let it snow, let is snow, let is snow

 
 
 
 

My "racist" views, An Arabic woman whinge...

I’ve been working in this country for the past two and a half years and before that I worked in Syria for roughly the same period so is it strange that now I have a preference to working with British co-workers or have I been completely brain washed during my stay here?

The whole question came when an Arab colleague wondered by my desk on Friday and decided to check out my blackberry! So without too much introduction he picks it up and starts flipping through the various menu options until he gets to my inbox! Now he must have realised by my slightly stressed tone that I was a bit annoyed but did that stop him at any point? No! And he handed me back my phone with a sly note that he hasn’t seen anything!

Now how do I know that no English colleague would ever do this in a million years? Well maybe because one of my closest friends at work, who admired my previous XDA-Exec and was planning to buy one has actually asked me out for dinner in order that I show his the ins and outs of the device at my leisure and during the whole time never went from one feature to the other without asking for my permission first? Maybe because my boss once noticed my phone flashing with a new e-mail has turned it face down so not to allow anyone including himself to even glance at it!

During my time working in this country I have come across a mix of Arab and non Arab workers. The pattern that I noticed every time, with all the people that I have worked with is the respect that I get from all except my “Arabic speaking group”! With me being one of the few Arabic woman working in this environment, it was staggering, to outsiders as well as to me, to see the patronising behaviour towards me and towards any Arabic female arround. the reaction was the same whether it was the one who was raised in this country since he was a child or the one who is here for a short time. Nationality differences among that group accounted for one exception; Algerians were the most civilized by miles while the rest were unbelievably … what’s the word! Arab!

I was talking to another friend and when I told him, I prefer to work with British and he was astonished with my note. I realised after saying that that I was more “racist” than the majority of the people I work with but maybe my judgment is clouded by my personal experience.

Maybe this is a horrible view that I’m adopting, maybe it is not the same for other places and with other people, maybe I irritate them with my freedom and they consider me as someone who has sold out her origins to merge into the British society. And to be honest, the majority of my friends here are British; I enjoy the fact that I can chose how close or how far I want to be with people without a long winded explanation of why I want that. I enjoy the freedom of expressing my thoughts and ideas without judgment of other or society. I don’t have to conform to be part of the group, I go out with my colleagues after work for a quick drink down the pub but they all know that I get high on my tomato juice and after the first time they offered out of courtesy they don’t need to ask or insist anymore. I can talk to my Brazilian friend for hours about everything and anything and so can she without worrying about how she’ll look at me the following days.

A lot of people think that to live in a foreign country and keep your identity you have to keep your society within you! I read a post some time ago objecting to the racism of the locals in that country, well why do all Arabs, and sorry to generalise and please jump in and tell me not all are like that, think that the whole world has to accept them as they are? Why do we not tolerate other people’s view and expect them to tolerate ours?

British people are considered one of the least accepting among other nations yet London is the most diverse! Why? Because their britishness include allowing for individuality, that is the sacred pack that they all share. Be what you want to be because you want to, respect other’s freedom and they will respect yours. Prove your worth in what you do, and they will respect you even if they hate your guts! It is strange that I feel more liberated to display my Arabic, Islamic me in London than in Damascus! Here, I’m not written out as a hardliner extremist who should tend to her religious education and seek the happiness and obedience of marital bless just because I ware a scarf! Compared to the reaction that I had in Syria when I took that step with people suddenly talking to me about marriage and commitment rather than career and education!

And maybe that is why my Arabic “friends” feel the urge to prove their role as guardians of the weaker less capable female countrywoman. They still carry their society within them; they still see that I disgrace them when I go with the guys for a drink or travel on my own to another city to attend an English league football match! They probably shake their heads and think with a sorry expression how my parents are allowing me so much freedom or maybe they worry that I’m too much of a rebel and can undermine their traditional protective role that they’re so used to.

The funny part in all of this is that I never used to feel that while I was working back home! It’s as if you somehow get used to the notion that you will be treated differently because you’re from the gentler sex, and the shook only kicks in when you’re here being expected to put as much as anyone else, and using the “I’m to gentle to do this” is the worst career move you can ever do! I sometimes worry how to readjust when I return to Syria, if and when I return, to this lucid reality of gender differentiation. To be back at a work place where all are like my “Arab colleagues” and non are like my British ones! Where respect is related to calling all as Mr x or Mrs y and nothing more, where you have to wait outside the door for a paper to be signed by the manager rather than jock with them about last night’s TV! What a scary notion that is!

Tell me, have I lost my identity because I feel like this? Have I sold out to this new country that I’m living in now? I don’t know and I’m not sure that there is one right answer for this. Whether there is a right answer to begin with or is it something each one us wonderers who live in two world, love two world and belong to two world has to figure out on our own!

Long week…

Long week… this past week was defiantly one of the longest that I had since coming over to the UK. You know when files seem to be pilling faster than what you’re running through and each day you end up with a larger pile, a longer to-do list than the day before and more e-mails to read? Well this week was one of those.

Every day I have to wake up around 6am (pitch black as sunrise is still a couple of hours away at this time of the year) and leave home just before 7 to catch the “moody” bus that takes me to the rail station on time for the 7:14 to London Bridge. You see old faces, passing warn-out places (Mad world, Tears for Fear) heading for another day of hard work, constituting the all famous commuter community around the great capital.

I don’t think that you can be classified as a proper Londoner if you don’t commute at least 30-40 minutes to work every day while hoping against hope that National Rail, London underground or the various bus drivers unions don’t decide to go on strike on that day or even not bother showing up to work that day. This being always more than a strong possibility in this city that the most used excuse for being late to work is “train is running late” or “a fatality on the line” (a favourite of the exposed tube lines on the outer skirts of the tube network).

I talk to friends living in Germany, France and far away in Japan, and I’m always astonished by the notion of buses that run on time down to the second, air conditioned trains and stations that are kept to the highest standards of cleanliness and security! Do I live in a first world country or on a different planet?!! The comparison won’t be fair between, say France and Syria, but you would assume that London is not that far behind!!

It’s funny that when everyone in the capital city jumped at their desks when London was announced as the city for the 2012 Olympics but the first thought after the joy of defeating the French was that: how the hell will we handle the extra couple of million people that will flood the city with venues for different events spread from Stratford in the east to Richmond in the west some 70miles across the capital, ouch! But what the hell, it’s all worth it for beating Paris …

For me, the daily trip is a time to think of the day ahead, what new things will find their way to my desk over the next 9 hours? Feeling intrigued and weary at the same time I just allow a warm voice to tell me that all will be ok and that for every long day, there will be a trip back the same evening and I’ll be one day older, one pile of work over and a different to-do list for the following day.

That warm voice keeps me going day after day, week after week, guiding me through the complex composite of the modern life in this city.

London is a cold place, compared to the natural warmth of Damascus but I’m lucky to have my voice, for the walk is not that lonely in its company….

Hidden beauty

“There is so much hidden beauty in the world”, I’m not sure if this is a line I heard once in a film or read in a book but today while having a conversation over the MSN with a friend it came to me how 99% of people fail to see that beauty around them.

We were talking about enjoying the feast of the senses that some situations offer, a nice meal with wine and a soft blues music in the background, listening to a classical piece or enjoying a wonderful sunset. What I realised is that most people think of the grander gestures and magical moments when looking for this world beauty failing to realise that it’s not the surroundings that make the difference but the allowing your mind and senses to see what runs under the surface in your day to day life.

While he was describing his ideal “feast for the senses” settings, the dinner scenario, I thought of an evening a couple of days before when I was returning from work, and had to wait at a nearly deserted bus stop in a sleepy small town outside London trying to stay warm with the chilly autumn wind. Most evenings, I would try to pass the time reading my book or playing Brickbreaker on my BlackBerry, the latter being highly addictive, but that night I had finished one book on the way to work in the morning and my mobile was on the last bit of battery power in it so I had to settle for my ipod and wait half cold, half board for the bus when the angelical voice of Katherine Jenkins’s “House of No Regrets” flowed in and suddenly the night was filled with magic, the scent of falling leaves, the paled moonlight trimming high clouds moving slowly across the heavens under the spell of the night breath. For 15 minutes, the world exploded with beauty and the senses that were buried deep under the day’s work flexed outwards to embrace that magic.

One of my favourite writers once said, in not so many words, sense and conscience are like a Japanese paper fan, most people live with this fan opened to one fifth of the full circle, but sometimes, something (or someone) happen and your conscience and senses open up to that full beautiful circle and you see that hidden beauty running just under the face of the world, undetectable by the majority but available for all who seek it.

A couple of nights before, waiting for the R2 bus to my house in the sleepy country, that fan opened up. A moment that washed over my tiered mind, a memory that is so dear and precious.

Thank you Katherine…