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!

Love is all arround

Well, Valentine day was last week, the streets were filled with people rushing around with red roses, red balloons and presents wrapped in red paper. In a place that is usually very serious, it was funny to see all these highflier City executives with a seriously concerned look on their faces worrying about choosing the right present for the day!

This made me remember a blog that I have drafted ages ago but never gotten around to publishing till now; with love all around, at least for one day, do we still believe in it? Does the notion of romantic love remain a reality or is it just a caption of our imagination with no real existence in the everyday life?

If you ask someone who has just started a relationship, who is still in the pink period, then the answer will always be yes, Romeo and Juliet’s kind of love is alive and well! Ask someone who just ended a relationship and you will get the line that love is just a myth, a way to dress up a primal desire with a more civilized way.

As for me, helpless romantic by nature, tell me that love is a myth, I will tell you, you’ve never been in love before, tell me that love is worshiping the grounds that someone else tread on, I will tell you, you haven’t been in love before! Love is not walking hand in hands in the moonlight, or melting with a single touch from that wonderful other… no my friend, love is simply waking up in the morning and thinking how lucky you are to have that special one, the one that is special just for you, the one that everybody else will think that you’re a bit crazy to be with…

Love is not liking his good qualities; no, love is accepting the horrible ones and knowing that no matter how hard you try you will never change them until one day you realise, it is these small annoyances that make them special in your eyes!

Love is not melting into someone; it’s walking with them by your side, getting so used to them you even forget that they’re there but you tread the road with that bit more of confidant!

Love is accepting the hurt with the happiness, knowing that your days won’t all be filled with smiles and roses and that sometimes you will feel the pain crunching you to the bone.

So many people I know refuse to allow love into their life because of the hurt it will bring them. Preferring a “free” and painless life to a “messy” and draining one, they will always tell you about this person who had their hearts broken by falling in and out of love!

The question is love worth it isn’t easy to answer; some people can live their lives easily ignoring love and disregarding even the notion of it. Can one judge such life to be better or worse than that of us eternal lovers? I thought that the answer was always yes, they don’t know what they’re missing but now I realise that this is not true, the answer is much simpler than that, they haven’t chosen to ignore love, because no one can, they just haven’t fallen in love yet!

It is amazing to meet someone who have lived his or her whole life away from this basic emotion but when you realise that falling really in love is not an every day occurrence, it is not every time we feel some twitch in our hearts towards someone, it’s not every crush or each brief encounter; falling in love is something that happens to you only once in your life, if you’re lucky enough to meet that special someone!

People don’t choose not to fall in love, they just chose not to follow the mirage every time and it is only the real thing standing in their way that will open their eyes to a whole new reality.

Knowing the difference, I stopped trying to convince people that you can’t live your life high and dry without love. Now I realise that when the moment come, and I pray it comes to all of you who read this, they will follow that new reality no matter where it takes them. Love will sneak up on them without any warning and without any of the usual commotion. One day they will wake up and realise that they’re so lucky to have that someone in their life and know with such confidence that they want them to walk the rest of the road by their side, that the way will be that much easier, that the happy moments will be that much happier and the sad ones that much easier because they’re not alone. They will wake up every day to the hope of a softer, sweeter tomorrow and with that special one they will always follow that tomorrow.

Happy Valentine…

Feel the rain

Feel the rain on your skin
no one else can feel it for you

Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

These words, funny enough, were part of an add on the TV but somehow the lyrics hit a cord that I’ve been searching for for so long; people can tell you a thousand times how something should be, how something should feel but then no one other than you trying it will give you the real meaning that you’re searching for.

We talk to people all the time, they try to pass their experiences to us and we try to explain to them our own visions and feelings but then how can things like, love, loss, passion and life be explained in words? How can someone describe his most intimate thoughts to others in words and words are so limited? How can they listen and understand what you mean when no one can take anything in without adding to it from their own pool of thoughts, ideas and feelings making the story that is told unique to every listener and never what its author intended it to be…

It’s been sometime since I last updated this blog, busy at work and with family it’s been hard to sit and let the words flow by with so many things happening and at the same time, with the conscience of knowing that there are people who will be reading these words (the only reason to have a blog is to have it read!) it was a bit difficult thinking of how to put the million things going through my head in words but then I heard this song and realised that no matter how hard I try, every one who reads this will read it in his or her own way and it will mean such different things to each one of you dear friends… when I want to write about love, loss, passion and life, you my friend will read the words in your own way and with your own experiences feeding into it and that what makes it so exciting, knowing that the same lines will be received in so many different ways…

This time, I don’t have much to say other than we can all talk about everything and anything but you will only know when you try it yourself….

So go out, and feel the rain

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your innovations
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Oh, oh, oh

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inner visions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inner visions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten

Oh, yeah, yeah

Peace and Good will to all man kind

(The photo used in this post is by a friend, more of the same can be found here)

It’s the holiday season and I managed to get the 3 odd days between the Christmas and New Year’s off so I was planning a long, relaxing holiday with the people I care about the most. That was until I received a call telling me that my parents have managed to get a ticket and are flying over next week! A bag of mixed reactions landed in my lap, Wow, I love how things are done in Syria, I was trying to get a ticket to fly home for the holiday but the cheapest thing I could find was £500+ (way out of budget) while my parents were able to find tickets within 24 hours from getting their visas! My house, which has been getting the shorter end of the stick with regards to my spare time is in real mess, now every where I look, I can just imagine my mum shaking her head in dismay at her “not so domestic oriented” daughter while my dad gives me his disapproving look for the garden fence that I haven’t fixed yet! Ouch, the list is just building up and my long awaited relaxing holiday has just gone up in smoke.

Yet, I can’t help but think how lucky I am, I’m warm at home with my family coming over for Eid/New Year’s while some 70K+ people were stranded in Heathrow in the freezing cold for the past few days trying to get back to their families and loved ones in time for Christmas! The newspapers were filled with stories of stranded parents and shivering children forced to spend the time sleeping on the cold floor of Heathrow Terminals with minimum facilities, what a cheerful Christmas this will be for them.

All over the world, the importance of being with your family & loved ones at this time of the year is paramount, it is not restricted to the people who believe in Christmas or celebrate it but just a universal need to spend the last few hours of the year with the ones you care about the most. Near or far, all feel the urge to cuddle up in the arms of those closest, and thinking of the year that passed with all its ups and downs and the year ahead with all the mysteries that it holds. And the world slows down for these last few hours and you get a sense of breathless anticipation for that last stroke of Big Ben announcing to everyone that a year has passed and a New Year is born.

This will be my 4^th New Year in London, but the years before when I was home seem so far away I can barely remember how they passed or what I did then, but since I arrived here, each New Year was filled with the promise of things to come, of adventures to live and mountains to clime. 2003-2004 was the first, I have been in the UK for 4 months by that time, had exams a couple of days after new year’s and suffering a every bad case of heart ache, 2004-2005 was the first new year after I started working in the City, I was still trying to figure out if I made the right decision leaving old stories behind and closing so many doors in order to follow this new life that I knew nothing about in England. 2005-2006 was a very strange one, I managed to get the time off and flew back to Syria but my return was scheduled for 3am January 1^st, so after a rather weird evening listening to Khadam on Al-Arabia with my mum and dad, I drove to Damascus airport, eerily empty at the first hours of the new year and spend the time struggling with a very antiquated PC trying to talk to my friend in Japan. Till today the “Damascus Airport Messenger” still brings smiles and tears to my eyes at the same time!

So, 2006-2007 I wonder how will that one be, off course I wont know till next week, what I know is that 2006 was the happiest and the hardest year in my life, so many things have changed, so many important dates to remember throughout the year. The foundations of life-time changes were laid during this year. A whole structure for the future has been put in place, ripped apart and then rebuild over and over again. Never has a year passed me so quickly, yet so slowly at the some time, it is exciting when one experiences Relativity first hand! So this New Year’s eve should be interesting as well as I try to celebrate it with people spread across 17 time zones (from GMT+9 to GMT-8) it will be one long party!

Merry Christmas to you All, and for all of you trying to get home, best of luck and I do pray for a special miracle so that you spend this time with the ones you love…

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…