Breaking down the stereotype of the silent Arab woman

By Iulia-Valentina Iliut

 

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Most of us in the West are not familiar with the possibility of a liberated Arab woman existing. This was the statement by a Western journalist that determined Joumana to write the book. Provoked by the journalists words, she performed a deep analysis of what it means to be an Arab woman, based on her own background.

Starting from her first reading experiences and the recollection of her youth in war-torn Beirut, Joumana does not shy away from condemning the ignorance of the West towards the Arab World, but also the Arab worlds schizophrenia  divided between what we are told to believe and what we believe, what we say and what we do.

The author grew up reading classical literature and writing until her fingers swallowed, and discovered new facets of the world with every page. She describes her passion for reading classical literature as a gate to freedom of thought, as liberating and refreshing. Because literature allows the mind to explore all aspects of the universe, Joumana highly disapproved of censorship and double standards in Arabic and used the French language as an escape, a window to the forbidden.  I read, especially to honour the promise that I had made myself that one day my life will be different, she confesses. From Flaubert to the Marquis de Sade, she found every book to be a life-changing experience.  

As the image of the Arab woman cannot be taken out of the context of the history of the Arab world, the book continues with the authors confessions about her relationship to her town and her country. Beirut is for the author a woman who has lost her identity, war-torn and confused.  She refuses to write about it because she feels the city to be a stranger, an anti-inspiration.
This stranger was somebody she had to confront when first publishing her courageous poetry or when she started JASAD, a cultural magazine describing and discovering the body.  As expected, the reaction was very strong, bringing her death threats. You deserve to be stoned to death. You will rot in Hell. We pray someone throws acid at you were only a few of the reactions she had to bear. Without being intimidated by these threats, Joumana continued her activity, becoming a world-renowned journalist and writer, a promoter of womens rights in the Middle East.

When speaking about womens rights, Joumana says that a woman should remain a woman, and by no means give up her feminity. She views defeminization as the ultimate act of surrendering to mens blackmail by really acknowledging that this is a mens world.
Joumana is a Christian. This made many people comment that if she was a Muslim, she would not have done the same thing. As an independent, open-minded woman, she rejects these claims. While she acknowledges the wrongs of the Muslim religion, she argues that Christian fundamentalism is no better than Muslim fundamentalism and that prejudices exist in both religions.  Especially by being a Christian, she breaks with another wide-spread belief that all Arab women are Muslims.  

Joumana Haddad is not an Arab woman who is fundamentally different from Western values, but represents any woman who grew up in the microcosm of literature in a conflict-torn country, or any country at all. Her book is a sincere account of her deepest beliefs and should serve as an example for many Western women. Joumana proves that there so much more to the Arab woman that is usually depicted in the media and the literature and shows the other, maybe more fascinating and inspiring side of the Arab world.

 

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