Riyadh, July 11: We have come to learn about the Arab world and its people for mostly wrong reasons and few rights. Arabs – seen as a mystery, the unknown people at distance (except for few of their political leaders and the supposed “terrorists”), whose existence we come to recognize (a little mostly than not) either through the media or through someone who has been to one of the Middle East countries for the employment opportunities – are much more than just what we think they are.
It is not surprising that we hardly know the Arabs personally, as they are not only geographically far from us but also different to us culture and life style wise. In case of the women from Arab, the veiled knowledge about them gets even scarcer. But I must say I have been lucky enough to be able to take the imaginary veil off between us to meet up and befriend few smart, intelligent and outspoken young women who are the emblem of modern generation of young Arabs. These women readily agreed to shed some light on their thoughts and life for WAVE.
Fatema Al Kamali, a UAE national, is like any 21 year old girl who loves reading books, watching movies and having fun in whatever she does. An Applied Media Studies Graduate with Honors form Dubai Women’s College, Fatema is really passionate about art and photography and keeps herself updated about the happenings from all around the world through social networking sites and other media outlets. She is an emerging film maker and already has the credit of few movies under her belt.
Hamda Al Bastki, who is the classmate and good friend of Fatema from Dubai Women’s College, loves photography and graphic designing. A woman with a great sense of humor, Hamda enjoys doing creative stuffs. She has also worked together with Fatema in making movies and they have already participated in many local & international film festivals such as Gulf Film Festival, Cannes International Film Festival, Beirut Film Festival and others. ‘The Night’ made by Hamda was het most critically acclaimed short movie, that got her a nomination for the best short movie in a short film competition in Dubai.
A Palestinian by birth, Falasteen Akhladi lives in Jordan with her family and is a part time journalist with the experience of having interned at Al Jazeera news channel. Besides working as a teacher and supervisor in a pre-school, Falasteen also works as a health educator in HIV / AIDS and homosexual diseases, a proof of how the otherwise ‘conservative’ termed Arab woman have come forward in working for global issues.
Fatema, Hamda and Falasteen- all three of them feel that the Arabs’ portrayal in the media, especially western, has been biased and prejudiced leading to the negative image building and stereotyping of them in the rest of the world. “I feel annoyed about what west think about Arabs. I understand that they have been influenced and affected from the happenings in politics and media’s one-sided stories that actually makes them think that Arabs are terrorists.”, claims Fatema, “and there are Arabs who may also think all the Westerners are rude and hate Muslims, which is not always true of course.”
Falasteen agrees with Fatema and is of the opinion that it is totally unfair to portray people from the Arab region as the terrorists by the world media. Being a journalist herself, journalism should be fair with both sides is what she feels, though unfortunately, she can’t see that happening in the western media anytime soon.
Literacy rates of women in the Arab world, according to the latest report of UNDP, are around 55%, but this number rises significantly if women below the age of 24 only are to be calculated. Few Arab countries like UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Lebanon are ranked above the world average of 76.5% in female literacy. So, contrary to what most of the non-Arabs think, the young generations of the Arab women are getting equal education priorities except for few countries like Sudan, Yemen, Iraq and others.
Falasteen says, “We are as educated Muslim women with our own set of mind to work and live and not just bear children to raise them. Personally, I have been volunteering since I was 10 and have lots of friends of both sexes. I work, drive my own car, love to dress up and look good and call myself an independent woman just like any woman of my age would do.
Fatema and Hamda are no different from Falasteen, as both of them are into making movies -a field that hasn’t been explored much by women in the Arab region, they drive their own cars and are going to study and work as much as they want.
There was this incident in Saudi Arabia two months back that hit the world headlines- a woman called Manal al-Sherif was jailed after she was found driving a car- that disheartens them but they believe things will improve slowly once more and more girls are educated.
Fatema, Hamda and Falasteen are inspired by the rise of women in high positions in their countries and believe women lately are getting so much attention from the government as well as the media which would only fortify their numbers in more such important positions. “Not the entire Arab world is giving equal rights to women,” Fatema concedes, “but at least it is becoming better.”
When asked about the Arab Uprising, Falasteen thinks that everything needs to change with the time for good and that is why such a huge number of people, both male and female, especially youths are on the streets fighting for their rights and democracy in different Arab countries and if needed, she won’t hesitate to be part of such a struggle for her own country Palestine someday.
These young women – though they think that have a long way to go before they attain their goal in life – with the confidence, knowledge and amount of work they have done, are the symbolic faces of the change in the Arab world that will once again have the world talking about the Arabs but for all the right reasons in the future.
–Agencies