I woke up this morning to a of an old Syrian man gesturing wildly at a camera as bombs tore up the concrete behind him. He looked like many Arab grandfathers I know, bearded and wearing a plaid shirt decorated with dust.

On Twitter: of soldiers carrying civilians out of a besieged city; women committing rather than being raped by government forces; politicians barely holding an emergency meeting; a boy weeping over his dead mother.

We have failed you, Aleppo.

We have watched for years while you burned. While bewildered children covered in dust were found in the rubble; while refugees died on foreign shores in Mediterranean water; while our politicians kept silent or helpfully funded another proxy war.

We have failed you.

We have invented sanitized phrases for what is happening to your people. In a few years, if your “otherness” is allowed in our glossy history books, we will call them “war crimes” by “rebels” or “government forces” or “coalitions.” We will call those who fled but had nowhere to go “refugees,” and we will lock up our women because we fear their “gorilla-like barbarism.”

We will pretend blissful ignorance of our role in watching your skin torn apart and your people ground into the rubble. We will turn away, pretending we did not do the same thing in Kosovo, in Rwanda, in Myanmar as they quietly exterminate the stateless Rohingya.

We will pretend we knew nothing of Vietnam, of Iraq, of . We will pretend we didn’t know those monsters existed.

We have failed you.

But you possess something the others did not: your phones, , your ability to speak a language we understand. You force us to bear witness to you in a moment—just a fragile, crippling, traumatic moment—of empathy.

Robert Fisk that, on the eve of the Taliban entering Kandahar, he was startled by a sound outside. He watched from his balcony as, across the city, families raised their voices, chanting “Allahu Akbar”—a cry now most often associated with black-clad menaces, but in every other moment, a cry of recognition.

In Islam, we say that one of the names of God is Shahid, the Witness. In our prayers, we bear witness to the oneness of God. In Kandahar, the people bore witness to their own helplessness, the untranslatable feeling of complete despair. In Aleppo, we are forced to bear witness as the veneer of civilization we have attempted to construct is stripped away.

You shame us, Aleppo.

Your faces, your photos, your cries are not a Hollywood production. No one is coming out alive even as the United Nations hurriedly attempts to broker a deal to evacuate 100,000 civilians. No one is listening, even as British politicians fail to fill a room for an emergency hearing and no one but John Kerry has said anything to Russia.

Even we don’t hold our own politicians accountable. Even we don’t care enough, no matter how many times we shed tears over your deaths.

We watch it unfold on our expensive tablets, expensive phones, in the comfort of our relatively secure homes waiting for the next Muslim bogeyman or imminent threat to our safety while you are exterminated like fish in a barrel. We list the names of our dead, award them memorials when we are feeling generous, but your children will have no gravestones but the rubble or the sea.

You shame us.

It is time we stopped pretending at civility, stopped pretending that because of your strange ways and strange language, because of your skin and your faith, you are the barbarians. It is you trapped in basements with the severed hands of children; you who struggle to provide hospitals, schools, shelter to your population while we cheerfully continue to ignore politics in favor of discussing Kanye West.

It is you who do not have the privilege of our freedom and you who died for it. It is you who we should remember and name every day because we cannot leave our own world long enough to march against your murders in the street no matter how many times we read Night and the Diary of Anne Frank or whitewashed history textbooks. We keep saying “never again” but you have outed us because we don’t mean it.

We don’t mean it. Even while we watch our governments vie for hegemony; even while we watch them engage in the fifth or sixth proxy war in our generation; even while we know that part of this is our fault, our taxes, our silence, we say nothing because those books reports we wrote in eighth grade on injustice were only meant for the utopian civilization we supposedly live in.

You do not fit into our world—your unsanitized blood, your broken limbs, the faces of your dead children, we do not want them here in our comfortable bubble of “never again.”

You shame us.

We shame ourselves.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:

The post A Farewell to Aleppo appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

Mariam finally settles herself down on the floor after distributing pink cups of Arabic coffee to her guests. With a pink floral scarf and soft hands, she is similar to many middle-aged women we have encountered in our walk around the Palestinian refugee camp where she lives. But this woman is different. Mariam has worked with disabled individuals in the camp for 30 years.

Persons with disabilities are among the most vulnerable in conflict or post-conflict situations. They cannot or access assistive devices. Mariam, taking a stipend of 100 Jordanian dinars ($140) per month, visits homes voluntarily to provide physical therapy to patients who are immobile. In the gravel-ridden streets of Jerash Camp in Jordan, Mariam attended trainings on her own and pursues the work on her own initiative.

Outwardly, this might seem surprising. Mariam is a woman. She is also to and potentially affected by disaster or displacement—women and children are 14 times more likely to die in a disaster. Mariam’s household would not survive rising food costs, economic hardship if someone could not work, or another displacement. Despite her family’s lack of economic resilience, however, Mariam still invests her time into those who face even more precarious odds.

Women in Disaster

As the Red Cross suggests, women are “” and “remarkably ingenious” at coping with disaster or war. Frequently, women are the ones to recover communities after conflicts have run their course.

This is why women are the new key investment in disaster risk management. The concept of relief work post-disaster is not new. In fact, everyone has seen advertisements asking for aid to assist populations struck by famine or war.

Preventative investment, however, focusing particularly on fostering the resilience of communities, is new. Women like Mariam form the epicenter of this strategy, a shift away from strictly “relief” work.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a current host of millions of refugees and containing several conflict-ridden nations, need prevention more than anything else. In order to keep countries like Jordan, where Mariam lives, the MENA region must invest in a strategy to help invoke the power of its female labor force. Only 21.3% of women work, and female entrepreneurs, in particular, face obstacles such as “access to credit and networks, mobility constraints, and security,” according to the World Bank.

Yet for both , resilience is a key ingredient. Women, for myriad reasons, have shown in studies to and a high aptitude for in leadership.

Fighting Against the Odds

is another example of this entrepreneurial female spirit. Lina started , a hot pink gym strictly for women, from the ground up with her passion for teaching self-defense to women in Jordan.

With a gamine smile and an athlete’s walk, Lina sits down for an interview while the girls in SheFighter playfully attack each other during a training break in the background.

“I was pissed off for women in Jordan. Some of them are so weak, they don’t have a voice—we are a very male dominated society.”

“You know, they say ‘Women can’t go outside alone because they’re a girl, you can’t travel for sports because you are a girl.’” Lina shakes her head, at this point, frustrated. With savings and help from her father, Lina began —an enterprise that has now grown enough that Lina has been invited to speak on several international forums.

“I started with just a few girls and now look. We have so many girls and we can train more to be trainers,” Lina says as she smiles. “I began SheFighter because of my friend who was abused. You know, her father hit her and I asked her, ‘Why don’t you defend yourself?’ But people told me I was creating a problem in the family. I have another friend whose father hit her with an ashtray and you know, she would not do anything back because he was her father. I said why don’t you defend yourself?”

At 32, Lina’s success is both impressive and an exemplar of how difficult it can be for a woman with an idea to succeed in a society where norms are changing slowly. While investment is key for women to develop as entrepreneurs and within the labor force, without training, networking building and incubation, it is difficult for a woman to get anywhere.

Learning about the gendered labor force divide in the MENA region is as simple as asking women to elaborate on an obstacle to their success. For some, it is internalized as they navigate their gendered identities and spaces. For others, it is externally imposed. In most cases, however, women require the support of a spouse or a father to truly get started in their business venture. Without this, it is difficult to access the capital and networks that men more easily acquire.

Battling for Success

, a former mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter and kickboxing competitor in Jordan, agrees. She co-owns Insanity Gym, a brand-new street-inspired yellow gym, with her fiancé. With bright red hair, big eyes and a charming smile, Lina does not come across like a competitive fighter but she has an impressive fan following in Jordan.

51łÔčÏ provides you deep and diverse insights for free. Remember that we still have to pay for servers, website maintenance and much more. So, to keep us free, fair and independent.

“In the beginning, my [all male] teammates were confused like, ‘What is this girl doing here?’ But my coach was very supportive.’”

Now consumed with personal training young women and men at her gym, Lina also employs male Jordanian MMA fighters to help teach some of her classes, and she has their clear respect. Yet even coming from such an extreme, outside perspective, Lina needed the support of men to gain her place.

Perhaps this is one of the overlooked keys in MENA: women often require, whether for good or ill, the support of men to succeed even if they can do it on their own merit. This may be a leftover of changing societal norms or evolving patriarchal structures, but the trend is there and present in almost every situation.

A Women’s Economy of Sharing in the Middle East

Back in the refugee camp, when I ask why she does the work, Mariam smiles and says, in Arabic, “We are all human.” This capacity-building power of women, exemplified in Mariam’s desire to bring together and help those even less fortunate than herself, is a role that women perform extremely successfully.

The proven ability, as leaders, to reach out to others and collaborate on work is why women are the clearest option to establish preventative community resilience. With more female entrepreneurs who can start their businesses without the necessary assistance or intervention of men comes community stability and growth.

As in the case of Mariam, Lina Khalifah or Lina Fayyad, women who are given the smallest opportunity share their ideas and, in turn, empower others, especially women. While the Middle East and North Africa sit on the cusp of precarious times, it is this reverberation of agency that is needed urgently in the region.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:

The post Empowered Women Will Lead MENA to a Better Tomorrow appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

BACKGROUND

When visiting a home in the Middle East or North Africa (MENA), it is the women who always appear to welcome the guest with a streaming cup of tea or coffee. While outsiders might view them as mystical Oriental creatures garbed in veils, the traditional hospitality and warmth of the region is clearly held in the hands of its living, vital women.

It is women who doggedly attend university classes in higher numbers than men. It is women who line up at the school entrances to register their wiggling children for classes. It is also women who are by conflict and instability, whether during protracted civil wars or in the aftermath of the . It is the same women who must rebuild their societies when men are absent or injured.

According to the World Bank, of the population in the MENA region is female. Battle lines have been drawn for many years over the oft-described subjugation of women. Arguments rage about whether it is a , or imperial legacy that emasculates men, or a consequence of desperate poverty. The causes for the inequality between women and men are many. Yet it is important to recognize and nurture the multidimensional role women play in the region.

Despite increasingly vocal women in places such as and , debates over gender-specific issues such as genital mutilation, child marriage and often assume Middle Eastern women to be helpless victims. The truth is that women in MENA often battle the odds, ask the hardest questions and are the biggest drivers of change in their societies.

WHY DO WOMEN IN MENA MATTER?

Women matter in any society and not just in MENA. People in societies where women are more educated live longer. Societies with more women leaders tend to be more peaceful. Societies where women have similar opportunities to work as men tend to be more productive and prosperous. In brief, women play one of the most important roles in development whether in social, political or economic terms.

Anecdotally, motherhood is the easiest role to see women perform successfully as advocates for their children. It is often women who obstinately stand in doorways insisting that aid be delivered to their families. Statistically, the effect of female literacy is indisputably linked to a decrease in both and childhood illness by several studies.

This becomes even more important in projections of population growth in the Middle East and North Africa, with a fertility rate holding steady at per female and increased life expectancy. Educating mothers in the MENA region will lead to fewer children suffering from preventable diseases and more children attending school. The potential social and economic ramifications are not easily ignored.

Mothers often bear the brunt of , managing households and finances while crippled by a lack of education. When a male provider dies or is unable to work, women are forced to scramble to provide for their families and manage with meager resources. This hardship is exacerbated in conflict zones, where women fear for their physical safety and the wellbeing of their children.

This is perhaps why women are notably invested in peace. Tellingly, participation by local women in the peacebuilding process has a “.” Women’s inclusion in peacebuilding boosts the probability of ending violence by a notable 24% annually. Studies in Liberia, Rwanda, Nepal and El Salvador demonstrate that women serve as effective mediators, agents of reconciliation and implementers of disarmament. In Colombia, women negotiate . The United Nations (UN) recognized this in 2000, passing to incorporate gendered perspectives into peacekeeping.

Although the rate of women’s participation in peacekeeping is still notably low and still in need of organic work, it was women who drafted Cambodia’s first piece of anti-corruption legislature, underlining the fact that female leaders promote more .

A found that in ethnically diverse countries, a more “participative, collaborative” form of leadership practiced by female heads of state led to better economic performance. As per this study, the more diverse the nation, the more likely it is that a female leader could

This also lends credence to the idea that women have a more nuanced approach to leadership. They are also more likely to in dispensing justice. Yet women occupy less than 10% of parliamentary seats in .

Women can fulfill the role of leader but, on a practical level, they are also important contributors to the workforce. Therefore, the World Bank, among others, repeatedly “stresses the importance of inclusiveness and accountability.”

Women in the MENA region, however, are underrepresented in the workforce with only . Women’s participation in the workforce has increased annually by a lackluster rate of 0.17% for the last 30 years. Ironically, World Bank data reveals that many Arab countries have made giant strides in reducing the gender gap in education. In fact, women are often than their male counterparts, as female students outperform boys particularly on the tertiary level. In Qatar, for example, in universities by 2:1, and yet men are still more likely to be ahead in the workplace. Clearly, it is the gap in employment that now needs to shrink.

In , Hafez Ghanem, vice president of the region, argues that women in the region are now demanding a more inclusive role in society, both economically and socially. Yet women along with youth and family farmers remain one of the three most excluded groups in society. Ghanem points out that various obstacles, including “unsafe” private work environments, lack of childcare, marriage, legal or informal discrimination, and guardianship systems continue to limit women’s participation in the workforce.

This status quo is untenable. For the new generation of women in the MENA region, education and work are increasingly a priority. They demand an inclusive role in society, economic growth and access to employment opportunities. Over 40% of women in Lebanon and Morocco disagree with employers preferring to hire men over women. In eight sampled countries across the MENA region, “more than 40% of women strongly disagree with the notion that university education is more important for a boy than a girl.”

Ghanem posits that the demographic shift toward the youth population has brought young women to the forefront. This new generation of women aged 15-29 are more educated, have better health outcomes and lower fertility rates than their predecessors. Still, the labor force participation rate for young Arab women remains particularly low compared to the rest of the world. In 2003, it was 27% compared to 64% in the Americas, 55% in Europe and 62% in sub-Saharan Africa

There is a need to close the gap in employment both in the formal and informal sectors, creating more opportunities for more educated young women.

Women, like men, are multifaceted and can perform multifaceted roles in society. Yet part of the reason they suffer discrimination and experience a gender gap is because of defined by tradition in society. Even in the US, is a constant source of distress and discussion. In the context of MENA, a conversation around gender roles and expectations is necessary for women to perform to their full potential.

Although women will seize every opportunity given to them, in ignoring the varied roles they can play, the international community loses the clearest agents of sustainable change. The demonstrated is the key to stabilizing and nurturing healthy societies.

This 360° comprises a series of articles that highlight the rich, intricate and varied roles women play in the MENA region. They also examine how women can increase civic participation, redefine the social contract and transform their region.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:

The post Women Hold the Key to MENA’s Future appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

It is 3:50AM in Amman, Jordan. The call to prayer echoes across the city. I have just finished suhoor, the morning Ramadan meal. We are meant to be 30 minutes from the Syrian border today visiting refugees who live outside the camps. In over a decade of working in East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, the worry that eats at me is always the same.

There are so many children. Children in the streets, children in overcrowded classrooms, children excitedly following us around and shouting muzungu, ajnabee, Amreekan.

There are so many children.

I’ve seen it in Karachi, where bright-eyed Afghan children watched me from behind cement walls. In Jordan, we have already spent time being followed by dusty mobs of Palestinian children in Gaza Camp. One ramshackle playground, under the watchful eye of an elderly headmaster, exists for them to play away from the danger of cars and strangers.

These children are all growing up in conflict and post-conflict zones, victims of the wars we are all involved in and victimized by corrupt systems and corrupt politicians in expensive cars. There is little education—overcrowded classrooms and haggard staff—and little hope for the future. It is a trick of contemporary media that our definition of “refugee” means a quick image of fragile boats in the Mediterranean without consideration for the generational ramifications of what we are allowing to exist.

They are alive, that’s about all we can say. Making sure they have jobs, homes and health care is not our problem, after all. We feed them like we feed street cats and are pleased that they are still alive.

Our Frankensteins

Robert Fisk theorized that it was the asceticism and the stark despair of the refugee camps in PakistanÌęthat molded the views of the Taliban. I know, personally, good people who the Pakistani Taliban blew up or shot in Karachi. I know, and have held, children who sit in their homes traumatized by firecrackers because they sound horrifyingly like a Kalashnikov.

I had tea once in a cement courtyard with a woman from the Northern Areas in Pakistan. She had been bombed out of her home by the Pakistani military trying to force out the Taliban who had crossed the borders. Her mother, a wrinkled old woman wrapped in a traditional chador, came out weeping, carrying a black comb and whispering in Pashto that it was the only thing she had left of her home.

We are meant to be 30 minutes from the Syrian border today visiting refugees who live outside the camps. In over a decade of working in East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, the worry that eats at me is always the same.

Muslims, refugees embrace or encourage extremism? As they say in Turkey, the political horses dance, but it is the innocents, the grass under their feet, who are trampled. Extremism across the entire world, in hate speech and government posturing, is the great plague of our times. Let’s not pretend there’s only one brand of it when, in America, a classroom full of 6-year-olds doesn’t stir us to action.

Our Frankensteins were not born from nothing.

The people who suffer the most at the hands of our monsters are the ones we do not care to see—the ones who live in an endless round of overcrowded government offices and weep at the end of sanitized photos.

We have a word for it in Urdu that I hear used often: majboori. It is a word that is difficult to translate, but equates roughly to what people must do in a state that academics might call “capability deprivation.” It is the blank faces of the men I have seen sitting on street corners who must work dangerous construction jobs because they have no other option to provide for their children. It is the blatant, startling inflation of rent prices by Turkish landlords that must be paid, the faces of mothers who follow me in the street begging for milk for their children, the Kurdish families in Istanbul who pick through trash instead of going to the camps because of the harassment they would receive as Shias.

Part of me, the same part that taught in an urban American classroom, is jaded. I expect the begging and pleading, the fingers that reach out to grab my shirt and wave UNHCR registration papers. I expect the stories of drug abuse and fatalism. Generational trauma is a documented phenomenon and we don’t even have enough social workers for our own population, much less those abroad, not because we can’t fund it but because we don’t prioritize human dignity.

We cannot feed children guns and expect them to survive. We cannot write entire populations off as collateral damage.

Refuse to Yield

I don’t have feelings anymore toward these things because there is nothing to say except no. No, there is no justification for taking a life or for proxy wars. No, I will not be afraid of pointing out the problems I see in US foreign policy. No, I will not turn on my neighbor. No, I will not stop insisting on reform within Muslim communities. No, I will not apologize for a death cult, much like I will not apologize for the Taliban, because I see the faces of the people they terrorize firsthand and, trust me, I hate them more than you do.

No, I will not forget the faces of the children who made me promise to come back.

We are taught in Islam that there is a great karmic blessing in giving, in lifting the majboori off another. If we have enough for one and another arrives, we are meant to split our food in two. It is no accident that the Middle East is known for hospitality, that in Swahili and Arabic the words heard most often are karibu and marhaba (welcome). If we have even a little, we are meant to give it away joyfully because there is no loss in the sharing.

I have shared in fresh honey in a Nepalese village with Tibetan refugees and witnessed the same practice. There is no loss in providing sweetness, comfort and dignity to another. There is no loss in sharing.

Perhaps this is why I cannot stomach the attitude of “it’s not my problem.” Or perhaps I am wondering what is to become of millions of children without a future.

No, I will not let the comfortable thought of a full belly and a soft couch and hours of Netflix lull me into forgetting. This is why I fast in Ramadan, like all of my community if they choose, because in abstaining I am reminded of what matters in the end: discipline, integrity, compassion, serving others to the best of our ability.

These are lessons I was taught as a Muslim, but they are lessons that are not unique to Islam or to any religious tradition. These are the lessons the world learned from Muhammad Ali and celebrated after his death, forgetting that he was an unapologetic black Muslim man. They are human lessons.

We must refuse to yield, like Ali, in the face of fear and despair and grief. We must remember that there are entire generations that we are choosing to forsake. The war against extremism and corruption and indifference will be lost only when good people are too frightened or apathetic to say anything. In memory of those whose lives should not have been taken on every side, we cannot yield. In constant compassion toward those who suffer daily on all sides, we cannot yield.

We cannot stop standing up for each other, unified, because that is when extremists on all sides win.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post Refugees Suffer the Monster of Our Indifference appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

In 2005, Boston University hosted the largest Muslim prayer of the year for Eid-ul-Adha. As we ushered in members of the community, I noticed, for the first time in my student life, a large number of Black Muslims.

I remember, in particular, a very tall man with very long dreadlocks who smiled at me as he restrained his infant son from squirming out of a stroller.

It never occurred to me to ask what part of the city he had come from with his family, or which mosque they attended normally, or why we had never seen this part of the community before. It is only now, ten years later, that I wonder at my younger self and question my own indifference.

The Rise of Black Lives Matter and Islamophobia

It is clear that America is at a crossroads in its discussions on race. The rise of Black Lives Matter in 2013 and subsequent protests and performances have galvanized many to action. In my own research, I found that the most intriguing part of theÌęÌęwebsite is the section entitled “Herstory.” This highlights that three women founded the movement as a “call to action” after the killing ofÌęÌęby George Zimmerman.

“Herstory” meticulously explains the grounding belief: “When Black people get free, everybody gets free.” The nuances and complexities of the movement, however, including its emphasis on women’s leadership, are lost in the heated accusations against it by those who claim it creates anti-police sentiment. Anyone watching Twitter after the release of Beyoncé’sÌęÌęvideo, with its images of a police car, New Orleans and pride in black heritage, could see the immediate, angryÌę.

While the US grapples with these discussions onÌęrace, the hot button topic of Muslims and immigration is also on the minds of bothÌęÌęand the average American. TheÌęÌęshootings catapulted a new, more aggressive form of anti-Muslim prejudice most obvious in the debates aroundÌęÌęand the increase inÌę.

Again, reactions are mixed, with some denying Islamophobia exists and others fueling the fire with visions of Daesh (Islamic State) combatants and IslamicÌęlaw implemented in the US. In February 2015, theÌęÌęof three youngÌę—Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha—over what was termed aÌę“”Ìęspurred the Muslim community into more action. Bridge-building initiatives such asÌęÌęČčČÔ»ćÌęÌędeclared that American Muslims were just as American as everyone else.

Caught in the Middle

The Muslim community hit a critical junctureÌęwhen non-Black Muslim Americans reactedÌęto the sudden onslaught on their American identities. Many, including myself, chose to respond by aligning ourselves with what is called “.”

© Shutterstock

We said, without any hesitation, that we were American and did not deserve to be “Otherized” because we live in the suburbs as a model minority and have successfullyÌęÌęinto what we see as appropriate, mainstream American culture.

This stance “invalidates,” in the words of Margari Hill from the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, the narrative of Black Muslim Americans. Whether they come from an ancestry of slavery or are African immigrants, Black Muslims contend not only with the seldom-acknowledged racism of many immigrant communities, but also with the erasure of the honestÌę, which began with Muslim slaves and encapsulates ongoing social justice struggles.

“The way in which non-Black Muslims have approached Islamophobia has hurt Black Muslims,” Hill says. “It’s as though by challenging that dominant, model minority narrative, we’re somehow complicating anti-Islamophobia efforts by introducing a counter or more complex narrative. But that’s our story.”

It is no accident that the development of the Muslim Anti-Racism Collective began around the same time as Black Lives Matter. It is also no accident that both movements are founded by women, as it speaks to the growingÌęmass ofÌęÌęmovements in contemporary America.

žéŽÇłÜČ”łó±ôČâÌęÌęof American Muslims are black and yet they are seldom present on panels, in university events or as more than a token scholar. Mosques are oftenÌęÌęand, as theÌęÌęhashtag clearly demonstrates, even student groups sometimes only serve the needs of the South Asian or Arab immigrant majority.

Although every American Muslim has proudly pointedÌęout the requisite Black Muslim role models—Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali are favorites—the erasure of the Black Muslim narrative is very evident to those of us who are willing to admit it.

Twitter as a Catalyst

The Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative began and still thrives on Twitter.ÌęAccording to theirÌę, the organization was foundedÌęafter a Twitter campaign,Ìę, aimed at eliminating the use of an anti-black slur in Arabic.

Soon after, the Muslim ARC catalyzed other conversations highlighting the need for more discourse. Twitter responded—Ìętrended and then, in late 2015, the hashtag #BlackinMSA. The incredible numberÌęof responsesÌęmade it clear that the experiences of Black American Muslims, whether they were immigrants or black Americans, wereÌęstartlingly similar.

According to Namira Islam, the co-founder of Muslim ARC, “Social media has been really instrumental, especially the rise of black Twitter, in what is happening now. Now, we have a space for these discussions.” Islam, Hill and others took the impetus from TwitterÌęto form theÌęÌęto provide racial justice education to Muslim communities in the US.

Trayvon Martin © Shutterstock

“[The issue] is as obvious as the emphasis on having fair skin and that being more beautiful,” Islam says in our Skype conversation. “It was coming up in Twitter conversations, these norms for beauty and skin tone and the statements people make without thinking.”

The latest racism within many immigrant Muslim communities is now, to the discomfort of many, being highlighted both by the reactions to Islamophobia and the increasingly vocal Black Muslim community.

“Black Muslims starting coming out of the woodwork,” says Tariq TourĂ©, Muslim ARC’s programming chair. “I Skyped into a panel and I said, instead of deflecting Black Muslim complaints and concerns, we need to have this conversation. You had some Muslim people saying, ‘We don’t need to have this conversation right now, we’re already under attack because of Islamophobia. You’re being divisive.’”

TourĂ© shakes his head and continues: “We really didn’t think [the conversation] would mushroom like this—people are taking to the streets like never before. You look at mosques and see that they do fundraisers for Syria, for Yemen, but Sudan is never mentioned. Nigeria is never mentioned. That’s what we’re talking about.”

If I am very honest, I can point to that precise moment when I looked at the black community in Boston and failed to ask why I had never seen them before. The selective amnesia of many immigrant children points to our purposefulÌędisregard of the Black Muslim community.

Yet I would never have called myself a racist. Except, of course, racism is something that is much deeper and more endemic than we had chosen to acknowledge. Like many of the white, suburban friends I grew up with, I would never have used a racial slur. This meant, for me, that I was colorblind and, by extension, not a racist.

What I failed to see was that my passiveness made me complicit in allowing both the erasure ofÌęentire narratives and actual violence against fellow Americans. Being a careful “not racist,” unfortunately, was not the sameÌęas allying in solidarity with a movement to help those who are the most vulnerable, even in what IÌęlike to see a “brown-friendly” spaces.

Discussions around the issue using concepts such as aspirational whiteness, intersectional movement, privilege and structural racism sometimesÌęalienate first generation Muslim Americans, however, and elicit this exact heated, dismissive response: “But I’m not a racist!”

The Betrayal of a Model Minority

Part of what frightened us, the children of immigrants, so deeply about the deaths of Deah, Yusor and Razan was that they were so obviously assimilated, so deeply normal, and in every respect represented the American Muslims we were trying to become. I and felt it in my own horrified reaction when I heard about the shooting.

In a sense, the non-Black American Muslim community has benefitted from the privilege of being allowed to come to America without the burden of structural racism.

In essence, our attempts to assimilate and be that model minority left us deeply exposed and betrayed when we realized that we could not, in fact, stop the majority from making us into a bestial Other. Those hurt feelings, however, are problematic for Black Muslim Americans, particularly those who can trace their ancestry back to slavery.

“When there’s an initiative like meet your Muslim neighbor, nobody is going out into the black or Latino community,” Hill says. “They’re going to white churches and white neighborhoods. It’s meet your white neighbor. The idea is if we visit, they will see we are human beings. Black Muslims react to this by saying: ‘Excuse me, they knew we were human beings. We nursed their babies. We took care of them intimately.’”

The fact remains that in the model minority defense—the “I’m just like you” response to anti-Muslim rhetoric—is invalid for Black Muslim Americans and always has been. This comes as a shock to manyÌęof us whose parents are immigrants because, in some ways, our American identity is based on successfully navigating the structures and paradigms of white supremacy.

Many of us are carefullyÌęnot defiant, not audacious, not racist.ÌęNamira Islam, who is Bangladeshi-American, points out that, like myself, she used to hesitate in questioning America because of that fear of being seen as un-patriotic.

“We need to be American by making America live up to the ideas that it aspires to,” she says, “versus being ‘socially white’ and aspiring to whiteness as our way of asserting our American-ness.”

In aÌęÌęarticle, Hill cites Hatem Bazian and refers to the dominant white American narrative as the “city on the hill”: “The ‘city shining upon a hill’ was emptied of the natives by means of genocide while down below in the valley 
 all the black, brown and yellow faces looking upward in the hope of being called uphill…’”

© Shutterstock

This, at its core, is the idea of aspirational whiteness. As Hill, herself, states, the alignment of American Muslims with what we see as superior means we visibly ignore the struggles of Native Americans, Black Americans and Latinos. The shock of the American Muslim community after Chapel Hill points to the fact that this stance, as the Black Muslim community says, leave us not only exposed but gives us false hope that, if we can just prove we are well-behaved and white enough, we might be accepted.

“We need to examine our identities—we need to see it as an American thing to do, to critique,” Islam says. “We need to not have a problem with being the outsider; the one who is rebelling and trying to deconstruct what is going on. That is American. That’s what it means to Black American Muslims to be American versus those of us who are immigrants, where our identities are more fragile and we’re still negotiating them in the public space.”

Hill adds: “Trump supporters came to us once with ridiculous questions about ISIS [Islamic State]. There’s no way I’m going to address myself to racist people who are calling me out on ISIS—Black Muslims aren’t going to do something like that, subject ourselves to vitriol and racism by white people.”

She pauses and continues: “There is a whole history of racism that I have experienced, our whole history has been occupation and Jim Crow, rising up for our rights, and our own liberation struggle which has opened the door for many of the people who are now telling us how to better combat discrimination and racism. We know how to combat this stuff better than you do.”

She chuckles and adds: “I mean, I’m not going to hand out flowers to KKK [Ku Klux Klan] members who are rallying around our mosques. Black and Latino members are saying ‘no way’ and older members of the community are standing there telling us we don’t know any better.”

TourĂ© makes a similar point, adding: “The immigrant experience starts with coming to America and that tinge of oppression not being here. It might have been in their home country but here, it is not present in their interactions with white supremacy.”

In a sense, the non-Black American Muslim community has benefitted from the privilege of being allowed to come to America without the burden of structural racism. Our shock and hurt at the abrupt stereotyping and Otherization of who we are, our fears for our children, and our feelings that our livelihood and success might be taken away tie in with our precarious stance on who we are asÌęhyphenated Americans.

Opening the Wound

Admitting this stance, however, and admitting that, as a minority, we are still relatively privileged is easier said than done.

“Look,” TourĂ© states, “recognizing privilege is cutting. Once you realize that you’ve opened that wound, it’s either inspect that wound and do more cutting, if needed, or do the healing needed. You’re not helping anybody pouring salt in the wound. We all have to start to heal from these things. We’ve all been affected. Once we’ve realized, we can all work together.”

Any American Muslim from a non-black immigrant community knows that, culturally and linguistically, we have certain prejudices against darker skin and people of color. Words in Hindi and Arabic make the idea of blackness ugly…

Hashtags like #BeingBlackandMuslim and #BlackinMSA began that conversation on privilege and gave a space to Black American Muslims to express their feelings of alienation, isolation and hurt in largely immigrant spaces. The “wound” appeared in reactions from other Muslims, which ranged from supportive and empathetic to dismissive and defensive.

“It’s very hard to convince people who feel very uncomfortable with it—if people are committed to trying to silence me, then they’re just going to be bitter when I articulate my individual experience,” Hill says. “They’ll tell me they don’t like how I brought it up.”

Islam agrees, and Hill continues: “You’re characterized as divisive or outliers. It’s just all these people that are convinced that bringing up race is destructive. Honestly, because of the difficulty of the subject matter and given my position, we really try to address issues very diplomatically. We provide evidence, we don’t do character assassinations, we don’t call out or slander people. We practice nonviolent communication. Still people don’t like the subject.”

When I ask her why she thinks this is, she sighs and responds: “I don’t know for sure, there are a lot of reasons. Sometimes it’s because they’d have to indict themselves—people won’t admit [that] others may not have had the same opportunity or there is an assumption that [the] black community doesn’tÌęhave high aspirations. It’s a consistent pattern, you know, to position yourself in a better place, to say, ‘At least we’re not black, we work really hard and don’t complain.’”

“When somebody points out privilege,” Hill continues, “there’s all these things that have nothing to do with you that made it that much easier for you to be successful, to get a job—there may have been a black person that somebody may have said they’re not professional because of their accent. We like to think that it was us and our accomplishments and our education but, in truth, the cards are stacked against certain people. If we admit that we’re winning, it makes us feel bad.”

She pauses and says: “Sometimes it’s almost, ‘I was able to make it. Why can’t black people make it?’”

“The other thing,” she continues when Islam agrees, “is the fragility of the non-black community from a former colonized background. They don’t like the language and they really push back against Black Muslims saying, ‘Hey, you can’t speak for all of us.’ They feel it’s a personal attack on their legitimacy as American Muslims.”

Any American Muslim from a non-black immigrant community knows that, culturally and linguistically, we have certain prejudices against darker skin and people of color. Words in Hindi and Arabic make the idea of blackness ugly, and we all know many of our parents would react with horror if we decided to marry a Black Muslim.

© Shutterstock

This is something that we are reluctant to admit, often trotting out a few token Black Muslims to support our claim that we are colorblind and adamantly not racist. However, the refusal to admit to the prejudice in our own communities means we are hypocritical on two fronts. First, we refuse to confront our own structural issues and become more inclusive as a community. Second, we refuse to align ourselves with a minority while expecting to be recognized and appreciated as a minority.

TourĂ© sums it up in his typically eloquent prose: “I told these guys on the panel, ‘Look, America does not want to have the race conversation, point blank, period. White people will say it’s over with. If we call ourselves Muslim, we need to be on the side of the oppressed.’”

Moving Forward Collectively

The key words I hear from Touré, Islam and Hill are all the same: collaboration, inclusiveness, diversity, nuance.

TourĂ© sums it up, again: “Black folks in America are trying to get everybody’s attention in saying listen, we have this issue that everybody’s got, whether you want to admit it or not. We are raising hell about it, this is your opportunity to get on board. If the Congo is still having its rubber extracted by rubber manufacturing, that is the same intersection as unemployment in Chicago, it’s the same ideology and ethos.”

“Globally,” he continues, “for the Muslim world on over, heeding the calls of Black Muslims who are affected by the injustices worldwide that go on, specifically in the United States, it advances the Muslim world, period.”

He sounds very much like the Black Lives Matter website which, again, is not an accident. The ethos behind the movement is the idea that by uplifting those who struggle the most, we will all benefit.

The fact that women are key in both movements and the fact that both movements embrace not one, but several minority issues, including gender and race, speaksÌęto their firm stance onÌęintersectionalism. As Audre Lorde said: “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single issues lives.”

Islam adds: “People go on journeys to consciousness. We are trying to bottle that and sell it. This radicalization experience—for Black Muslims, they’ve lived in a society where it’s undeniable. It presents a very jaded, cynical view of the world in some people’s opinions. You can sometimes feel hopeless rather than empowered by it. Some of our parents want us to stay away from it, but we’re coming at it from a place of empathy.”

When I ask Islam and Hill if they see it as a positive conflict, Hill agrees: “It is, it’s a positive conflict. There’s been an attempt to work on it and to build bridges that people need. National organizations are seeing the conversation is needed—people see it as important, people are committing to action to address it and really work on it. Our communities are under a lot of internal and external pressure. There’s a lot of forces and it’s challenging to build sustainable communities, but we are doing the work.”

For me, the need to not only acknowledge, but actively address both cultural and structural racism comes from my own paradigm shift. It is the understanding that we as a Muslim community have actively ignored the struggles of our own and, therefore, need to address the issueÌęso we can work through it, collectively. Defensive anger does little to reconcile different parts of the community so we can all move forward positively and, as Namira Islam says, with active empathy.

Islam also highlights the importance of standing in solidarity: “When it comes to Islamophobia and this kind of violence that we are dealing with, this is really important. There’s a need for it right now, more honesty, need for these kinds of conversations.”

Touré is, as always, the one who manages to distill everything into a single idea.

“I’m optimistic,” he grins. “We’re in a good spot. We get a lot of collective power from the immigrant and the black community. We can do this together.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: / / Ìę/ÌęÌę/Ìę

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post Black Muslim Americans: The Minority Within a Minority appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

Bianca “Bam Bam” Elmir is dressed in a sky blue shirt, squished on a Skype screen on an early morning in Melbourne. Although she is half a world away, her energy is evident even through a screen. Next to her is Jemma van Loenen, the producer of , the documentary.

We establish her history immediately: “I come from a Lebanese background, my grandparents migrated in the ‘50s to Australia. I was raised in Canberra, where I’m based, by a single parent, my mom, who divorced my dad when I was very young. I was 2.”

Shifting slightly, she adds, “I met my dad at 27 properly; we’ve had a very loose relationship since then. My mom, on the other hand, has raised me on her own.”

It is not the first time in our conversation that I am surprised by Bianca’s candor. She is direct, open, occasionally pushing back her curly hair and shifting as she speaks. The Australian boxer is evident even when she is seated not just in her body, but in the way she moves occasionally, unable to sit totally still.

Spiritual Moments in the Ring

The tagline toÌęÌęthe movie is “Boxer. Woman. Muslim.” I ask Bianca about the Muslim part, first, curious as to how she defines herself in this regard.

“My mother, she didn’t really have a strong connection to the faith growing up 
 she didn’t wear the scarf and she didn’t pray,” Bianca replies. “She’s becoming more devoted as she’s grown older. At 13 or 14, my attachment to Islam was the strongest in my life. It cemented my identity.”

She pauses, and then continues: “Since then, I’ve changed, and the religion has changed with me. I still consider myself a strong believer. I feel like my faith is at the center of who I am and everything I do. Boxing, for me, is something very close to my heart because it’s raw.”

Bianca’s unexpected shift toward discussing boxing in the midst of discussing Islam throws me slightly, but she finishes her thought with an eloquence that I’m beginning to see is an indisputable part of her.

“It’s very close to my emotions: being a fighter and sticking up for what you believe in and believing in yourself and have the most acute focus and focus to detail. I feel like my faith enhances those elements in me. Islam is about sticking up for what you believe in and fighting for a cause and believing so deeply in something and committing to it. I think [boxing] runs parallel to that. It’s a very spiritual moment in the ring.”

When she says this, I immediately think of the traditions of Muay Thai, or Thai Boxing. In a traditional Thai fight, a number of ceremonial rituals, including theÌęÌędance and the wearing ofÌęÌęheaddress, form an enormously important part of every fight.

Bianca, who has a background in mixed martial arts, confirms my thought when she continues: “When I come in and out of the ring—we get these traditions from the Thais, the blessings coming in and out—I thank God. I don’t necessarily thank the spirits, but I thank God, always, for my opportunity in the ring, whether it’s training or fighting. In the moments of despair when I’m at my wit’s end and I’ve got someone trying to take my head off in front of me, I have a second of self-doubt and that’s when I turn and restate to myself that myself that I believe in God and myself and this opportunity and this moment.”

“My religion gives me a lot of inspiration,” she finishes, simply.

I wonder if Bianca’s experience of religion is reflective of a very private negotiation of her Muslim identity, without the input of a larger Muslim community.

“In a way, yes, I look at other young people 
 it’s a confusing time in that you’re trying to figure out your identity, how you fit into the particular community you’re a part of, and if you’re a part of a diaspora that doesn’t have a lot of momentum, you feel like you have to shout a bit louder. With the religion, I felt on the periphery—living in Canberra, it’s a very middle-class, white suburban city, I always felt a little bit on the outside—anyway, even though it’s a very inclusive space, I felt like I had to stand up from when I was very young.”

The idea of growing up surrounded by a different, dominant narrative is so similar to my own childhood. I tell Bianca that I went through the same process of identity negotiation and she nods, continuing: “Having the religion as a label, being Muslim at the time, gave me comfort and gave me that pathway, especially being quite a young person, I was searching for that. Kind of similar to you, I didn’t need to shout as loud about needing to verify who I was. I was more comfortable having nuances about being a girl, a Muslim, someone from an ethnic background.”

She pauses, laughing: “So, having all those different narratives, I’m still nostalgic about those days because things were so clear and I was confident about how things were right or wrong. Understanding what is evil and what is not evil. I feel like I’ve got a more progressive understanding of the religion, now. Community work, care for the people around me, care for the people that were ill—[Islam] instilled that in me and I still hold on to that, treat people with respect, if someone is poor, look after them. You have to help people in need. Those are the things that have stuck with me.”

Bianca “Bam Bam” Elmir © Lollapalooza Films

Identity and Femininity

When she pauses, she and Jemma both look at me expectantly and I sheepishly admit that, from the trailers for Bam Bam, Bianca comes off as far more aggressive and defiant than she does in person, where she is immensely articulate and thoughtful.

Bianca laughs: “I feel like I’ve become quite masculine. My particular gym is only boys, so I’ve had to take on a persona which is a little, you know, thick-skinned. Can take anything, can take all kinds of comments, can take any guy they put in front of me, so I think I’ve developed that quite well over time, out of survival. My coach has a lot of confidence in me but then will also put me in front of anything.”

She shifts a little, still grinning: “I think at times, ‘I’m getting my head pummeled in and I don’t know what’s going on.’ Through self-preservation, I’ve had to take on this persona of toughness and true grit, bite down on my mouth guard and get through everything.”

Jemma, looking a little startled, adds: “That’s interesting, I didn’t realize that was coming across. I wanted to create some kind of in that, there’s a goal she’s trying to achieve and there’s been obstacles to overcome, like the ban 
 but also to balance that with what gets Bianca through.”

She adds: “I did have a little snippet that I wanted to put in there, there’s a snippet of you rubbing your face and you say you like having your face patted, to balance this full on aggressive thing where people are punching you in the face. You have that need to be nurtured.”

Bianca smiles playfully and says, to me this time, “I just want to be hugged.”

“Being in a highly sexualized environment,” she continues, pausing briefly to become more serious again, “I don’t want to come across as too cute and too much of a princess. Maybe I’ve gone too far the other way. I’ve found at times I need to re-center and ground myself; I find myself losing a bit of my identity and femininity, which I really embrace and love about myself. The paradox is really difficult.”

Many female fighters and athletes, including Serena Williams and Ronda Rousey, contend that being “feminine” and an “athlete” are not mutually exclusive. While Bianca seems to agree with this, she also contends that the traits of aggression and dominance visible in boxing are male traits that she must take on in order to survive. In a way, she must “fight like a man” while still finding ways to express her femininity.

“Feminine, to me, is maybe having a more nurturing, a more humble side, a caring side. Feminine is being more considerate—I see it as all of those things. I don’t express those things in the ring; otherwise I’d get my head punched in. So then I express my femininity through dancing—I’m always dancing around in the gym. It’s quite sexualized dancing, sometimes, but it’s the one space I know no one can take from me, where I can be chill and be a girl, I can feel my body and I can dance.”

Bianca “Bam Bam” Elmir © Lollapalooza Films

She pauses and looks at Jemma, thinking, and Jemma adds: “It hasn’t necessarily come through yet in the trailers, but it’s definitely something we’ve talked about and we’re interested in.”

“It’s almost like this alter ego has become me,” Bianca says, smiling again. “I’ve got this persona and I’m so mindful. I don’t even let men go through that. It’s fascinating looking at the person I was a few years ago to what I am now. I would walk into an office as a political advisor with beautiful skirts and high heels and jewelry and I was the face of the office.”

I can’t help but think that Bianca’s blunt admission that yes, she does have to take on what she defines as masculine characteristics is almost more honest than most negotiations about gender.

“All those things are amplified in the sporting world. I have to hold my own, and if I’m emotionally fragile or I’ve had a bad day and I want to cry, yell or scream, I have to hold out on my own. My coach isn’t going to hold on to those things. I’ve chosen a sport that really amplifies it.”

“It’s a very fine line,” she continues, “I’m not going to dumb myself down or make myself ugly just in case you find me sexually attractive—you have to own that and you have to be responsible. But don’t cross my boundaries. If you want to admire me, that’s fine as well, but first and foremost I’m an athlete and I want to be respected for that. Honestly, if there was a whole heap of other girls at the gym, I might find that threatening. There was a girl that came once and she had a bit of a sulk about the weight we were working with and I blanked her.”

She finally, in the interview, shows the aggression that is so evident in the movie trailer: “Don’t put me in your ‘please help me circle.’ I worked hard for this. I’m going to lift this weight and I can do it. I had to spar her, I sparred hard, and she never came back.”

When Bianca sits back a little, pausing, Jemma adds that they have been trying to explore the ideas of aggression and the labels imposed by society.

Bianca leans back in and says, “The debate is so interesting, anyway: to be feminine, and through Islam on top of that, where feminine is such an external experience, it’s understood to be external. Femininity is something very personalized and it’s centered in the private sphere and celebrated amongst women.”

She continues thoughtfully: “But I’m living in a Western country. I never really felt like I needed to wear a short skirt. I felt like I went the other way, I felt like one of the boys, so I got the label ‘tomboy’ which I find so derogative. I hate the word. I box in a skirt just because, because girls will try to show that they’re just as good as the guys and wear the same thing as the guys, but that’s why I wear a skirt, it looks good on me and is different.”

Fight or Flight

There is no question that Bianca is a bundle of contradictions: articulate, aggressive, spiritual, sexual. Yet this is perhaps the most intriguing part of her: the constant, ongoing negotiation of her identities. While other women attempt to straddle precariously, Bianca is defiantly who she is with very few apologies.

Bianca “Bam Bam” Elmir © Phill Northwood

“I moved out when I was 21,” she explains. “I was ostracized, I was on my own, traveled on my own, lived on my own, got myself through university. That was hard. I was young and I really had no one else. I had no family at all, so whilst I can sit here and say, very confidently, yes, this is who I am and say that, this has been a hard road.”

When I ask her who she is, she replies, “The fighter narrative. Fight or flight. I fought back for myself, for what I wanted to do, for the person I want to become. I could quite easily still be living at my mom’s house, gotten married, become the person she wanted me to be, put on a headscarf and been done with it. I didn’t.”

As we begin wrapping up our conversation because Bianca must prepare for a flight, I am particularly interested in her feeling that she negates some of her femininity and sometimes, in her own words, uses it to “manipulate men.”

“I feel like I can get it over any guy, it’s really interesting because I express it when we have these big kickboxing events,” she says, smiling again with an ever-present charm. “It’s when I get the chance to dress up, that’s really when I can cement my femininity, the juxtaposition of who I am. I love the shock element and I find people treating me totally different. I’m the sexy girl, I like playing that role.”

“I know that deep down,” she says, pausing ruefully, “I’m still a woman. I feel like I have these sides of me where I do want to care for people and treat them kindly. With men in particular, I feel like I need to conquer them. That might have something to do with it. Maybe it’s my daddy issues, I probably do have daddy issues.”

She chuckles again, grinning at Jemma and myself: “At least I’m self-aware! I’m lucky I’ve had that self-reflective part of me for a very long time. I’ve been analytical in writing diaries and I’ve always had someone to confide in. Being open and adaptable to change, I feel like I’m open to what life presents.”

Even first thing in the morning, this woman’s charisma is evident. Jemma, the producer, has been a quiet presence throughout the interview, but it is Bianca who has taken center stage without much effort.

“You Are Worthy”

As Bianca gets up with a cheery wave to begin preparing for her flight, I ask Jemma why she chose Bianca as a documentary subject.

“I want to give a different angle,” Jemma responds, “from what is out there on Australian TV and cinemas, something that is a little left field, and I guess connect it with that sort for people about following a dream. The plotline for Bianca is to be a world champion—to be the best at something, everyone has that dream in some form or another, in whatever career or vocation that’s in, but it’s too easy for us to lose that. It’s easy to doubt and fear and to give in to those things.”

We say goodbye and end the call, but in the silence afterward, it is Bianca’s final thoughts on what to say to other youngÌęÌęthat resonate with me.

“My message is that throughout your journey, which you need to define yourself, there will be moments of anxiety, fear and doubt, and all of those things are okay and they’re a part of the journey,” she says.

“It’s really important in withstanding those emotions that you cultivate self-belief and that way that you can do that is just by working really hard, looking at yourself in the mirror now and then, revisiting your own eyes, and looking deep into those eyes and telling yourself you are worthy.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Lollapalooza Films / Phill Northwood

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post The Muslim Woman Who Fights Like a Man appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

Background

A cursory Google search for the term “Muslim women” largely produces a single image: a black sheet. Muslim women are this single stereotype: a black robe covering a brown-skinned, exotic, sexually charged damsel-in-distress. This image brings with it a host of other adjectives that are equally restricting: oppressed, subjugated, silent, invisible.

From Princess Jasmine to the poster forÌęHomeland, these women exist for the pleasure of men, hidden behind screens in a harem, patiently waiting for European colonists to rescue them from their plight. Although it seems farfetched, the idea ofÌę“”ÌęMuslim women has been used as a justification for Western intervention time and time again: from the blue burqas inÌęÌęto the silence overÌęÌękilled by the Taliban in favor ofÌęÌęone.

The assertions that Muslim women suffer are, however, true:Ìę,Ìęlimited to seek divorce and recourse after rape,Ìę andÌęÌęare all major issues in Muslim countries. The symbolic black robes originate in Saudi Arabia, which coincidentally also tops the list of countries where lack ofÌę, especially the ability to drive, are frequently highlighted. It is indisputable that Muslim countries, most notably those within conflict zones, top the list for most dangerous places for women.

Why Do Stories of Muslim Women Matter?

A one-dimensional portrayal of Muslim women, however, and Muslim women’s issues, erases the multifaceted causes: globalization, conflict and patriarchal systems among them. It hides the fact that many countries, includingÌęÌęČčČÔ»ćÌę, had advanced women’s rights before the brutal conflicts and intervention they now face.

Furthermore, this narrative ignores the stories of Saudi women whoÌęÌęthe driving ban, the disproportionately higher number of educated women in countries such asÌęÌęČčČÔ»ćÌę, and the movement toward trendy “” fashion and high clothingÌęlines dedicatedÌę. It obstructs the stories of pioneering young women likeÌę,Ìę,ÌęÌęČčČÔ»ćÌęÌęfrom being heard.

Farah al-Zahrani © Elena Koshevaya

It also glosses over the emergence ofÌęÌęsuch as the lateÌęÌęČčČÔ»ćÌęÌęand their attempts to engage meaningfully with religious texts to redefine what it means to be Muslim and a woman. The struggles with and against patriarchal systems, abuse and evenÌęÌęin mosques are not only ongoing, but increasingly evident.

If only the first narrative exists, Muslim women are forever the silent victims, unable to speak for themselves and waiting for a savior. It creates a binary between theÌę—validating the idea that the only way to be “empowered” is to also be globally north or “Western.” This identity is tied closely with the idea of being individualistic, a commodified consumer and, in some cases, secular. While some Muslim women might choose to embrace this “girl power” flavored identity as a valid form of self-expression and identification, allowingÌęit as the only options silences any other definitions of empowerment.

The two strains of this identity—what it means to be “Muslim” and what it means to be a “woman”—are an ongoing negotiation for most women that is both complex and nuanced. Reducing this process to a single image or stereotype is both counterproductive and reductive.

The response of an increasing number of Muslim women is an insistence on performing their own identities in theÌęÌęsphere. Whether this means becoming a Brazilian jiu-jitsu artist, a competitive boxer, a business owner and entrepreneur or an activist, Muslim women are eschewing the idea that they must adhere to anybody’s standard and critiquing the identities forced upon them by outside forces, including globalization.

The only way to understand what it means to be a Muslim woman is to listen to the stories of Muslim women.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: / /

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post The Unapologetic Muslim Woman appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

In the developing world, one primary school looks like any other primary school. Although the children and teachers might speak different languages, the desks are always in military rows, the Oxford University Press textbooks are always torn, and the teachers always write in chalk and chant ABCs that the children always parrot. The exception, of course, is when children haveÌęÌęat all.

It becomes almost routine to visit, wait to be served tea or coffee with biscuits, listen to principals complain in great depth about the lack of funding and government corruption, and nod sympathetically. Colonial heritage is often evident in the out-of-place uniforms and the confusing use of several language mediums.

Population growth in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa mean that more of these startlingly similar primary schools pop up in different guises: government schools, low fee private schools and tuition centers. All generally share the common denominator of being low quality, despite the recent expansion in public-private partnerships and the opening of mid-range private schools.

Universal Primary Education as a Clear Solution

TheÌę, which expired in 2015, provided little direction in terms of helping address the quality issue in education. Instead, based on statistical models focused on the largest rate of return, the education goal pushed the expansion of primary schools. This became known affectionately as UPE, or “Universal Primary Education,” and studies on its implementation littered the government offices of many education ministries.

According to human capital theory and studies by theÌę, one solution to was increasing basic literacy and numeracy skills. It was a simple solution: elegant, obvious,ÌęÌęand measurable.

The assumption was that educated people with basic literacy and numeracy skills could obtain jobs and, therefore, reap a higher rate of return on educational investment and stimulate the economy. In Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, with a predicted doubling of the population by 2045, the need for an educated labor force seemed logical.

Hindrances to Poverty Eradication Under UPE

Universal Primary Education presented a much larger issue than appearances suggest. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the shift from exclusive primary education for the children of wealthy or influential families to inclusive education for all was, and still is, radical.

Bangladesh © Teach Elun

Questions arose over whether, especially in post-colonial countries with ponderous private school traditions, UPE also meant free primary education. If so, UPE became a political issue, intimately linked to theÌęÌęprocess. The frightening part of this was the idea that if everyone is equally well-educated, everyone has an equal say in a country’s politics, and everyone has the ability to obtain a decent job.

The World Bank, in a study onÌę, indicated that free primary education and UPE went hand in hand; in other words, school fees must be abolished to end poverty. Subsequently, most countries passed laws eliminating school fees across the developing world during the UPE era, leading to increased enrollment in government schools.

According to theÌę (UN), enrollment in developing regions was 91% in 2015—a contrast to 83% in 2000. Literacy has also improved from 83 to 91% in 25 years. This data looks promising, initially, and speaks to a successful push to encourage more children to attend school regardless of cultural, monetary and gender constraints.

Unfortunately, as of 2015, 57 million children are still out of school. Furthermore, while literacy rates appear to have improved, studies still show a massive amount of inequality both in terms of quality of schooling and access.Ìę, or the number of children in each year group who stay in school, have also fallen.

This is the unfortunate result of a few technicalities related to effectively implementing UPE to eliminate poverty. The crux of the issue: Human capital might result from an increase in schooling overall. However, this assumesÌęÌęis equally accessible and distributed across income classes without acknowledging the fact that children from poorer families often have access to the worst schools.

The UN, itself, records that children from poor households are four times more likely to be out of school. In addition, studies suggest that in an average developing country, even nine years of schooling does not mean that students are functionallyÌę. A study inÌęÌęalso indicates that children are independently able to conduct their own cost-benefit analysis and drop out if they believe schooling will not benefit them in the long-run because the quality is so poor.

Tanzania © Teach Elun

Unsurprisingly, the fact that poorer children often have access to poorer schools means that they do not have the same access to employment as their wealthier peers. Advocates argue that any school is better than none, and while this might be the case, a child sitting in a classroom for nine years without learning basic literacy means an upside-down cost-benefit equation.

Any teacher knows that if every classroom contained a magically homogenous group of children from high socioeconomic backgrounds and a uniform culture, reforming education to alleviate poverty would be simple. Unfortunately, as clichéd as it sounds, every child is different, and when educating children who struggle with issues such as nutrition, health or learning needs, the work becomes that much more intricate and challenging.

The crux of the issue remains: Education, itself, can become a perpetuation of poverty if it is not comprehensively managed and reformed.

Furthermore, the population explosion also affects both quality and available schooling. UNESCO reported in October 2014 that at least 93 countries have “” and that Sub-Saharan AfricaÌęÌęthe list of shortages with 18 million teachers needed by 2030 to achieve UPE—classrooms in some countries are at a 76:1 ratio.

The labyrinthine issue of teacher recruitment, retention and attrition also speaks to concerns about labor markets, funding and salaries, and shifts in attitudes toward teaching. Much like Taiwan or Singapore, an overhaul of an educational system of a country to better align with labor market to reduce poverty requires raising the status and educational levels of teachers.

Lip service is often paid to education and teachers in many developing countries, but real change in terms of regarding teachers as professionals deserving of professional salaries and benefits is still lacking.

While education is often seen as the panacea to poverty, it becomes increasingly clear in an examination of UPE that it is too simple a solution. The education world has remained slightly erratic, first insisting on free public education and then cautiously investing in low fee private schools because they are ostensibly better quality. There is still no clear answer on how to best get children into school and, when they are there, make sure they are actually learning, but it is clear the UPE was too narrow.

Schools as organic beings—filled with teachers, students, community stakeholders and cultural norms—need to be grown into meaningful societal institutions, not simply replicated boxes that fail to address deeper issues.

SDG 4: A More Complex Solution

The introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals, andÌęÌęin particular, is a welcome change. A new focus on “inclusive and quality” education and “lifelong learning” mean that this goal, unlike the MDG on education, demands slightly more attention to detail and complexity.

Bangladesh © Teach Elun

While this might be a bit frightening for donors and data lovers in development, Goal 4 appears to avoid the narrowness and deceptive simplicity of UPE in favor of addressing the real concerns of classrooms with diverse groups of children.

Goal 4 delineates that education should be “free, equitable, and quality.” While the “free” is potentially still up to debate in education circles as low fee schools and public-private partnerships become increasingly popular, the focus on equity and quality, and the shift away from only primary, are authentic moves toward understanding what 21^stÌęcentury education must entail.

To truly eradicate poverty via education, developing countries might begin to embrace that, in all actuality, education cannot eradicate poverty. Education can equip children with the skills to obtain jobs and become contributing members of society.

Understanding the limits of what schools can and cannot do is important in beginning to understand the complexities of trying to make them better in the first place. An understanding that some children might benefit more from a vocational curriculum rather than an outdated academic one is also important, as is the understanding that “schooling” means many things.

Furthermore, if schools and school systems are to be changed, built and bettered, schools must be seen as organic, community-related organisms, not a series of clones. Truly dynamic innovation must occur within schools and communities for education to be more than just a relic of colonial rule meant for the rich.

Teachers must be trained and an emphasis placed on the professionalism of the career path. Studies in SACMEQ countries in Africa have demonstrated anÌęÌęof teacher competency tests of 0.21 and 0.32 on students. Furthermore, with regard to training, in Namibia teachers with no training perform at 2% of a lower standard deviation, and in Uganda this drops even further to 14% of a standard deviation. This appears to be an obvious answer, but as teaching is a vague variable, many have shied away from truly examining the importance and effectiveness of a good teacher.

In a sense, to truly implement Goal 4, development organizations and donors will have to shift thinking away from a one-size fits all, top-down approach and begin to understand that complexity is not a bad thing. In fact, it might be the key to creating better institutions that actively impact communities to reduce poverty.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: /

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post Education Alone Cannot Eradicate Poverty appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

Earlier this year, captured and held the attention of the international community, shedding light on theÌęÌęin the Mediterranean and the war in Syria. Yet while over the thousands perilously trying to reach safety, America hesitates in fear, and the Western media terrifies populations into comparingÌę, roughly 2,800 volunteers in Syria attempt to assist a population under siege.

Meet theÌę, a group of Syrian volunteers working in the aftermath of barrel bombs, airstrikes and warfare across Syria. The White Helmets, or the ,ÌęformedÌęas an ad hoc organization in 2013, trained byÌęÌęin Turkey, and have now expanded across Syria to provide aid where there is none.

Manal is one of the female volunteers working in Deraa, a southern city known for itsÌę. She speaks in lyrical Syrian Arabic on our Skype call, halting to let Gardenia, the White Helmets liaison in , translate hurriedly.

A Moment of Peace

“In Deraa, we have a lot of bombardment,” she says, speaking so quickly she must stop now and then to catch her breath. “They are bombing Deraa with all the weapons—airstrikes, artillery bombs, barrel bombs, all the weapons you can imagine. Syrian Civil Defense is trying to save people from underneath the buildings, the rubble. They are trying to save people from all areas, the areas that we cover.

“To save people, this is our work—to provide medical assessment, evacuation, to do anything and everything to save civilians, to help people in general. Actually, we have 15 centers in Deraa; we provide medical assessment and help after bombardments.”

Manal is hesitant, like many women, to share her age. Before the war, she worked informally as a writer and helped take care of her niece. Now, she spends most of her time working with the White Helmets. Gardenia adds that, in total, there are 60 women in the Syrian Civil Defense and 23 in Deraa.

“They need women to take care of other women. Sometimes in our community people are very conservative. They need a woman to help sometimes,” Manal says. She pauses for a lengthy interval this time, perhaps hesitant when explaining cultural constraints to an outsider, then continues: “Not all the time, but sometimes. All the field hospitals have men and women, but they somehow facilitate the process if she is maybe uncovered, then another woman can help with the work.”

When asked why she joined the White Helmets to do such dangerous work, Manal responds immediately, without the pauses that characterize the rest of her replies: “I loved their work. I loved the work of saving people and providing medical assessment. It is out of humanity. It is a little bit hard because they do not have a lot of medical staff in these areas and they are always exposed to medical bombardment, but they need more people, as many in other hospitals are dead from double tap attacks.”

Ìęattacks, when a second bomb is dropped a short interval after a first, have proven deadly to the White Helmets and civilians. Rescuers are often caught in the second bomb when they refuse to leave the people they are rescuing or cannot escape the area in time.

Manal sighs when speaking about the deaths, and when asked why people simply do not leave Deraa, she says slowly: “The people are still there, even if they are exposed to heavy bombardment, but actually there is nowhere to go. All the villages have been bombed by all the weapons and there are no secure places in Deraa—not in the city or the villages or the countryside. I remember a lot of people fled from their village to another village to be safe and they have been killed by bombs in the second village.”

Ìęestimates roughly 5.6 million children are currently internally displaced in Syria, along with the more newsworthy millions who are fleeing desperately for Europe.

“It’s hard,” Manal says softly, “It’s very hard to see people killed in front of your eyes, the children, the women, all the people. You cannot do anything else. You can try to save them from under the rubble—you wish to stop this war, to save lives, to do something.

“After five years, we are used to this situation, but actually it’s bad that we are used to it. Actually, we cannot cope, but the only thing we can do is help people to decrease the hard times. But in the end, we cannot cope with this.”

When asked what she misses and hopes for, Manal asks Gardenia to translate the question, again. She says something, stumbling over her words, pauses for breath, and finally answers: “I miss everything. I miss Syria. I miss the simple things: to gather with my family, all of them, because now they are in many countries. We cannot have one hour altogether; I miss to be in one hour, one hour of calm, without shooting, without hearing a bomb. I miss my friends and relatives. I miss gathering with them and wish I had one hour with them.

I miss the feel of security, I miss living in peace. My dream was to be a teacher. I hope when this stops, I can go back to teaching and teach those children who are losing their education, compensate them for the loss. I miss feeling comfortable, to feel security, and I hope to get married and have a family as all people do.

“The world sees only ISIS or Islamic troops or groups; we are not all of us ISIS or the Islamic State. All I want is to stop the bombs, to find a solution for Syria.”

When she ends the call, Gardenia and I wait for a second connection with Abdal Kafe in Idlib. I wonder at how Manal manages to remain apolitical and ask Gardenia how she joined the White Helmets, not realizing from her name that she is also Syrian.

“I left Syria in 2014 for Istanbul,” Gardenia responds. “Most of the refugees in Istanbul are from the north. The ones from Deraa, in the south, fled to Jordan. In each country you can find Syrians, but here, in Istanbul, many are from Aleppo and other big cities.

“It is too hard to see all the people fleeing—they know the reason, there is nothing to do because the reason is clear; it is a political reason. There are a lot of countries interfering, where is the point?”

Like Manal, Gardenia does not attempt to parse out the conflict or choose a side, instead discussing refugees: “If you are in Syria and you have a family and they have been killed, and they have been bombing your friends and neighbors and your country,” she says, sighing, “Are you going to stay there under the rubble?”

It becomes increasingly clear, as she speaks, that while media attention has been focused on the increasing desperation of refugees and the unwillingness of other countries to take them, the plight of those trapped inside Syria has been largely ignored.

“The whole situation is so difficult,” Gardenia says. “Everything is so expensive, the security situation is so bad; every time you are feeling scared of being arrested by the regime forces in the areas that were under the regime control, people were fleeing from ISIS in other areas. This is so bad, people don’t know what to do, there is nothing to do here, there is nothing for them.”

In the midst of this discussion, Abdel Kafe joins us. He is 29 years old, calling from a hotel in Adana with terrible Internet reception where he is temporarily staying. He currently works in Idlib at the Syrian Civil Defense center. In his previous life, Abdal Kafe laughs wistfully, he was a teacher. “I studied history at Aleppo University in 2009 and was a teacher before the crisis in 2011. I couldn’t continue as a teacher.”

The hidden losses of the Syrian War—the growing university networks and in primary schools before 2011—are often ignored. Save the Children estimates the cost of rebuilding damaged schools at almost .

“It was my ambition to continue teaching, but most of the schools were exposed to bombardment. All the schools were bombed, so I felt like I should work to keep the children alive, to save them, because I couldn’t really teach them anymore in that condition.

“I was watching these things every day. I was sometimes walking in the streets and I could hear people screaming for help. I thought maybe I could be a firefighter. This is the situation that made me join the Syrian Civil Defense.”

When asked the political questions about who is bombing and whether the bombs are dropped on purpose on soft targets like schools, Abdal Kafe answers without hesitation:Ìę“To be honest, I am not definite on whether it was on purpose or not, but all of the places have been bombed: schools, markets, hospitals, all the people have been bombed by airstrikes and barrel bombs and everything.

“We have been bombed regularly. Khan Shaykhun, aÌęcity in the middle of Idlib province, it is bombed daily, like regularly. Just before one hour I had a call that they said that airstrikes are happening. This has been happening since 2012. There is no military here; all of the people are civilians. There is nothing to be bombed, to let this city be bombed. There is no reason for bombing.”

Abdel Kafe’s call is disconnected several times because of a shaky Internet connection, but he persistently calls back and continues where he left off: “The Syrian regime was bombing Khan Shaykhun every day; although another thing they are suffering from now are the Russian airstrikes, they are bombing them. It is different because the Russian airstrikes are very heavy—they caused a lot of people to be killed. We think 100% of the airstrikes are Russian now, not regime forces, but we don’t know for sure.

“We suffer from the double tap bombs, after five minutes or ten minutes they are bombing in the same place, and they targeted the Syrian Civil Defense hospital in Khan Shaykhun for the second time in six months. Soon we will not be able to do our work properly.”

When asked why people do not leave, Abdal Kafe responds, like Manal, with a heavy sigh:Ìę“They are still here. There are 80,000 people here, the population is so many people from Idlib, from Hama, and displaced people are there. There is no place to go for these people, they are there and there are so many. If you go anywhere else, there is still bombing. They are trapped.”

White Helmets

Abdal Kafe pauses as his connection crackles. “I will always remember,” he says in rapid Arabic, “when we were working during the night; you know the Syrian Civil Defense works during the night and day in shifts. One day we were there in the night. The people had been bombed all day. They tried to find shelter, they thought, they will not bomb us during the night.

“The people put all of the children into a place they felt was safe for them, but then, after indiscriminate bombs, they came to find all the children were dead. They could see only blood, the women were screaming, they couldn’t find their children, they couldn’t differentiate between them because of the blood and the bombs. We, the White Helmets, were crying because we couldn’t do anything for these people, and more than ten children from that place were all dead in one shelter.”

He needs a moment to think when asked what he hopes for and misses; Gardenia and I say his name several times, wondering if the call has been dropped. When he does speak, his Arabic is heavy with emotion. “I miss the feel of security, I miss living in peace. My dream was to be a teacher. I hope when this stops, I can go back to teaching and teach those children who are losing their education, compensate them for the loss. I miss feeling comfortable, to feel security, and I hope to get married and have a family as all people do.”

Abdal Kafe ends with a message spoken in metaphorical Arabic: “In the past, we used to look at the sky and see happiness, see stars, but now we look and we feel something worse will be there, the blood of the people. We see planes and we only see our blood when we look at the sky. My dream is to clear our sky, our sky in Syria,ÌęinshallahÌęso we can dream again.”

He concludesÌęwith a typically Arab phrase—alhamdullilah—and then his call disconnects again. Alhamdullilah ostensibly means “All praise be to God,” but I often hear it punctuate the end of a conversation. It is familiar across the Arab world, even in the midst of a bloody civil war: a cross between a helpless shrug and a hopeful prayer.

Gardenia pauses for a moment when his call drops, waiting for my frantic typing to stop, and then says: “He is young. So many of them, they are born in 1996, 1998, but some are also 60, some are 80—they are working without looking to their age. This is a positive thing, not negative. An adolescent or a younger guy, if he didn’t work with this humanitarian work, he will go fight in the battle. This is a positive thing, to draw their attention to something which is more peaceful, helping people, feeling like they are citizens, like they are part of this society.”

True Heroes

Amid all the dissension and fear surrounding refugees and in the midst of a messy, bloody civil/proxy war, Syrians are still attempting to help fellow Syrians. Even as the rest of the world spends time arguing in padded chairs and security councils, volunteers risk their lives to help those who cannot escape while those trapped inside attempt to find safety.

Perhaps the thing to note is that despite ethnic and religious tensions, interference from a dozen other countries and consistent fear of death and arrest, bravery still flourishes in Syria. Despite media attempts to paint both refugees and internally displaced Syrians as rabid animals, civilians inside Syria have still made something “honorable,” as Abdal Kafe says, for themselves.

Perhaps rather than watching blockbusters about superheroes or arguing on social media about the likelihood of terrorists sneaking across the borders, the world might take a moment to voice respect for those who are truly heroic.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post Syrian Humanitarian Workers Aid Fellow Citizens appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

My favorite picture is of my best friend and I in 2002, arms around each other and in the tacky gym shirts worn by American high school students. We’re both grinning widely, her dark blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, my black headscarf wrapped around my neck.

Behind us, you can see our shared senior locker, strewn with pictures fromÌęBuffy the Vampire SlayerÌęČčČÔ»ćÌęDawson’s Creek.ÌęMy skin is dark, hers light. I am clearly Muslim, she is clearly not.

Yet I remember every year when our predominantly white high school did a cultural show, she would dress up in Pakistani clothes and come on stage with me to talk about Islam.

I remember my history teacher, who smiled at a frightened 14-year-old who had accidentally ended up in an honors class. I remember the dozens of recommendations he wrote for me when I applied to universities, his pride when I was accepted, his unrelenting faith in me.

I remember our friendly little mosque, where we first began doing taekwondo as a group of young, motivated girls in scarves.

I remember frigid December nights, when my father and I would drive to the local middle school in our creaky Plymouth van to pray in their cafeteria because the mosque didn’t have enough space.

Self-Imposed Exile

I don’t return and visit often, for reasons I hesitate to discuss. Perhaps it is because it was there, in that lovely, leafy suburb where I had always felt safe, that I was first toldÌęto “Go home.” It was September 11, 2001. I was 17.

My father always told me, rather pessimistically, that I could never make friends with “real” Americans. His viewpoint, as a Pakistani immigrant, was that I would always struggle with an identity crisis—I would always be half of one, half of another, a mutant unable to assimilate in either culture and lost to both.

I disagreed. Only after 9/11Ìędid I realize that no matter how Americanized, normal, aspirational, educated or non-threatening I looked, I would always be an “other.” I would always be seen, by certain segments of the population, as an alien.

In self-imposed exile, I moved to Boston to attend university. These years were restless, as were most of my 20s: I went wandering around Roxbury, studied Islamic History in between English courses, went to study circles at local mosques, was the co-president of our Muslim Students Association. I went to London, seeking out young Muslims there, visited mosques in Paris, the Alhambra and the Mezquita in Andalusia, found donor kebabs on the streets of Italy.

Finally, after living in Istanbul, the last glorious gasp of what the Muslim world likes to call its Golden Age, I came home again to America. I couldn’t help it—after a decadeÌęof wandering and exhaustion, looking for myself and my identity, I came backÌębecause, however I like to paint it, this is home.

Coming Home

Here, I unpacked my things, bought a car and abruptly found myself and the rest of the American Muslim community facing the rising hysteria fueled by the likes of .

I knew, after 9/11, that it would eventually come to this.

We did point out that would become dangerous. We did say that with the stereotypes inÌę,ÌęinÌęAmerican Sniper,Ìęwith the rhetoric against Muslims fueled by political parties and capitalist interests that this would eventually lead to the kind of speechÌęthat sounds like Adolf Hitler reincarnated. I think we knew that eventually, our visibly brown children and their visibly covered mothers might be in danger and that our mosques would be burned.

Now, we are all afraid.

Much like the rest of America is afraid of us, we are afraid of “lone wolf” shooters. Much like Fox News saysÌęthat we don’t know who the ISIS-sympathizers are in our population, we can’t identify the Trump supporters who cheer on his attempts to label us in a shameful Nazi farce.ÌęMore and more Americans die in gun deaths every year, and we are aware that it only takes one person, one gun, one mad moment of bigotry for our lives to be in danger.

For those who say that Muslim countries are more dangerous, that ISIS or Daesh would kill you there, remember many of our parents and grandparents came here to seek a better life. We grew upÌęhere,Ìęnot in the territory claimed by Daesh or the Taliban. We are contributing members of this society: doctors, lawyers, teachers.

Our worst fears are being realized as the America that treated most of us well, as the children of immigrants, shows the darkness many of us have only recently begun to acknowledge.

It is the darkness that exterminated and marginalized America’sÌę, erasing a history resplendent with stories, culture and nuance and replacing it with Thanksgiving turkeys. It is the darkness that allowed the inhuman practice of slavery and then whitewashed it in textbooks as being . It is the darkness that allows the brutality against black skin that we all nowÌęÌęon police tapes and in protests.

It is the darkness of the school-to-prisonÌę, the overflow of our prison system, theÌęÌętreatment of our warÌę, the crushingÌęÌęand workload forced on most by a society that tempts us with 50 different types of Oreos.

It is the darkness of knowing that the public school system is aÌęÌęin many places but that no one cares enough to actually do anything about it besides buildÌę. It is the shame ofÌę, theÌęÌęshootings, theÌęÌęthat we continue to drop on other countries and the children that we dismiss as collateral damage. It is in the appalling response of governors and those who compared Syrian refugees fleeing from Daesh toÌę.

© Shutterstock

This is the America we are beginning to see: a bloated giant reeling from cognitive dissonance and screaming awareness of its own wounds.

This is Our House, Too

Silent majority of Americans, I have sat next to you, held doors for you, babysat your children and taught them in English class. We share particularly American traits of being too earnest, smiling too much, a distinct love of apple pie.

I couldn’t deny our relationship with you even if tried, because my story is entwined with and built on America and Americans. They are the people who have existed in my life since kindergarten, forming most of my memories: the friend who hung a Christmas stocking for me and still stocks her fridge with halal meat when I visit.ÌęThe musician who I shared pumpkin spice lattes with in college, the reverend who blessed my marriage, the fellow teacher who edited my Master’s thesis, the blue-eyed best friend who helped me start my own nonprofit.

They are my odd, hodgepodge family. You are my family.

I’m concerned, as my father warned, that you think I am a mutant. I’m concerned that you think I will turn on you.

I will tell you this honestly: Yes, Muslims are my family too. And the Muslim world is reeling from its own darkness: theÌęÌęand hegemony of majorÌę; the shameful extermination of groups of people inÌę, in Bahrain, inÌę. The terrible degradation of Shias and other minority sects; our American Muslim disregard of ourÌęÌębrothers and sisters who have been here far longer than we have. Our struggle to deal with abuse,Ìę, women’s rights, radicalization, theÌęÌęcommunity andÌę.

We watch Muslim countriesÌęstruggle with poverty, violence, war, drones, sectarianism, dictators and corruption. We watch Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan, Somali children flee from war and drown.

We know, as Muslims, what it is like when a screamingÌęgroup with terrifying convictions tries to destroy our family. We understand the difficulty of watching extremists dominateÌęour discourse; we know the remorse of not being able to do more to prevent this from happening. We are trying.

I cannot speak for everyone, but if we have not done enough to show you that we are on your side, I am telling you now. Our Islamic faith, our Muslim family, does not mean we have a trigger switch that will make us into mutant terrorist Hulks.

We are not torn in our allegiance. We are here beside you, condemning every act of violence in this country, over and over again. Despite what talking heads on cable television will tell you, we do not see a divide between the Muslim and the American in our identity.

This is our house, too.

I apologize if you think we have been a silent Muslim majority and if that has helped lead to this, now. Please, help us against the power of men like Donald Trump and other fear mongers. Help us stop our country from walking down a very frightening road. We are only 1% of the population—we cannot do this alone.

Please, do not allow the hysteriaÌęto continue without saying something. In the end, we are fighting the same battles against extremism and violence and hatred.ÌęIn the end, if we all give in to the terrorists on both sides, those who bomb children and those who show up at mosques with machine guns, none of us come out alive.

We know whatÌęAmerica could be—our strength is in our patchwork of immigrants, our kindness, our unity and our ability to have dual identities without compromising either.

Please, do not keep silent in the face of such blatant, horrifying bigotry. Please, say something, stand with us and next to us, help us feel safe with you as our neighbor. We are desperately trying to do the same, but our narrative is drowned out by the cheers of those happy toÌęfiddle while America burns.

Inevitably, we will disagree; that is what family does. But please stand with us.

We are with you.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Ìę/Ìę

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post An Open Letter to the Silent Majority appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

My grandfather used to have prayer beads made of sandalwood. I remember him sitting on his prayer mat, murmuring quietly, letting his precocious granddaughter climb on him. The Prophet Muhammad had done the same, he would say, smiling.

Oddly enough, every time I smell sandalwood or think of my grandfather’s whispered prayers, my heart aches. I wonder how horrified he would have been at last December’sÌęÌęthat left more than 100 children dead in Pakistan. I wonder what he would have thought of people saying his prayers were frightening.

My odd sense of humor comes from him, too. When I was younger, he used to say I lit up the house with laughter. These days, I have lost count of the number of people who tell me I’m too serious.

I am not serious. I am stricken with grief. I am in a permanent state of mourning and, the thing is, the American media thinks I’m not loud enough in my lamentation.

Shaken to the Core

All I remember is that it began somewhere around Somalia. Then Kosovo. Then 9/11Ìęand Afghanistan and Iraq. I mourned the lives of those in the towers, those on the planes. I mourned the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in the wars afterward and the deaths of children in Afghanistan. I mourned the students I taught in Houston classrooms who went off to war and never came back. I mourned for Paris and Boston and London.

As a youngÌę, bred to believe in social justice and courage, I tried to honor my grandfather’s memory and returned to Pakistan. I knew he had believed so strongly in the vision of Ìęand Ìęthat he had walked across a border inÌęÌęwith three sisters, two young children and his wife.

But there, I watched aÌę, polio workers, refugees and a lone school watchman murdered by Taliban extremists in Karachi. I huddled in a classroom during a political uprising among the shaking bodies of children frightened by the sound of machine guns. My grandfather would have wept had he seen the city he loved become “”Ìębecause of religious extremists and political thugs.

© Shutterstock

Being in Pakistan shakes me down to my core.

So do other places. I have walked through the streets of Istanbul and watched sleep in the sleet and rain. I have also taught in American high schools and watched teenagers break down in tears at their inability to see their fathers because they are in prison. My heart breaks for all of these children.

I do not have a split between the American and the Muslim in my identity. I am not a sleeper cell of a “gutter religion.” I learned at the knee of my grandfather to have courage, faith and kindness. Those are the lessons I have tried to implement in the 13 years since I left my parents’ home in a leafy Chicago suburb and made a path from Paris to Addis Ababa to Istanbul.

I suppose I will have to ask forgiveness from the American public when I say that I will no longer apologize for the violence of the Taliban, of al-Qaeda, of Boko Haram, of al-Shabab militants, of Daesh or the “Islamic State.” I will not because while TV pundits sit on cushioned chairs and comment on how Muslims are not doing enough, American Muslims are in a state of shock and grief so profound that we struggle to get through our days.

Frankenstein Death Cult

The Muslim world, in fact, is in a state of shock and grief. Not the wealthy and powerful countries—not the countries that can participate in the sameÌęÌęas other nations with guns. It is the rest of us.

We know it is the middle-classes and the poor who suffer—the countries where our history has beenÌęÌęby a Frankenstein death cult and then sold in pieces at auction houses to civilized folks.

We watch theÌęSyrians, who speak a dialect of Arabic so gorgeously pure that people traveled to Damascus to learn it, try to make it to EuropeÌęon “.”ÌęWe watch the SomalisÌętrying to escape from a war that no one even cares about because they areÌę. We watch Yemen, a country whose beautyÌę, systemically bombed by Saudi Arabia. We watch Pakistani children reduced to “”Ìęin aÌęÌęcampaign that is nauseating.

It is very clear to us that, in the scheme of the world,Ìę. SomeÌęchildren matter less than others.

We do stand up to denounce Daesh, just like we denounce the Taliban. Many of us areÌęÌęfor doing so—thousands in Pakistan, thousands inÌę, hundreds of thousands in Iraq.

This is the grief we carry every day—the knowledge that Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia are suffering from monsters we have been denouncing for years. Our grief is in the knowledge that our faith has been wrested from us by a perverse group of madmen, and no matter how American we are, it isn’t enough. It is in knowing that American media will not listen to us when we protest that it is our brothers and sisters who are on the frontlines in this particular war.

I will not apologize because it is Muslim countries thatÌę, globally, from terrorism.

I grieve because I have spent my life trying to live up to the ideals of Islam as I learned them, and yet I still see students I taught in Texas post on social media about how all of the brown Muslims are evil.ÌęÌęhas been on the rise since 9/11 despite efforts to point out over and over again that there are 1.6 billion of us and, of that number,ÌęÌęare terrorists.

When America begins refusing to take in refugeesÌędespiteÌęThe Diary of Anne FrankÌębeing a standard text taught in high school, we have truly sunk to a new low.ÌęHalfÌęof the are children. If these are the rats and refuse of the world, what happens when these children become adults? Even if we have no shred of human decency, how do we hope to deal with an entire traumatized generation? Are we hoping they are Europe’s problem and they drop dead outside the gates of Hungary?

Stallions Fight
 Grass Suffers

As the world repeats its mistakes, I can only think of a proverb in Turkish: It is the stallions that fight, but the grass that suffers. While the American media and Donald Trump make money from fear mongering and unsubstantiated claims, US governors refuse to help Syrian refugees while American arms continue to help destroy Syria.

Meanwhile, Muslims must constantly prove we are not violent. Even those of us who teach American children are obviously not saintly enough. Neither are those of us who save lives, are or who fight for . Some of my contemporaries are strong enough to brush off the prejudice with humor. I cannot.

I taught teenagers who have died from drug overdoses and who came from homes where they couldn’t afford new clothing. I have stood in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter.ÌęI have held Afghan refugees traumatized by violence. I have bought diapers for KurdishÌębabies swaddled in blankets against December snow storms.

I know I am not alone in my grief. I know I am not alone in worrying about all of our children, not just the privilegedÌęones.

But I apologize, Fox News, that I was not taught to wail in despair. My post-colonial parents, the German community I grew up in, taught me to keep going, keep engaging. All of us do this—we continue going to work and school and pray that no one harms our children or us. My coping mechanism is to doggedly strive to make this a little better for all of us, although it seems what I should do is hysterically denounce terrorism and string up extremists like a demented Batman.

Or perhaps I should put myself in an internment camp so as to assuage your terror?

It’s increasingly clear: No matter what I do, no matter what we do, we areÌęconstantly subject to the ridicule and bigotry of certain newscasters and members of the Republican Party.

I remember my grandfather frequently in moments like these, as he also lived through a troubled time and shouldered it with grace. I find myself on my own prayer rug, murmuring quietly, sandalwood prayer beads in my hands.

In a world that is increasingly trying to tear all of us apart, all we can truly do is attempt to work through this together. I would hope, as a teacher, that history taught us this lesson already. It appears that many of us paid no attention in school, however, and are content with the blood of children on our hands.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: / Ìę/Ìę

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post The Lament of an American Muslim appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

No historian can say for certain whether the . Some say they lived in a matriarchal society, where little girls were raised as warriors and men took care of the babies. Some say they were a figment of the Athenian imagination, a way to frighten the men into cooperating during times ofÌę“.”

In 1861, Johann Jakob Bachofen’sÌęDas Mutterrecht, orÌęMother Right,Ìępresented a theoretical ancient world: polyamorous, communistic and with a religion recognizing a matriarchal rather than a patriarchal line. Some interpreted this to mean that the dark ages of humanity ended with the enlightened advent of patriarchal rule and monogamous marriage. More recently, feminists use the theory to hypothesize about a utopiaÌę.

To be fair, however, the idea of harmonious women living in villages and engaged in peaceful goddess worship is less threatening than the idea of an Amazon who fights “like a man.” A vicious, skilled, aggressive woman scandalized and titillated the Greeks. Only when the tale expanded to include a macho Heracles defeating and subjugating Hippolyta, the Amazonian queen, could the men relax—the feral woman was under control.

In the modern world, the entrance of women into traditionally male combat sports, including boxing, (MMA) and Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), stir the same sense of horrified fascination. Ronda Rousey is perhaps the most recent example of this: A hugely successful, hugely talented, disciplined fighter still paradoxically criticized both for her “” body and traditionalÌę.

Rousey is a mixed martial artist, combining techniques from other disciplines such as boxing, judo, muay thai and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.Ìę, in particular, appears very much the man’s sport, with on-the-ground grappling and twists designed to “submit” the opponent, or get them to tap out. The gripping of clothing, the claustrophobia and the odd intimacy of BJJ make it seem like an odd sport for a woman to take up, especially considering that often both genders “roll,” or compete, with each other.

Defeating Stereotypes

Enter Farah al-Zahrani, a 21-year-old Saudi university student living in Jordan and now a female BJJ competitor. Zahrani is the first Saudi woman toÌęÌęin BJJ and, perhaps more importantly, one of the first Saudi women to compete in sports, full stop. Although the 2012 Olympics in London sawÌę—16-year-old Wojdan Shaherkani in judo and 19-year-old Sarah Attar in track—both of them lost by significant margins to opponents and brought the lack of facilities and training for Saudi women into the limelight.

Farah al-Zahrani (right) © Elena Koshevaya

Zahrani has the same frustration while visiting relatives in Saudi Arabia. “There are no places to train in Saudi,” she says in an international school accent. “I’ve been here in Saudi for three weeks and I’m going crazy.”

When asked how she began BJJ, she says it was an accident. “I’ve always been involved in sports. I did taekwondo, swimming, gymnastics and started BJJ a year and a half ago. One of my friends was doing a Kickfit class at an MMA place, and it was a combination between a cardio workout and kickboxing. So I did Kickfit to stay fit, and there was Kickfit on one side and BJJ on the other side. I would always watch them and I couldn’t understand what they were doing. I was astonished by how graceful and smooth their movements were but, at the same time, it was weird, too intimate. I was like, I’m never going over there!”

Shaking out her mane of hair, she says ruefully, “I asked, ‘Are there any girls training?’”

Zahrani placed fourth in the World BJJ Championships in Abu Dhabi in her weight and in the open division, where all weight classes compete together. Although she has only trained for a year and a half, she is earnest in her love of jiu-jitsu and her desire to compete.

“One of the concepts of BJJ is the smaller and weaker person can submit the bigger and tougher guy. Size doesn’t really matter—technique matters, how you use the technique to submit your opponent. I’m about 55 kilos and I’m one of the smallest girls. The fact that I can use BJJ to submit larger girls and guys is mind blowing to me,” she says.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu traces its lineage from judo and Japanese jiu-jitsu. The word jiu-jitsu comes from the Japanese “ju jutsu” or “gentle/supple/yielding art.” This is perhaps the essence of jiu-jitsu, which to the untrained eye looks like two people squirming and rolling around with each other. BJJ’s grappling and rolling involves being on top of, beneath, across and behind the opponent—in positions that those who prefer traditional gender roles might find scandalous. Except, of course, during a roll the point is to defeat the other person.

Although the formal combat techniques in a BJJ roll cannot translate directly from gym mat to street fights, BJJ does purposefully work to give the advantage to the smaller, weaker opponent and is considered by some to be a . For women, this could mean a moment’s advantage and the ability to get away when facing physicalÌęÌęor assault.

Of course, this still doesn’t mean that walking into a gym full of men rolling around on the floor is any less intimidating.

“I didn’t really understand anything at first or get anything,” says Zahrani when asked about her first days doing BJJ. “They said OK, there’s this move called the arm bar and I couldn’t connect the moves and technique with like, how you do it in a real life match. I thought I would just try. I liked it.”

“I train with the guys in class,” she continues, “but some of the guys prefer not to train with girls. They might be religious or they just don’t like training with girls. You get to choose sometimes—you do what you’re comfortable with.”

When asked about her coach and his openness toward women in a male-dominated sport, she says, “My coach is Jordanian,Ìębut he was born and raised in Brazil. His name is Samy al-Jamal. He’s a fourth degree black belt and he’s very supportive of what we do. He’s very, very supportive of the girls. Our school has a lot of girls, that’s what makes it special—we’re eleven girls now. None of the schools have that amount of girls.”

Faced With HarassmentÌę

Zahrani then comments on whether living in Jordan is difficult, or if she has faced harassment from others because of her competition in the sports, especiallyÌęsansÌęthe hijab worn by both Shaherkani and Attar.

“In Jordan, people are more open-minded than in the Gulf,” she responds, sighing. “We have female boxers, and soccer players and basketball players, so sports are something common here. But BJJ is different because they think it’s violent, and because they think it’s all about breaking other people’s hands and legs or something like that. But in general they’re more open-minded than people in KSA—they think I just punch people and get hurt.”

“My relatives in Saudi, they are supportive, but they don’t know exactly what I’m doing and they don’t really ask. They knew I was competing in Abu Dhabi, so they were like, we saw you on TV, but they have nothing to say about this. Some of the Saudi people are very negative. I [received] very negative criticism when my pictures were online on social media because I was the first Saudi to ever compete in BJJ and people said I was a sinner. Like, ‘She’s going to hell.’”

She pauses for a moment and continues: “On Twitter and Instagram, there’s this page called ‘First Saudi’ and they put pictures up of the first Saudi to do anything, so they had my picture up, and I was reading through the comments—some of them were hurtful. ‘No one wishes her well’ or, like, ‘She has no father. Where is her father?’”

“I was questioning myself: I thought maybe I’m doing something wrong, like I wasn’t raised ‘right.’ But there’s nothing wrong with what I do. There’s this image of Saudi girls that they should be wearing a niqab or hijab, but I don’t wear that when I’m in Jordan. When my pictures were on social media, there was nothing showing—my body was covered in BJJ clothes but I didn’t have anything on my hair. So they were like, she’s a sinner.”

“My father is very protective of me from people, especially on social media, and he would be annoyed if he saw such comments. I have to keep in mind how to dress and how to post pictures, like I shouldn’t put stuff up that is too weird. I can’t just tweet whatever is on my mind. I have to be careful what I put out there.”

Notably, both Shaherkani and Attar were heavily criticized for participating in the Olympics, with some even calling the teenage Shaherkani a “.” While this is a distinct reaction from Saudi Arabia, where women only recently began competing, even in the United States, with Title IX sports legislation for women, doing something “” means doing it weakly. Our global obsession with women being weaker and, if they demonstrate strength, somehow “” recalls an ancient attitude that the modern world has still not shaken.

© Elena Koshevaya

Zahrani, luckily, has a good head on her shoulders and growing support from a small niche of women, includingÌę, taking upÌęÌęand combat sports. The TumblrÌęMuslim Female Fighters posts daily photos of women in combat sports from Turkey to Malaysia and Canada. As for Zahrani, herself, she has bigger dreams for her future.

“Some of my friends don’t really understand; they find it intimidating or ‘not feminine.’ They say, ‘Do you think you’re going to be a world champion? You’re wasting your time.’”

“I keep doing it because I like it. I keep doing it for myself; it affects me mentally and physically in a very tremendous way. I’m usually not a very patient person, but after doing BJJ I became the most patient person ever. I have a very short temper, but when I started doing BJJ I got this negative energy out of me because of punching the bags and training and fighting my teammates. You can’t just train twice a day and then just quit, you know? You have to do the whole thing.”

“In BJJ, I want to be a world champion, to be honest. I want to compete every opportunity there is, every tournament. I just want to go and compete,” she says, running her hands through long, wavy hair. “I want to train all the time. When I get my black belt or my brown belt, I want to open up a school in Saudi for girls to train in martial arts. I’m kind of working on that.”

When asked about her thoughts beyond competition, she shrugs, smiling, and says, “I think more Saudi girls should be involved in sports because they should be able to be healthier, not only their bodies, but their minds should be healthier—they should be able to stand up for themselves. Sports should be in every school in Saudi. Not sports as in training and competing, but just going to the gym and having a workout or keeping healthier, it affects a lot of things. Not only your body, but your mind as well. It plays a big, big role in people’s lives in general.”

“I’m also looking for a sponsor,” she says, grinning again. “I want to keep competing but, you know, BJJ competitions are kind of expensive and I’m still in school. But I want to try; I want to keep trying to compete. I’d love for my for my country to support me, my country’s recognitions and support is more important to me than whatever medals I might get at tournaments. I know I can offer a lot to the female Saudi community.”

Fight Like An Amazon

Zahrani is, perhaps, one of a new generation of young women across the world learning to blend the traditionally “masculine” characteristics of competitiveness and ambition with what it means to be female. “I’m not a tomboy,” she says, “There’s not just one kind of being feminine!”

It is a shame that, even while we have created the spaces for these young women to be celebrated and pushed, we still see in the backlash and comments a fear hearkening all the way back to times when women were considered to be property.

It is a fear of the woman who cannot be controlled, who cannot be subjugated and who cannot be pressed into docile, obedient silence. Women who can punch a man and control the situation if a man attempts to, in BJJ terms, submit her. Fear of the woman who is too feral, too wild and too outside the limits of what we consider to be appropriate, weak feminine behavior. Behaving “like a girl” is perhaps our way of making sure that women remain in the comfortable box, defeated by muscled, macho heroes, appropriately scantily clad and helpless.

Yet if it is up to the Zahranis and Rouseys of the world, we will have to begin rethinking our gendered definitions and our fear of women who might fight not like a man, but like an Amazon.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Elena Koshevaya

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. YourÌęÌęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post Saudi Fighter Challenges Stereotypes of Women appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

There is no waiting space inside the Dar es Salaam airport, departure passengers sit outside to wait for their flights. It was on these uncomfortable benches, while eating Pringles and reading my Kindle, that I met him.

He approached me slowly. I attempted to avoid eye contact because I still have a woman’s fear of strange men, but he smiled at me and held up a laminated sign: “Please help us travel to play football. I am deaf. Support the Tanzania Federation of Sports for the Deaf.”

I hesitated. He sat down next to me, gesturing, and I read through legal documents he was carrying that showed the Tanzanian Deaf Football team were traveling for an East Africa Cup game and required funding.

He smiled at me again, writing, “I help clean for team” on a stray piece of paper.

I had no cash with me and tried to communicate to him that I couldn’t help. He nodded and pointed to the number on the paper with many zeroes. They would never make enough to go, but he was trying. After our conversation, he waved and continued his rounds with the laminated sign, still smiling. I saw him approach two tourists who steered away from him because no one likes beggars.

I have often thought back to that moment when he walked away. Should I have gotten money out of the ATM? Would it even have made a difference? Why was he even trying when it was hopeless?

Empathy and Apathy

Recent headlines—stranded refugees, boats in the Mediterranean, Yemeni and an ongoing in Syria and Iraq—make watching the news almost unbearable. The sheer scale of the global refugee crisis, with United Nations (UN) statistics that more than 50 million people around the world as displaced in 2014, isÌęstaggering. More than half, the UN reports, are children.

Yet the responses are equally staggering: European lawmakers destroying boats, American lawmakers deporting children, Asian countries refusing to allow a boat full of desperate people to dock.

The fact that developed countries, or even developing countries with the capacity to support migrants, refuse entry to those who have no other avenue or who are escaping persecution and conflict—as in the case of the Rohingya—appears to reflect a lack of basic human empathy. Perhaps the finest example of this is the of British tourists visiting Kos during the refugee crisis. Even , particularly primates, demonstrate concern about the suffering of others.

The Ashoka Foundation, which uses empathy as a defining , says: “We need applied empathy—the ability to understand what other people are feeling and to act in response in a way that avoids harm and contributes to positive change.” This seems to align with the standard idea of empathy as an ability to feel, or at least identify, what other people are feeling and attempt to assist them.

Leadership in neoliberal workplaces is now receiving empathy training to avoid being the Big Bad Boss. A empathy training course claims training will help the employer “[understand] what makes people ‘tick’ and [deal] with them more effectively.” This brings to mind meetings with encouraging, pre-fabricated notes passed around praising each worker and consoling them for personal issues. It seems even emotion can be made into a commodity.

On the other hand, perhaps we are just being too “touchy feely” and using empathy and “trigger warnings” as a saccharine way to making people deal with their own issues and sensitivities.

In America, the “politics of empathy,” led by President ’s invocation of it, have spurred research into the empathy-altruism connection and led to criticism on the of “identifiable victim effect.” We feel for the person we recognize, so to speak, which is why huddled masses of people from places we don’t recognize do not spur us to action. Therefore, our empathy is perhaps useless because it is so specific.

Some even claim that empathy is decreasing altogether because of cellphone use and social media disconnecting us from those around us. This has led, according to research, to a subsequent increase in and sociopathic behavior.

All of this seems depressingly true. Perhaps we are becoming somehow less “good” and less “moral” because we are losing our capability to see through the eyes of other people.

Flickr

Losing the Ability

Sitting on that airport bench, I felt only shame. I knew people on the fringes of society who had few legal rights, like this man, struggled even more than the norm in developing countries. Yet he spent his day approaching white tourists who looked at him with mingled embarrassment and disgust, his painstakingly laminated papers in hand, always smiling. I felt humiliated on his behalf and guilt that he lived his life that way.

Perhaps that is our entire modus operandi. We see what Amartya Sen refers to as “capability deprivation”—the desperate attempts of marginalized people to escape from the war, poverty, structural discrimination and corruption that surround them. Or, as in the case of the deaf man at the airport, we see a gentle attempt to draw our attention to the limited options available to those without our privilege. We see it, we feel guilt and we go on with our day because we have to go to work in the morning. We are a product of economies at their best, crushed by debt and consumerism.

Perhaps it is true that empathy itself is not a moral emotion and, without service and action to accompany it, feeling someone’s feelings is useless. Or perhaps it is something else.

Perhaps we do feel empathy. The earthquake and international outcry over the deaths of migrants demonstrate that we have not completely lost ability to feel for each other. Perhaps the problem is not our empathy, but the apathy created by our inability to do anything about our emotion.

Donations, food and money are our easiest bet to help those a world away, but what can we do when 1,800 people die in the Mediterranean? And how do we know if the donations have reached their intended destination? And how do we determine if a Syrian man is part of the or just wants to help his family? When we see a hashtag on Twitter and repost to show solidarity, does that actually help?

Perhaps our issue is being constricted by the same global bureaucracies that leave migrants out to sea and Latin American children on high speed trains to the US. We want to help, but our hands are tied by laws, distance, political posturing and foreign policy. Maybe this is the crux of the issue.

It seems that, while the world may be growing colder because of Instagram and texting, our apparent lack of empathy is hinged on our lack of opportunity to do much about the problems we see.

Collective action seems to be the catalyst for many global concerns, but the issue becomes whether anyone is willing to speak up in defense of the poorest and most irrelevant people in our societies. Whether we are willing to sanction potentially violent protests as a reaction to systemic issues or whether we are willing to, as a middle-class, bear witness and sacrifice our own power to “sway the tides,” as Arudhati Roy says, remains debatable.

Unless the more privileged of the world puzzle out this particular hurdle and work out how to be, as Ashoka says, actively empathetic—to hold our governments accountable—it is safe to say that the desperation of those who are less fortunate will continue to rise.

It is difficult to say what lengths people will go to when they are already crossing oceans with their infants, but unless we link our empathy to praxis, we will continue to turn off our TV screens because we are overwhelmed by the suffering of other people.

Back in Tanzania

In the end, I did get up in Dar es Salaam Airport to withdraw a few shillings to give the man. I couldn’t keep watching him approach others who ignored him. Perhaps that was the right thing to do, the empathetic thing, or perhaps I foolishly encouraged his Promethean task.

Either way, in this new global world, we bear witness to the despair of the disenfranchised, the poor, the constricted. Perhaps in more human terms, we are witnesses to the wives, the fathers, the teachers, the doctors and the children who become a block of statistics. It is absolutely imperative that we begin finding solutions to channel our outrage, our grief and our empathy into actions.

Otherwise, all we can say is that whether we felt empathy or not, as a global middle-class, we are truly immoral.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: / /

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your Ìęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post At What Point Do We Lose Our Empathy? appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

A city of 16 million people, is an assault on the senses. In April 2014, we whizzed through traffic behind the caged door of a rickshaw to visit a small private school. After a few training sessions, the teachers and I sat around a table, fans whirring overhead, and discussed the biggest issues they faced.

, famous in the development world largely for Grameen Bank, Mohammed Yunus and , struggles from many of the same issues as most developing countries with regard to : lack of teacher training, low salaries and motivation, absenteeism, poor resources, unreachable rural areas and a lack of resources. Predictably, when sitting around a table with several teachers, the majority of complaints revolved around the rights and position of teachers.

“We only make $100-300 per month in government schools,” the art teacher said, “and in private it can be as low as $25.”

“Everyone says that the teaching profession is not very important,” said the mathematics teacher. “Everyone looks for a higher salary.”

Yet the truth of Bangladesh’s educational issues come down to the labyrinthine corruption of the system. Even in a reasonable school, with a highly motivated child, it is clear that no one could get anywhere without bribery and a solid ethnic or personal network to manipulate.

“What do you really need in Bangladesh?” the headmaster said to me. “Good grades, some connections and a bit of money.”

Investment in school is an ongoing and controversial subject. Although oft-quoted studies a 10% return on education per year in school, the reality on the ground seems a bit mistier. The massive focus on primary education and universal literacy appears to work in Bangladesh’s favor, with of children enrolled in primary.

However, the issue becomes cloudy in secondary and upper primary, where dropout rates begin to steadily increase, topping out at .ÌęAlthough these rates have been declining, one can’t help but wonder why a child would choose to stay in school when their family cannot afford to bribe or manipulate their way into a job or university, afterward.

In fact, children and parents still seem to believe that education — primary education at least — is a valuable investment. The proliferation of low-cost private schools attests to this: “We have a commercial issue now, also,” the owner of the school stated. “I had to invest in a school. It was a good opportunity. I was thinking about earning some money.”

The abundance of low-fee private schools, in addition to the prevalence of bribery, unfortunately seems to further exacerbate the inequality in access to Bangladesh’s education system. Transparency International’s on corruption that Bangladesh’s system disproportionately impacts poor families. As the report states: “For [higher income households] the rate of loss of income was less than the average whereas for the lowest income category of household the ratio was much higher, at 5.5 percent.”

It is clear the system fails the children who still enthusiastically dress in crisp uniforms every morning and walk to school, lunch bags swinging. The public’s largely negative attitudes toward education as a means for advancement is a testament to this, as well. Everyone in the country who has experience with schooling highlights the lack of places in universities, the teachers who charge extra for tuition and the random fees that appear in “free” schools.

As a World Bank states: “But it is not appropriate simply to presume that any spending on schools is a productive investment that will see the returns estimated for attainment. It is instead necessary to ascertain two things: how various investments translate into quality and how that quality relates to economic returns.”

Perhaps a further question is whether investment is worthwhile when there is a social construct that prohibits growth and development for children. Even while corruption in aid and business is posited by such as Bill Gates as being minor, corruption in education is clearly an issue that does require the “zero tolerance” measures if children are to succeed.

Corruption is not simply a “donor tax” in Bangladesh; in fact, it is the cause of, among other things, insufficient university places, poor families scrounging to send their children to schools that may or may not succeed, and children being prevented from learning because of an inability to pay.

Flickr

The issue, of course, is the proverbial chicken-and-egg of whether people cheat the system because of opportunistic behavior, or whether they cheat the system simply because the system is already a failure. As Transparency International states: “Rather, [families in developing countries] seem to be rooted in the perception that education is failing to deliver what is expected, and that bypassing rules is a possible — and sometimes even the only available — ‘remedy’ for schools.”

It is impossible not to consider corruption in a discussion on education and new , like Tanzania’s Big Results Now, which are meant to increase accountability within education. Even Transparency International, with its focus on small-scale community accountability and integrity building, seems at a loss as to how to deal with the corruption epidemic.

As I sat around the table talking to teachers and students, their resignation weighed on the conversation.

“The brilliant students don’t get opportunities if they are poor,” the headmaster said, his hands folded in front of him. “That’s how it is here.”

It seems apparent that, in the case of a country like Bangladesh, education cannot be treated as an issue separate from politics, nepotism and corruption on a larger scale.

Although many organizations and nonprofits treat education as a “common good” goal, as with the Millennium Development Goals, a lack of focus on the fact that politics heavily influence and reduce chances for children may do more harm than good.

“It’s the exams we take in the dead of night because of bribes. The professors who do nothing. The schools with no teachers. These are all politicians,” one teacher sighed.

Perhaps, then, a first step to building a better system is a stronger enforcement of rules and regulations, from the top all the way down. At least in the case of Bangladesh, it appears this would give hope to children who leave school because success is an unattainable dream.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: /

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate.ÌęYour Ìęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post When Corruption Becomes Oppression in Bangladesh appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

A few years ago, the parents of a little girl in my class underwent an unpleasant divorce. I thought the child was handling it relatively well until I read her poem assignment for class.

“Leave me alone in my fairy tale bubble / away from your harsh words,” she’d written.

Personally, I carry a healthy amount of feminist skepticism about the that fairy tales teach young girls. In the pre-Katniss days when I grew up, many girls looked for inspiration elsewhere. Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, an alternative to the traditional princess tale.

These stories, like the Cinderella, can validate the wrong lessons: be silent in the face of injustice; wait for a man to save you; if a girl is just and kind enough, her life will work out. Many women have spoken out against this narrative because it set girls up to fail in life. Waiting for a prince, after all, is seldom a good idea.

This particular child’s poem, however, gave me pause. It seemed not to come from a place of and frilly dresses, but instead from a child’s need to feel safe and secure.

Her use of “fairy tales” clearly alluded to Disney-trademarked stories filled with enchanted forests and happy endings. She probably had no idea that traditional fairy tales, particularly the variety, fully intended to both frighten and instruct children in the harsh realities of life.

Currently, of course, most people who use the words “fairy tale” are referring to the cleansed, safe versions. In many contexts, the words either mean a safe haven with singing birds or a saccharine caricature of life.

Some people, Richard Dawkins among them, insist that fairy tales encourage , unscientific beliefs as a child and they should be banished. Others say that we should return to telling the stories as the Grimms and old lore told them — as warnings and morality tales. The last group likes the princess stories just the way they are and insist they encourage .

© Shutterstock

When I read this little girl’s poem, I couldn’t help but think of fairy tales as related to our perception of children. Her writing had little to do with being a princess and more to do with longing for something more innocent.

Of course, back before Disney mopped up the blood and added some pixie dust to fairy tales, European society still saw children as little adults. Our views of children as delicate innocents are fairly recent.

It wasn’t until Emile, Rousseau, the Enlightenment and finally the Romantics that children became their own , associated closely with ideas of innocence and purity. The movement, leading to the United Nations’ 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, tied in closely with the development of mass education, rights for child workers and protection for orphans.

As increasing numbers of children learned to read, children’s literature was born and Disney built on this momentum with its first animated feature, Snow White, in 1937.

In her poem, I heard this little girl asking for the right to be safe and for everything to be all right. All good fairy tales, particularly the ones written after adults decided children deserved fair treatment, end happily. It’s less about whether the princess finds the prince and, even with female-oriented stories like Frozen, more about the world being all right.

As one of the characters in Deborah Moggach’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a decidedly adult story, says: “Everything will be all right in the end so, if it is not all right, it is not the end.”

It’s a chicken-and-egg question, but I wondered if the little girl wished for that shelter because she had watched Disney movies or whether she wished for it because it is inherent in all of us, especially children, to desire safety. I also wondered if I should have the empowered woman discussion with her because victimization is hardly the best path in life. It seemed, in that moment of pain and grief, however, that what she truly needed was a bumbling fairy godmother to tell her it would be all right.

Perhaps it is true that we have altered our perceptions of children, at least children born in the Western world, and feed them sugar spun stories to shelter them from real life, but perhaps that’s also the truth of children. Perhaps by frightening them too early, before they are ready and assuming the world hasn’t already frightened them, we hinder them from developing into secure adults.

I’m certainly not saying we should feed them stories of helpless women. I’m saying that maybe we need to reevaluate our truth when it comes to children.

After all, when we create stories that do end well and reflect our perceptions that children are innocents, we have also set ourselves a challenge to shelter children from the cruelties of life.

© Shutterstock

We know children have different , and we even think that trauma from wars, poverty, family issues and neglect carries through . If this is true, perhaps it would make more sense for us to evaluate whether every child actually has a right to live in safety and without fear — in a “fairy tale bubble.”

Despite the amount of energy and time devoted to discussions about abortion and the rights of pre-natal fetuses, less energy is devoted to what happens to the children who grow up without both parents, or without food, or without a secure and stable home. Less time is also devoted to making sure people are ready to have children, a phenomenon that is clearly evident even in MTV’s 16 and Pregnant.

In all this debate about whether or not fairy tales are valid, perhaps it’s time to flip the narrative. Rather than discussing whether we should prepare children for the Big Bad Wolves, maybe it is time to discuss whether the Big Bad Wolves should exist in the first place. In a world as grim — pun intended — as the Grimm’s, this probably made sense. But in our steady march toward a brave new world, perhaps we should try to do better.

As a teacher, I see many children from many walks of life. Some are damaged, some are traumatized, some are their parent’s Special Snowflakes, and all are asking for reassurance.

Seeking stability in the face of conflict and confusion seems to be human nature. Perhaps, as adults, it should be our task to make the world a little safer for children, and then debate the correct narrative to feed them.

It reminds me of a conversation Buffy once had with Giles in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“Does it ever get easy,” Buffy asks.

“You mean life?” Giles, the ever-present teacher, responds.

“Yeah, does it get easy?” she asks.

“What do you want me to say?” Giles says.

“Lie to me,” she replies.

“Yes. It’s terribly simple,” he says. “The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:Ìę / / Ìę/Ìę

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your Ìęis tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be aÌę.

The post What Do Fairy Tales Teach Our Children? appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

I once booked a connecting flight from Dhaka to Istanbul with a layover in . For some reason, it seemed like a good idea.

At the airport, I glanced up from my Kindle only to realize that I had accidentally put myself on a flight of pilgrims, their lips muttering prayers, bound for Mecca.

I like to think I’m progressive when it comes to different kinds of people. I travel a lot, I work in development and I’m familiar with shifting norms.

But when I glanced around as casually as possible, I noticed the broken sandals; the way some people carried plastic bags in lieu of carry-ons.

is not a country known for its . I had just spent ten days ricocheting around Dhaka and the surrounding countryside, open-mouthed in shock at a beggar holding a bag of urine, well water turned black with iron deposits and the overflowing pollution in the capital city’s streets.

Some of the passengers with me were clearly on their first flight. They stumbled through the security line and milled anxiously in the terminal, pulling at the plastic group IDs hung around their necks.

A woman touched my shoulder, asking a question in Bengali, but I could only stare at her missing teeth and shrink back at the tobacco she was chewing.

Many people, I learned after eavesdropping on the loud English conversation of the middle-class couple next to me, had scrimped and saved for this, their first and only trip. Almost everyone had already donned the white ihram — frayed sheets and towels wrapped around their wizened, elderly bodies — in readiness to perform the Muslim pilgrimage, which requires wearing unstitched cloth.

I shrank down in my aisle seat, cringing slightly when someone brushed by me, apparently having lost all of my enlightened notions in the face of real people. It wasn’t until a woman, clutching her canvas bag and limping, touched my shoulder and thrust her boarding card in my direction that I realized she did not understand how to find her seat. She did not understand English, much less how to figure out the number-letter seating system on the plane.

I pointed her and some others to their seats, cringing again at a man who came out of the bathroom trailing water, wondering loudly Ìę— the lady next to me helpfully translated — how to squat on the raised toilet seat.

I say this not to paint a picture of Bangladesh’s poverty. Not everyone in Bangladesh is poor. I say this because it was the experience that illustrated, for me, the limits of my own tolerance for the poor.

© Shutterstock

When “poor” meant an idyllic village, gurgling Tanzanian babies or the people I interviewed for various projects in from the safety of a classroom, I could stand it. I could even cope with squat toilets, “traditional” clothing or chapatis made in a wood fire. When you factored in dental hygiene, confusion or bathrooms drenched in water because people were unused to toilet paper, my tolerance apparently came to an end.

And tolerance is the correct word. I tolerate poverty. I cringe at the ugliness of it personified just like everyone else.

We all know the idea of privilege — men and women get more opportunities and more money. People are usually nicer to them, too. We’ve extensively discussed unrealistic expectations for women. We even know about and white skin bias in many parts of the world, whether we choose to accept it or not.

But these are binaries in a world that assumes that everyone is already our standard of “normal” or, at the very least, “acceptable.”

What I wondered on that flight was how well I understood the privilege of being seen as a normal human being because I didn’t look poor.

I assumed my personal definition of “acceptable” was generous: It included various accents, various skin colors, various customs and traditions because I’m not American by birth and I have brown skin. I allowed many groups of people to have nuance and tell their stories, and I avoided labeling whenever possible. Or so I thought.

But I found it ugly when faced with people who fell outside of my definitions. I saw a mass, not individuals — bodies and feelings outside my “limits of acceptability.”

Ugliness can be used as a political term to exclude and dehumanize; natural black hair, dark brown skin, varied body types, people with tattoos and piercings have all experienced this kind of exclusion.

It’s the reason we have stories about beasts turning into handsome princes, why witches always have warts, why we praise Mother Teresa and the Statue of Liberty — unflinching acceptance of the “huddled masses.” It’s part of the reason we use blanket terms like “refugee” or “internally displaced person” or “laborers” for people who we see as an ugly mass instead of individuals.

As Michael Apple says: “I use the word ‘refugee’ with great hesitancy, for words like refugee can do damage to reality and to one’s humanity. They were people who cannot be adequately described by that one word — refugee. These were teachers, builders, nurses, shop owners, store clerks, farmers, children, fathers, mothers, grandparents.”

It seems that, as humans, we instinctively strip those we feel are ugly of their complexity and value. We don’t necessarily require the patina of wealth, but clothing, bodies, mannerisms — those must be what we deem “normal.” The dark-skinned “other” is the most susceptible to this, as Jamaica Kincaid points out when she paints white tourists as ugly in A Small Place.

Where do our classifications go when it’s not about how genetically gifted a girl is, but whether she has access to the same kind of toiletries that I can buy? What if she couldn’t wear beautiful red-soled because she has to walk kilometers on dusty roads every day? What if her culture’s definitions of are not something weird or exotic to her, like they are to Cosmopolitan magazine?

At what point does she get to be a worthy human being rather than carrying “poor” as her label because she cannot afford to look “normal”?

Should we react with pity? With fear? With disgust? Should we be disgusted with ourselves for our reaction?

And should we then judge the nouveau riche in developing countries who purchase the designer labels and ostentatious symbols of wealth in order to be accepted into our exclusive “worthy” club?

When we arrived in Saudi Arabia, the heavily made-up security ladies ushered everyone through lines, patting people down and shoving around those who didn’t understand directions in Arabic. They were nicer to me.

They were also nicer to the people on my Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, all of whom had their teeth and wore gleaming white robes. Many also wore light perfume or carried expensive handbags. No one needed help to their seats, and everyone was relaxed and jabbing away at the entertainment screens.

Ashamed, I found myself relaxing, too.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: / Ìę/Ìę

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your is tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a donor or you could choose to be a .

The post The Ugly Truth About Being Poor appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

Dear MSA kids,

I was 17 on September 11, 2001. It was fall of my senior year of high school, and I was worried about a US History exam. I wore a scarf and performed the afternoon prayer in our school’s library.

They wheeled a TV with a live news broadcast into our room. I looked at the person next to me, a handsome Greek junior, for reassurance, but his eyes were on the screen, watching the Twin Towers fall over and over again. All I remember is Ms. Thompson, our history teacher, repeating, “Things will never be the same.”

They never were. The next day, in a local sandwich shop with my two (white) best friends, a lady threw a glass at me and screamed, “Go home, we don’t want you here!” I am home, I wanted to tell her, I am home.

We can speculate about whether we will ever be considered “Americans” or not. We can attempt to assimilate: play sports, make friends with our neighbors, read Harper Lee and hold ourselves up as poster children for worldwide. We can be active in our (MSA) to provide services and support to our communities. But when we see the goodness, the normalcy, of Deah, Yusor and Razan, we must accept that perhaps, it is never .

I understand. I remember all the Muslim students after September 11 who came to school with American flag T-shirts and bandanas. I remember the tall, dark Iranian guy, who I had a major crush on but never spoke to, defend someone from slurs. I remember the support of, mostly white, faculty and students at the school.

I came home that night and buried myself under the duvets, shorn — in my own estimation — from my community. The once familiar Midwestern school, blonde cheerleaders and maple trees were alien and terrifying. I was alienated.

Although I went on to become an MSA president in university and a token Muslim on many fliers, I never shook that feeling.

I still answer “America” if you ask me where I’m from, but I’ve moved halfway across the world to a place where I can hear prayer calls and eat all of the food.

I have gotten so used to searching for halal options that I still order the tuna at Subway. Some things I can’t shake. Some things I don’t want to.

Flickr

The American Islamic spirit I learned in adolescence carried me through struggles with my well-meaning immigrant parents, falling in love with boys, understanding my own identity. I was, and am, an unwavering Muslim before anything else — attempting to emulate the courageous, kind example of people before me.

And through the years that have followed, despite travel and the and a Master’s degree in a foreign country, I carry that indefatigable spirit, that hope I learned in America, with me.

I know you, MSA kids. I know you come together in quiet classrooms after school to organize awareness events and design banners. I know how, on university campuses, you’re still worrying about how to separate the cultural expectations of your parents from the democratic nature of your Islam. I know about your love of Hamza Yusuf and Suhaib Webb.

I even know you haven’t quite figured out how to talk to the opposite sex and that hijabi fashion is still a thing. I may have been around before hashtags, but I know who you are.

And I love you. I love you because you will sleep on each other’s furniture at random times and you will find each other at conferences. You will help each other through struggles about wearing scarves and broken hearts and you will dance at each other’s weddings. I love you because you will pray together, shoulder-to-shoulder, and you will insist on women’s spaces in mosques.

I love you most of all because you will continue to serve and fight for your communities even when people on all sides are against you. I love you because you represent the best of us.

I know we all weep for Deah, Yusor, Razan and their families because they were also of us. I know your grief and fear. Although I am sitting a thousand miles away, I’ve had so many conversations with young mothers who are afraid to take their children outside. Men I knew as gangly 18-year-olds feel they need to purchase guns for the safety of their families.

But you are at the forefront. It is you who have to negotiate your identities in a space that is no longer safe. I am so sorry that this falls to you but, as many African American families have told their children, you will have to work harder to overcome it.

It is not fair. I am sorry for you, but you must accept that.

Please take it from an older hand: don’t be alienated. Don’t shut down, like I did. Don’t refuse to engage with your communities no matter how much it frightens or angers you. Stay safe, stay together, but don’t self-segregate.

Please continue to demonstrate to the American public who don’t believe that you are the best of the best. Stand with others who are also marginalized in solidarity.

I know all of us are the turning tide — the millennial generation that has defined Islam differently from our parents. I know we have assimilated to various degrees, but we have also kept what we feel is valuable and right. I’m not sure if everyone else realizes how far we have come from the extremism of the “” — our latest bogeyman — but I do.

At some point, I am confident the American public will also realize, despite what Fox News and Bobby Jindal tell them, that you are not a threat. You are, in fact, their greatest defense against extremism. Nobody needs a to figure that out.

Reach out to those of us who are older — there are many of us, former MSA presidents and VPs and treasurers, generally working in hospitals and private practices. We know how you feel and we will support you. We love you, I hope you know that, and we understand your identity better than anyone else. We consider ourselves American, too.

With love,

A former MSA president

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your is tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a or you could choose to be a .

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: / /

The post A Love Letter to Young American Muslims appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

Full disclosure: I’m too lazy to do my hair. There’s a lovely salon overlooking ’s Taksim Square where, for only about $6.75, Khalid will blow out my hair into the kind of Kardashian waves I can only dream of achieving at home.

Last Sunday, my husband came along to sip on Turkish tea and yell over the hair dryer to Khalid, who occasionally put down the brush to gesticulate wildly. “Daesh,” said Khalid, stabbing the air for emphasis. My husband put down his tea and looked more serious, nodding along to Khalid’s flurry of Arabic.

“What’s he talking about?” I said. I had only caught the word Daesh, a name used by Arabic news media for the (aka ISIS).

“I asked him about ISIS,” my husband said.

That morning, we had both seen photos of Muath al-Kasasbeh, a pilot who was burned alive by ISIS militants. Over eggs and oatmeal, we both blearily wondered where this caricature of darkness and Orientalist stereotypes came from and how they could do things that were so unabashedly barbaric. Who was funding them? Why were so many Muslim youth and converts agreeing with their apocalyptic vision? In hushed voices, we both asked how they could call themselves “Islamic” when most of the people they have killed are Muslim. We are both relatively devout Muslims, as is Khalid.

“He says that no one knows where these people came from,” my husband said, translating the Arabic haltingly. “He says no one in understands how they have so much money and power or what they are doing.”

Khalid is a Syrian refugee living in . He is 30 years old, speaks elegant Syrian Arabic and owned a salon in his past life. Now, he goes about his business with a humor that I find envious, all things considered. He met my eyes in the mirror and sighed.

“He says his cousin joined them.”

“What?” I squeaked. “Why would he do that?” My husband translated, looking both concerned and uncomfortable.

“He says that he had to — they took over the village and asked people to prove they were . Anyone who couldn’t recite parts of the Quran properly or didn’t know the shahadah [Islamic declaration of faith] properly was shot. Anyone who didn’t join was shot. His cousin was an engineer before the war.”

I looked up at Khalid, who turned the hair dryer back on and murmured a few more sentences.

“He says the cousin escaped with his family. They are in Turkey now, but they are in hiding because if Daesh finds them they will kill him for leaving,” my husband translated, his brows furrowing as he took in what Khalid had said.

Living in Turkey, watching Syrian children in broken sandals beg for money, our family lives the news. Even some of the blissfully unaware adolescents at the school I work for have begun chattering about ISIS. We have all watched it rise from the ashes of Iraq and Syria, like some kind of mutated Godzilla, and begin it’s “Reign of Terror.”

No doubt about it, it’s scary. However, watching the coverage of ISIS on American (and European) news reminds me of the crippling fear and paranoia best demonstrated in Harry Potter books. It’s as though we have finally met a PR-savvy version of Voldemort who, rather than evaporating people with a PG green light, sends you body parts like a perverted serial killer. And we, the global public and Americans, in particular, swoon and sigh and carry on so convincingly — it seems we are the real victims.

Meanwhile, Khalid calmly styles my hair while his cousin is hiding somewhere in southern Turkey with his toddler and his wife.

If ISIS is a terrorist group with slick videos, is it not somewhat ironic that we are all terrified? Should we not refuse to watch its nauseating crimes and, instead, unite in memory of the people who are actually victimized? If I were more cynical, I would wonder if American news outlets are in league with the gun lobby.

Instead of alerts and guns and conjecture, should we not take more responsibility for our government and its holding up of Middle Eastern dictators who, by the way, also burned people alive? Or our political decisions, which have created not one, but two monsters we cannot contain? Or our drones program, which kills civilians quite regularly and is consistently pointed to as a catalyst for radicalization?

Rather than arguing on cable television, should we not unite in the service of an entire generation of Syrian and children? Unless, of course, those children don’t matter because they are Muslim? Or, just more generally, brown?

Although he is, of course, not a poster child, Khalid’s resilience while helplessly watching his country being ripped apart is humbling. His unwillingness to cower or point fingers is a glaring lesson to not only Western media, but to the rest of us. This week, smiling shyly, he told us he had met a beautiful Syrian woman he wanted to marry as soon as he found a better-paying job. His willingness to look forward, even with nothing, astonishes me.

In Turkey, a local proverb says the stallions fight, but it is the grass that is crushed. The banners of our newspapers say ISIS in capital letters but the Syrians (and Iraqis and Libyans and others) drowning in the Mediterranean to escape war? They are footnotes, their countries and their stories crushed beneath our fear-mongering and political posturing unless a gracious celebrity reminds us otherwise.

Khalid, meanwhile, tears up if you ask him about the past. He remembers his village in the gloaming: prayer calls and flowers and tea in the afternoons. “It was the most beautiful country in the world,” he said to us, quietly untangling my hair. “I just want to go home again.”

*[Khalid is a pseudonym.]Ìę

We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your is tax-deductible. Join over 400 people to become a or you could choose to be a .

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:ÌęÌę/Ìę

The post My Cousin Joined ISIS appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

Visiting classrooms in sometimes feels like an exercise in redundancy. Almost every room looks exactly the same: lines of wooden desks facing forward; students piled on top of one another scribbling in notebooks; bells; tea; teachers writing on chalkboards; and students responding in chorus.

While politicians and nonprofit organizations throw around “” as a key phrase, and entire conferences are held on the need for expanding access and quality, the truth of education comes down to individual classrooms. In Tanzania, as in almost all sub-Saharan countries, every classroom symbolizes a flawed system: a one-size-fits-all, school-in-a-box, results-based system. Clearly, this system cannot and will not produce the literate, creative, problem-solving employees and entrepreneurs so necessary for success in the global economy.

A Global ConversationÌę

It would be unfair to limit the issue to sub-Saharan Africa, in general, or Tanzania, in particular. The global conversation on education currently revolves around test preparation, standardization and use of corporate models in schools.

Despite ’s surprising upset in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) — and the clear evidence showing Finnish success as a factor of highly-trained teachers, small schools and economic equity — the accepted test preparation orthodoxy still guides much education reform globally. Pasi Sahlberg, in hisÌęÌęon Finland’s system, calls this school of thought the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM).

Ironically, in and the , where school systems still fail marginalized or those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, this method of reform has been critiqued because itÌęsuppresses Ìęand, even more dramatically, aÌę“death valley of education.”ÌęCertainly, the skills a successful orÌęÌępossesses require flexibility, creativity and critical thinking skills, and cannot be fostered in a system that only focuses on obedience and one avenue to success.

The Sub-Saharan Story

Sub-Saharan African education swung with the pendulum of global education, and continues to do so with its attempt to adopt the outcome-based GERM principles. In the mid-1990s onward, countries such as Namibia and South Africa adopted seemingly egalitarian learner-centered methodologies and competency-based curricula.

Loosely based on Jean Piaget’s idea of scaffolding for learners and Lev Vgotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development,Ìęlearner-centeredÌę focuses on the constructivist idea that knowledge is created and employs many different teaching techniques to reach students at their starting level and build knowledge. Competency-basedÌę, as an extension, mark students based on how well they master tasks rather than how much they can memorize. Ideally, sub-Saharan African countries would implement learner-based education that would result in outcome-based results; logically, better education would lead to better results.

Unfortunately, despite the democratic feel of learner-based curricula and its embrasure by sub-Saharan Africa, the programs largely failed. In , where the Danish-guided life sciences curriculum implemented in 1991 served as an initial model of learner-centered pedagogy, the failure resulted from a lack of understanding and difficulties bridging the gap between classroom realities and lofty educational ideas. In , similar issues with understanding and implementation resulted in the failure of new educational policies.

The issues with learner-centered education stemmed almost entirely from the lack of attention to local contexts and cultures, as well as the educational reform needed. What policymakers and nonprofits forgot was the crucial need to educate the people conducting the change because they, too, were products of a system that still promoted rote learning and colonial mimicry.

In 1960, ’s well-documentedÌęadult literacy Ìępushed against existing mindsets, and presented a very real shift in paradigms rather than simply paying lip service to the same. Incidentally, Cuba now boastsÌę100% literacy Ìęand 100% school enrolment. A truly democratic and radical departure from traditional schooling has yet to occur in sub-Saharan Africa.

Current global education policy, and that in sub-Saharan Africa, largely reflects trends toward testing and accountability. For example, Tanzania’sÌę“Big Results Now”Ìę attempts to solve the issue of low school quality, overcrowding and lack of teacher initiative by “strengthening accountability, introducing the right incentives, and conducting meaningful assessments within the primary and secondary education systems.” This reads almost as a verbatim reproduction of — largely unsuccessful — policies in Britain and the US, just as the learner-based methodologies of the 1990s reflected progressive educational reforms in those in the 1980s.

China’s investments and the youth bulge in sub-Saharan Africa have drawn attention to the continent again. In order to create successful educational systems that foster entrepreneurial and soft skills, sub-Saharan African schools will need to engage in a complex and complete departure from traditional models.

One cannot help but think of policymakers, nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and politicians circled around a Jack in the Box, winding it up and jumping in surprise when the same clown pops out every time. One might also smirk at the oddity of recycling unsuccessful reforms from one country to another and expecting new outcomes. Perhaps a bit of the humor disappears, however, when one realizes that actual children and families fighting to better their circumstances rely on these schools and ideologies.

Solutions for Healthier Economies

Recently, China’s investments and the youth bulge in sub-Saharan Africa have drawn attention to the continent again. In order to create successful educational systems that foster entrepreneurial and soft skills, sub-Saharan African schools will need to engage in a complex and complete departure from traditional models.

Certainly, everyone — including teachers, business owners, government officials and nonprofit/NGO policymakers — is responsible for improving school quality. Unfortunately, much time seems to be spent hiring consultants, bringing in nonprofit or NGO workers, engaging in data collecting and evaluation, and writing detailed, analytical plans for improvement. Perhaps, as a first step toward changing and improving classrooms, more time could be spent watching teachers in classrooms and working on teacher education programs.

Encouraging — or forcing, as the case may be — local education officials to engage with their schools and communities would be a solid start. If accountability is established for teachers, then certainly it should also be established for the individuals responsible for teacher support. Rooting out endemic corruption and individuals in comfortable government jobs with very little productivity are clear first steps.

The evidence from successful countries such as Finland and Cuba — and even the systems in the US — show that, indisputably, teacher education is the foundation of a successful system. Well-paid, well-educated teachers with job security and sympathetic, democratic leadership perform better across the board in any country and with any population of students. Yet in sub-Saharan Africa, teachers are often underpaid and work with massive student populations with very little training. The logical step would be to provide as firm a foundation as possible for teachers with continual opportunities for further learning.

Furthermore, pendulum-swinging educational theories tossed down from the wastebasket of developed countries need to be critically addressed. At its most nefarious, the current method of developing educational structures seems to smack of neocolonialism. At its best, it is simply inadequate and paternalistic. Despite the desire of development organizations and donors for quick fixes, the obvious need is for gradual, grassroots reform led by local people.

Deeper thinking and investment by local stakeholders are absolutely required, along with suggestions — rather than dictation — by donors and development organizations. Without this, schools in sub-Saharan Africa will continue to sing the same silly song and pop out the same silly clown every time.

While a combination of different educational theories would probably work best for any country, this requires — once again — well-educated, competent teachers and administration teams who can implement while accommodating for local cultures. Asking countries to reform schools without understanding local contexts, and without providing pre-education to explain the methodologies thoroughly, is akin to expecting an English-speaker to learn Swahili instantaneously.

In addition, the rigid mindset promulgated in much of sub-Saharan Africa during colonialism still lingers in classrooms, and prevents the development of free spaces for students to think creatively, innovate and problem-solve. Teachers in Tanzania, for example, often mention to this author they are concerned that, if students talk too much, the teacher will lose their authority. Canes are still used as a disciplinary strategy, intimidating students to the point where even if the teacher allows questions, students refuse to speak. Another solid step toward reform would be introducing, within the developed teacher education systems, simple classroom strategies and inquiry methods to allow increased student autonomy and better disciplinary structures.

A good teacher knows that control is shared in a flexible, discursive classroom; indeed, these practices are reflected in some of the loftiest international curricula, including the International Baccalaureate, AP programs and the A-Level system in England. It would behoove policymakers and international development organizations to also allow shared decision-making with their schools, teachers and administrators to set an example countermanding the patriarchal and post-colonial systems.

Finally, in addition to governments and nonprofits/NGOs creating solid opportunities for teacher and administration education, work needs to be done in collaboration with businesses. While education is often perceived as an ideal — a symbol of a cultured individual — in reality, it provides a passport to economic advancement for most people. Expecting each child to perform on the same test ignores the diversity of talents, and the fact that some children are simply not good at tests.

While few want to dirty their hands with talk of vocational and technical education, it is a necessary conversation. Governments would do well to examineÌęGermany’s successful system. Even without vocational education, it is logical to encourage dialogue between businesses and schools in a flexible, skilled labor market. When schools understand what kinds of employees businesses want, the system can be better reformed to provide internships, a more relevant curriculum and training for future jobs.

This would also remove the complete focus on testing; thus allowing “failing” students who have other skills to flourish in their chosen vocation and contribute to the economy.

The Same Silly Clown

A confusing array of recycled methodologies and reforms have hindered sub-Saharan Africa’s education from success. A need for concentrated, grassroots reforms that educate teachers, administrators and local educational officials is evident. Education is often used as a panacea for all ills a country faces but, truthfully, a good school system can actually improve life for everyone.

Unfortunately, facilitating the creation of this kind of system necessitates not only a departure from norms, but also solutions beyond simple importation and test-oriented goals. Deeper thinking and investment by local stakeholders are absolutely required, along with suggestions — rather than dictation — by donors and development organizations. Without this, schools in sub-Saharan Africa will continue to sing the same silly song and pop out the same silly clown every time.

*[Continue the conversation in a Webinar and concurrent Twitter chat convened by Ashoka’s Future Forward initiative, in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation. The initiative finds, supports and accelerates innovative solutions for youth employment in Africa, and will be holding a live panel conversation and concurrent Twitter chat on October 9 at 12:30pm (ET) using the hashtags #AfricaYouthFwd and #SocEntChat.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

/

The post Jack in the Box: The Failure of Education in Sub-Saharan Africa appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

Several years ago, I visited al-Fattah School in one of Karachi’s underdeveloped areas. During the day, children sat at their desks in neat rows, crisp in their collared shirts, learning English from their Oxford University Press texts.

Hours later, benches replaced the desks and little girls donned white headscarves to join the boys, weaving back and forth while reciting the Qur’an. The morning teachers were mostly young women, but all of the afternoon staff was men.

“We try to give them a solid grounding in Islamic education and in Western education,” the headmistress explained. “It’s important to have both.”

Al-Fattah is one of the thousands of low-cost private schools springing up to join the plethora of Pakistani school offerings: English-medium, high-cost private schools; Urdu-medium government schools; and theÌęmadrassaÌęsystem schools.

The marketing advantage for low-cost private schools is that they ostensibly offer the same English-medium curriculums as higher-cost private schools, but at affordable rates for minimum wage earners.ÌęSome are now also offering a market alternative toÌęmadrassas: a curriculum that includes the loosely defined “Islamic Studies.” Any discussion of Pakistani education must involve the possibilities and pitfalls of this mushrooming system.

The History of Pakistani Schools

British colonial rulers formally introduced English-medium education into the Indian subcontinent for elite civil servants of the Empire, superimposing schools on a system already including traditionalÌęmadrassas. Notably, before gaining their current notoriety,Ìęmadrassasexisted as a tertiary system funded by charitable endowments.

Friction developed after the British suppression in 1835 when Arabic and Persian instruction — along with religious instruction — was banned in school. Two competing institutions, purporting two different ideologies, emerged as a result: the DeobandÌęmadrassaÌęDar-ul-Uloom, founded in 1867; and the Mohammaden Anglo-Oriental School (later Aligarh University), founded in 1875.

Aligarh posited that the Muslims of the subcontinent could learn the “Western” disciplines, particularly sciences, and integrate them with a traditional Islamic education while the Deoband model featured resistance to foreign education altogether. These ideas still remain an unresolved issue in Pakistani debate on education.

After independence, the national system of education existed in a mostlyÌęlaissez-faireatmosphere with a brief exception in 1971-77. In 1979, state-run schools were denationalized. Pakistanis will often blame this policy for the failure of the ensuing system. “We used to have a working system until they tore it apart,” one man told me.

The current system exists in a patchwork of competing ideologies and systems: Urdu vs English, government vs private, and Islam vs Western. Although the focus is often on themadrassaÌęsystem — now frequently funded by the oil-rich Gulf States and their brand of conservative Islam — in actuality the current madrassa systemÌęÌęof the population.

In contrast, the growing private sectorÌę,Ìęwith anotherÌęÌęout of school andÌęÌęschools. The increasing demand for education and lackadaisical government policies contribute to the trend of private schooling, with even the poorest parents attempting to enroll their child in an English-medium school.

The question becomes whether these schools can address the multiple schisms in Pakistani education as well as effectively educate children, or whether the schools are simply creating another insurmountable division in an already-schizophrenic society.

The Phenomenon of Low-cost Private schools

Low-cost private (LCP) schools in Pakistan range from 100-300 rupees per month ($1 to $3) and include such giants asÌęÌę(TCF). TCF, a Pakistani non-profit set up in 1995 in Karachi, maintainsÌęÌęacross Pakistan and strives to educate the poorest citizens.

In addition to these organized movements, many educational entrepreneurs found schools in Pakistan like al-Fattah. In many parts of Karachi, there are schools on every corner providing pre-primary to secondary education.

InÌę, the growth of the schools was documented as higher in rural and poverty-stricken areas, with test scores often higher and teacher absenteeism lower. Teaching staff are predominantly female due to the lower salaries provided for staff. TCF notes on its website that it employs 6,300 exclusively female teaching staff.

Low-cost private schools often sprung up in the wake of girls secondary colleges, because they had a source of educated young women to teach — although arguably the teachers do not necessarily obtain formal teacher education. This means that quality varies greatly across the board without much government attempt to regulate the output of such schools.

International agencies such as USAID, DFiD, and the World Bank, which put aÌęacross Pakistan, have conducted research to support and fund the private school trend, arguing that it is similar to the charter school movement in the United States and will “fill the gap” of educational access as well as “defang the Taliban.” In a best-case scenario, low-cost schools would provide economic opportunities and a local, West-friendly version of Islam to oppose fundamentalism.

The Challenges

LCP schools have been hailed by advocates such as James Tooley as the panacea for education in the developing world. Operating entirely under free market principles, such schools are encouraged because they provide, according to most international agencies, a way to “fix” education in the developing world and meet the Millennium Development Goals of Universal Primary Education and the Education For All aim.ÌęThis view ignores the rampant violence and corruption that can result from unfettered market forces and citizens, who are unable to cooperate due to schooling or language differences.

In Pakistan, powerful ethnic and religious parties limit the impact of schools by reducing job opportunities.Ìę, many out-of-school children, particularly boys, are not attending schools not for lack of access but because they believe the cost-benefit equation is not in their favor. Even if they go to school, they believe, they cannot bribe a political or ethnic connection to secure employment.

Ìęalso suggests that LCP schools vary greatly in quality from each other, with more expensive schools having slightly better books and resources.

As Diane Ravitch suggests, in any market situation there will always be winners and losers. Many of the children who attend the poorest of LCP schools are in the same situation as a government school child with limited capability to improve their situation. If they come from an ethnic group that is persecuted, their chances are further limited.

Although there is evidence to suggest that test scores in LCP schools are better, possibly due to better teacher attendance and face-time, higher test scores do not necessarily result in better chances for children. As the developed world has learned, test scores do not necessarily correlate to better job opportunities and an equitable society.

Another major issue is the gender divide thatÌęlow-cost privateÌęschools create. The LCP sector employs almost exclusively female staff, similar to the American system in the 1950s, because it pays lower wages while teaching is one of the few professions in which women are frequently allowed.ÌęAlthough this is a positive change, creating an environment where girls are safe to go to school and women are allowed to excel, it also limits opportunities for male employment.

, survival rates for boys in secondary private schools were far lower than for women — potentially creating a sector that educated and then employed its own products with very little advancement in professions outside the school. This means that boys in poor areas will receive less education than girls, resulting in households with a lower overall incomes and many boys employed as young as eight or nine.

The gendered divide is slightly troubling because theÌęmadrassaÌęsector employs almost exclusively male staff, although girls also attend. This could result eventually in the women of Pakistan largely excelling in “Western” academia, and a small but vocal group of men defending their “Islamic” values.

Although this is hyperbole, the fact that men are the religious authorities, with the odd exception such as Dr. Farhat Hashmi, means an Islam in Pakistan is allowed to exist largely devoid of female voices or scholars in the education sector. The situation for women in Pakistan is already fraught without the additional mantle of “Western instigators,” a very real issue especially with the presence of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Ignoring Pakistan’s basic identity as a Muslim country, along with 200 years of conflict over what this actually means, is rather simplistic. Addressing the fact that the Deoband vs Aligarh trend could, if left unchecked, veer into a gender divide is a necessary conversation.

The Possibilities

Pakistan and its schools are not without hope, however. LCP schools could arguably lead the forefront of educational change if the government would begin regulating them with charters and grants, as they are regulated in many Western countries.

It is imperative that the Pakistani government takes a stand in terms of education rather than simply allowing the system to grow unchecked. Funding and regulation from the government, perhaps better nuanced than simply test scores, could result in a hybrid government/private system that could flourish and provide a more organic education for Pakistan’s children, thus reflecting local context while still allowing standardized education and systems. This could even encourage a more cohesive and thorough democratic system, the starry-eyed hope of many Western policymakers.

Furthermore, the Deoband vs Aligarh or Islamic education vs Western education could perhaps be addressed by the same system as it already is in places such as al-Fattah. The issue is that theÌęDars-i-NizamiÌęcurriculum used in manyÌęmadrassasÌęis the same as it was in the 19^thÌęcentury, while the conservative Islamic ideology of many Saudi-fundedÌęmadrassasÌęcreate a hotbed of fundamentalism.

In addition, theÌęmadrassasÌęare a bastion of male voices without the input of female scholars or staff. LCP schools could help resolve this issue by encouraging their female staff to not only introduce Islamic Studies, but to do it in a comprehensive fashion with a curricular reformation led by Islamic thinkers who are both relevant and current while still being considered “moderate.”

Introducing a coherent Islamic curriculum, not an outdated one or simple Qur’anic memorization, could possibly pick up the threads of the reform initiated by the Aligarh Movement or by the Islamization movement of the 1960s in Malaysia. Rather than simply transplanting, as with the Gulan schools, it would behoove the Pakistani government to introduce thoughtful Islamic materials and resources developed for the Pakistani context rather than let their LCP schools attempt to balance the increasing extremism of the TTP without help.

Finally, in order to truly serve the children shouting out their alphabet in Pakistani LCP schools, introducing advocacy and political entrepreneurship initiatives would assist in giving the very poor the ability to organize and have a voice. As Stephen Kosack notes in hisÌęÌęon education, governments are far more inclined to listen to voices when they are organized.

Without some kind of advocacy initiatives, the consistent top-down corruption that exists in Pakistan will continue unchecked, as will the ethnic politics and religious fundamentalism. In order to truly provide equitable education and employment opportunities, stabilize the country and the region, Pakistan needs to empower citizens who cannot speak to voice their own needs and better their own lives.

It is a testament to the people of Pakistan that children continue to walk to school every day despite bombs, fear mongering, and persecution of religious and ethnic minorities. One can only hope that the lawmakers responsible for Pakistan’s development eventually see the value of providing quality schools for every child rather than paying lip service to the Millennium Development Goals, while ignoring the reality of Pakistan’s educational sector.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy. Ìę

Photo Credit: Ìę/Ìę

The post Finding the Middle Ground: Secular and Religious Education appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.

In December, I hurriedly snapped a photo of five men at Qasim-ul-Uloom School in Karachi. Located in the ethnically volatile Orangi-town area, Qasim-ul-Uloom educates a diverse group of children: Pathan, Sindhi, Balochi, and Mohajir. Representatives from the ANP and MQM parties, both of whom control communities in Qasim-ul-Uloom’s catchment area, had been invited for the school’s award ceremony.

Statements and Reality

As an educationalist, my frequent visits to Karachi focused on providing what might help increase earnings potential for the poor: a solid education. Pakistan’s education statistics are, at best, dismal. Fortunately, this year’s crop of political candidates all promised reform. The PML-N party, Nawaz Sharif’s surprise comeback vehicle, unveiled a manifesto earlier in 2013 which would increase GDP spending on education to 2% from 4%, increase the literacy rate overall to 80%, and provide education for every child by 2020 “in line with international standards.” Imran Khan’s PTI, with arguably the most cohesive “Education Emergency Plan,” insisted they would increase spending on education to 5% with a provision for Urdu at the primary levels and standardized curricula. Even the MQM, a formidable player predominantly in Karachi, state in their manifesto that they would increase GDP spending on education to 5% and bring Urdu institutions up to par with English ones. Everyone seems to agree that education should be a “fundamental right of every citizen” and that it is the route to economic success for Pakistanis.

The problem seems to lie in the disjuncture between policy statements for greater Pakistan and the grassroots reality. While groups like the Citizens Foundation have successfully worked to provide education, it is a chicken and egg battle until the political Sharif-Bhutto-Hussein juggernauts resign and a Peace and Reconciliation Commission patches up three generations of wounds. Although Khan’s PTI leads the charge towards a less ethnically-driven Pakistan and poses itself as a force for hope and change — presumably channeling Obama’s 2008 campaign — it is still questionable whether the former cricket captain possesses the political acumen necessary for running the state.

Arguably, it is impossible to unravel the Gordian Knot of poverty in Karachi without considering the divisive nature of Pakistan’s ethnicity-based politics. Attempting to disentangle even the solitary issue of education leads to a nest of other slippery issues, almost all of them entwined with ethnicity: corruption, bribery, language hierarchies, and prestigious private schools with a select student population. In the election manifestos this year, there is an acute disengagement with the real issues surrounding educational access and economic development for Pakistan’s poorest citizens, especially those in Karachi.

According to the latest estimate, the literacy rate in Karachi stands at 65.5%. In the last decade, the PPP-run Sindh Education Board, responsible for Karachi’s government schools, has been criticized for the deteriorating standards of government schools, the increase in a low-fee private school industry, and the strange phenomenon of “ghost schools” — institutions which exist only on paper. In fact, Qasim-ul-Uloom was a ghost school before an NGO took over; hundreds of children now fill the auditorium where I stood last December, camera in hand, snapping photos of the school assembly.

I only remember that moment clearly because, five months later, two of the five men in my photo are dead. The one I knew personally, Rashid, was an ANP party member and the principal of The Nation School, also in Orangi. He died on March 30 in a hand grenade and gun attack on his school where several students were also injured. The Tehrik-i-Taliban party (TTP), a recent player on the political scene in Pakistan, claimed responsibility because of Rashid’s secular politics.

TTP may be a newcomer in Karachi politics, but such target killings have become the norm in Karachi; a story so redundant that newspapers now group target killings into one column. The turf war, steadily escalating since Zardari’s election, manifests itself in the flags and graffiti coloring the city’s ethnic ghettos and in the obscenely large political portraits decorating the streets. When the MQM’s Mustafa Kamal controlled the city as the mayor, his “I Own Karachi” initiative claimed to have opened 451 school buildings with vocational and technical arms. Since Kamal’s departure, very little data exists on the development of schools and vocational institutions in Karachi to provide job opportunities for its citizens.

A Never-Ending Cycle of Poverty

Just as Karachi is a mini-Pakistan, Orangi is a microcosm of Karachi: a patchwork of distinctly colored ethnic neighborhoods trapped in distinct poverty cycles. For example, a case study on school disaffection in 2009 concluded that the primary reason mohajir teenage boys leave school is a perceived lack of opportunity. Not because there are no schools available — Orangi has an entire cottage school industry — or even because of perceived inferiority of schooling, but because they view their own ethnic identities as completely detrimental for securing a job. At age six or seven, boys begin working, spending hours a day stitching intricate embroidery for ladies’ suits. Earning less than $4 a week, they attempt to pay family wedding debt, medical bills, and other accrued expenses. The catch-22: there are no jobs available in Orangi and the boys lack ethnic connections to secure them a job in outside areas.  Even the simplest cost-benefit formula would determine that schooling is irrelevant because job hunting is a factor of who you know or who you can bribe.

This means a never-ending cycle of poverty for hundreds of young boys, perpetuated by lack of access and educational gate-keeping by the ethnic and political elite. On the other hand, divorcing politics from ethnic ties seems impossible when so many of the parties align with ethnic loyalties: the MQM is for the mohajirs, the ANP the Pathans, the BNP the Baluchis, and so on. There exists ethnicity-linked capability deprivation for many Pakistanis who speak the wrong language or come from the wrong region because their political affiliate is not in power.

It also means, statistically, that there are critical masses of uneducated young men ripe for recruitment into the more violent arms of all the political parties — arms that reach out particularly to those looking for validation and identity while trapped in poverty. Thus, the chicken and egg question: how can education stop violence when violence prevents education? While doing field work, I hid while dozens of young men, upon receiving text messages about the assassination of a party leader, jumped on motorcycles with loaded Kalashnikovs and sped off to murder over one hundred people. In the past five years, Karachi’s instability has escalated to an alarming degree, often resulting in the suspension or inability to complete any research or trainings. Qasim-ul-Uloom school is currently closed, as are most schools in Karachi, because of the extreme upsurge in violence surrounding election day.

Shoot or Read?

Benjamin Franklin once said democracy cannot exist without an educated populace. Franklin’s heart might swell with joy at children trudging to school every morning in Karachi, uniforms dusty and packs swinging. Their little steps are a constant, except on the days when schools are shuttered, teachers are dead, or tires are burning in the streets. Even subtracting the issue of school quality, it is impossible not to cringe at the lip service paid to "education for all" goals in Karachi (and larger Pakistan), while ignoring the difficulties inherent in educating a populace living in what is now a conflict zone.

Even if one subtracts further, eliminating the issue of ethnic violence, there is still the issue of providing education when a certain percentage of the population is disenfranchised. If value is constantly taken away from education, despite it being hailed as the panacea for democracy and for conflict, it leaves nothing but irrelevant schools for a disaffected population of children. 

Without transparency and accountability in Islamabad, and real investment in the education system, the unfortunate truth is that the ethnic war’s casualties will continue to hinder opportunities for employment and schooling. Children grow in a city with politics so brutally divisive and corrupt that young boys decide, at the age of six, that their prospects are hopeless. Clearly, parents in Karachi’s poorest areas still strive to educate their children — this is apparent in the rise of low-fee private schooling. But when children internalize the impossibility of their situation, schooling becomes a utopian ideal rather than a tool for practical development. Promises of political candidates mean little without definitive and purposeful intervention in both the political and economic arenas affected by ethnicity.

It is not surprising that young men choose to shoot at each other rather than go to school. What is surprising is the resilience and hope of the Pakistani people who came out to vote despite the apparent hopelessness of their situation and even despite the gun-slinging TTP.

A Safer World for Children

If I look closely at the photo I took in December 2012, Rashid is looking into the camera with exhaustion in his eyes. Colleagues on the ground tell me he had received dozens of threats to his life. His death is another number on the news but a massive loss for the Pathan community he served. A progressive man by nature, Rashid advocated for his female teachers, convincing fathers from the émigré Pathan communities to allow daughters to work and bringing his female staff to receive training in English. Whether his affiliation was predominantly to the Pathans or to Pakistanis never seemed to matter; he just helped when and where it was possible.

It is Karachi’s shame that men like Rashid die there every day, murdered by others who see more value in destruction than in growth. It is Pakistan’s shame that its political parties discuss the importance of education, even while high-level politicians such as London-based Altaf Hussein continue to encourage the divisions between groups. While we can fete 2013 as the year Pakistan transitions successfully from one democratic government to another, the human cost of democracy should be a cause for humility, not celebration.

Continuing the legacy of men like Rashid means working across party lines, despite tension and fear, to protect the children and youth of Pakistan from the forces of conflict around them. It is as simple as understanding that peace and reconciliation is necessary for the ethnic-cum-political parties and that the layers of ethnic influence on Pakistan’s political scene need to be addressed openly. Providing valid prospects for the young men and women living in abject poverty hinges on addressing these causal issues, and not on simply listing an increase in GDP investment or building more school buildings.

The question that now arises is how the new government will handle reforms in Karachi and greater Pakistan, and whether they will continue to ignore the prerequisites for a coherent system. It is impossible to dismiss the hope after watching triumphant voters, that educational investment, cross-party reconciliations, and an accountability system can still build a solid infrastructure for Pakistan to regain its spiritual and economic energy. It is impossible not to implement these changes and ignore the hunger of Pakistani parents, regardless of ethnic background, for a safer world for their children.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔčÏ’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Pakistan: The Uneasy Tie Between Educational Reform and Violence appeared first on 51łÔčÏ.