Let me tell you about Amina

In these days of “the Great Divorce Debate” it is easy to forget what history has taught us about the struggle for basic rights in society. When we read about Rosa Parks refusing to give up a seat to a white man in 1955 we tend to assume that every other man in the USA would have been on her side automatically. Rights however are not always held to be “self-evident” as the constitutional dictum goes and in 2011 we still witness the struggle in different societies for different kind of rights.

I stumbled on the story of Amina on Time Magazine. The story is of the right here, right now kind. It unfolds in Syria – a hardline Middle-Eastern state where the Jasmine revolution has been raging for some time now – not without brutal consequences on the protesting population.

Amina is a Syrian girl.
She is also a blogger.
And she is gay
…. in Syria.

If your preoccupation with the divorce debate has muffled you from the events in the outside world let me just give you some other facts. Syrian law outlaws homosexuality. While you were busy “liking” the petition against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Law on Facebook you might not have been aware that laws in states such as Syria make being gay illegal.

Amina’s blog looked at the current wave of protests in Syria from the LGBT perspective. In her first post she wondered what could be expected from the potential wave of change sweeping across the quasi-totalitarian state. Involvement in change can be – has to be – egoistic. We all ask ourselves what good can come out of this for us. Few however have the guts to speak out when the forces resisting change use the heavy handed methods. Amina’s father reacted to special forces who had come to their house to arrest Amina on the basis of “conspiring against the state, urging armed uprising, working with foreign elements.” after her blog had drawn international attention to the Syrian protester’s cause. His words are a lesson to many:

“She is not the one you should fear; you should be heaping praises on her and on people like her. They are the ones saying alawi, sunni, arabi, kurdi, duruzi, christian, everyone is the same and will be equal in the new Syria; they are the ones who, if the revolution comes, will be saving your mother and your sisters. They are the ones fighting the wahhabi most seriously. You idiots are, though, serving them by saying ‘every sunni is salafi, every protester is salafi, every one of them is an enemy’ because when you do that you make it so.”

Amina’s father was later obliged to go underground for his own safety but Amina blogs on. Yesterday she posted a new insight about recent events:

So, when I started this blog, I assumed that I had two groups to worry about:
Syrian government authorities and Islamic extremists.

Well, the first has made it abundantly clear that they are most displeased with me in person. I’ve even seen a few comments posted on this blog that I am 99.9% certain originate with regime loyalists (and a few emailed threats as well … which leave me shrugging: ‘uh guys – just because you like Bashar a lot … you do nothing this way …)

I’ve also seen the usual anti-Islamic and the usual pro- and anti-Israel comments posted …

BUT the one thing I haven’t seen, the one group from which no one has made threats or sent deranged emails nor sought to harass anyone is the ‘Islamic extremists’,

One thing in common between different struggles for different levels of rights is the struggle for understanding and being understood. The fight for being able to get a divorce might not be as fundamental as the right to be gay but both depend on the fundamental recognition of modern society that acknowledges the importance of “live and let live”.

Let it be. And unless you are harmed or threatened in any way by my way of life then don’t interfere. Or as the silent movement put it so poetically.

Tindahalx.

Amina Abdullah blogs daily at A Gay Girl in Damascus

 

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.

Let it be, let it be, …..

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, …..