My sex to your sex
Grinding in time
With sounds of the City
Stretched out below
Up on the rooftop
Our bodies entwined
You’re slick with my sweat
And the savor of your salt’s on my skin
The sun on my shoulders
My shadow across your breasts
Rising, falling with your breath
Calling my name, they beckon
My sex and your sex
We slip and we turn
Embracing and kissing
Tongues to our folds
Jasmine’s on the warm breeze
And the scent of the rivers
Mixed with diesel, orange trees,
The spices and grilled meats
We push and we pant
Your sex is so soaking
I delve and devour
And mine it is shaking
Your lips sweetest embrace.
We shout and we shudder
Over carhorns and shouts
And join in with fervor
As the thundering call
Echoes from above us
And we shout out together
God, God is Greater!
But I testify this
Nothing is sweeter
Than the message that goes
Your sex to my sex
1 June 2011
Amnesty ....
Amnesty …
So, the regime has decided that now would be a great time to make a concession:
They are saying that there will be an amnesty for all of us who have spoken out and acted out in opposition to them, not just in the ongoing rising but back, back decades. There will even be an amnesty for members of the Muslim Brotherhood …
Which, I’ll be the first to admit, would have been considered by almost everyone a huge step forward just a little while ago.
But, it comes with a catch; we can all come out of the shadows, they say, and the basic structure of the state will not change. The Party and the National Front will remain embedded in power …
So, we’re going to reject it. They could have done differently. Back when it was colder, back when our protests were restricted to a small groups in Damascus holding candles, it would have mattered. Back when the news was coming from Tunisia and Egypt that Ben Ali and Mubarak had fled, they could have done so.
Back then, I heard of back channel talks between regime and Brotherhood. Not quite official on either side and the people doing the talking to each other here were such that they could have claimed that it was no more than a cousin visiting a cousin or bringing word from one sibling to another. “Plausible deniability” as they say if things came out and needed to be disavowed on either side; hardline Ikhwaan or hardline Baathis could be appeased if the talks failed and, if they had succeeded, Assad could have had his game changer. What I had heard was that, back then, what was being discussed was a legalization of the Brotherhood (or at least one wing) and it coming above ground here and joining the National Progressive Front. It would be a move akin to that done last decade by the Social Nationalists though probably more significant as the Brotherhood is far larger and more influential. Certainly, from a coldly pragmatic viewpoint, it would have been a clever move and, combined with the other reforms that were promised, it could have been a real opening. We might have had a ‘soft landing’ in this season of discontent.
But they mishandled that. They mishandled everything. Bouthaina came on television and said that we would have an end to emergency law, an end to secret trials, that the overreactions in Dera’a would be dealt with … and for a moment we really did think it might be so.
But they dragged their feet and hemmed and hawed while there was no stopping of the party’s gangs, no stopping of the mukhabarat and the special brigades in their killing. The rising spread …. Peaceful, peaceful, Syria was one … and as it did, the old guard of the sons of the dog and their militias went chasing dissenters, beating bystanders and killing, killing, killing …
And we saw that the end of emergency law was a sad, sad joke, that nothing at all had changed and they were as brutal as they’d ever been. If anything, they were simply more emboldened by the awakening of the Syrian people. They spread lies, they killed, and they began to lose control.
We meanwhile keep getting stronger. They still manage to hold on to power but it is slipping from their grasp. They fear the people awakened, they fear the army breaking ….
So they try and make concessions again and buy for time. But again, it is too little, too late.
So, the regime has decided that now would be a great time to make a concession:
They are saying that there will be an amnesty for all of us who have spoken out and acted out in opposition to them, not just in the ongoing rising but back, back decades. There will even be an amnesty for members of the Muslim Brotherhood …
Which, I’ll be the first to admit, would have been considered by almost everyone a huge step forward just a little while ago.
But, it comes with a catch; we can all come out of the shadows, they say, and the basic structure of the state will not change. The Party and the National Front will remain embedded in power …
So, we’re going to reject it. They could have done differently. Back when it was colder, back when our protests were restricted to a small groups in Damascus holding candles, it would have mattered. Back when the news was coming from Tunisia and Egypt that Ben Ali and Mubarak had fled, they could have done so.
Back then, I heard of back channel talks between regime and Brotherhood. Not quite official on either side and the people doing the talking to each other here were such that they could have claimed that it was no more than a cousin visiting a cousin or bringing word from one sibling to another. “Plausible deniability” as they say if things came out and needed to be disavowed on either side; hardline Ikhwaan or hardline Baathis could be appeased if the talks failed and, if they had succeeded, Assad could have had his game changer. What I had heard was that, back then, what was being discussed was a legalization of the Brotherhood (or at least one wing) and it coming above ground here and joining the National Progressive Front. It would be a move akin to that done last decade by the Social Nationalists though probably more significant as the Brotherhood is far larger and more influential. Certainly, from a coldly pragmatic viewpoint, it would have been a clever move and, combined with the other reforms that were promised, it could have been a real opening. We might have had a ‘soft landing’ in this season of discontent.
But they mishandled that. They mishandled everything. Bouthaina came on television and said that we would have an end to emergency law, an end to secret trials, that the overreactions in Dera’a would be dealt with … and for a moment we really did think it might be so.
But they dragged their feet and hemmed and hawed while there was no stopping of the party’s gangs, no stopping of the mukhabarat and the special brigades in their killing. The rising spread …. Peaceful, peaceful, Syria was one … and as it did, the old guard of the sons of the dog and their militias went chasing dissenters, beating bystanders and killing, killing, killing …
And we saw that the end of emergency law was a sad, sad joke, that nothing at all had changed and they were as brutal as they’d ever been. If anything, they were simply more emboldened by the awakening of the Syrian people. They spread lies, they killed, and they began to lose control.
We meanwhile keep getting stronger. They still manage to hold on to power but it is slipping from their grasp. They fear the people awakened, they fear the army breaking ….
So they try and make concessions again and buy for time. But again, it is too little, too late.
Their Islam and Ours
I’ve been reading the comments posted on my blog and the emails that I have received. I’ve listened to comments and reactions I’ve received to my face these past few weeks when I’ve found myself as perhaps one of the better known openly gay women in Syria (though far from the most prominent, if we add those not publicly acknowledging their orientation!).
And one of the consistent things that I have noticed is, as I have said before, that I have not received any friction from the religious. In fact, what I have gotten is entirely supportive.
I’m not entirely surprised; if anything, I feel confirmed in my own identity and identification with the religion. Yet, at the same time, I have seen lots and lots of talk of how Islam and homosexuality, Islam and democracy, Islam and feminism, Islam and human rights, Islam and so forth and so on are incompatible.
But that never comes from actual Muslims, neither directly nor by implication.
I’m not surprised. That was never my own experience of the religion. Our Islam, the religion that I was reared into, the religion of my fathers before me, the religion I personally embraced so tightly when I was a teen, Our religion was never like that.
Our Islam was diverse and beautiful. Our Islam was that of crowding into a mosque with people from all walks of life and feeling unity with them; of Eid prayers in America where immigrants from a hundred lands, children of immigrants, converts and reverts and so on and so forth … Our Islam taught that God had made us into nations so that we might learn from one another.
Our Islam was sitting at the feet of the Sheikha (our Islam has sheikhas as well as sheikhs!) as she explained that it was perfectly natural to desire other women; chastity was what mattered, not the object of desire. Our Islam discussed sexuality as a healthy and normal part of humanity, a religion for real people, not reserved for ascetics.
Our Islam was one where the religion taught that all, not all men, but all humans, were equal before God, equal on the Day of Qiyamat, where our sex, our nationality, our honors and our birth did not matter. Our Islam was a religion that rejected ideas of Original Sin and saw no one as Damned from birth; Our Islam was a straightforward faith, one that did not need to be reconciled with science as it was not opposed. Our Islam taught that one should seek knowledge wherever it might be, even unto China.
Our Islam was where my kinsman, a preacher in a mosque, railed against abuse of children and sexism; where the same man, close to the brotherhood’s innermost circles, urged me to reconsider my decision not to go to Christian seminary; ours was a religion that had no fear of other faiths for what fear has truth in honest debate?
Our Islam was a warm and loving faith, full of warm and loving people, striving to better themselves and the world. Our Islam knew it wasn’t perfect but strived ever to be better, truer to the teachings of God and respectful of all God’s prophets.
And then I heard about their Islam. Their Islam was not a religion that they had lived nor one that they even knew directly. Theirs was the religion of the worst aspects of orientalism and ‘othering’. It was the religion of us all, they told me, but it was also a religion of no one; it was an image of a religion based on the worst cultural practices of a few dozen lands muddled together and confused with the religion, of selected quotations taken out of context or wholly fabricated, of fantasy masquerading as reality.
Always, it was so. Their Islam was always the Other for the West; whatever they imagined themselves to be, we must logically be the opposite. Read 19th century Orientalists on Islam; it is decried for being a sensual religion, Muslims are attacked for being lax on homosexuals, Muslims are too feminine … because 19th century westerners viewed themselves as being virtuous and a lack of virtue meant tolerance of homosexuality, sensuality and so on. Now, the West prides itself for being anti-sexist and gay friendly; so we must be the opposite. Always, it was so. Little has changed since the days when Baligant was supposed to pray to Termagant and Bramimonde would be wooed from worship of Apollo after her ‘liberators’ had slaughtered the rest of the Muslims and all the Jews. We were supposed once to be too kind to Jews by the West when they viewed Antisemitism as a virtue; now we are supposed to lust for Jewish blood. Whatever virtue they admire, we will be seen as the opposite and the fantasy will continue.
Perhaps we could indulge in Occidentalism and imagine a wicked and monolithic faith that burns heretics and Jews to death, worships statues, handles snakes, insists on stoning non-virgin brides to death and killing those who tolerate mildew or have anal sex, that champions scientific ignorance, and is led by pedophiles? Perhaps we should go around insulting other faiths and spitting on their scriptures?
But that is not Our religion. That is not our Islam. That is not the religion I was reared in and that is not the religion that has embraced me, oddball that I am. I will not indulge in such childishness, tempting though it is. I will only do what I have been doing, speaking of what I know and what I have seen and what is simply true in my experience.
I will pray to the God who is beyond male and female, the God who is neither begotten nor begetting. I will not believe that hell is paved with skulls of unbaptized infants nor that heaven is preserved for the elect alone. I will go on rejecting that one tribe or nation is elect because of secret scrolls or having the religion first addressed to them. My God belongs to no nation; my God belongs to no tribe; my God belongs to no priesthood; my God is universal, just, and kind. My God and my religion are enough for me.
Qul ya ayuha al Kafirun, la a’budu ma ta’abudun, wa la antum a’abiduna ma’abud wa la ana a’abidun ma’abadtum wa la antum a’abiduna ma’abud lakum dinukum wa liya din. AMEEN
And one of the consistent things that I have noticed is, as I have said before, that I have not received any friction from the religious. In fact, what I have gotten is entirely supportive.
I’m not entirely surprised; if anything, I feel confirmed in my own identity and identification with the religion. Yet, at the same time, I have seen lots and lots of talk of how Islam and homosexuality, Islam and democracy, Islam and feminism, Islam and human rights, Islam and so forth and so on are incompatible.
But that never comes from actual Muslims, neither directly nor by implication.
I’m not surprised. That was never my own experience of the religion. Our Islam, the religion that I was reared into, the religion of my fathers before me, the religion I personally embraced so tightly when I was a teen, Our religion was never like that.
Our Islam was diverse and beautiful. Our Islam was that of crowding into a mosque with people from all walks of life and feeling unity with them; of Eid prayers in America where immigrants from a hundred lands, children of immigrants, converts and reverts and so on and so forth … Our Islam taught that God had made us into nations so that we might learn from one another.
Our Islam was sitting at the feet of the Sheikha (our Islam has sheikhas as well as sheikhs!) as she explained that it was perfectly natural to desire other women; chastity was what mattered, not the object of desire. Our Islam discussed sexuality as a healthy and normal part of humanity, a religion for real people, not reserved for ascetics.
Our Islam was one where the religion taught that all, not all men, but all humans, were equal before God, equal on the Day of Qiyamat, where our sex, our nationality, our honors and our birth did not matter. Our Islam was a religion that rejected ideas of Original Sin and saw no one as Damned from birth; Our Islam was a straightforward faith, one that did not need to be reconciled with science as it was not opposed. Our Islam taught that one should seek knowledge wherever it might be, even unto China.
Our Islam was where my kinsman, a preacher in a mosque, railed against abuse of children and sexism; where the same man, close to the brotherhood’s innermost circles, urged me to reconsider my decision not to go to Christian seminary; ours was a religion that had no fear of other faiths for what fear has truth in honest debate?
Our Islam was a warm and loving faith, full of warm and loving people, striving to better themselves and the world. Our Islam knew it wasn’t perfect but strived ever to be better, truer to the teachings of God and respectful of all God’s prophets.
And then I heard about their Islam. Their Islam was not a religion that they had lived nor one that they even knew directly. Theirs was the religion of the worst aspects of orientalism and ‘othering’. It was the religion of us all, they told me, but it was also a religion of no one; it was an image of a religion based on the worst cultural practices of a few dozen lands muddled together and confused with the religion, of selected quotations taken out of context or wholly fabricated, of fantasy masquerading as reality.
Always, it was so. Their Islam was always the Other for the West; whatever they imagined themselves to be, we must logically be the opposite. Read 19th century Orientalists on Islam; it is decried for being a sensual religion, Muslims are attacked for being lax on homosexuals, Muslims are too feminine … because 19th century westerners viewed themselves as being virtuous and a lack of virtue meant tolerance of homosexuality, sensuality and so on. Now, the West prides itself for being anti-sexist and gay friendly; so we must be the opposite. Always, it was so. Little has changed since the days when Baligant was supposed to pray to Termagant and Bramimonde would be wooed from worship of Apollo after her ‘liberators’ had slaughtered the rest of the Muslims and all the Jews. We were supposed once to be too kind to Jews by the West when they viewed Antisemitism as a virtue; now we are supposed to lust for Jewish blood. Whatever virtue they admire, we will be seen as the opposite and the fantasy will continue.
Perhaps we could indulge in Occidentalism and imagine a wicked and monolithic faith that burns heretics and Jews to death, worships statues, handles snakes, insists on stoning non-virgin brides to death and killing those who tolerate mildew or have anal sex, that champions scientific ignorance, and is led by pedophiles? Perhaps we should go around insulting other faiths and spitting on their scriptures?
But that is not Our religion. That is not our Islam. That is not the religion I was reared in and that is not the religion that has embraced me, oddball that I am. I will not indulge in such childishness, tempting though it is. I will only do what I have been doing, speaking of what I know and what I have seen and what is simply true in my experience.
I will pray to the God who is beyond male and female, the God who is neither begotten nor begetting. I will not believe that hell is paved with skulls of unbaptized infants nor that heaven is preserved for the elect alone. I will go on rejecting that one tribe or nation is elect because of secret scrolls or having the religion first addressed to them. My God belongs to no nation; my God belongs to no tribe; my God belongs to no priesthood; my God is universal, just, and kind. My God and my religion are enough for me.
Qul ya ayuha al Kafirun, la a’budu ma ta’abudun, wa la antum a’abiduna ma’abud wa la ana a’abidun ma’abadtum wa la antum a’abiduna ma’abud lakum dinukum wa liya din. AMEEN
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