When this is all over, what do I want?
It’s a hard question to answer as the possibilities are suddenly huge. Doors that had seemed forever closed look like they are opening …
I’m good with languages; it’s, I’m told, part of growing up bilingual. Arabic, then English, then Arabic, then English, all of my life. Some things I do better in one than in the other; my Arabic composition style always bothers me as stilted and my Arabic language poetry is awful … (not that my English is great but at least I’m not completely embarassed) and I have a pretty good memory (not to brag; I think a life of sobriety helps … as well as all the time I spent memorizing Quran (I’m not a hafidh, but I would say that, by page count, I know half the Quran by heart (like everyone else, I started with the short surahs so I would say I know close to 90 complete))
Anyway … I had Arabic and English from childhood, learned French well enough to read in public school, a solid background in Latin and I picked up Spanish fairly fast … I like learning languages so I took Turkish classes, again well enough to get by … and I also studied enough Hebrew to read and sort of speak (once you learn the alphabet, it’s easy enough though Maltese is even easier)
Why Hebrew? Well, I had a crazy idea that it might be useful … and I might some day be a diplomat with need for Turkish and Hebrew …. Maybe even one day working in our embassy in Tel Aviv … or, thinking wildly, being part of the team that restores the Jaulan through negotiations …
I’d like that … I could see myself in such office one day, when the new Syria comes …
And I also want to get a Damascus Pride March started when that time comes; we could march down the Street Called Straight, and maybe the first year we’d be few but in a decade or two, it would be a festival …
I want also to write my short stories and finish my great book (A Thousand Sighs and a Sigh). I have ideas for more besides my own story … I want to write “Why I am Still a Muslim” and a book on great Syrian women … (any agents reading this?)
I want to travel and be with the one I love … I want to grow old together …
I want to be happy.
I want to live in a free country and I don’t want to have to move.
11 comments:
Amina,
I read about you in the UK Guardian and am one of many inspired and touched by your story. I hope that Syria will soon realise the freedom you so desire. And I hope to visit for Damascus Pride one day!
I was going to say 'stay strong and safe', but to a sci-fi fan, how about: live long and prosper!
Laura
Heh, that made me smile. I'm also very passionate about learning language- been a thing of mine since I was a kid.
I hope you get there, and I hope Syria can get to the point where you can represent them to the world, but in any case I think you would do fine wherever you went.
Bonne chance :)
This is inspiring. Hard to imagine a Pride march in Syria, but forty or fifty years ago it would have been hard to imagine a large successful Pride march, with festive straight and queer people alike lining the streets and cheering, in Manhattan or Boston or Chicago or Los Angeles, too, and that’s been going on for decades now.
Amina, this post made me cry... please email me rmeglash@gmail.com I am a writer and want to interview you....
Amina, I discovered your blog thru Peace x Peace and wanted to reach out and let you know that your voice is so important, especially for women. I hope that when democracy comes to Syria and other Middle East countries that women will become equal partners on every level of creating a new reality. Please visit my organizations website, www.oneinthreewomen. I would like to spotlight you and your blog in an upcoming newsletter.
In the Spirit of Friendship and Peace, Cheyla
speaking of hifz and hafez, you know that old joke abt baba hafez, arafat is sleeping one night and hafez comes up to his door and knocks, waking him up. arafat says "meen?" hafez says "ana hafez", and arafat is like "sammi3ni il dars bukra" ha ha.
AMINA is a BIG LIE. Manipulation!!!
lol u want to work for the zionist entity - u and your syrian movement is a fraud , nothng more nothing less
The new Syria will not have an embassy in tel aviv. If it will, then I don't support it.
A Colonized Palestinian
As a Syrian who grew up in Syria, I eat, sleep, and breathe Arab nationalism. Palestine is as close to my heart as the Golan Heights. I hate what is happening to Syria today and I invite all Palestinians to take a step back and remember who always stood by them and who always tries to bring down their supporters. Thank you.
PS: Amina was clearly a fake. I give foreigners the benefit of the doubt, but for native Syrians, you should have known better.
Stop your lies , your are BUSTED
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