I went through most of my schooling being referred to as Haaa-yeee Dow-yeee. The Mohamed bit in the middle was ignored. I think it’s because the teachers weren’t quite sure how to mess that part up. Anyway, Haaa-yee Dow-yee I was. Is it Arabic, is it Egyptian, is it Indian? The answers did not matter; it was not regarded as South African, so it wasn’t really a name.
But white people, white people can be anything they want to be. So much so that now that they have run out of names for themselves, they can even be Apples, Pears or Jackfruits.
If you can name your kid anything without anyone batting an eye, why not push the now slaveless boat out a little more?
If I were white I would name my kid after some weird rare animal. Like Tasseled Wobbegong, for example. Or Wunderpus Photogenicus. I can see myself standing at the school gate, dressed in my boho-chic run-around clothes, chatting to the mom of Haaa-yee Dow-yee and saying, ‘Gosh. Your kid’s name is so hard to say … Oh. Sorry. Here comes my son Wunderpus Photogenicus. Gotta go.’ Now wouldn’t that be a Wunderpus thing?
I would save money on spices and spend money on a gap year
Guys. The elusive gap year is the slap that keeps on giving. White people are the sole beneficiaries of the gap year. The gap year is to white people what cheese is to pizza. They just go together. And when they go, they go to London to au pair, or to Australia to help farm aborigines or aubergines or whatever (who knows what they get up to down there) and, obviously, they check out emigration prospects. They also do things like go to the US to assist kids of a First World nation at summer camp, or they go to Alaska to ski for a couple of months of the year and work in a resort for the rest. Meanwhile the rest of us are back here grafting because our parents don’t have money or time for nonsence.
Then one day, we all meet on the playing field that is the professional environment and we’re talking about that time we worked in the back kitchen at a Juicy Lucy and the first five pages of Brittany’s CV has a list of international ‘job’ experiences. Let’s get real here: a gap year is 365 days of doing as little as possible with as much funding from your parents as possible. White people are so privileged, they can afford to go and do nothing for a year and come back to have a tertiary education.
I have figured out why. The answer, my friends, is in the spices. White people don’t spend any money on spices, ever. Spices are offensive to white people. They once stole them from a wide variety of countries, and now they refuse to use them so they will not pay for them.
The spice market is doing well in South Africa because the majority of our population have taste. But it’s the minority who have money. And they will not throw it away on spices. Well, I am happy to throw some spice here: I would love to be white for just one day so that my mouth would be happy with the taste of food as bland as sawdust, in exchange for a lovely year or two overseas for niks.
I would make a hobby of going to property viewings
Making an appointment to view a property you would like to rent as a person of colour is hard. I cannot count the number of times I have had a white friend call an agent for me (if the agent was white as well) just so that I could get in. Making an appointment to view a property you would like to buy as a person of colour is even worse. Like the time I bought a flat and the agent who was sent to meet me and who had her German ancestry on full display – I could tell from her socks and sandals – looked me up and down and literally questioned if I was sure I was able to afford the flat. Obviously I smiled and said yes. Inside I burnt with the desire to say something like: ‘Are you sure you can afford to abuse everyone’s eyes with that foot fashion you’re trying to work?’ But I didn’t. See? Suffocation.
Anyway, she further interrogated whether I would be able to get a bond, etc. When I told her I could pull out my bank statements and show her, she went with another angle. She tried to talk me out of buying the place: ‘It’s got so many stairs.’ ‘No one like you lives here.’ ‘It’s a very quiet block hey …’ (Obviously she assumed that I liked to have a good old phuza Thursday house party.)
A white client pitched up; it was a joint appointment. The agent practically curtseyed when she arrived. During the showing, I was left to wander about by myself; the agent ignored me because she was too busy talking the place up to the white client as though she was about to sell her Nkandla for a millionth of the price. Luckily, her sweetheart colleague walked in. We had a chat, and soon after I went straight to their offices to make my offer. When the racist agent walked in and saw me sign that paper, she made a U-turn and slammed the door behind her. I’m not bothered. I basically own Nkandla now. For a millionth of the price.
The memory of the treatment that white client received has never left me. This agent was ready to lay her own carcass on the floor so that this woman could walk over it to the door of the home only she deserved.
If I were white, I would make a hobby out of viewing apartments. Viewing a property would form part of my to-do list. Get vegan cheese. View property. Go to silent disco yoga. Eat vegan cheese. View another property. As a white person, it’s all you need to be treated like royalty. Easy-peasy-vegan-cheesy-squeezy.
I would talk about emigrating. A lot
As a white person, I would have very little to say really. I would have no stories about offensive property agents, no tough decisions to make about whether I should cook a delicious butter chicken or just a plain ol’ boiled chicken with maybe some salt. There would be no need to have lengthy after-school conversations with my children about why their names are important and how they need to assert themselves.
As a white person, there would be no need to sit with friends of my own race so I can release the pain of needing to prove how I was worthy of buying a T-shirt earlier that week. I would never return home after work nursing an existential crisis because someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘discourse’ got their opinions published over and over again to contribute to said discourse (of the country) while my views are constantly overlooked and I have to work twice as hard to get a byline. If I were white, the only thing I would have to talk about is the potential and necessity of eventual emigration. And I would talk about it all the time. I would talk about emigration all the livelong day.
If I were a woke white though – because, you know, I could be – well, then I would fill the gaps between talking about emigration with healthy servings of crushing guilt about the past. That would make me feel like dying. Then, to recover, I would take a time-out at a family farm somewhere in the berg where I could escape the realities of the world, cry my woke white tears in secret and find comfort in the utopia I’m certain to discover once I emigrate anyway.
Those are all the things I would do if I were white. But do I really want to be white?
This list probably seems like a shallow rant of trivialities, but the difference between being able to do these things freely and without consequence and not being able to do them at all is the difference between a human being who shouts proudly and a human being who walks through the world holding their breath. Forever aware of the fact that, at any given moment, they may have to use that harboured oxygen to explain or defend themselves.
When you are white, you are born in full bloom. It takes little effort to grow into yourself, into who you are, because the seeds of your identity were sown for you a very long time ago. Being white is simple. Being a person of colour is anything but. Being a person of colour is confusing.
It’s a rollercoaster of searching and finding. Being a person of colour is hostility. It’s pessimism and pride all at once. Being a person of colour is manic depression. Being a person of colour is change.
No textbook offers us the guidelines for this journey. The changes in ourselves happen so quickly sometimes that we don’t even recognise them. We have no choice but to change. And that’s okay, because change is good. Changing ourselves means that the silent days filled with adversity can become the triumphant days of knowing exactly what to say. But chan
ge doesn’t happen all at once. And in between there are periods of waiting. They seem long. Sometimes waiting feels like the only thing we’ve ever done. Waiting our turn. Waiting for the right moment to react. Waiting to find the right words to say. Waiting to feel entitled and privileged. Waiting to feel … superior.
But the truth is I would rather wait than go around begging to be white. Because while I am waiting, I am growing, and while I am growing, I am preparing. I am preparing to take those fierce and tender breaths as I move through a world that suffocated itself because it insisted on staying the same.
And how the women of Islam did slay
If Bibi Aisha (second wife of the prophet Muhammad) was a Game of Thrones character she would be announced thus: Aisha, first of her name, hand of the Prophet, mother of believers, the scholarly and inquisitive, narrator of hadiths, commander of armies, warrior, rider of camels, feminist, lawmaker, lawbreaker, revolutionary. And that’s the abridged version.
After the Prophet’s death, Aisha led 13 000 soldiers to war in the Battle of the Camel, named after her because she rode a camel. They fought Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, who had failed to avenge the death of Uth’man, the third Khalifah. The Battle of the Camel is historically considered to be the first civil war of the Islamic world. At its centre, Aisha. Allegedly armed with only a dagger and dressed in loose trousers, a safflower red smock, over-gown and gold jewellery. She lost the battle that day, but she killed a lot of men.
Rumour has it that Islamic extremists like those ISIS creatures are terrified of being killed by women. In 2016, women Kurdish soldiers told the UK’s Telegraph newspaper that they were the best ISIS deterrents because the creatures would not approach the battlefield when faced by them. Why? Men slayed by women apparently don’t get to heaven to claim their seventy-two virgin brides. Because, you know, this is the most important reason to utter the words ‘in the name of Allah’: He will let you into heaven and reward you with more women to kill, rape, pillage, own and abuse. Good deal.
But if a woman kills you, forget about it. No virgins. The heavenly gates will be closed. Perhaps you will get hell instead, where you will burn in fires of melted brass and human bodies. Having your life taken by such a lowly creature will rob you of your privileges in the afterlife where god rewards morons.
Of course, it’s not only Islamic extremists who believe the hogwash of seventy-two virgins acting as personal hoes to men in heaven. Western media has had a field day with this fictional fantasy. In fact, it’s the spread of uneducated rumours like these that makes Western media responsible for a vast majority of Islamophobia. We have leftists decrying the anti-feminist narrative of Islam and what they think is in the Quran, and rightists acting out aggressively against ‘ludicrous notions’ like these alleged Quranic verses. I wish the men on the right would just admit that they’re jealous. What patriarchal misogynist doesn’t long for seventy-two virgins of their own? Perhaps in another act of kindness, god will satiate their desires with the spirit of jihad.
I obviously think the idea of women fighting terrorism and killing men in the field is pretty awesome.
Women in Islam have slayed (with the sword and otherwise) for years. It’s a fact. But these facts are secrets. Just don’t read the Quran properly, or delve into the research and historical books, okay? Most Muslim people I know don’t bother anyway. They’re afraid of seeing things they don’t want to know. Like how women have lots of rights and are just as entitled to freedoms as men. But why trade in facts when you can trade in the degradation and exploitation of women? Such fun.
Truth-bomb alert: the Quran is one of the most flexible pieces of text in the history of texts, and it’s pretty straightforward about its flexibility. It even spells it out for the reader: ‘Some of these verses are definite in meaning and others are ambiguous’ (Sura 3, v. 7).
A twenty-nine-word sentence in the holy book (for example) has over seventy-two meanings in English. So, basically, people can pick and choose where they want to sow discord. Here’s the catch, though: the Quran also makes it clear that only god knows the true meaning of any of the verses. Thus, only god knows which verses are literal and which are not.
I’ll tell you what I know, though: you cannot derive meaning from something that does not exist. And there is no mention of the number seventy-two in the Quran. There is no promise that this number will manifest in virgins as a reward to ungovernable men with jihadist tendencies. Plot twist: if this verse (and promise) did exist, then women would be afforded this gift in heaven as well. Because in the Quran, men and women are equal.
The Bible is addressed to men and refers to the second and third person in the masculine. In contrast, the holy book of Islam is the only scripture of the monotheistic religions to address both men and women. It talks of believing men and believing women, honourable men and honourable women. And again, to make it clear, it talks of their equal standing in life, love, war and everything else. What’s good for the guy is good for the gal!
And one of the gals who would receive a whole lot of goodness in heaven because of her killing in the name of Islam is Aisha.
But the idea of getting heavenly rewards for religious killings is fake, like a lot of other preachy beliefs, and only came into being some 300 years after the death of the Prophet. In fact, a lot of Islamic ‘laws’ pertaining to women only came into being centuries after the revelation of the Quran. Like the obligation to wear hijab, and the restrictions on a woman’s right to education and work and … fun!
But for now, let’s ignore the nonsense post-300 years and step back even further. To about 585 CE. Enter Khadija bint Khuwaylid (the Prophet’s first wife).
If Khadija, with respect and peace, was a Game of Thrones character she would be announced thus: Khadija the great, first of her name, the pure one, the first believer, cornerstone of the Islamic faith, philanthropist, blessed in wealth, businesswoman, proprietor of more caravans than entire Arabian tribes, employer of the Prophet.
Khadija al-Kubra (Khadija the Great) proposed to Muhammad. Yes, she asked him to marry her. These were still extremely patriarchal times; they preceded the feminist revolution that followed the solidification of Islam as a formal religion. Khadija’s influence is partly responsible for this feminist revolution. Yes, there was feminism. It existed in Islam. In fact, it existed in the Islamic world and was decreed in the Quran long before it existed in the Western world. A lot of the rights afforded to women in the sixth century in the Islamic world were only afforded to women in the Western world in the eighteenth century. Twelve centuries later. That’s 1 200 years!
Many revelations in the Quran, believe it or not, serve to protect and improve the status of women. These revelations were enshrined in laws at the time. Shariah law today is not what it once was. But let’s not trade in facts, remember? Men forbid we ruin the bullshit with truth.
Like how sixth-century laws made the education of girls a sacred duty and gave women the right to own property. Nowadays, men bury women up to the neck on the property they probably stole from women and stone them. This is a fact.
Pre-Islam, women could not choose whether to marry or not, but Islamic laws state that a woman must always give her consent in order for the marriage to be legitimate. Islam was also the first of the monotheistic religions to give women the right of inheritance and the right to earn: ‘Men shall have a share of that which they have earned, and women a share of that which they have earned’ (Sura 4, v. 33).
Khadija was a single mother, a landowner, a wealthy businesswoman, the Prophet’s boss and, in later years, the only one who believed him when he came to her with the revelation of Islam. I honestly believe that, had it not been for this woman, Islam as we know it today may not have existed. Imagine if instead of saying to him, ‘I believe you and I will be a follower,’ she said, ‘Are you crazy? Stop talking smack and go feed the camels their daily bread.’
Islam rose through Khadija. And her wealth.
As I utter these
words, I wait for my fatwa. Bring it.
And while I’m on the subject of fatwa, let me say that that word always reminds me of Salman Rushdie, and Salman Rushdie reminds me of books, and books remind me of libraries, and libraries always remind me of the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez (because that’s where the oldest library in the world is), and the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez always reminds me of Fatima al-Fihri.
If Fatima al-Fihri was a Game of Thrones character she would be announced thus: Fatima, first of her name, the curious one, seeker of knowledge, founder of the world’s oldest educational institute, founder of the world’s first degree-awarding institution.
Fatima was originally from Tunisia, but migrated to Morocco – also an Islamic state, then ruled by King Idris II. Fatima was a young widow when her father died, and because women were allowed to inherit money – fortunes, in fact – and do with it as they pleased, Fatima and her sister Mariam – both exceptionally educated – each founded a university in 859 CE so they could help educate their communities.
Scholars from all over the world visited Al-Qarawiyyin, and Fatima (as well as other women) attended guest lectures well into her old age.
At the time, Al-Qarawiyyin bridged the gap between Islamic studies and Western studies, and it still operates today, making it the oldest educational institute in operation. You know who else operates today? Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group responsible for abducting over 200 education-seeking schoolgirls in Nigeria. One small step backwards for already backward men, one giant step back for womankind.
There is a scholarship programme in Fatima’s name at Al-Qarawiyyin. It serves to promote intercultural understanding in North Africa. Perhaps those Boko Haram militants should apply.
And those are just a few stories of women in Islam who slayed. There were queens, warriors, artists, Sufi masters, researchers, writers, advisors, political leaders and more.
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