I’ve written down that I am an Arab, that I have a name without a title, that I am patient in a country where people are enraged. I’ve written that my roots were entrenched here before the birth of time and before the opening of the eras, before the pines, and the olive trees and before the grass grew.
I was born an Arab; I was born a Syrian. Arabic was the language of my first words and, insh’allah, it will be that of my last. My first memory is of Damascus and, perhaps, so too will be my last.
But I am complex, I am many things; I am an Arab, I am Syrian, I am a woman, I am queer, I am Muslim, I am binational, I am tall, I am too thin; my sect is Sunni, my clan is Omari, my tribe is Quraysh, my city is Damascus ….
And I am also a Virginian. I was born on an afternoon in a hospital in sight of where Woodrow Wilson entered the world, where streets are named for country stars … I grew up on a battlefield of the American Civil War in a town where other ancestors have lived and died for 250 years. And I learned this language in Virginia.
As a Virginian, I know other things besides those that I learned for other parts of me. I learned words and aspirations and desire to be free; I memorized whole passages and made them a part of me. I learned to say that “should I hold back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself guilty of treason towards my country, and of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, whom I revere above all earthly kings.”
I learned to declaim: “Is life so dear or is peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, All Mighty God! I do not know the course that others will take; but for me, Give me liberty or Give me death!” for those were good Virginian words.
I learned to recite Quran and I learned to recite another Virginian’s words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”
Therefore! Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people nor do I encroach but if I become hungry the usurper's flesh will be my food. Beware.. Beware of my hunger and my anger!
8 comments:
The Virgina Founders are well remembered because they won. Please remember that minor detail as the world would be a smaller sadder place without you.
No, the Virginia Founders are well remembered because they were able to look beyond themselves, and craft institutions centered towards universal human rights. Their victory would've meant nothing if they'd simply instituted another dictatorship in its place.
wow! powerfully contrapuntal! you should preface this with a 'goosebumps trigger warning.' your personal history is the truth of the world: that we all require each other. your post reminds me of some of my favorite quotes about the relationship between self and other:
our identity and well-being are always in the keeping of the Other - terry eagleton
a “myself” which is the most intimate first name in You. - helene cixous
The Virginian who wrote “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” owned hundreds of slaves. Thomas Jefferson was one of many revolutionaries who talked the language of universalism but did not actually practice what he preached.
yes, we all know that jefferson was a pharisee, but too bad for him and all the other slave-owning, racist, sexist founding fathers, we, those who came afterward, lived their words and ideals to the end. americans who were not white, male and land owning are the ones who have struggles to actualize jeffersonian principles. the fact that jefferson and his ilk penned and institutionalized the US constitution does not detract from its power or the notion of universal human rights - to let that very real fact reign supreme would be to fall pray to the genetic fallacy. it is the current context and meaning that matters, and from which the US constitution derives its power, i.e. from the people, all those who have been fighting to make those original proclamations real. the only redeeming quality of the USamerican nation is the character and hard work of all those who have struggled against it! and continue to do so. i hope one day Israel's "democracy" will be so bold!
You make this Virginian proud. I love you.
Bravo.
and to "akkadia" re: "slave-owning, racist, sexist founding fathers.."
yes they were those things. unforgivable my modern standards. complicated. no angels.
but we cannot dismiss the founding fathers of america using today's moral standards. by the standards of their time, they were ahead of the game. and the built the framework upon which all individual, human rights came to be acknowledged as neccessary.
no one is perfect, they were far from. but let us not dismiss them to cavalierly.
miss arraf, i hope , hope, hope you come back and bless the word with your writing again, very soon.
God with you...
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