Jackson Free Press

Growing impatient, her teacher walked down the hall to a first-grade classroom and requested me. I did not know what was going on. When the teacher asked me to read the word, the scene was clear. She wanted to show the girl that I, a first-grade student, could read the word that she, a third-grader, could not.

The girl's face showed both humiliation and acceptance. Her eyes looked heavy; they were seeking a place to hide. And they were the only indicator of her pain.

After reading the word, the teacher told me to write the word "donkey" on her forehead. The girl accepted the marking without resistance. The teacher was satisfied, and the students amused. I did not feel anything then; I was only 5. But I remember the hurt in her eyes and, even more, her helpless readiness to receive punishment.

For the class, it was a comedy, and we were the main characters. She was the ugly villain, and I was the beautiful princess. She was the trash can that most people threw their ugliness inside, and I was the smart student that represented their rigid educational ideologies. But we were both puppets. I do not know what happened to her, but I grew up afraid to be like her. But more than fear, I feel guilt. Her eyes never leave my mind.

I have been exposed to many hurtful experiences like this in my country, Yemen. So I try not to allow myself to be wrong, which I now know is impossible.

I have seen people in my country severely punish others who made mistakes. As a result, people are afraid to admit their mistakes, blaming others instead.

If we build our lives upon such an unhealthy philosophy, we will suffer from many other unhealthy qualities such as denial, blaming others and living against our will.

Our nature is a river, and we waste our time and effort to make its course go the opposite of where it was intended. A culture that drives against human nature will result in deformed humanity.

Still, I am a creation of that culture. For me, a mistake announces that I am not a good person. My upbringing makes it hard to believe that mistakes are a way to goals, that the more mistakes we make, the better we become.

I do not want to be a part of hurting any individual. It takes so much to forget my childhood experiences. After my father's death, many bad things happened to me. I told myself, "I will never hurt any person in this life." That immature decision meant that I decided to be cruel toward myself, to not be hard on others. But I lacked self-forgiveness and self-love.

Unfortunately—and not just in my country—punishment is a higher priority than forgiveness. A child cannot walk without falling many times. But too often we assume that a kid will walk right away, and if he falls, that means he is stupid.

Intolerance for women's mistakes is exaggerated 100 times in Yemen. If a girl makes a mistake, she will not be excused or forgiven for the rest of her life; the woman's tongue is paralyzed—emotionally and physically—standing in front of a court when the audience, the judge, the lawyers, the prosecutors and public opinion are against her. She is not allowed to defend herself. Women are blamed even if we do not make a mistake. If a woman is raped or divorced, she is punished.

The worst kind of oppression is when we start to believe what the oppressors say. Surely, this continuous blame leads us to internalize what we have been told. This happened to me when two men at Jackson State University harassed me and kept asking me for a date. A voice inside me kept telling me that it was my fault. The voice was so persistent and hurting.

I want to live in a more peaceful place, where we can share our voices. I have realized that I have a beautiful voice that people want to hear. When I published an article about the hard situation of Arab women in the Blue & White Flash at JSU, I realized that my thoughts are valuable. However, it is hard to get rid of the violent drumming telling me I am wrong.

Coming to the States was a necessity for me to be able to think clearly without facing the aggressive power of the Arab culture. I am like a survivor from a wreck, but I do not want to run, leaving others stuck there, alone. I want to cure my past wounds, to help myself be stronger in order to stretch my hands out to my own country.

Kawkab al-Thaibani is a reporter at The Yemen Observer newspaper in Yemen. Al-Thaibani recently completed a semester at Jackson State University, funded and supervised by the U.S. State Department's NESA Undergraduate Exchange Program. She interned for a brief period with the Jackson Free Press.

Previous Comments

ID

75744

Comment

Thank you for sharing your story, Kawkab. When I published an article about the hard situation of Arab women in the Blue & White Flash at JSU, I realized that my thoughts are valuable. I would like to know how JSU students responded to the article.

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2007-12-28T09:50:03-06:00