Born and raised amidst strife and violence, the Arab woman longs for… peace

BEHIND THE ARAB VEIL



Stereotypes are oftentimes distortions. They are caricatures: narrow, intransigent, inhuman.

My stereotype of the Arab woman had been the stereotype pictured in western books and movies: mysterious, enslaved, deprived, untouchable, distant, different, alien.

But recently, I personally met and interviewed and seriously thought about three Arab women. And my pleasant, enlightening insight is: the Arab woman is like me: HUMAN.

Born and raised amidst strife and violence, the Arab woman longs for… peace. And her dreams of peace (sala’am) are strangely, hauntingly akin to her bitter enemy’s (the Israelite woman’s) own dream of peace (shalom).

The Arab and the Israelite both thirst, and hunger for a world where there is no selfish aggression... No unreasoning hate, no shattering bombs, no fragmented limbs, no wasted lives, no mutilated children… the Arab woman’s basic need to survive is not a basic need to destroy… her awareness of the brotherhood of man includes every man. Reaching deeper than, and transcending, politics and prejudice and relentless hatred.

Deep, deep, deep beneath the Arab woman’s understandable patriotism is her need for a common father… and her search for a common family, where there is no fear, no suspicion, no vengefulness, no terrorism, but only acceptance and peace and warmth and forgiveness and caring and love and… coming home.

I did not intend to be lyrical. For the weary world is too prosaic and too harsh. And I had long doubted man… and God.




But the veil that had covered the face of the Arab woman… and of reality… has been lifted for me… for beyond the caricature and the prejudice I saw, and I discovered the human being.

Like you… like me. And I am shocked. And grateful… and I begin to hope…. Again. And my sad heart sings.

The Arab women: they have the heart of a child. And the heart of the patriot. And the heart of the searching, feeling human being.

Two weeks ago, they were so depressed and so tense about the coming deadlines and exams that Rania suggested that they go out and make their first snowman. They had great fun. The intended snowman developed into a woman, in front. And a man, on the other side. And until now a part of that snowman is still in the freezer, intact, a sort of memento of their artistic skills and their first snow. The veiled Arab woman is at heart a child.

Conversation is usually lively. With politics and the latest news and loud disagreements on almost every detail of almost every topic. And common loyalties, and common alertness to threats and survival and injustice and disregard for human helplessness and confusion and unceasing disruptions and the perpetual state of war. And the painful, relentless drowning in an ocean of pain and blood and meaninglessness and despair….. The veiled Arab woman is at heart a patriot.

I had requested three Arab women to come in, and to talk, and to share, and I listened….. What I heard and what I saw is that the veiled Arab woman is at heart a human being.

Their concerns, their dreams, their longings were strangely familiar. The profile that was formed from the emerging Arab lines was… my own profile.

The heart being described was my own heart — the same pain, the same woundedness, the same joys, and insecurities, and longings and incompleteness and search and love and lovableness…. beyond the veil and the stereotype and the burned pita and the strong turkish coffee.

For me this was the epiphany, the gift, the salvation, the resurrection, the new day, the light, the hope, the reason for living.

If only I listen. To others. To my deeper, nobler self. To the divine, behind the veil of the human.

The answer to my groping, my search, my anger, my hostile destructiveness, my despair, is in our common humanity, a common humanity that is one with the Divine.

A love… worth living for… and loving for… and dying for.

Veils of divisiveness and violence are constructed and reinforced and perpetuated by blind and deaf men in the tower of Babel which is self-destructive pride.

But to listen is to be humble. And open.

And human. And divine.

To listen is to allow the emergence of the truth — the peace and the hope and the love that languish, stunted and wounded and silent and weeping in our fellow human beings. And in us.

We only have to be aware of it and claim it.

For behind the veil is the divinity of our common humanity.


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(Written in New York, U. S. A.)