Category: Thoughts and Opinions

Gaza

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I think of Gaza I remember a cartoon I saw many years ago when I was still a citizen of the troubled Middle East.  The cartoon could have been by the late Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al Ali, but I could not trace it on his official website.  In the cartoon the Arab nation is depicted as a wounded woman; a knife had just stabbed her chest. An arrow points to the bleeding wound, proclaiming it as Gaza غزة . The cartoon works best in Arabic and particularly for those of us familiar with the Eastern Mediterranean version of spoken Arabic, where غزة (Ghazzah) means a stab, and is perhaps a derivative of غرزة a stitch, usually made with a sharp needle or similar instrument.

In my mind Gaza is still bleeding, and it is a wound in the heart of the whole world. I feel sorry for those who are forced to endure life within its borders, because I know that most wouldn’t want to live there if they had a choice.

Gaza is worse than a Bantustan. It is one of the most densely populated regions of the world. The living conditions of the people there are among the worst in the world. Now they are living under the shadow of death,  destruction and war. I have nothing but sorrow and sympathy to offer them.

This blog is not about politics.  I do not want to stand for a cause or declare myself as a militant supporter of one side over the other. I will not write from the viewpoint of an Arab, although I spent the best part of my youth in the Middle East, and I am familiar with the pain, the disappointment and their by-product of extremism.  I am writing because I do not understand how some South Africans Jews who have never been to the Middle East and know nothing about the conflict, choose to support the attack on Gaza.

I performed a google image search on Gaza and came up with over 15 million pictures. They are mostly of death, destruction and misery without end. Gaza is still a wound that is bleeding the world. Nothing has changed in the last two decades; violence breeds extremism and then more violence. So the the bloody history is poised to repeat itself again and again, as long as radicals on both sides of the divide keep calling for each others blood. It is never going to end.

Thoughts on Fate and Parenting

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

Two stories made headlines this week, one is the horrific crash of Spanair JK5022 from Madrid Barachas to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria. The other was the alleged ‘satanic’ killing of a 16-year pupil in a Krugersdorp school. Both incidents came up today during our play group class.

Aviation tragedies were always a source of horror for me. I am a nervous flier at the best of times, and working as a Weight-and-Balance agent for a major European airliner made the admiration and dread of this mode of transport even greater. When you work with these machines you realize that they have tremendous tolerance to human and material faults. The news stories say that the Spanair MD-82 jet had a technical issue with some temperature gauge, which brought it back from a takeoff attempt, yet this fault by itself is not enough to bring the airliner down. Seasoned pilots say that a complete failure of one engine cannot by itself bring the aircraft down, and there are measures to deal with engine fire during takeoff. However, something did happen on that aircraft and the scary thought is that while a major fault like an engine failure cannot by itself cause a crash, sometimes a combination of many minor technical faults and errors do lead to tragedy. 153 people died in the inferno of the doomed plane, among them two infants, and only 19 survived, three of the survivors were children.

There are heart-wrenching survivor stories. A fireman speaks of a boy who thought he was in a movie, and wanted the filming to be over so that he can be with his dad. There was an injured mother who asked rescue workers to pull out her 11-year daughter first. The mother did not make it to the hospital, but the daughter survived along with her father. There was a woman who walked out of the crash and phoned her brother from a fireman’s cell phone; she escaped unscathed from hell. When tragedy hits, who dies and who survives ? there is no logic or mathematics to the outcome. Fate, in this case is the most convincing and comforting answer. It spares people the grief of searching for impossible answers. People who believe tend to accept such calamity. If your loved one died in the crash it is a source of comfort to be able to accept that it was perhaps their time to go. And if you were one of the survivors, the knowledge that “it simply wasn’t your time” is a sufficient explanation and an absolution from guilt towards those who weren’t as lucky. Faith is a great comfort, and it is worth nurturing, even in these jaded and pragmatic times.

Faith is perhaps what will eventually help the parents involved in the South African school killing tragedy. An 18-year-old boy arrived to school on Monday with a samurai sword, which he used to kill another young boy of 16 during school assembly. The perpetrator went on to injure three other people. The killing embodies the nightmare of mothers all over the world. How do you protect your child from evil ? and if you can protect them and prevent them from wielding the sword, will you ever be able to prevent them from getting slain by it?
The discussion went on between the mothers in my moms and tots class, it is not always easy to understand what is going on in the minds of young people. The parents of the alleged attacker came out and spoke about his psychological problems, that he listened to darker heavy-metal music and became involved in Satanism. There were debates on the radio on who is to blame for this tragedy; is it the parents ? the music ? the internet with its unbarred access to all types of information, cults and quirks ? Can parents really stop a child with psychological problems from turning into a psychopath ?

There are no easy answers. The world has become a very small village, and if you want to protect your child from what you consider to be negative influences you have to keep them locked at home, away from television, internet, school and even next door neighbors; it is an impossible task. Mothers of older children in my play group complained about their children’s obsession with collecting monster figures and wondered whether the appreciation of such grotesque toys would twist their sensibilities and judgement. I can think back to many different fads that came and went. A decade ago there were the Tazos, and when we were young there were also pictures of monsters and silly cartoons that we collected from the boxes of cream cheese, or in the wrappers of bubble gum. Most of the cartoons and pictures did not make sense, but the thrill was the collection in itself, and there will always be something like that to catch children’s attention. My parents did not encourage obsession with these silly collections, but they tolerated it, and in time the novelty wore off and died, and we moved on to the next fad. I think I will do the same thing with my own child.

It is however important to keep a finger on the pulse, and be involved in your child’s interests, if possible. As long as these interests are aired out and expressed in the open, they do not get the chance to turn into spores of evil. A parent has also to strike a balance between firm prohibition and gentle disapproval. Limiting the former to acts and behavior that are truly against healthy moral judgement. I would like to think that when the time comes I would be able to perform such a role in my son’s life, but it is a long process, and I have to earn my credibility as a mother with the passage of time. One day my son’s behavior will be the ultimate measure of my success- or failure. Unless we prescribe to the argument that nature rules over nurture, but that is a subject for another day.

Random Musings / Taking the Fun out of Blogging

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

The past few days have been a mixed bag of happy, scary and thought provoking events. On Friday my friend Britt took us to the Aquarium, and she gave me a year’s membership card as a present, which I thought was pretty generous and thoughtful. It is sad to observe that I got to see precious little in my previous life as a married woman. My social life, which was dismal during my marriage years might be even improving. My ex is probably doing better as he hangs out with the DINK crowd ( Double Income No Kids) but I have my own circle of mom friends, and we can all swoon over the latest antics of our little ones.

Aquarium was great, and I hope to spend more time there in the future with Robert. He was very taken with the colourful displays and the movement of fish and other creatures. Our first visit was somewhat rushed because we had to chase the little firebrand Demi around. We then met up with Trish and her two little girls, the younger one is a fresh rosebud, only a couple of weeks young. As much as I would loved to have another baby, I do find mothering two or more children a very challenging job. It is the ultimate multi-tasking feat, and I am not sure I could survive it. So maybe it is just as well that I am not likely to have another child. As mother of one, I had some time to look around and take in my surrounding, something that both my friends weren’t able to do very well. There is also the added advantage of my single status; I do not need to be home to for my husband at a specific time. Even divorce has some perks, I can say.
Robert and I had a quiet evening at home, we had supper and then a warm bath. I must have looked away for a split second after I finished putting on his pijamas and getting him ready for bed, and in that split second he tumbled from the changing table right in front of me. I caught him just before he hit the floor, but I was still petrified that I hurt him. I must have checked on him a dozen times during the night.

Saturday went uneventfully at work, and I came home to a very happy baby, I am so lucky to have Lucy. My phone camera has decided to quit on me so I cannot put any recent pictures of Rob’s latest antics. He loves to do what I call the “bench press”; he stands holding on to the bench by the door and squats up and down, especially to the beat of the music. I have noticed also that his repertoire of sounds and syllables has increased dramatically. He doesn’t stop now at the bland: ma-ma, ba-ba, da-da, but adds on complex and guttural tones, such as ag and ach. His latest vocalizations are: whooping on his indrawn breath, and smacking his lips. Jackie and I aren’t yet sure whether the latter is a kissing noise or just a random noise he newly discovered. I think he will soon master a form of a Xhosa click as well, yes perhaps I am exaggerating on that one.

Apart from losing the visual component of my posts, a few things happened on the weekend which sort of took the fun out of blogging for me. Firstly while reading my blog roll I was referred to this article (Writing about your daughter’s toilet-training misadventures could net you $40,000 a month and a legion of fans) in the globeandmail.com . The article discusses -and questions- the latest trend of parent blogging, throwing it into a very unfavourable light. The article portrays parent blogging as an exploitation of children and a violation of their privacy. The article quoted some famous parenting blogs, and among them Don Mills Diva, which I read regularly. It was claimed that some of these bloggers are cashing in on their writing and thus exploiting their children for profit, while violating their privacy. The reaction to the article was even more shocking. Some readers commented that parents who blog must get a life, and concentrate on parenting rather than writing about it, others accused parent bloggers of being sick to write about mundane stuff such as toilet training, reflux, and colic. Readers even questioned the sanity of people who such stuff. I know I am not in the league of any of these famous parent bloggers, but I found myself getting indignant on their behalf. I do consider myself normal, and I love reading bloggers’ musings. I also think that some of these dissenters must get themselves a small dose of compassion and humor.
We write about our small children because we are painfully aware of the vulnerability of our memory against the swift passage of time. My baby is growing and changing every day. As his face and personality develop, there are little bits of him that get lost forever. I want to hold all these little bits and preserve them in little snapshots. When I hold my son today, I hold a robust 9 month-old baby, and my helpless newborn is nowhere in sight. Tomorrow, my little baby will make way for a toddler, who will then turn into a young child. My love for my child will grow and change as he grows, and I want to capture its evolution as well. this is – or was- the purpose of this blog. I don’t understand how anyone will find such an activity reprehensible. That said, I am still disturbed by what I read, and I need to question who this blog is written for. Nine months ago it was for Robert, for me, and for the family. Today it is still for Robert, and for me, and I have to keep that in mind. I am free to write what I want about myself, I can relate incidents that make me look like a fool or like a bad mother. Recently I have been writing things that speak of my anger, resentment and hurt. I have to be careful how my child will interpret this writing one day, because I do not want it to colour his judgment. This is the argument for keeping it bland, sticking to safe subject and understatements, but to me this spells dishonesty and censorship, precisely what a blog shouldn’t be.
People like me read blogs and subscribe to them because they help us relate to our mundane and difficult lives. Honest mothers writing about their post partum depressions, their struggle with toilet training and the urge to scream or shake a small baby after a long colic fit help us put our own struggles and failures into perspective. It makes us feel that we are not alone, we are still normal even when we are almost driven off the bend… This could be the little reassurance we need to keep our sanity. When I read a blog I do not want read a sugar-coated version of reality, I want to see what real people think and feel. Real people have real problems, their living rooms aren’t always tidy, they have gray hair and wrinkles, they deal with shy or autistic children; but the bottom line is that they survive, they love their children and find some sort of happiness. Life on parent blogs is not a Disney movie, but it still works, and this is what I want to know.

I had more days of ambivalent feelings towards my ex. He was looking after Robert on Sunday, and around two in the afternoon I got a call from him, where he said there was a problem. I cannot explain the fear and the dread I got when I heard this phrase, so when I found out that someone broke into the car and stole Robbie’s baby bag I felt some relief. Even though the bag contained things that I won’t be able to replace: The jacket I hand knit while I was pregnant, a vest from Mountain Equipment Coop, and a book from Rob’s auntie. There was also an extra change of winter clothes, a sweat-top, a sippy cup, a sun hat and a few toys. Dad did what he could and replaced the essentials (the milk bottle and the sippy cup). Now I have to try and replace the rest. I don’t know how this is possible since I am restricted to walking distances.

My ex apparently also wrote to my family, explaining everything and nothing. Now I am in the unenviable position of being judged and reproved by my own family, as they analyze the mistakes that I must have made in the relationship. I might have made some mistakes, but I wasn’t given the chance to correct them in a professional manner. My ex was never interested in counseling. I am damaged goods now, I believe that marriage is completely overrated and I doubt that I will ever be in another relationship. The only hope I have is to protect my son from this conflict, to let him grow unbridled by my feelings of inadequacy and resentment. I still think that moving away from my ex is the best solution. Maybe then I can have some charitable thoughts about him.

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Why?

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

As I sit here near the Southernmost tip of Africa wearing shorts and sandals, my sister still perches north of the Arabian peninsula and dons her headscarf to go out shopping.

When I first heard about my sister’s conversion to become a newborn Muslim, if I may use the expression, I was fuming with anger. How dare she, I thought. It is the ultimate betrayal of women’s rights and liberty to bend to the needs of society and cover one’s head. It is absurd, since the head and the face are neutral parts of our anatomy and cannot be considered seductive. Not even the thickest and most bouncy hair can be considered sexually alluring, or am I thinking again in the logic of western societies?

I grew up in an Arab country, where Christians and Muslims live side by side. The increasing religious zeal was apparent as I grew up. It has resulted in clear distinctions between the so-called secular or non-practicing Muslims and the orthodox faction. The absolute majority is orthodox and their pressure on the rest is very strong. After all they have the voice of Allah on their side and literally the threat of hell.

If you couple this with the prevalent misogynist view of society, you come up with a situation where the morality of society is dependent on the way women dress. I have been brought up to the tune of : “Men are creatures of lust and they cannot control it, it is a woman’s duty and obligation to put a stop to their advances”. Women kindly dispense of such advice to their daughters and female charges, while turning a blind eye to the dalliances of their sons. I think it is ridiculous to expect women to carry society’s morals on their shoulders, as if they do not have feelings and desires like men. Men are secure in the knowledge that they aren’t the ones to get “caught” and therefore, and in true male fashion they just pass on the responsibility onto the female.

The society I was born into does not give evenhanded instruction to young men and women when it comes to sexual knowledge. Women are prohibited from any sexual adventures prior to marriage, yet it is acceptable for men to have such an experience. It is purposely overlooked that this sort of experience will only come about with willing female partners. Whether these are frustrated married women or poor girls who are willing to go loose for a new item of clothing, or just girls who have slipped once and no longer need to preserve their image of purity. Regardless of what sort of woman gives the man his first initiation into sex, her existence makes this patriarchal society even more distrustful of women. Therefore men try to enforce veils on their women, to prevent other men from ogling them. This is another one sided solution that does not require or expect the participation of men in enforcing morals. Women are forced, coerced, or convinced to cover up in the manner of the last century, while their husband walk alongside wearing the latest fashion. They would never dream of wearing the ‘dress’ of the prophet and his ilk except to prayer. And while their own women are safely covered there are hundreds others whom they can freely ogle. The fact that they are not covered up labels them as available and willing prey for flirtation and maybe more.

Women need to carry the weight of children and family, in addition to keeping the integrity of their marriage. They are also responsible for the immorality, women are the root of all evil. Meanwhile, men can contemplate this sad state of affairs while watching scantly clad women on satellite television, or while conversing with other buddies over tea and bubbly (water pipe). What a wonderful life.

The Pharaohs

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

Egypt won their sixth Africa Cup of Nations championship (AFCON) yesterday. In this country most people would have preferred it to go to Cameroon, not North Africa.

There is a deep divide between the north and south, even here in Africa. The prevailing feeling is that the northerners are not real Africans, and this perception might hold more than a little bit of truth. The North Africans are fair-skinned, live in different climate and ecosystems, and most importantly they are from a race which colonised the rest of Africa centuries ago. Their ancestors traded other Africans as slaves, and prosecuted them as heathen.

In modern times the divide is still clear, as is the mutual distrust between real Africans (Sub-saharan) and the northern inhabitants of this continent.

In my experience the Egyptians think of themselves above the rest of Africa. They are the pharaohs, they had the civilization, and they are not Africans.

I had the questionable honour of taking part in professional African forum in this country, where one of the delegates was Egyptian. The delegate thought that because of my origins I was bound to feel certain affinity towards him. He considered me to be one of his people, and did not bother to hide his disdain to all things African.

He found fault in everything from the travel arrangements, to the flights, the hotel and even the food – which was disgusting according to him. I tried very hard to tone down this negative attitude, and harder still to sympathize or relate to him. But as the hours passed, I started to identify with the African he disdained and condescended and was no longer the Arab he wanted to gang up with. The incident widened the rift between me and my origins and brought me closer to my adopted African identity. Would my attitude be different, if I also came from the land of the Pharaohs?