We All Have a Voice: My Mother's Story

By Maha Al Fahim

Amina’s 14-year-old daughter, Maha Al Fahim, skillfully brings her mother's story to life in these pages, creating an inspiring testament to the power of speaking the truth, of bringing meaning to suffering, and of discovering what truly matters in this life. Amina grew up in a Middle Eastern home where, from the time she was seven, she was responsible for the housework and for the care of her four younger siblings. Brutally beaten by her father throughout her childhood, Amina later faced cruel discrimination in favor of her brothers. Amina nonetheless persisted in her studies and eventually received a university degree in business. She then married and had the opportunity to live for a time in the West where equality, universal education and recognition of the rights of women and children were part of daily life. She returned home a changed person and saw her family’s treatment of women and children with new eyes. No longer willing to observe injustice from the sidelines, Amina had to speak up, no matter what it cost her. At age 14, Maha is the first young person of Middle Eastern origins to have undertaken the challenge of writing a book about her mother’s experiences, highlighting the denigrating effects of discrimination, the abuse of labor laws, and the corrupting power of greed. Mindful of the anguish of countless others who have been similarly abused, Maha found power in her pen and liberty in her voice, thereby inspiring us all to speak the truth, to bring meaning to suffering, and to live a courageous life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maha Al Fahim
• Release date: Nov 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9780991757626

Maha Al Fahim

Fourteen-year-old Maha Al Fahim is passionate about the role of education in ending social ills such as child abuse and discrimination. She is an honor roll student and a student council president at her school. A tireless volunteer, Maha has tutored children with special needs, assisted at children’s summer camps, helped seniors and the homeless, and has taken a leadership role in an organization promoting cycling in her community. She is also a committed practitioner of Kung Fu, a member of Team Canada 2014 for martial arts, and was a gold medal winner at the 2014 World Martial Arts Games. A lover of theatre and ballet, Maha is active in her school’s creative writing program and loves writing poems and essays. This is her first book.

Book preview

We All Have a Voice: My Mother’s Story

By Maha Al Fahim

Copyright 2014 by Maha Al Fahim

Smashwords Edition

We All Have a Voice:

My Mother’s Story

by Maha Al-Fahim

Copyright © 2014 Maha Al-Fahim

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on-line—without permission in writing from the author.

Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein.

Cover Design: Diane Feught

ISBN: 978-0-9917576-2-6 (epub version)

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

Website: www.mothers-story.com

Maha Publishing

To my dear father and mother. Thank you for your support. Your encouragement and inspiration have helped me to blossom.

To my sweet sister, Fatima, and my amazing brother, Mohamed. Thank you for being the joy of my life.

CONTENTS

Prologue

1 My Family

2 The Long Wait

3 Journey to the Holy City

4 Feast Days with my Maternal Grandmother

5 The New Maid

6 Sultan’s First Job

7 A Secret Marriage

8 A Sad Good-bye

9 Light at the End of the Tunnel

10 Bright Days in Canada

11 A Family Tragedy

12 Happy Days on the Oasis

13 The Miracle

14 The Man of God

15 A Mixed Blessing

16 Money Pouring from the Heavens

17 Dark Secrets

18 The End of Sameera19 The Victims’ Bait

20 The Evidence Mounts

21 The End of Me

22 The Devil is in the Fine Print

23 Face to Face

24 Farewell to My Homeland

epilogue

Glossary

PROLOGUE

Although this is a true story, I have changed the names of the characters to protect their privacy. My name and those of my mother and siblings remain the same.

For a number of years, I witnessed my mother in an acute state of depression. Her distress troubled me greatly but, as a child, I was too young to understand the complex reasons behind it. Finally, when I was 13, she was able to speak with me more openly about her troubles and her story began to unravel. It was then that she made the courageous decision to emerge from the lonely underworld of silence and to share her experience publicly – not just to bring meaning to her own suffering at the hands of her parents but also to redress the profound physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual suffering of their countless victims. My mother’s will to share this powerful account has been strong and unwavering, but her English skills are weak. And so she asked me to write her story on her behalf and to help her share it with the world.

Reliving some of her upsetting memories, as she had to do in order to tell me her story, often reduced my mother to tears and caused her to experience many nightmares. This was painful for both of us and yet, having committed ourselves to this path, we had no choice but to continue.

She told me of the difficult struggles she had to overcome, the dark secrets that she had discovered about her family, not all of which she could share with me, and the lessons that her harsh life has taught her. But this is not just her story. It is the story of the lost lives and harsh fates of thousands of others.

I know that sharing this story means exposing the misdeeds of people with whom I am related. I understand the importance of family loyalty but that will not weaken my resolve to do what is right. As a young woman of Middle East origins growing up in Canada in the 21st century, I also understand that the whole world is our family. Writing this book and directly experiencing my mother’s lifelong suffering has shown me the terrible consequences of grieving in silence and the liberating power of speaking up against injustice. Through her story I learned that cultural taboos encage women in fear and shame, forcing them to silently struggle with injustice and to conceal their agony. We can no longer shut our eyes to their suffering. We can no longer block our ears from the truth. And we can no longer close our mouths from speaking that truth.

This book raises a number of important social justice abuses that festered in my mother’s life for decades without being challenged. The violation of children and the denigration of women are the backdrop of my mother’s story, as is the abuse of religion, the corrupting power of money, and the inflated importance given to one’s social position and status in society. It is important to me and to my mother that these wrongs be explored, understood, and rectified.

My mother and I are all too aware that her story is shared by millions of others. The violence she faced reflects a greater atrocity. And her cries, long unheard, are echoed by millions of women and children all over the world. Within their unspoken suffering, they are buried alive. My desire to alleviate their oppression has helped me to find power in my pen and freedom in my words. The need for equality, the importance of education, and the liberating power of our voices, united as one, is the deeper message of this book.

For every child, woman and man,

We are all one in Creation’s command

When we are lost in darkness, we seek for light

When we are treated with injustice, we fight for our right

For we are each born as people with dignity and pride,

We will not die as victims who suffer and hide

We all have a voice, to tell our stories

We all have a choice, to share our memories

I hope this book will inspire many more voices to rise

To lead the world away from the path of deception and lies

Together, we can lend a helping hand

Together, in a stronger world we will stand.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person...Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Eleanor Roosevelt,

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

CHAPTER 1

MY FAMILY

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.

- Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar. Every morning at 5:30, I would wake up to the beautiful call of mosque prayers declaring the glory of God. In the next room, I could hear my father, Hamad, reading the Quran while my mother, Fatana, whispered prayers.

My name is Amina and my story begins in the late 1970s in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I was nine years old at the time, the eldest of five children, and we lived with our parents in a small two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a three-story building owned by my father. Every night I slept on a mattress on the floor with my three-year-old sister, Ghalia, while each of my three brothers who shared the room with us – Sultan, age seven, Rasheed, age five, and Mayed, age four – slept on his own single bed. Uncle Khaldoon, my father’s younger brother, lived on the second floor with his family, and my maternal grandparents lived on the ground floor. Many of the other 15 apartments in the building were rented out to people of East Indian origin who worked for the government.

My paternal grandfather, father, and uncle owned a men’s clothing shop in Ras Souk, an old, established public market in Dubai, where they sold goods imported from India and China. On the weekends, my parents would travel and sell their wares in other towns and cities in the Emirates, including Al Ain, Ras Al Khaimah, and Ajman. While they were away, I was responsible for the care of the younger children and the upkeep of the home, as I had been since I was seven years old. It was my job to feed my four siblings, teach them, keep them entertained, and stop my aggressive brothers from getting into fights. It was hard, tiring work, and the only thing that made it bearable was anticipating the delicious shawarma sandwich, a wonderful combination of juicy roasted beef, sour pickles and hummus, all rolled together in flat bread, which my parents brought back for us.

We would anxiously wait all day, half-starved because our cook didn’t work weekends, until we would finally hear the door unlock at around 9 PM. We would rush to our parents excitedly, grabbing at the white plastic bag filled with our eagerly anticipated treats. Soon, all would be silent, as we each sat alone, enjoying every bite as though it were our last. Our parents never let us forget that, at 2Dhs (abbreviation for dirhams, United Arabic Emirates currency) per sandwich (i.e., about 55¢), such a treat was very costly.

One weekend, I was very sick and struggling to do my duty and take care of my siblings. At three o’clock in the afternoon, I managed to scrounge up the ingredients to make them each a cheese sandwich, and then turned on the television and took out some toys from our little toy basket to keep them busy. Staggering to the couch, I dropped my dizzy head on a pillow and watched them play. I touched my forehead and realized that my fever was high. Even the cool breeze of the air conditioner could not cool me off. I tried desperately to keep my eyes open but it was impossible. Soon I fell into a deep sleep. Even though my brothers played very loudly, I could not hear a thing. Then a piercing shriek from Rasheed woke me up with a start. To my horror, I saw blood streaming down his face, covering his shirt in red.

What happened to you? I screamed. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my