Think twice

Think twice.
Avoid useless gander,
Don't be a lost wander
With no goals on his list.
Thoughts are catalysts,
Explosive reaction, Immediate action, Canalized emotion... Blocked confusion.
Deep cerebral activity, shifting tragedy.
Think twice, your brain is a free device.

Same-sex marriage and its implications for the respect of difference and diversity within society

 

The Western world has considerably changed. My country has considerably changed. We have apparently become convinced, for the most part, that sex and gender no longer matter, that the feminine and the masculine are the very same.

In February 2013, the UK and France passed a law to change the institution of marriage which was initially supposed to be a contract binding together a man and a woman, the two elements necessary to the creation of another human being, male or female.

Now, marriage is no longer the union of a couple, but of pairs too. Yes, semantically it makes a difference, at least in the French language. A couple is a combination of two different elements, (often masculine and feminine) and a pair a combination of two similar elements (pair of scissors, pair of trousers, and so on.)

Therefore, from now on, French law considers that gender no longer has relevance, that masculine and feminine do not exist, and that two women and two men are just the same as a man and a woman. And this, despite the fact that science will never prove, not even support such claims. Now, you marry one person to another person, regardless of their sex, regardless of their gender.

There is no differentiation between the sexes and between genders, they are all the same. However they are still highly unequal. Women are still paid less for the same work, are still doing more housework than men and still surfer more violence than man (and that just the most cliché and basic social injustices).

I would have loved for all these government to be less demagogic and more pragmatic. What do we really need to build equality between the sexes? Same-sex marriage? That’s what you think? For all that I know, such useless law does not even strengthen equality between two men and two women. Instead, I would have loved to see them claim back the rule of law, the active implementation of all the brilliant laws that have been made to enhance gender equality, to protect the oppress, to share the wealth and promote social justice all these laws that still remain poorly enforced. Now, we can more about silly and useless laws that for months distract our parliaments from the real issues, while also taking away the attention of the general public from what really matters. What’s wrong with us?

On top of it, it makes me feel that children are now even more considered as items and mere merchandise in our societies.  I am saying this because I have never been a big fan of growing humans in test-tubes in order to merely give satisfaction to the individualist humans who cannot accept the fact they cannot have children. As if people were saying “It’s my right to have children and no one can take this away from me...” Here goes the claim of the selfish individualist, the empty consumption-driven individual who makes up our “modern” and “civilized” societies.

But let us get back to the implications of the confusion around same-sex marriage... On the one hand, the government, and (apparently?) a majority within Western society, consider that sex and gender no longer matter, that despite being male and female, it is in fact all the same, even though they remains highly unequally treated across societies and cultures worldwide.

However, on the other hand, other parts of society, often the conservative parts of society, the right-winged parts of the society and the religious parts of society have a problem with this and refuse to accept that sexes and genders are the same. These parts of society also reveal interesting facts.  

Indeed, these various conservative parts are also the ones that call Muslims backward and unjust to women, and who want to see Muslims shackled and prevented from expressing their identities and from performing their acts of worships and other rituals. Yet, Muslims are considered as highly conservative regarding same-sex marriage, thus having more in common with those who reject them.

Conservatives believe that a family unit is composed of a couple able (or not) to conceive children without a third person entering the unit. They believe that a man and a woman give balance to a family unit. In France in particular, when a couple gets married they receive a “livret de famille”, a family notebook, which proves that marriage is more than a civil union/partnership, it is the foundation of the family unit.

The usual argument against this claim is that a pair of men or a pair of women may be fitter to raise a kid than a man and a woman. Of course, all humans regardless of their sex are different (psychologically and intellectually for instance) and some may completely fail as parents. But that’s really not what’s important here, and not what I am here to discuss.

The point I am trying to make here is that those who have been fighting Muslims for voicing out loud their belief that men and women are different, are now in the streets claiming the very same belief as Muslims. Indeed, please remember that French Muslims, and most Muslims in the West, consider that men and women are not the same, but they are equal. They can reach the very same intellectual level, the very same spiritual level.

Nevertheless, even though they may even experience the same range of emotions, or the psychological problems, we all know that, for the most part, men and women have different ways of experiencing, of feeling, of coping, etc. And that is due to physiological and biological mechanisms which are uncontrollable parameters, as well as due to the way the society we grow up in constructs us and upon which we have hardly any control, especially as a child.   

To conclude, what I would like to stress is that Muslims and many non-Muslims in the West have more in common than they assume, so please, just stop the hate on both sides. In addition, it is important for me to clearly voice that I do not believe men and women are the same. They are not and will never be, gender sameness should be considered a myth. However, men and women deserve to be treated equally, but I am referring to an equality that acknowledges and respects their differences.

France and Diversity: Blind to the lack of acceptance?

I got offended by a co-worker the other day.

Took me a while to calm myself down and stop feeling angry inside. In order to get this out of my system I had to write it down. Writing... what a great way to evacuate unpleasant feelings!

The co-worker who upset me, a lady, joined (uninvited) a conversation I was having with a freshly arrived English teacher (a newbie like me). I was politely asking him how he was holding up considering the girl who had the job just before him did not last a week. Yes, teaching can be real tough for some people... tougher than it looks.

The lady started asking about our respective area of studies. When she asked me, I told her I was still a student and we ended up talking about my thesis. She first asked me why I chose this topic. I explained that I chose it because France has very interesting/strange ways of dealing with its minorities. I continued and explained that in France government and institutions (as well as the general public) tend to dislike the idea of communities, particularly religious ones. They refuse the concept of diversity, and refuse to deal with the reality of diversity in “a friendly manner”, for instance they chose to make laws against them, such as the headscarf ban... Such attitude showed that in France we are far from the acceptance and respect minorities can get in countries like the US, UK or Canada.

She first said that she was unaware of the fact that Muslim woman couldn’t wear their headscarf freely... (um, really?). She then strongly disagreed with my statement, because she said that she was married with an African man who would entirely disagree with my statement too (and that was just the weirdest justification).

My new co-worker took my side and started to talk about integration and assimilation. But the lady still had a problem with it. In an attempt to explicate in a “simple” way the problem with France and diversity, I said that in order to do be considered as fully integrated, or rather, assimilated, Muslims in France should drink wine and eat pork. That was very cliché but I thought it explained the point in a straightforward manner.

She replied that wine was good and that “Dans le cochon tout est bon!” (We use everything but the squeal /oink). And then she asked a question that was not exactly related to my work:  “Why aren't Muslims eating pork?” When I told her it was about convictions, she was not satisfied and added: “You must have asked them” – after that it was clear she did not understand the subject of my research, and assumed she knew better than me what my work was about.

When I answered, I explained it was not important to understand why. That it was about freedom of expression and respect of the other people convictions and identities. She answered "Well good, good, I can see you've learned your lesson but what is the fundamental, logical reason being it?" (See the disdain here?)

So I told her that Muslim do this out of faith and belief, no matter the various “logical” reasons one could find to this particular practice. She clearly could not accept the idea because for her having faith and acting on personal conviction was not enough for someone to do something. She even added that if it was true it was “scary".

What else could have I said after that aside for “Sorry got to go, have a class...”? There was no way the conversation would go anywhere if the simple idea that not eating pork was a habit made out of an order that the faithful believer considers divine sounded ridiculous and scary to her.

Why can’t she understand that it is not about understanding but respecting? For both the faithful and for her?

Anyway, I had reached a dead end. And the funny thing is that she proved that I was right to tell her that France has problems accepting diversity. Indeed, her condescending remarks towards my answers, and her general lack of respect in her attitude, strongly demonstrated that she was not that tolerant. Marrying a Black man or an Asian lady doesn’t make a person tolerant or respectful of other cultures or religions – let this be clear. It is not about skin colour. It’s about respecting other people’s belief and not ridicule them for expressing their difference. Try to understand that these people can be the very same colour as you, can be born in the very same country as you and call themselves the same as you: FRENCH.

Anyway, my point is: French people are often uninformed, yet condescending. By acting like she did, she just demonstrated my point and she did not even realise it. Consequently, I will not discuss any of my business with anyone else on the workplace because I don’t want to know the limit of my co-workers open-mindedness, and I really don’t want any unnecessary tension. That was the very first and the very last time I discuss something that was unrelated to teaching or students with a co-worker.

Eid in the attic... Women & the mosque.

 

As a French Muslim woman you may find yourself in unwanted and uncomfortable situations more than you’d want, especially when you are out there, surrounded by people who ignore what the practice of your faith requires. I guess that’s fine, you just learn how to juggle it.

But really, you just shouldn’t feel like that when you are going to your local mosque. Well, if you are lucky enough to have one not too far from your place of residence that has enough room and accepts women.

It was a day of joy and celebration; it was Eid al-Adha 2012. It’s on the 10^th day of Dhul Hijjah, the latest month of the Islamic year, the month of Hajj. Eid al-Adah is not a surprise event, where you only know for sure it is happening the night before like Eid al-Fitr. You have 9 days to prepare it, to make your mosque ready to welcome the abundant rush of worshippers. 

I don’t really go to my local mosque. I usually attend the one in the next big city because I love the Imam there. But, when it comes to celebrations, early morning celebrations during a weekday, with the thick and hectic traffic you can get, I make the strategic choice to attend the local mosque (yeah the mosque is local but still a 15 to 20 minutes drive away from my place in a fluid traffic).

I arrived at the mosque 5 minutes before prayer, yeah, I had hoped to arrive before, but I had underestimated the traffic and was surprised to see the council had started roadwork right on the route that is usually considered a shortcut to avoid the busy, annoyingly slow moving city centre.

Our only local mosque is still under construction. Well, the main part is done, but it’s reserved for men. So women are always staying in the old original building of the site: a old house used as storage for all sorts of things (including women). It’s been like that for a while and I’ve  been used to it. Consequently, I was not annoyed about our praying conditions.

But, there was a large flow of women, way more that for the previous Eid. It’s nice, heart-warming to see that many sisters… expect there was not enough room and it was raining so there was no way we could pray outside, and no one had actually thought of clearing enough space indoors just in case…

Women were agglutinated at the entrance of the house, trying to get in the main room. As we were not moving, one lady called me saying there was room upstairs. I climbed up, following her and accompanied by another woman and her son. We arrived upstairs, in a room that was definitely not supposed to welcome us. Low ceiling, upside-down tables, chairs, wheelchairs, an old wooden cupboard, piles of outdated computer towers and all sort of mats, old and dirty pieces of rugs (which I suspected to be leftovers from the men’s area), and plastic mats looking like the ones we normally use outdoors, and to give the finish touch, a broken plastic clock hanging down the wall. As I was helping to clear out and lay the dirty pieces of rugs supposed to welcome our foreheads and noses, I really felt like I was up in somebody’s attic. 

The small attic was quickly filled by dozens of women, I was pushed at the back of the room. I prayed my greeting to the mosque… attic, with a lot of animation and movement around me as well as some head to butt action, pushing me back further, until I was completely stuck my back against a pile of chairs. Needless to say it was real hard to focus.

We had been sitting down for about 5 min when one of the ladies spoke up asking how we would know when the prayer would start… Yes…Ummm... None of us had thought of that. There were no speakers in the attic and the only window had a brick wall vis-à-vis, we couldn't hear a thing. Yeah, we had no clue what was going on. We couldn’t hear the men chanting and the takbir truly is the best part about Eid prayers…  Once we slowly came to realised we were completely ostracised, some women started to get up and leave.

At that moment, I felt irritated and tears pooled in my eyes. It was supposed to be a special moment, supposed to make you feel belonging to your community, a yearly moment of worship amongst your brothers and sisters in Islam that helps you feel less lonely, that increases the bond between us. I was starting to really feel angry at the complete lack of organisation, of anticipation from the mosque's committee, from the sisters who should have known better the women’s area needed to be prepared. They had 9 days to prepare the place, make some space, clean up, and decorate… IT’S A CELEBRATION! I was pissed.

The attic was almost empty. Resigned, I got up, grabbed my bag and walked towards the door.  At that moment, four women got in line and started to do takbir. I turned around and quickly joined the line throwing my bag against the wall in excitement, not carrying about where and how it would lend. We prayed. During the prayer, I felt relieved and tears pearled down my cheeks, releasing my quickly built up disappointment/anger. At least!

When we finished, as I was saying the salaams, I realised the room had filled up behind us and that it was the brave sister who had led me upstairs who had taken the initiative to led us in prayer. I was in admiration. I felt so grateful toward her; I looked at her and beamed. I also remembered me throwing my bag, it was now far behind me, next to some sister, I turned and leaned over with all my body length to get it. As we all got up, I felt pleased and started greeting my unknown sisters, wishing them a happy Eid, kissing them and smiling at their kind words and prayers.

Unexpectedly, in a matter of minutes, Eid prayer went from a complete letdown to an intimate and blissful moment. God had worked His magic in the attic.

Allahu akbar wa alhamdulilah. 

Insanity The Asylum - Review

My stay at the asylum is over... is it?

Honestly the first 2 weeks I enjoyed it, I was into the workouts and into the hype, despite a couple of annoying things:

•  you need a lot of space, way more than I thought and it's a bit disappointing for a home workout. Here we have a decent living room but many times I found myself forced to move the ladder around so that I can complete the moves without having to mind furnitures. Obviously you are loosing quite some time and concentration trying to find which way you need to place the ladder according to the range of movement you'll be doing and the size of your body.
•  you need to be prepared because Shaun T doesn't stop - the pace goes fast. Thankfully you have 'stop', 'rewind' and 'play' options on your TV or laptop. Seriously sometimes, especially at the beginning when not familiar with the moves, I had to use them because I needed to see what was the proper form - something that Shaun T insists much on. One option is to watch the workout before you do it and prepare the moves so you don't spend time looking up your screen to see if your form is correct - especially fast workouts like Vertical Plyo or Speed and Agility.  

Anyway, so I was entering my 3rd week and my second round of Game Day (Day 19)... and BAAM! Bored. I didn't even want to complete the session. I found some of the moves a bit silly and not really engaging my body that much. I still completed the 30 days, but I did more of my own stuff on the side, just so as I get to ache and all. So my results are not reading only Asylum workout but my own stuff as well.

Don't misread this review, the Asylum is a great workout with some challenging moves and progressions that I will keep on using in my workouts. And if I do another round I will not do 30 days, probably only half of it - so has not to get bored. 

Here are my fit test results:

	Day 1	Day30
Agility Heisman (Rotations)	6	7
In & Out Ab Progression	25	32
Lat Push-Ups	13	20
Mountain Climber Switch Kicks	54	57
Agility Shoulder Taps (Rotations)	4, 5	5,75
X Jumps	29	34
Moving Push-Ups (Rotations)	2	3
Agility Lateral Shuffle (Rotations)	11,5	14,5
Agility Bear Crawl (Rotations)	8	9

There is an improvement - of course. But what I am also happy with and that the table doesn't show is how the form is definitely much better on all the moves.

So if you want a challenge and you have space in your home - try the Asylum!

Stuck in the middle of a PhD… how to keep it together?

"Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it."
                ..............Plato

Recently I have been trying to stay focus on my work, meaning that work is what surrounds me the most. For the past two months my social life has been nonexistent. 

When you’re a PhD candidate, depression is always around the corner, no matter how much of a happy person you are. I have known many PhD candidates these past years and believe me it is not easy. You feel lost because you wonder where you’re going way too often. You feel useless/worthless because you ask yourself what is the purpose of the research your doing and who cares about your work anyway? 

You end up doubting a lot and nobody helps you much because reality is that you are on your own. A thesis is not a team work; it is a single man/woman’s work. You feel lonely because your subject becomes you best and only friend, a secret friend. A secret because you can’t talk about it with much people considering most people on the surface of the planet would either not understand what you’re on about, or simply not care – I am not sure which one is the toughest to swallow… 

What’s helping keeping me keep it together? 

 

So my life these past months consists in staying home, helping out my mother with the kids she is caring for whenever she needs me too (but that doesn’t do it much for me – more on that some other day), I do some cooking which I enjoy cause food is part of what makes you happy and healthy and I work out. 

I’ve been working out a lot actually. I work out on a daily basis with a day of rest here and there. For some reason it helps me with my self-esteem – cause when you don’t have a social life, you don’t have anyone to help you project a picture of who you are. Working out is just an interesting alternative to help out with self-esteem. Not just because my body gets fitter and fitter and because my strength and resistance increase. No, it is not just about having muscles pop out and improve my body image, cause honestly I never really had a problem with the way I look, I’ve always been quite accepting of it. So if it does help with self-esteem it is because I stick to a schedule and I push myself over my own limits. Consequently, I feel more confident with my capacities to achieve and succeed in something. Plus, I am sure working out releases chemicals and other stuff in your body that triggers a feel-good mood and just makes you happy… 

However, you must know that I don’t do easy workouts. I don’t do lengthy aerobic style workouts; no, I like short and intense workouts, workouts that make me want to drop and lie down motionless on a cold floor because my body is burning inside and out. Such experience can be attained with anaerobic training, strength and resistance training, interval training and so forth. I’ve recently started Insanity: The Asylum and it’s pretty awesome, but also freakishly tough and, indeed, completely nuts! But I love it.  Before The Asylum I was putting together my own workout routines. I create them from what I know about working out (I use to go to a lot of classes back when I was living in Swansea, UK) and from some awesome fitness programmes on the internet, like Zuzka Light’s workouts aka ZWOW. I actually still do my homemade workouts after I complete an Asylum session, it’s just so addictive. 

So I just wanted to send out this message to all PhD students, or whoever is going to a very stressful and hermit-like experience: workout. Even spending as little as 20 minutes a day working out, can dramatically help you with not just being fitter, but happier and more focused. So try it out - and don't forget to keep a nice light diet throughout the day (and please stick to superfood!).

Of course, in all honesty, I am realizing that although working out makes me much happier, focused and confident, it does not entirely make up for the flatness of my social life. I have many virtual friends, and I am glad I do have friends to chat with, or call… but who am I kidding? We are social animals and we need contact… so my next workout moves is calling up my mates and just go out for a tea or a nice lunch in the park or along the docks, the sun is shining so let’s enjoy!

Each time...

Let go of your ego, otherwise it hurts. 

Let go of who you are, otherwise it hurts. 

Let go of your memories, otherwise it hurts.

It just goes to show we'd better let go or we hurt.

But each time we leave, one day we come back.
But each time we let go, one day we hold back.
But each time we forget, one day we remember. 

It just goes to show we'd better take life as it comes...
It hurts and it doesn't matter... it doesn't matter.