Arab Humanist: The Necessity of Basic Income

By Nohad A Nassif

ARAB humanist is a story of an Arab woman, LouLou, who rebelled against her family while living in America. LouLou wanted to claim her own independence and womanhood but was crippled by her naivety, poverty, lack of a good social safety net, and other misfortunes. The intention of this story is not to demonize the Arab or the American culture. F

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noon & Ta', LLC
• Release date: Jan 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733858601

Nohad A Nassif

I am Arab-American, originally from Lebanon. I live with my son, my one and only, whom, without him realizing it, saved me from my recurring poverty. I'm a humanist, an atheist, and a progressive. I do not consider myself a full-time activist, but I feel as though my heart remains awake and aware. The Lebanese civil war began when I was the tender age of ten, and I have been concerned with human rights issues ever since. The little activism I do, at least, must be better than my idleness. I do not consider myself an artist. You see, I agree with the late American designer Charles Eames who said, "An artist is a title that you earn. And it's a little embarrassing to hear people refer to themselves as an artist. It's like referring to themselves as a genius." I am no genius when it comes to art, but I still like to draw. My art is an extension of my activism. My unrefined art, at least, must be better than my idleness. I do not consider myself a writer, but I still like to write. I would like to express my thoughts on many human rights issues. My writing is another form of my activism. My fragile writing, at least, must be better than my idleness. I do consider myself a creative activist, evolving and growing every day. As an Arab and as a woman, it is utterly liberating to finally be able to express myself openly and freely. My son, my activism, my art, and my writing - today that's me, Nohad A Nassif.

Book preview

Part One

Chapter 1 Artwork

Chapter One

MOLDED TO FEAR

Chastity Lesson 1

In our Beirut apartment building, in Achrafieh, there lived my dad’s cousin, Uncle Abu Saleh, who was much older and more traditional than my dad. Abu Saleh had five boys and five girls, and my dad four boys and four girls. Boys were no problem. They could go anywhere in the neighborhood by themselves – to the public Sioufi Garden or to the dirt hill. Girls, though, had to stay home or with a trusted neighbor. We were expected to be obedient, restrained, and respectful. Abu Saleh was retired but was like a security guard for our five-story building. He was, for one reason or another, cranky all the time.

One day, I was enjoying a conversation with the neighbor-boy Charbel, when Abu Saleh appeared and slapped the little smile off my face. I was only eight years old. Abu Saleh wanted to teach me an early lesson on chastity. "Shame on you! Good girls don’t talk to boys on the stairs. Yallah, go home, he shouted at me. After that day, I experienced pure fear every time I saw Abu Saleh, and shame every time I saw Charbel. I didn’t dare tell my dad. I feared his reaction. I went and told my mom, but I don’t remember her doing anything about it, except comforting me with words; Don’t mind that crazy old man."

A socially intelligent woman, my mom could make any hostile person her friend in one brief interaction. She always impressed me with how she disarmed an aggressor with her kindness. I knew her as a person who didn’t want to take up too much space or make any trouble. Nonetheless, I wish my mom went to Abu Saleh and told him to never, ever hit any of her children. If she had done that, it would have been a life lesson for me to cherish.

A few years earlier, when I was around four, I remember Charbel laying me on one stair step. I fit perfectly – my head touching the wall and my feet touching the rail wall. He laid himself over me and started to kiss my lips. I had no perception of anything like it in real life, but he probably did and wanted to try it with me. I cherished the memory of that moment, and I’d frequently revisit it. It was a precious moment to me. After receiving Abu Saleh’s slap, I couldn’t help but think this brief incident with Charbel was inappropriate and I was guilty of something – I just wasn’t sure what.

---

Chastity Lesson 2

When I was nine, I was playing hopscotch on the street below our building with my neighborhood friends. Marie, a girl who didn’t usually play with us, was there this time. My dad looked down from the balcony and yelled, LouLou, get up here, now! I rushed home to see what he wanted, skipping stairs whenever my feet could reach. My dad opened the door and immediately struck me, hurling me to the ground. My mom ran into the hallway and stopped him as soon as she heard my cry. I escaped to my bedroom, utterly shaken.

Later that evening, I asked my mom, What did I do?

She didn’t look me in the face, instead, her eyes gazed at the floor. Your dad thinks that Marie’s mom is not a good woman. He doesn’t want you to play with her daughter. That was the last time I played with my friends in front of our building and the first and last time my dad ever hit me. From then on, I tried my best to not give him a reason to.

When I grew older, I asked my mom again about Marie’s mother. I was told that the blonde as everyone called her, used to have a stranger come over as soon as her husband left for work. She immediately followed with the humanist fable about the woman who sinned and whom Jesus defended. With serenity, she recited, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. My mom’s naivety in picking only the kindest stories from Christianity and Islam amazed me. She was always on the side of the people who were discriminated against. Who are we to make people feel worthless?" she would say.

I knew my dad personally had nothing against Marie’s mom because every time he met her and her husband, he was respectful and kind. I knew deep in his heart he wasn’t judgmental that way. Many couples from a certain Christian sect in Lebanon couldn’t divorce, even if they lived their whole lives hating each other. It was not my dad, but the people around him that incited him to blame her character, rather than the strictness of her religion. The thought that people would spread rumors about his daughters and his wife terrified him.

The Lebanese Civil War started a couple of years later, in 1975. Because my dad was a Muslim, even though not a practicing one, we were forced to leave that Christian neighborhood in East Beirut. The first warning came when members of the Kataeb Party, a Christian Lebanese militia, shot at my dad and hit his car, narrowly missing him. The second warning came when they threw a bomb onto our balcony on the first floor. No one was injured – eight of us were at a neighbor’s home visiting and watching TV. Only my dad and my brother, Jubran, were home, and luckily, they didn’t get hurt. We were getting ready to leave Achrafieh for good when the final warning came and the Kataeb blew up my dad’s car. The next day we packed our things, loaded our furniture on a truck, and said goodbye to everyone, including Marie and Charbel. We moved to West Beirut, where my dad rented a new apartment for us. The war would continue to divide and devastate Lebanon and its people for the next fifteen years.

---

Chastity Lesson 3

Beirut was too hot in the summer. Since we didn’t have school, most of my family, except for my dad who stayed behind for work, spent those months enjoying the cool, fresh air in our small mountain village. My younger brother Shadi was eight and I was ten when we decided to go alone to the top of the mountain forest. It was an over two-hour climb with our little feet. There were no houses on that mountain, and we had never heard of anyone going there before. We didn’t tell anyone because we believed they might not let us go. We marched with a white flag we had made out of a long stick and a rectangular white cloth.

On our way, a thirteen-year-old boy from our village became curious when he heard about our journey and decided to tag along. We were little leaders of a big mission. We reached the top of the mountain after a hard but fun climb. We tried to call down to our families and wave with our flag, but no one could hear or see us – we were too far away. Happy and proud of our achievement, we planted the flag on the mountain, then headed home.

When we finally arrived home the sun was setting, and we found my mother and all my siblings searching anxiously for us. I had never seen my mom’s face filled with such fear before, and it frightened me. We got a spanking first. Then, my mom sat Shadi and me down. She explained to us the many mistakes we had made: going where there are serpents and wolves, going where no one can hear you if you were in trouble, and most seriously, going with a boy you didn’t know. Next time, I was not to trust boys I didn’t know, and my younger brother was to be more protective of me.

---

Chastity Lesson 4

Even while feeling different from the boys, my parents raised me to have a strong sense of fairness and decency for all people. They taught me about the suffering of the Palestinians, and about Native and Black Americans in the United States, and their need for justice. I watched with a heavy heart the systemic violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories and the institutional racism against dark-skinned people in the United States.

I still remember Mama’s first lesson on equality, when I was five years old. I was walking with her one day in downtown Beirut, and we passed a street vendor selling fresh roasted peanuts. I was perplexed when I saw him. He looked much different from anyone I had ever seen before, yet he still spoke Arabic. On the bus home, I whispered into Mama’s ear, Why is he dark?

Looking me in the eyes, she whispered, He comes from a country called Sudan, in Africa. He may have a darker skin tone, but we are all the same inside.

I also learned indirectly, without knowing its proper name, about women’s rights. My parents gave their children the same education at private schools, unlike some relatives and neighbors, who prioritized the education of their boys.

Both of my parents were very receptive and empowering in their approach to guiding us, yet still had to impose constraints to avoid trouble with our conservative community. I remember Mama always giving my sisters and me advice on how to behave like a lady: "It is aayb, shameful, for a woman to spread her legs, to show cleavage, to wear her clothes too short or too tight, to talk too loud, to gossip, or to chew gum with an open mouth. By doing this, she was filling two needs in one deed," by teaching us modesty as well as etiquette. She would repeatedly tell us that respectable daughters need to guard their purity because they hold the honor of the family in their hands. My brothers rarely got any behavioral lessons, aside from being told to take care of their sisters.

---

Chastity Lesson 5

At the age of thirteen, when