Yesterday, while chilling with my cousin, we came to talk about my great-uncle. He's a quite unique man…to the extent that he is funny. The whole branch of my grandma's family has a very high temper and grand hysterical tendencies…very loud. And he is a very special example!
My great-uncle is a real intellectual, living in Canada. But he holds very tight onto his Arabic culture and Islamic belief. And he imposes his principles on everyone else. He says, for example, that we underestimate the language of the Qur'an, that we make believe that we can't express ourselves in pure Arabic. If you say a word like "OK" or "Hi" in front of him, you are in trouble my friend! Then you are a passive, stupid Americanized Idiot, who contributes to the decay of the Arabic/Islamic nation. Come to think of it, he's right. And I find it sweet that he actually enforces that upon his social circle. He isn't an extremist, although he's greatly perceived as such…which shows that we
are passive, stupid Americanized Idiots, who contribute to the decay of the Arabic/Islamic nation. The problem and the funny part is that he overreacts, when someone makes such a mistake…if it's you, then you won't find it funny at all! And the sad thing, on the other hand, is that he doesn't change our lifestyles but turns us into hypocrites. There's an automatic warning system that goes through the whole family tree, when he comes to our grandma's place. And before you get into the house – if you don't decide to stay away that is – you take a deep breath and reprogram your language. 'Hi' becomes 'issalamu 3aleiko', 'ok' becomes 'tamam' or '7ader', 'telephone': 'hatif'/ 'ma7moul', 'ascenseur': 'mis3ad'. But still, someone always manages to make a mistake. You have to be very cautious, think of everything you say. And if you don't know the Arabic equivalent to a word, you either say a purely English sentence (but don't overdo it!), or you don't say it at all!
Last time he came, when asked where her mom was, a relative uttered the word 'coiffeur'…While giving his lecture, he corrected her mistake into: '7allaa2' and 'mizayin'. The whole family couldn't suppress a laugh!
And on his way to our place, he asked a man on the street about the way. After hearing the word 'Autostrad' he forgot all about the directions and gave the stranger a lecture: "Do you know what 'autostrad' means? It means 'street'…Can't you say 'street'? What kind of a street-name is that? 'Street'?"…He gave the man something to relate when asked about his day!
My cousin answered him on the phone and recognized his voice immediately. "alsalamu 3aleiko, ya khaly" she said. He wondered, why she always recognized his voice on the phone. So he asked her, whether she had a "caller ID"…My coz, having noticed the 'mistake' he made and possessing subtle sense of humor, replied saying: "la2 ya khaly, ma3andenash mozahhir rakam el taleb 3al hatef…ana ba3raf sot 7adretak men gheir mozahher rakam!!" That's the latest family anecdote!
I have noticed an inconsistency in my grand-uncles behavior though: he answers the phone saying "(h)alo" for example. But at least he tries.
Now that I'm reflecting about my grand-uncle, I feel that his story is kind of a tragedy. He has become a joke, because he is fighting for a cause. And I ask myself whether this has always been that way. Has it always been so cool to be passive? Has it always been considered idiotic to be idealistic? Or is this just a trend? And then I ask: who is the victim? He or we?
In the process of growing up, I have been confronted and frustrated with the passivity of the people. And I noticed how hard it is to be myself, and how strong I must be to continue being myself. Two incidents in my past demonstrate my problem: In school, I used to fight for 'concepts', which people didn’t seem to understand. Once, two classmates took a pound of everyone to go buy us Pepsi. We had convinced our teacher to let us do that in his class to celebrate our last English exam in school (as you see, we weren’t very young; but being childish was a trend). After 40 minutes, the guys returned…without the Pepsi! And now everyone was to forget about that pound! Maybe it was funny. But still, I insisted on them giving back that pound. What annoyed me was that the class couldn't understand that it wasn't about that goddamn pound! Especially, since I hadn't paid that pound in the first place! It was the concept; and if that was too hard to grasp, then at least it was about the sum of one-pounds collected of the whole class. They never gave up that sum!
Another example was when a classmate complained about the bad view from his desk…the teacher 'solved' the problem by ruining the view from another person's desk!! Even the teacher couldn't get my point.
Were they dumb? No they weren't…
That blog-idea is just perfect for me! Thanx Morsy, Thanx Faisal!
