Must Be A Friend
Jackie S.
I am guilty. I admit it. I am guilty of doing something I encourage others not to do. I am guilty of remaining silent. Until today.
It was a beautiful Wednesday in Amman that demanded a walk. Sunrays still strong with summer but cooled by impending autumnal breezes. I want to walk as far as I can before night brings too great a chill for my temperature-sensitive temperament. So I finish work and set out from the 2nd circle to Abdoun for my 7pm yoga class. I am late in starting but never mind, I can always jump in a cab if it gets too late.
Up to the third circle I go, mindfully crossing streets still heavy with traffic. I hang a left at the third circle, heading towards Ras al Ain. Second right to cut behind … behind … behind me … behind me must be a friend playing a joke. Behind me must be someone I haven’t seen in a long time who wants to surprise me. Behind me MUST BE A FRIEND MUST BE A FRIEND MUST BE A FRIEND is the mantra that runs through my head as the guy who is most obviously NOT a friend wraps his right arm around my neck, catches my mouth in the motion and pulls me towards him … pulls screams from my throat as he pulls my body towards the ground and slams his left hand into my ass and grabs it … grabs ME … squeezes so tight and pulls pulls pulls as if he wants to separate bits of myself from me. MUST BE A FRIEND tries to cover my screams with his arm but fails. MUST BE A FRIEND makes sure he hurts me before he drops me to the ground and runs away … runs away right in front of me. He seems so young. Only seems because I cannot see his face. He has that awkwardness of youth. And that arrogance. He pauses to show me his back. To taunt me.
It works. I lunge up towards the dark-pants-sky-blue-shirt-wearing lumbering oaf with short dark hair and light skin who carries a bag or something in his hand. As I run towards the stairs down which he disappears I wonder how he could possibly have grabbed me while holding something. This nonsensical question obsessively repeats itself in my mind until I refocus on holding him with my eyes if not my hands. He runs. I run. I run to catch up to him. Run to catch him. Run to do I don’t know what to him. My thoughts haven’t strayed that far. I am in the here and now. Present. Focused. To catch him. But I lose sight of him instead.
A man who saw what he did to me asks me if he did anything to me. I turn on him, venom rather than words spew from my mouth. OF COURSE HE DID ARE YOU BLIND DOES HE HAVE TO MAKE ME BLEED OR SOMETHING WORSE BEFORE IT CAN BE CLASSIFIED AS HIM DOING SOMETHING TO ME??!!
I call my friend. My real friend. He arrives in less than 5 minutes. We drive around, asking people if they have seen MUST BE A FRIEND. No one. No one saw anyone. Anything. I don’t know what to do so I go to yoga. I breathe and stretch and keep my tears at bay until I get home two hours later.
Until the What-Ifs come.
What if he wanted … what if he tried … what if he had … WHATIFWHATIFWHATIF is the obsession in my head that bursts the dam. The tears come – and the perfectly formed thought with it: What if he wanted to stick a knife into my skin – or something far worse into my body – but my screams drove him away.
I am a writer, a filmmaker, an actor. It is my job to communicate. But I am left expressionless until later that same night, when I manage to form the 420 characters-with-spaces Facebook allows me to enter as my status.
I am a Libyan-born, half Jordanian, half Egyptian, American-raised woman. I am passionate by birth, proactive by design. But I am left as flaccid as the laws that that are more pretence than protection of women in this country.
I am a human being who habitually ignores my family’s pleas to please just “shhhh” about all the injustices in the world that bother me, hurt me, make me angry. I’ve never known how to keep quiet until now. I never want to know this again.
I am a concerned citizen working on a project to fight harassment who, after more than two years, stepped back to take a break from the incessant societal bureaucracy that obstructs the development of something that is just so damn reasonable. The irony does not escape me.
Nor does the irony of me keeping quiet when I’ve spent over two years asking, encouraging, begging women to speak up – speak out – speak now – against harassment. It is the first and most important step in recognising, addressing, and fixing what is most definitely broke. Without knowledge, no society can do anything towards correcting a problem. And a society, ultimately, is the sum of its people.
So the question must be asked. I must ask the question. Do we, as a society, as THIS society, really and truly care about protecting women? If we do, we are bad at manifesting it. If we don’t, shame on us. Every citizen, resident, short-term traveller is complicit in every crime we tolerate, ignore, deny exists … just as every government is complicit in every crime it does not punish.
I have since reported my assault to the authorities, thanks to the encouragement and support of my friends. Why didn’t I do so the same night it happened? Why was going to yoga literally the only thing I could think of doing 15 minutes after it happened? Because I didn’t believe then – just as I don’t believe now – that there is a cohesive body of caring, proactive protectors in this country. And I find it incomprehensible that the efforts of the few individuals who do care and take action are diluted down to nothing by those who condemn the victim rather than find and punish the perpetrator.
Even so, a few proactive individuals, though better than none, are not enough to change the fact that most women in Jordan and in the region prefer to remain silent about harassment rather than risk being blamed for inciting it, or feeling shamed into believing they could have prevented it, or sacrificing their freedom of movement. It sounds as obscene to me now as it did in May 2008, when I began what has become objecDEFY Harassment, a women-powered, Arab world-based, self-perpetuating system that empowers women to combat harassment. The problem with not having anyone to count on to protect us – besides the obvious – is that the behaviour it perpetuates is destructive: neither being quiet nor being reactive does any of us any good.
Either way, all of us are in danger. Women, for the obvious reasons that lead to our exclusion from holistically participating in our societies. Men, not only because they fall victim to a culture of violence they might not even want to engage in, but also because they nurture destructive behaviour and then must intimately interact with women who are scared and angry. Society as a whole, because no society can positively evolve without the participation of all its members.
We need reliable, enforceable and – most importantly – enforced laws that act as deterrents, with punishments for harassment and assault that transcend institutionalized patriarchy and protect women rather than victimise us. At the very least, our reactions should not be deemed more heinous than the crimes committed against us.
My ass is still sore, but I’m happy to be moving it towards a healthier way of being in the world. A world that can only become safer if we make it so. All we all need to do is to take a first step. Together. We’re right here: www.objecdefy.com.
Category: activism, Featured, Gender-Based Violence, women's rights
I am glad you spoke up Jackie! All the respect for you! xx
Jackie, I am so sorry you experienced this kind of violation when you were committed to thinking the best.
I am so glad you found your voice, and are calling other voices to join the chorus. Sad that sexual harassment an accepted aspect of local lifestyle.
Some say boys will be boys. I say let’s help boys grow up to be men of true honor. Part of the blame lies with mothers who perpetuate delayed adolescence.
what does true honor mean? I want boys to grow up knowing that there is a huge difference between masculinity and Macho-ness.
Yes, I agree kinzi let us blame the mothers. Seems like it’s the most rational thing to do. Considering that it is they that bring sin into life. Why don’t we blame Jackie while we’re at it. She might as well have been a mother. Do you not see the hypocrisy in your own statement?
Last time I checked those so called “men of true honor” are the ones who don’t take responsibility for their own actions. Those “men of true honor” are the hetrosexist, racist, sexist, homophobic pricks that are roaming these streets. And it is NOT a woman’s responsibility to fix the whole world. Yes women should be at the centre doing the work and being part of this chorus but they should not be blamed for this. There is a word that is used to describe all of this and it’s systemic oppressions.
It’s good you spoke, more women should stand up to this injustice.
I understand that some feels compelled to keep it to themselves. The laws of men and society condemns the victim rather than the agressor.
Minou, seems we have a problem with defining words. I said ‘part’. I am a mother of three boys, and I know what power we wield over them. Mothers who teach boys they can’t control themselves and objectify women are a PART of the problem. That doesn’t absolve boys/men of their major role as abusers, obviously.
Hypocrisy? I work with Jordanian victims of incest, girls raped by brothers. Their mothers knew, and said nothing,complicit by their neglect of justice. Female victims who use their rage to push others away and silence others are perpetuating the cycle.
“Those “men of true honor” are the hetrosexist, racist, sexist, homophobic pricks that are roaming these streets”.
Not by my definition of true honor. The Jordanian men I know who are ‘truly honorable’ are straight and gay, married, and single, accepting and empowering of women, standing up against injustice against us. There are MANY such men out there. Let them be a part of change, too.
I love this initiative. It is time. It will change the status quo.
A terrible experience. A sad reality. I sometimes wonder though, how come we use these incidents to prove how nasty Arab men are…how they do not respect women, which they often don’t. And yet, how many rapes take part in Jordan on a daily basis? And how many take part in the West? There, the rapist is an anomaly…a man who has strayed off course. Here, one harasser, one grabber is suddenly ALL Arab men.
Kinzi, I think that in my last statement I wanted to stray away from individualized experiences and address it as a systemic cultural issue. The perpetuation of this cycle is due to internalized oppressions. In this case I would consider it internalized misogyny.
Not to add to this but, there was no mentioning of a nuclear family and the father who is also a part of it, the “head” of it.
I think that honour is a very loaded word. It’s a word that is used to promote nationalism, most of the time. Ideas of nationalism that have infiltrated the private sphere and shaped a lot of us.
I agree Purplestray, it is as messed up in the West and as complex when it comes to looking at gender, racism, sexuality, class…especially when we’re looking at histories of colonization, slavery and genocide.
My Darling Jackie,
I feel so sad when i read what happened to you. But YOUR VOICE is all women voice.
You make a change here by writing it. and with that comes open eyes and open mind. It have to start some were even if its with your horrible attack.
much love
Nayazik