Superman is an Arab E-Book

Joumana Haddad

• Herausgeber: The Westbourne Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

This is not a manifesto against men in general. Nor is it a manifesto against Arab men in particular. It is, however, a howl in the face of a particular species of men: the macho species, Supermen, as they like to envision themselves. But Superman is a lie. In this explosive sequel to I Killed Scheherazade, Joumana Haddad examines the patriarchal system that continues to dominate in the Arab world and beyond. From monotheist religions and the concept of marriage to institutionalised machismo and widespread double standards, Haddad reflects upon the vital need for a new masculinity in these times of revolution and change in the Middle East. 'The revolution and its backlash are not just being fought in the streets, squares and elections across the Middle East, but also on the faces and bodies of millions of Arab women and their sisters across the world. Haddad speaks for all of us. It's time to listen.' Bidisha 'One of the most intelligent, talented and courageous young Arab poets and intellectuals today' Mahmoud Darwish 'The Germain Greer of Lebanon' Independent.

Leseprobe

Praise for I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman

‘A spirited call to arms’ New York Times

‘A vivid assertion of individuality, free speech, free choice and dignity against religious bigotry, prejudice and the herd instinct both within and outside the Arab world.’ Guardian

‘Haddad is a poet who inhabits the storm.’ Tahar Ben Jelloun

‘In this courageous book Haddad breaks down the taboo of the silent absent Arab woman.’ Elfriede Jelinek

‘Haddad is a revolutionary, this book is the manifesto. Read it or be left behind.’ Rabih Alameddine

‘Courageous and illuminating … it opens our eyes, destroys our prejudices and is very entertaining.’ Mario Vargas Llosa

‘Haddad cannot be intimidated. This book is a lesson of courage for all those who fight to go beyond their own limits and chains.’ Roberto Saviano

‘Lifts the veil on love and sex’ Marie Claire

ALSO BY JOUMANA HADDAD

I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman

JOUMANA HADDAD

Superman is an Arab

On God, Marriage, Macho Men and Other Disastrous Inventions

To my two sons,

Mounir and Ounsi.

May they grow to become less ‘Supermen’

and more real ‘men’:

Men I can be proud of,

Men they are proud to be.

This then? This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time … I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing.Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer)

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.Anaïs Nin

The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough.Germaine Greer

Contents

Once upon a time …

Why this book?

The poem Lost and found

The rant In praise of egoism

The narrative Note to the reader

How it all started (in general)

The poem Beginning again

The rant Heads or tails

The narrative Genesis, not the way they’d like to think it occurred

How it all started (for me)

The poem A love metaphor

The rant In and out

The narrative Close encounters with the second kind

The disastrous invention of monotheism

The poem Saying grace

The rant Why not

The narrative Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife nor donkey

The disastrous invention of the original sin

The poem All over again

The rant Politically incorrect questions

The narrative The bad, the evil and the ugly

The disastrous invention of machismo

The poem Think again

The rant The macho’s rule book

The narrative Balls come with a price

The disastrous invention of the battle of the sexes

The poem I am a woman

The rant He says she says

The narrative ‘Arab Spring’, they claim

The disastrous invention of chastity

The poem Recipe for the insatiable

The rant Penis: directions for use

The narrative Abandon all innocence ye who enter here

The disastrous invention of marriage

The poem Still

The rant Dynamics of a millenary gaffe

The narrative I take thee to be my temporary love

The disastrous invention of getting old

The poem The artichoke theory

The rant So what?

The narrative We can all be Peter Pan

Their beautiful voices in my head

Letter to my sons

Happily ever after …

Further reading

Acknowledgements

Once upon a time …

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved to read more than anything else in the whole wide world. She read everything she could get her hands on: her father’s newspapers, her mother’s glossy magazines, and all the books that were stuffed in their house’s big library. She even read the tiny information leaflets that come inside drug boxes, notifying users about dosage, administration and side effects. That’s how she learnt, by age eight, that antacids and alcohol were not a good mix, and that ‘Ranitidine may decrease the absorption of diazepam and reduce its plasma concentration’: warnings which proved not to be very useful later in her life.

She read while she was having lunch (to her mother’s despair); at break time in school (to her friends’ disappointment); during the courses she wasn’t interested in (geography is way overrated); when she was riding the bus (that’s why she often missed her station and arrived late); in the shelter where she used to hide from the bombings during the civil war taking place outside (much more efficient than ear plugs) … And at night-time, when everybody else was sleeping, she would sneak a lamp light under her bed sheet and read.

Needless to say, that little girl was me.

Comic books were never available at home. First of all, they were a kind of luxury that cost too much money; or at least too much money for a modest middle-class family like mine. Secondly, they weren’t ‘serious’ enough reads for my traditional dad, who disdained any sentence that you didn’t have to read at least twice in order to fully understand. So I was mostly unaware of the existence of comics. Until one day – I must have been nine or ten – when we were visiting my aunt’s house and as I was feeling increasingly excluded between three cousins (all male) and a brother who were playing ‘catch me if you can’, I found a stack of Superman magazines in a corner. I delved into them immediately. And what a discovery it was.

I loved Clark Kent right away. He was a timid, clumsy, honest, sweet, mild-mannered man. He was, in short, genuine. But every time he ripped open his street clothes and turned into Superman, flying away out of a window to presumably save the human race, I felt a kind of discomfort and distress. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason why I disliked him so much, especially since he was such an admirable hero in appearance. But I couldn’t help it. I was put off by the character who is ‘faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive’ and who can ‘change the course of mighty rivers and bend iron with his bare hands’. I didn’t see Clark Kent as a disguise for him, but the other way around. And I strongly resented Lois Lane’s affection for Superman, and rejection of Kent.

Then it suddenly hit me one day, much, much later: this world (and women in it) doesn’t need manufactured ‘men of steel’. It needs real men. Real men, yes: with all their clumsiness, timidity, flaws, slips and weak spots. Real men who don’t have secret identities. Real men who don’t think they can see further than you, hear more accurately than you, run faster than you and worst of all, think better than you. Real men who don’t need to put on blue tights and a red cape (an odd metaphor for virility) in order to feel empowered. Real men who aren’t convinced they are invincible. Real men who aren’t afraid to show their vulnerable sides. Real men who don’t hide their true personalities from you (or from themselves). Real men who don’t feel embarrassed to solicit help when they need it. Real men who are proud to be supported by you, as much as they are proud to support you. Real men who don’t identify themselves with the dimensions of their penises and breadth of their chest hair. Real men who don’t define themselves by their sexual performance. Real men who don’t define themselves by their bank accounts. Real men who carefully listen to you instead of arrogantly trying to rescue you. Real men who don’t feel mortified and castrated if every now and then they fail to have an erection. Real men who discuss what’s best for both of you with you, instead of arrogantly saying, ‘leave it up to me’. Real men who consider you a partner and not a victim/mission/trophy. Real men who share their problems and worries with you, instead of insisting on solving them by themselves. Real men who, in a nutshell, aren’t shy to ask for directions, instead of pretending they know it all (frequently at the price of getting lost).

This world definitely doesn’t need Supermen. Why? Well, first of all, because Superman is a fictional character. Many of you will say at this point: Duh! What’s new? Of course he is. Well, guess what: in my world (and in certain parts of yours as well, I am sure), many think he really exists. But that is not the real problem. I am not talking about the ‘imaginary friend/saviour’ syndrome here. The real problem is that those who believe in the idea of Superman are convinced they are him. And act accordingly. And that is when everything goes wrong. That is when leaders become despots, bosses become slave owners, believers become terrorists and boyfriends become oppressors. All in the name of ‘I know your interests better than you’. Yes, a fictional character can become a human calamity. And although it might seem funny at times, it is not. It is sad. And destructive. To oneself and to others.

The reality described above is the reason why I was struck by an analogy later, one that seemed quite credible to me: Superman is an Arab. The same split personality. The same pretentious ‘I can save the day’ attitude. The same macho manners. The same ‘I am Good and the rest are Evil’ stance. The same ‘I am indestructible’ delusion. There are so many of these self-appointed superheroes here, in my dear old Arab region, whether they have been ousted or are still standing. The most dangerous are the terrorists: for how can you fight someone who is willing, even eagerly wishing to die? You have lost the battle in advance. Throw in the promise of fifty virgins delivered to you in so-called Heaven (a heaven that looks much like a brothel, consequently) and the indoctrinated person becomes unbeatable (I keep wondering how one handles fifty virgins: wouldn’t at least two or three ‘professionals’ alleviate the task?).

Such terrorists along with the dictators and religious fanatics are the most famous Arab ‘Supermen’: Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, Ayman Al Zawahiri, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad … Of course, some of them are fortunately gone and by the time you read this, more will be. But since they grow and proliferate like yeast, the extinction of the species cannot be counted on.

And let’s not overlook the lesser known representatives of the kind. Let’s not forget the number one ‘Arab Superman’ prototypes: the father, the brother, the boyfriend, the husband, the son, the neighbour, the CEO, the priest, the sheikh, the media worker, the advertising copy writer, the politician, the office colleague, etc. In short: the guy next door.

Indeed, Superman is an Arab. He may appear powerful, but his muscles are just a facade for his insecurities. He may seem authentic, but he is actually fake. A pale replica of an original he can’t level up to. He may look resistant, but he doesn’t last long. A simple challenge can shake him, scare him and break him. Kryptonite is just a green allegory for his countless hidden fears. He may give the impression of being helpful, but he is only smothering and oppressive. He may sound intelligent, but listen to him carefully and you’ll see he confuses manhood with machismo, faith with fanaticism, ethics with stale traditions, goodness with self-interest, protection with asphyxiation, love with possession and strength with despotism. He may look nice on the surface, but he is rotten on the inside. Open the shiny shell and you’ll find nothing but lies, falseness, cowardice and hypocrisy. He may claim to be saving the world, but the world actually needs to be saved from him; and first and foremost, he needs to be saved from himself

But when did this ‘Superman pattern’ start, really?

All stories have a beginning. A long-lasting, seemingly never-ending story like this one has to have a catchy beginning. Well, it all started like this: first confusion invented fear. Then fear invented God. Then God invented the concept of sin. Then the concept of sin invented the macho man. Then the macho man invented the docile woman. Then the docile woman invented sneakiness. Then sneakiness invented the defensive masks. Then the defensive masks invented the battle of the sexes, and lots of other things in between. Then it all came back to confusion.

Superman is not the only one to blame for his own existence and endurance. Let’s not overlook that it is women who breed Supermen originally: the ignorance of mothers, the superficiality of girlfriends, the compliance of daughters, the self-victimisation of sisters, the passivity of wives, and so on and so forth. The admiration of Lois Lane for the bogus, flashy character at the expense of the real, humble one is but a clear and significant example of the role women play in the continuation of the macho race. You see, it’s a vicious circle. And many are trapped in it. Men and women. Happily so. Unknowingly or deliberately. That is why we need promptly to realise that Superman is a counterfeit man and of the poorest quality. Time for him to rip off the costume and stick to his street clothes. Time for us to scorn glitzy labels and go for the real thing. In ourselves, before anything, and anywhere, and anyone else.