You tell me.
Category Archives: razanisms
Have Your Say on This Blog
I have always been critical of this blog and my writings in general. I might sound to people that I believe in everything I say here, and strongly. I think the arguments I post here are the closer version of what I have in mind.
I still believe in the opinions I shared on this blog, but the approaches to arriving to these opinions are changing constantly. Things are getting more complicated for me lately and I cannot seem to know how to use language to articulate these struggles I am going through while thinking of a certain problem.
Writing anxiety is something common among writers and bloggers, but some manage to get past it over the years but others don’t. In my case, the older I grew the more I find it hard to write.
Antalya
I’m here to participate in a conference, I arrived today and here I am enjoying one of Antalya’s cafes by the sea. The local beer is good. The waitress is hot, very short hair, the way she walks, she’s avoiding eye contact, she’s shy maybe.
Turkish women are incredibly beautiful, it’s kind of scary. And they know it.
I have a workshop to facilitate the day after tomorrow and I am still confused about what exactly I want to say.
Anyalya is so beautiful, it reminded me a bit of Homs, small city, organized buildings, wide streets, except you can see women in the streets.
I’ve seen a lot of mothers in this cafe, maybe because it has a children section. One girl fell and she started shouting in Turkish, she started crying when her mother saw her falling down, I think she was saying: “it hurts! it hurts!”.
I like the waitress. I like Antalya. Thank god we’re not in Istanbul, I hated that city very much. It was designed for tourists, Antalya is tourist- friendly but I love how nobody here speaks English. I am using weird body language to communicate, and people find it amusing. Nice people, people of Antalya.
I hated their airport though, I had a fight with them, their security check is humiliating, and everybody was obsessed about my hat, like I am hiding a bomb there or something. Assholes.
I thought the plane was going to crash, actually I was prepared to die. The captain was funny, the plan would move on and on on the side, and there was a moment when the plane moved fast that I thought this is it, I am going to fall on the sea, I am going to stop breathing as I am falling from the sky and onto the sea. I won’t be able to shout cause the scene is so scary. people are shouting around me. If I ever make it alive in the sea, I thought, I am going to save the children and the baby cat. The cat’s owner is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life. Dark skin, fair hair, green eyes. Amazing body, but I won’t save her, I am sorry but I am more sympathetic with children and animals than pretty bodies.
I think the Asians at our plane were Japanese, and I was to say to them “Baka”. But a couple of them were whispering about the Hezbolla sign I attached to my backpack. What a turn off.
So yeah, dying, been thinking a lot about death than usual lately. Isn’t amazing, that one of humanity’s biggest fears is death, yet I am fantasizing about it on my way to a nice gathering?
I know why I like death, and why suicide is an interesting concept. I hope I can explain my thoughts about it one day.
I can’t believe I am writing again on this stupid blog.
Anyways, gotta start preparing for my workshop. Jana!
Would You Be My Palestine?
We can buy Almaza and get to your uncle’s place while he’s having his Argileh with his friends outdoors.
We can buy some of the Armenian nuts you like.
We can sit next to each other on the Sofa.
We can get nervous.
We can allow silence to be so loud.
This is it.
We can turn Valentine into a sacred sin.
Would you break the law with me?
We can wait till we finish our first bottle.
We can forget about your tomorrow and mine.
You can let me start right here and now.
Katyusha in My House
Katyushas have been through a lot. They used to live in peace before certain kinds of human beings decided they want to invade their lands. Suddenly, a new reality was imposed on them. They chose to fight and not to give in. It’s both, a human and animal instinct, to fight and not to give in-(well till modernism came and told indigenous species that they should fight the foreigner “peacefully”).
But Katyushas came up with primitive yet creative tactics to survive and protect themselves and their families from the occupiers. They sticked together, and fought back. They tried to survive in a system that does not acknowledge their right to be on their lands, that this land is no longer theirs.
Many Katyushas died as they were fighting the enemy and the system. We call them martyrs.
I found one of those Katyushas the other night in the street, he is tiny but strong. I brought him home where our bougie cat, Klio, was trying for the past seven days to stick his penis in Katyusha’s ass. Katyushas as fighters, don’t let no bougie or other, to abuse them. Katyusha knew how to fight back and teach bougie cats the difference between a fighter and a conformist. Klio never stopped trying. Katyusha’s battle with the system isn’t over yet, and he knows it’s a long way for liberation, and it won’t be nice.
Katyushas instinctively learned how to resist because only them experienced the oppressive system. and only them know how to defy it.
Katyusha in my house, and I am totally OK with it. hoping another form of Katyusha finds its way to my home soon.
Thanks to @ysalahi, a fellow blogger for suggesting the name Katyusha
#KolenaLaila: From a Radical Feminist to a Liberal: You Suck
Ever since my “teenage-hood” days, I followed the assumption that befriending writers, filmmakers, sculptures and those who’re interested in arts and revolutionary books are necessarily people with free minds, and hence, are people who won’t disrespect me as a female or the way I chose to live my life. I was not only wrong, I was also simplistic.
Today, large number of these people who used to be my friends have become/are becoming my enemies, for they, as the masses, they begin their sentences with the same line a lot of sexist people do: “A woman should/shouldn’t be/do bla bla bla….”.
First I want to give you examples of how liberal women and men prove to be sexists as they’re trying to be free from “conservative” values. Some of these people consider themselves feminists, progressives, thinkers, and activists, pro women and LGTBQ rights.
Oh I Would Love to Dump You, Syria
Why oh why, I don’t care about you, Syria.
I don’t. I sincerely don’t. About its men, women, gay or straight people. its submissive or its courageous people. Its prisoners of conscience or its enemies or its leaders. I don’t understand what is it exactly I feel about you. I mean I don’t really hate you, obviously I don’t like you, but why do I follow your news so much? why do I feel excited when my reader mentions your name? like hey, I know this place better than I know any other place on this planet. Like I have the feeling, that because I know a lot about you, I have this illusion that I care about you, or even that we are related. But see, we’re not related. See here at this very point that I just wrote, I wrote so many sentences then I deleted them. Not because I want my sentences to consist with each other and actually make sense to the readers, but rather, I don’t think I am writing what I truly feel. I really don’t know how I feel about this space called Syria.
10 Things to do before I Burn in Hell
1-I want to be a reader.
2-I want to be a writer.
3-I want to make one documentary and couple short movies.
4-I want to spend my life drawing cartoons and animate them for Arab-speaking children.
5-I want to live in a farm in a village someday.
6-I want to stop using the internet and communicate with people by writing letters instead.
7-I want to go home with my bike.
8-I want to go to occupied Golan.
9-I can’t lose the child in me.
10-Private wish.
Translating Entities
I got out of the taxi and walked across the street where I thought she was waiting for me and watching me from a distance. She wasn’t. I missed call her and waited for her inside the Russian Cultural Center at 29th street.
My heart started beating fast as I am waiting. I felt that I looked very ugly, and that everything will soon fade away.
I saw her walking across the room followed by some hot chick. She was looking around looking for me. No, that can’t be true, she was with that bitch?
The latter was acting nice, and I kept looking at her while she was saying to my date goodbye. I checked her well-combed hair, her tight blouse, and the very tight pants. Her ass was about to burst in the Damascene street. And to my surprise, I was annoyed at the sound of her heels. I usually love those sounds.
Now that we’re finally alone, she looked at me and smiled. She doesn’t know why I was half an hour late, and I can’t tell her.
The next thing she did was to light a cigarette, looked at me and smiled. I tried my best to look cheerful, that today is just another day. But I found myself enjoying being cheerful. I loved the Damascene streets. I stared at people’s eyes, which was exhausting, but I think I looked at every single person passed by me and her last night.
She likes to walk ahead of me. She has a way of walking. I tried not to smile. She was putting her black jacket on. She has a way of moving. Clumsy, chaotic, and careless. Very intimidating, thrilling, and very inviting.
We both enjoy crossing the streets when the red thing is not on.
For a quiet classic unsociable old woman like myself, I rarely laugh, but I’ve learned over the years that it’s always better to put a smile on my face even when no one is joking. But here I am with her, and I cannot stop laughing. I think I laugh at every single thing she says even when she’s serious.
I was very shy last night. I avoided looking at her eyes. I tried not to touch her body while we’re sitting next to each other in the taxis and later in the front seats of the micro bus.
She doesn’t seem to have problems like mine. She’s seven years younger than me, and that freaks me out. I sometimes feel I am pedophiliac, especially when I am staring at her breasts.
On our way to her place, all I was thinking about was to make sure there’s alcohol. She made it quite clear that she wants to be “sober” with me. She doesn’t understand, that drinking alcohol is the only way for me to be sober.
We got into her room. I was very nervous. I usually sit on her bed and start babbling about social activism in Damascus. But last night I just couldn’t simply sit on her bed. My world is suddenly full of gentle unfamiliarities. Different obstacles, pretty much not ours.
I was standing in front of someone I am trying to reach but I felt enchained. And it’s hard to explain.
I started wandering in her room with a cigarette in my hand. Looking at the same stuff that weren’t foreign to my eyes.
“Razan would you please sit down? 7awaltini!” she said.
“I don’t feel like sitting”.
She played that lousy Mozart on her PC and looked at me with one of her cheeky smiles.
“So…?”.
We laughed. Nervously, I hope.
And suddenly we started talking very fast. I thanked god Vodca was next to me. We interrupted each other, blamed each other, revealed our fears and insecurities.
“I am too old for open relationships” I finally said.
“I wasn’t really looking for one” she objected.
I envy her. She said to me the things I wanted to say to her. I can’t. I want to, but not even a Glenfiddish bottle of whisky can make me reveal how I feel. Never did, never will.
“When I cook you dinner someday, it means I care” I told her.
“That’s not good enough”.
She did it many times. She pushed her chair towards me as I am sitting on her bed. I never thought she had brown eyes before. I wish I can be in a movie so that I can kiss her and run away. I think I am being childish.
She’s not a normal human being. She’s a fighter. I have always had a thing for female fighters.
“Razan I don’t want to be one of your causes”, she interrupted my thoughts.
“Why do you think we’re talking in English?” I screamed at her.
“Cause Arabic i’s a fucked up language!”. She screamed right back at me. She really didn’t mean that.
Language is never distant from the dialectic of authority and resistance.
It’s easier to leave this place and be whatever we are somewhere else. Somewhere that claims to recognize our wishes. But will they understand our translated entities? I wonder.
See, I was sober after all.
Notes on Syrian Bloggers Campaign Against Homosexuality
I am going to cut the chase and get straight to the points I want to make here, there are many things I want to say in Arabic later on but I am going to say here what I am incapable linguistically to say in Arabic, unfortunately, I am westernized.
The campaign that some Syrian bloggers launched against homosexuality which has technically begun yesterday is the first campaign that has to do with Syrian social matters. To be more specific, this campaign is identity-based. Bloggers feel that because they’re Arabs and Syrian and of course, Muslims, they’re threatened by the existence of homosexuals. Not just because god said so in Quraan, but also because they feel that the reason why homosexuals are getting more vocal about their rights is because of the internet, western interference through tv and movies, and what have you.
I have to say here, that part of what they’re saying is true, but not quite so. But we’ll get into that later on in other post.
What I find so interesting about this campaign is that and as I have said above it is an identity-based campaign. Syrian bloggers campaigned to free a fellow Syrian blogger. Tariq Biasi, they campaigned for occupied Palestine and occupied Gaza, they campaigned for occupied Golan Heights also. Campaigns about freedom of speech and Palestinian and Golan liberty does not reflect the “who I am” formula the campaign against homosexuality heavily carries within it. By saying “I am against homosexuals”, Syrian bloggers are saying this is who we are, we are Muslims, we are Syrians, and we are normal human beings. We want to save our society, we are locals and we wont let strangers to take the only thing we got; our identity.
As much as I “oppose” the simplistic, clichéd, typical argument this campaign offers, this very simplicity is exactly what the Syrian society is constructed of: ready-made thoughts, traditions and habits, so called “religious values” (which are not really religious but I am going to talk about that later in other post), these typical thoughts that some of us disagree with and in fact want to change are nothing but what Syrian society is made of. Hence opposing this campaign mean that I am opposing a whole society, and by doing so, my opposition per se, is meaningless. What I should do along with my opposition is talking as well, really talking and explaining and let the other understand where I come from, which I haven’t done in a long time and I was wrong not doing so.
Let me continue explaining why this campaign is the only authentic campaign Syrian bloggers that has ever launched: it’s because it is a non-virtual campaign. The virtual becomes a non-virtual for the first time in the Syrian blogsphere concerning an unspeakable taboo. As the matter of fact, it is the only non-virtual campaign the Syrian bloggers have ever launched.
Syrian bloggers calling for freedom of speech in Syria is like fucking for virginity. And Syrian bloggers calling for the liberation of Palestine and Golan heights is exclusively virtually authenticated; it means that it is only real in the virtual world, so I am not sure how real it is.
Syrian citizens cannot non-virtually be calling for any of these matters on the ground. Even for Palestine and Golan heights, Syrians are being censored and closely watched by Syrian intelligence. I know Syrians and Palestinians in Syria who are not allowed to leave the country because they were pro-Palestinian activists within Palestinian camps. And certainly, Golan Heights is a Syrian state matter and not the people’s. With regards to Golan Heights campaign, Syrian bloggers are self-conscious about their incapability to be activists on the ground for Golan and that’s one major reason why they had to campaign about it virtually.
In other words, in Syria things go this way: we blog what we cannot say in public in Syria.
But the campaign against homosexuality is not the same as the rest of the campaigns. Syrian society is homophobic, sectarian, racist and discriminate against women. And all these matters are considered taboo to be discussed in the Syrian blogsphere, different kind of taboo: we all pretend to be the “good blogger” who is against honor crimes, sectarianism, racism and we never talk about women issues in Syria, there are some exception of course but generally speaking, it seems that we want to look good so bad-or that we are in denial- that we cannot say what we are daily living to preserve being a “good blogger” or a “good Syrian”. In other words, silence about problems in Syria is how we deal with these problems in order to change, as Syrians.
So why this campaign is authentic and real and very important to change? for example, if Syrian bloggers campaigned IN SOLIDARITY with homosexuals it would be the same as the rest of the campaigns, too good to be true. I wouldn’t feel good about it precisely because it would be exclusively virtual and thus inauthentic.
The authenticity and the historical spatial reality of any idea or an opinion no matter how horrible it might be is our only key for change in Syria.
I consider this campaign a success for myself because I personally feel that I provoked the unspeakable and now it’s out so loud and it’s time that we have our long awaited little talk.
It also made me realized how wrong I was, I acted stupidly to bloggers who uttered some bad words against homosexuals, sexual liberty for women and erotica, topics that I blog heavily on this blog.
But things are going to change from now on, it took me Daddy Long Legs, Adnan and Lina and Treasure Island :) to understand that I need to smile and take a deep breath before I start talking.
It is very outrageous for some and for me to hear arguments that are against non-virgin women and homosexuals, but these very thoughts are real, and we need to feel good about having Syrian bloggers who depict the majority of the Syrian society, cause without them, we ourselves, won’t be real anymore, we will think that Syria is fine, everything is fine, and we won’t be able to touch a bit of what is not so fine about us.
