It is not about deciding who did what. The word responsibility comes from response-ability. Whatever happens in this world, whether it's to me or to someone I never imagined existed, is my responsibility. My situation is my responsibility. It is so because I always have the choice of response. This is what life is made up of: responses and responses to responses and responses to the responses to the responses and so on, endlessly.

I still wish for the undo button though.

Saucy Tales and Bikini Veils (Excerpt)

I DON'T REMEMBER GROWING UP. I remember being a little baby, I actually do. I remember craving milk, sleeping in a cradle, and looking at people from far below. I remember holding experiments to find out things like 'does the refrigerator light stay on when its door is closed' and 'do noises and sounds actually dampen when I shut my ears -in other words are my ears the volume knobs to the world or are they just mine?' And I remember being a dorky little kid who read till he dropped. I just couldn't stop reading. I remember listening to my elderlies' and school teachers' saucy tales and asking them questions they didn't answer. I remember them telling stories about why they wouldn't, and I remember me thinking, and eventually saying, that they probably couldn't. I remember stubbornly arguing with everyone about almost everything. I was rarely satisfied.

Now apparently I've 'grown up' and, suddenly, I see myself getting smiles, often sympathetic, sometimes hypocritical, and at times empty. I hear myself being branded with both good and bad adjectives. I'm frequently reassured that I'm only reacting, that I'm passing through a phase, and that I'll change with time. Who doesn’t! Every moment in life is a phase. That doesn’t change what’s going on in its span.

Now that, I guess, I've grown up, I realize that I maybe right or wrong on issues. And although I am not completely sure about anything, I do know some things. I know that I belong to a veiled, censored, and often violent society. It's veiled, both physically and morally. Some women wear head veils, others wear bikini ones. The men? They're just as veiled as the women. Individualism has been dying in this society. But then again, maybe it was never exactly kicking. The veil extends to many areas of society: music, movies, books, the media, and all forms of expression. Is it a coincidence that Lebanese artists and writers have traditionally been unable to make it in our society? The list is long starting as far back as Gibran. Today, we are seeing glimpses of change. I hope this trend will mature and prosper. Still, most of our collective talent is scattered around the world, lamenting their luck, stuck in 9-5 jobs in Dubai or Saudi, or struggling to make it day to day in the west. All our society does is take foolish pride in them. Those who dare come back may be threatening their intellectual freedom and span. The boundaries of our collective intellect are LBC in the north, the name of the airport in the south, Crystal nightclub in the east, and the large unending sea of mediocrity in the west. We have killed each other so many times, and we may just do it again. Once around before there’s no one left. We prolong our own suffering by grasping on to worn-out political and social traditions and regurgitating the same slogans without pondering their meanings. It never occurs to us to rethink our ways. We can’t think further than our own hairdo’s. Bleak picture? The bad news is that instead of anyone constructively criticizing, trying to know the real story and telling it as it is (after all, that would be the first step in bringing about positive change, wouldn't it?), everyone is caught up in what I like to call the Rahbani syndrome: singing praise of the beauty and perfection of our country and of our ways. We grew up with a nauseating national pride. We knew we were it. The country. The history. The heritage. Don't get me wrong; it's fine to say that Lebanon's beauty is the envy of the rest of the world. My problem is, where is this beauty today? OK, so you drive a while and you find some of it untouched, kind of. But how long would it be till someone else finds what you have found and does the perfectly Lebanese thing to do -cut it up and sell it? It's great to take pride in the commercial success of our Phoenician ancestors, but what about their literature and intellectual heritage? Where is it? All right, it's also fabulous to boast about our monotheistic traditions and of our being the ‘model’ of inter-religious coexistence, whatever that means! But, say we accept that coexistence is a good thing, my question remains, where is it? Where is this coexistence? More importantly, how is this spirit of coexistence affecting tolerance of others who are disqualified by monotheism? What issues is the political establishment debating besides who puts up which tents? Will my asthma ever get better given the levels of pollution and smoke in public places? How many more people have to die before we enforce traffic laws? When will I be able to see a movie, read a book, or even receive a mail package without the active participation of our lovely censors? Who decides who thinks what?

As my generation began 'growing up,' with Fayrouz and Sabah’s patriotic songs ringing in our heads, many of us started comparing notes: Oh, oh! We're not the greatest society in the world. We're not better than everyone else. Actually, in many ways, we are a bit worse! Oh my God, Lebanon is not God's paradise on earth. A goat’s dwelling in Lebanon is not the envy of the whole world. The result was a black hole in our minds. Some of us couldn't, or wouldn't, see the forest because of the trees. They denied what they plainly saw and played on with the charades. The rest treated this new insight in one of two ways. Some trusted their vision and stuck to their ideas. They revolted against the status quo and waged little wars, facing little losses, little gains, or general marginalization. Others started looking for another paradise on earth: Canada? The US? France? The Gulf? What, they're all the same? They all have faults? So many of us today are caught up in limbo, living somewhere and waiting to grab the chance to move back or forth somewhere else. In, out, tick, tock, or so the story goes for our lot. Are we finally waking up and smelling the coffee? Or is it the smell of mendacity, as Tennessee Williams so delightfully put it, that’s finally awakening us? Are we growing up? How can we know if we are?

I am forty years old. How in the name of all Broadway shows did I get here? I still habitually forget that I’m not 17 anymore. When did I start realizing all the above? Why don't I remember growing up? I have thought about this glitch in my memory and have found a few potential explanations for this bizarre phenomenon.

The first is that I was never a child. Maybe no one ever is. Maybe we're all born as grown ups, but we're limited by our physical appearance and by our elderlies' need to prove that they're better. I mean juvenile voting is a legitimate idea. Articles have appeared in respectable reviews about it. Could be.

The second is that the process of growing up is so slow and routine that it is impossible for anyone to remember growing up. Instead, though we don't always ponder the meaning of them, we remember growth enhancing incidents such as losing one's virginity and reading long meaning-infested books. Therefore, there is a possibility that the issue is not just mine but a symptom of the human condition. The problem with this logic is that it feels to me as though it's the opposite. The passing of time is not slow at all. On the contrary, it is really fast. It’s still a possibility though.

The third possibility is that growing up is such a hard process that people just push it away from the accessible parts of their brains. Maybe growing up in my society was so hard that I too unknowingly pushed the set-aside button in my brain. That's understandable when we consider the violent mess that my generation grew up in. It's even more understandable when we consider that my generation is being charged with the economic and social cost of resolving that mess and rebuilding the country.

The fourth possibility is that I haven't grown up. Maybe no one ever does. Maybe that's human nature. Maybe we're all just children. That would explain the way we look down on juvenile intellect. We could be jealous that we no longer exercise it. On the other hand, maybe people do grow up, but it's just me and my society that haven't. Maybe we need to finally decide that we want to grow up. Only then can growth take place. Could be.

Revisited excerpt from Edentown, a self published work. www.edentown.org