I have been following closely the dialog about the sudden and seemingly unlawful closure of establishments like Books@Cafe in Amman the past couple of weeks.
The best place to follow this conversation is Madian’s article at 7iber.com Closing of Books@Cafe
My first reaction was utter anger mixed with despair and reminder of why I am in so much conflict with the place I live in. Today, only the anger subsided. A very complex issue this has become, and my discomfort of these events comes from different angles.
Simply put, I am not for systems where majority rules and minorities get oppressed as a result. I am not for systems that allow individuals to act outside the law. And I am defiantly not for systems that are confused to the level that they have to decide who to please and who not to please at any given point.
Celebrating Ramadan should not mean squashing all “those” who choose not to fast. Let tolerance rule and everything else will follow suite.
My colleague Ibrahim made a documentary about this dialog and did a great job including a good spectrum of opinions on the subject, yes I was one of the interviewees.
To my surprise later, I was the only Jordanian woman who accepted to participate. Astonishing, really, again women for all the reasons there is for them to participate more in the life in Jordan they choose not to in this one.
http://ikbis.com/Ibrahim/shot/134769
(Embedding videos from IKBIS doesn’t work on my wordpress.com based blog!!!)
