I suspect the majority is starting to feel under siege and they’re tired of political correctness.

When I think of Christmas what is seared into my memory is the first grade teacher who insisted I write a letter to Santa even though I told her I didn’t believe in him.

She told me to write a letter anyway so I did. I listed all kinds of toys that I wished I had but knew we couldn’t afford–it was only imaginary anyway.

Up until that time the bane of my existence was that very few teachers could ever spell my name right. And their pronunciations would make me wince!

Substitute teachers were the worst. They’d come down the attendance list and I knew when they got to my name because they’d hesitate.

What convinced me that Santa existed? I received a reply to my letter from Santa–AND MY NAME WAS SPELLED RIGHT!

Plus I got a little peppermint candy cane and some chocolates, just like everyone else.

I was convinced my parents were wrong, my sister was wrong. They were wrong, wrong, wrong. There really was a Santa and I’d get everything I wanted on my list!

You know it’s really not that hard to deal with deprivation.

I grew up poor. I came to terms with it.

But raising such false hopes in a poor immigrant kid is just CRUEL. What was that grade one teacher thinking???

I’m sure that teacher didn’t mean to be cruel, but she was–with her ignorance.

For so many years I felt ultra bitter about Christmas.

It didn’t help that we had our own celebrations.

We were so poor that we received one gift a year–on Eid ul Fitr–and because wrapping paper cost money my parents wrapped it in newspaper. They said, “What does it matter? You’re going to rip it anyway.” So I never got a pretty gift and I never had anything to brag about. Not like the other kids who came back to school after the Christmas holidays and recited the list of things they got for Christmas.

I’m not saying this to elicit any kind of sympathy.

I survived all of that.

And yes, there was a time when I felt bitter about my experiences, but with maturity those feelings have passed.

And ironically it was the effort I put into my own children’s Eid celebrations that helped me exorcize a lot of these old demons. I made sure they had a FANTASTIC Eid! And they had plenty to brag about when they went back to school. Same with Halloween. I’d give them each $5 to $10 so they could go to the stores and buy the chocolates that the other kids in the neighbourhood would be going door to door for, so they wouldn’t feel left out in any way.

It worked. They grew up happy and secure in their own celebrations.

I think what really changed my mind about Christmas though is that this same society that was at times quite difficult to grow up in, was now supporting my lifelong dreams and ambitions in terms of children’s books.

It’s easy to be magnanimous when your dreams are coming true.

And I’ve gone from the point where I’d cringe if I was wished a “Merry Christmas” to the point where I’ll just shrug.

Look.

I’m genuinely happy for you and your Christmas cheer.

I get it. You’re having fun and you want to include me in it.

But don’t.

It doesn’t apply to me, and that’s fine.

It’s your thing, not mine.

Wishing someone like me a Merry Christmas is just silly. You know I don’t celebrate it, or you should know it just by the way I dress!

It would be like wishing me, a proud Canadian, a Happy Fourth of July.

It’s a head-scratching ‘huh?’ moment! Doesn’t apply.

Doesn’t mean I don’t want you to have a Merry Christmas, but why do you want to inflict that on me?

Why do you want to possibly remind me of the feelings of exclusion I grew up with?

The feeling like I’m standing on a cold porch looking inside at a Norman Rockwell Christmas scene that I know will never apply to me?

Oh I won’t hold it against you if you tell me Merry Christmas.

I know you don’t mean anything by it.

But if you were to take a moment and reflect, oh what a difference there could be.

If you were to use the more neutral: Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings–boy would I appreciate that!

And in fact, my current policy is to say “Merry Christmas” to anyone I know who is Christian and celebrates it. And I say Happy Chanukah/Hanukah to any person I know who is Jewish at this time of the year.

I consider it to be an act of consideration.

You know like what Dale Carnegie said about how a person’s name is the sweetest sound to their ears, and learning to pronounce a person’s name correctly is one of the most considerate things you can do for them. And when someone repeatedly mispronounces someone’s name it’s a form of an insult.

Well, greeting someone with the appropriate greeting is kin to that, in my opinion.

If you know that this person is Muslim, or Hindu or Jewish or any other non-Christian denomination, why, oh why would you wish them a Merry Christmas?

If you don’t know, then fine. I doubt they’d take offense.

I’ve learned not to take offense.

It took me a LONG time, but I just shrug it off now.

But if someone takes the trouble to greet me with Season’s Greetings or Happy Holidays, you can bet that my face breaks into a big wide smile! Especially if that person’s one of those Christians who’s a real Christmas afficianado.

And I reply back, both heartily and sincerely, “Merry Christmas!”

And I mean it with all my heart!

And when so many people actually wish me a Happy Eid (at the end of Ramadan or the Hajj) it gives me LOADS of joy!

So in that very spirit I say Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, Happy Chanukah to all that celebrate it, and the joy of the season for everyone else!

And may the new year contain the fulfillment of all your hopes and dreams.

It’s unfortunate that in written communication especially, it’s so easy to misconstrue tone and meaning to people’s words.

I’ve stopped responding to people’s good news via email with a ‘Good for you’, because I figure it can so easily be misconstrued as being sarcastic instead of heartfelt.

Even though ‘good for you’ is the pithiest way to say that you’re happy for someone.

My daughter informed me the other day that my post Stonehenge and Immigrant Culture, came across as racist.

My first reaction was, ‘oh dear’. My second reaction was, ‘c’est la vie’.

My daughter particularly referred to the phrase ‘white crap’.

Thing is most bloggers are smarter than me. They avoid ALL controversy by keeping their posts as mild as pablum.

Is it shocking to think that immigrants can be as racist towards mainstream culture as some mainstream people are towards immigrant culture?

I guess it is, but then that was the whole point of the post.

Racism goes both ways, and there was a time when I actually believed that if I said something negative about white culture it didn’t constitute racism because racism could only be perpetrated by the powerful majority towards the unpowerful minority.

Yeah, right.

I may not always be smart–but I can learn.

I’ve been fortunate because I’ve made friends with some wonderful people and some of my friends have been kind enough to point out the error of my ways.

The fact that my son in law did indeed call Moby Dick ‘white crap’, is just an honest reflection of how he felt. And it becomes really odious when political correctness gets to the degree that we simply can’t be honest.

I still don’t feel like Moby Dick is ‘white crap’ in any way at all. In fact ever since I wrote about that anecdote I had a bit of an epiphany.

Maybe Herman Melville was really referring to how people who’ve been injured or abused in their past keep hankering after those that injured them, being locked in a death battle trying to get vengeance, and maybe it is just as futile as Captain Ahab chasing a whale, and maybe my son in law was spot on in that it is an animal and how can you take it personally if it chews off your leg?

The more I think about it the more certain I become that this is in fact the whole point!

We’re not all getting in ships to chase after maniacal sperm whales but holding grudges against things people have done to us in the past is just as futile.

It’s just too bad though that the language of Moby Dick was too dense for me to get through.

In my twenties I started reading a LOT of classics. I had grown up thinking that classics, being so old, must be boring. But after reading Jane Eyre, I started to view them differently.

I realized that they were classics because they were so old and had passed the test of time. That generations had found value in them, so I started seeking out classic literature.

Read one Thomas Hardy novel Far From the Madding Crowd and thought ‘meh’.

Read all of Mark Twain’s works except for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

Read all of Jane Austen–loved them all but particularly Mansfield Park.

So anyone who thinks that I consider ‘white’ culture crap, obviously hasn’t been tuning in to all of what I’ve been saying.

When my daughter told me that I sounded racist I just told her that if people get that impression then they haven’t been reading all my work. They haven’t been seeing all the admirable things I’ve said about white/western literature.

The fact is that American and British literature (‘white’ literature) is the most popular or at least the most prestigious literature in the world today.

The Americans and British really know how to tell a story!

That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been immersing myself in ‘white’ literature. I’ve been absorbing their storytelling techniques and applying the structure and format to stories from my culture that I want to tell.

I’m not copying their content! I’m copying their framework.

It’s a very good idea to do this because as a reader is reading about another culture, living it vicariously, they do need to feel ‘grounded’ in some way. Not totally disoriented. By having a solidly ‘western’/'white’ framework to my stories it gives the reader a sort of reassurance of common ground.

And in doing so, I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been developing a following of sorts.

I’m so fortunate to meet some of the people who support my work.

I was in Kingston, Ont. on Tuesday and Wednesday visiting schools because a dear friend of mine who works on social issues in the schools there arranged a sort of tour for me.

She was introduced to my work way back when she read Dahling if You Luv Me Would You Please Please Smile.

She had taken me for lunch at a small restaurant when we started discussing the state of the world and she said something interesting. She had just told me about this girl she’d been dealing with who’d suffered horrendous abuse at the hands of an old man and she said, “The world would be so much better if women ran it.”

Nope. Don’t agree.

I’ve watched too many episodes of Judge Judy where there are these really really stupid bimbos who do all kinds of stuff to exboyfriends, exgirlfriends, parents, you name it and who are just as bad as any man on the show. And too many shows of Till Debt do Us Part and seen too many women who ran their family’s finances into the ground because they couldn’t stop shopping! I felt so sorry for their long suffering husbands!

Women are not automatically better than men.

I guess that means I’m not a feminist.

So be it.

I want justice for everyone, and as bad as men can be, women can be just as bad, or worse.

I told my dear friend, “Every time I start thinking about how horrible men can be, I remember that Kenny Rogers song, “Lucille.”

And then I started singing the chorus to her, right there in that restaurant:

“You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille,

Four hungry children and a crop in the fields.

I’ve had some bad times

Lived through some sad times

But this time your hurting won’t heal.

You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille.”

Men don’t have a monopoly on being brutes or even being evil.

That’s why in my book Wanting Mor I really didn’t make it about the father being the only baddie. The stepmother is equally to blame.

White /black, western culture/eastern culture, men/women, none of them are automatically superior to the other.

It really does come down to our actions.

We are defined by our actions.

Not by what culture, race, religion or gender we were born into.

And it behooves us to remember that.

Honestly, I’ll go most of the day completely unaware that I wear hijab, have brown skin, and otherwise look any different from anyone else and then suddenly something will bring me up short.

I’ll see myself reflected in a shop window or someone will say something  like acknowledging how ‘tolerant’ they are to have me as a friend, or to overlook my differences, and I frown and think, “Oh yeah. I AM different.”

Today, I got back to the gym. I’ve been very naughty. Eating way too much and excercising way too little, and I thought I should reverse the trend before things get out of control.

One of the ladies at the gym wanted to do some outreach with the Muslim communty down the road (there’s a mosque on the way home) and she asked me if I’d go in there with her.

“Why? Honestly you’ll be fine.” I told her.

“Yeah, but I’d still like someone with me. I’m afraid I might offend someone.”

“That mosque does outreach all the time. They’re not going to treat you bad in any way.”

“But I’ve heard people tell me… oh the way the men treat the women…”

I wondered what the heck she thought would happen!

Yes, some Muslim men can be misogynistic, but really!

But then I thought, “What if I was going into a synagogue? Yeah, it would be nice to have someone from the community along.” Although honestly, I’d just go in by myself if I had to.

She wanted to have a breast cancer awareness program for the women at the mosque, and with my older sister having died of breast cancer, I said okay, I’d escort her in there.

I thought it shouldn’t take too long.

While we were climbing up the stairs to the second level where the office was, she said, “Oh I feel so self-conscious. Should I be wearing a head cover or something?”

Why? I wondered. She’s not Muslim. But I thought saying that might be too abrupt, so I just told her not to worry about it.

We ended up speaking to a bearded gent who was perfectly amiable.

No drooling, no ogling, nothing to be concerned about at all–which is precisely what I expected–but what she did not.

On the way back to the car, I wanted to just get going. I still had to get some groceries and I was hungry, but we spent some time talking in the parking lot.

She saying how she’d driven past the mosque so many times–afraid of ever going in.

And part of me was thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s understandable.”

And she kept talking about movies she’d seen about this woman who’d been stoned to death, and yada yada yada. And I thought, “I should be caring about what she thinks but honestly, I just wanted to get home and get some work done.”

Gosh, in the past, I would have talked her ear off, telling her we really weren’t as bad as the stereotypes portrayed us. The guy in the office was nice enough to give her some literature. A book about human rights in Islam (which she’d expressed an interest in) and a book called Towards Understanding Islam, which is an old standby, and another book that I had read and found quite amazing, which lists all the scientificly accurate statements made in the Quran.

In the parking lot she was in a very talkative mood. She kept saying how she felt so moved, like she’d had an epiphany. She told me she’d always been curious about the Islamic faith, and it was like her eyes were opened.

Inside my head a voice was yelling, “C’mon Rukhsana, don’t be so apathetic. You’ve got a good thing. Share it! Care!” And I told it, “Okay, okay.”

And I bothered to tell her some of the observations I’d made, that the movies that do well in mainstream society only reinforce stereotypes about Muslims. Anything that portrays us in a good light doesn’t get much air time.

She said something like, “Oh but you should be telling more stories about yourselves.”

And I said, “I am.”

“But I haven’t heard of any new stories that you’ve done.”

So I told her about Wanting Mor. Then she asked to read it.

And I hesitated, because if she read the book I gave her, it might look used and I wouldn’t be able to sell it. Then I thought, “Oh what the heck. Maybe it will help her.”

So I lent her a copy.

I might even give it to her.

I guess I’ve been dealing with people’s ‘epiphanies’ for too long.

And while they’re opening their eyes to the beauty of Islam, realizing that we just might not be as barbaric as they thought we were, I’ve taken it for granted that they don’t and won’t understand. And honestly, who the heck cares? As long as I can pray the way I want, and dress the way I want, and eat the way I want and just live the way I want; as long as they’re not carrying torches and hunting us down with pitchforks; and as long as they’re minding their business and letting us mind ours, it’s all hunky dory!

I’m really not normally this callous.

She’s a nice enough lady. She’s always treated me well.

But I’d done a presentation that morning and had popped into the gym on my way home. I wasn’t in any kind of ‘information’ mode.

I was in a ‘get-home-and-have-a-peanut-butter-sandwich-before-I-keel-over’ mode.

Oh well.

It was a moment I needed to be patient, so I grit my teeth and did my best.

One brilliant writer said two things that are very true.

He said Islam is the most hated religion on earth.

It is also the fastest growing.

Think about it.

Or not.

It’s really up to you.

Omigosh have I ever matured in the way I deal with people.

A while ago, a contentious issue arose during some discussions I was having with some people where it was myself against everyone else in the room.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to defend my perspective like that.

Reminded me of the time I confronted Suzanne Fisher Staples at the Children’s Literature New England Conference way back in the summer of 1996, before I was even published.

Back then I was trying to explain the Muslim point of view too and I’m quite embarrassed to say that I ended up in tears.

Not this time.

Oh it was hot at times.

I was quite opinionated, but under the circumstances there was nothing wrong with that.

But at no time did I feel overwhelmed, or at a loss. Nor did I feel ganged up on, and as a result, I wasn’t even tempted to cry.

Not at all. I didn’t even have to try not to cry. I basically held my ground, making my point without being obnoxious or saying anything that I’d have to apologize for later.

After the exchange, I felt right and good. Whether the others listened or not I had at least represented ‘my people’ to the best of my ability.

I know that sounds pompous, but hey, that’s how I felt.

The next day the chairperson took me aside to have a chat. I had a choice of recusing myself from this contentious matter. If I had felt prejudiced in any way, I definitely would have.

But honestly my heart felt clean.

And yet there was one matter I did recuse myself for because it involved a person I know personally and really dislike!

In that one I couldn’t be sure I was giving a fair assessment.

In that case, my heart felt clean only when I recused myself.

So I stuck to my guns at this point and felt good about it, but oh…

Sigh.

Sometimes I look back at the past and cringe.

Gosh, I was such a prickly immigrant!

So many immigrants are.

Oh well, I guess I need to cut myself some slack. It’s all been a learning process.

The nicest thing was in this more recent incident, the other committee members said to me how they could completely understand where I was coming from.

That was gratifying, that at least I’d been able to express my point of view.

But dealing with such stuff leaves you emotionally and mentally exhausted! It was a while ago, but it still left its mark.

And now I’m home and don’t have to deal with anything more contentious than ornery characters and plots that won’t twist right.

I’m home till July 13th when I have to go to Regina Saskatchewan for a festival. But just to have time to work on all the projects in my head makes me feel good!

I’m going to try to get back to work on the sequel. Got some ideas, plus I have three other story ideas I’d love to finish by the end of the summer.

So very busy!

The old adage of it’s an honour to be nominated really applies.

I know it sounds hokey when people say that, but it’s actually true.

I can’t imagine a place more far removed from Afghanistan, and for kids here to be exposed to my story really is an honour!

But that said this week has been a real test of stamina. A trial or ‘fitna’ (the term in Arabic).

I left home on Sunday at 7:30 am, got into my hotel in Orlando about 2 pm, had a book signing at 1:30 the next day, but unfortunately the books didn’t arrive.

How do you have a book signing without books? You don’t. Instead, ever prepared moi, signed bookplates for anyone who walked close enough by who made eye contact and was within earshot.

Sigh.

They don’t tell you about this when you first start writing.

That you’ll be called upon to do book signings. I mean you get visions of you, the author, at a desk with a long line of eager readers running out the door of the venue, clutching your book to their chest, just waiting for you to sign it for them.

Hasn’t happened yet.

The longest line I ever had was probably for Roses in My Carpets and back then it was at an event that would later be called Book Expo and they were giving the books away for free. (They don’t do that any more.)

At the International Reading Assocation convention in Orlando, I was tucked away in a little booth, and nobody planned to come and see me. If they had, there was another mixup and the booth number had been recorded wrong.

But having been in that situation before, I just called out as people walked by, asking them if they’d heard of my book WANTING MOR and as a result of that, I got at least a couple of dozen people to notice my work.

Some of them even came to my session, and one of them in particular, a lady named Kara, was so eager to buy a copy of WANTING MOR I told her I’d sell her my only copy after my presentation if she showed up.

She did indeed show up!

But all was not hunky dorey. There was one lady I called out to, an older platinum blonde lady, rather on the large size. I asked her if she’d heard of my book, she stopped in her tracks and said, “Muslim?”

I said, “Yes.”

And she got this look of disgust on her face and said, “No!”

She was clearly not interested.

One of the ladies who worked for the distributor was sitting beside me when this happened. She was such a nice lady. we’d gone out to dinner the night before.  She looked at me apalled.

For some reason I just laughed.

She couldn’t believe the woman’s reaction. She said, “I just hope she’s not a teacher.”

I told her that honestly I was surprised I didn’t get more of that type of reaction.

My Wanting Mor presentation went over very well, I must say.

My biggest fear was no one would show up to see little ole me, but I had a good crowd. I’d say close to fifty people. And considering the competing sessions that were going on, it was a good turnout.

They all stayed for the whole time. But what I find is the best way to guage whether it went well is if you get mobbed afterwards with them telling you how much they loved it.

Yup,

Sure took the sting out of that other lady’s reaction.

Right afterwards I had to rush out and catch a taxi for the airport.

Met some wonderful people at the convention! Including Jacqueline Woodson (and her little three year old son Jackson who’d loved BIG RED LOLLIPOP so much his birthday wish was having it read to him a number of times), and I met a lovely author named Kathryn Toshi who’s written and illustrated a book called Zero that looks fascinating. We swapped copies. Can’t wait to read it!

Had to come back with American Airlines. They charged $25 for my checked bag. They wouldn’t let me carry it on! Grr.

 Didn’t get home till 1:30 am after a taxi ride from hell.

The guy was an Egyptian Christan Copt with an axe to grind about Muslims.

He started by saying, “Oh I hope you don’t mind. You look like such a nice respectable lady.” Then he went on to say,  “You guys love to kill people! What is it with Islam?”

I told him, “I don’t like to kill anyone. Not all Muslims do stuff like that.”

But honestly I didn’t bother arguing with him too much.

I thought it was wise not to rile him up. He was driving.

But it put a bit of a downer on the end of the trip.

Got home and couldn’t sleep because of it.

Then woke up by 9 am this morning and now it’s 7:40 pm and I’m in my hotel room in New Brunswick ready for another tour.

It’ll be nice to get home insha Allah.

I go to all kinds of social functions and I swear that no one who drinks has a better time than me, and yet I don’t touch the stuff.

I know I can’t tell for sure because I’m not them, but it sure seems that way.

Yesterday it was a business type of picnic. They had two coolers full of soft drinks, they skimped on the food but boy oh boy, was the booze flowing!

Back and forth they wandered to the booze coolers.

And the funny thing was that in the invitation it said straight out that the people were responsible for having a designated driver.

Yeah right.

I spent most of the time with a very nice Eastern European family. I wasn’t counting, but I  couldn’t help noticing that the mother and father had at least three or four alcoholic units (beers, coolers, etc.) between them in a matter of what four hours? I didn’t see any designated drivers.

The grandmother was having some too and yet I don’t think she would be driving.

And the weirdest thing was when the mother actually offered her sixteen and thirteen year old daughters a taste of the vodka cooler she was drinking!

I don’t care if I looked shocked.

I had a good time, I talked to people, I told some stories, and I went home without worrying about whether or not I’d arrive alive.

It’s the same with writerly functions. They always seem to have booze at them!

Go figure!

I know I sound judgmental, but what the hay!

I’m just being honest.

I always tend to watch movies after the hype has died down somewhat.

I wasn’t very curious about Avatar. Sure wasn’t going to plunk down good money on it without seeing it. The opportunity came on the fifteen hour trip to Hong Kong that I took at the beginning of May, en route to Singapore.

I remember another guy saying that a good way to check if your writing is literary and good quality if it still sounds good when you plug your nose and read it out loud in a ‘ducky’ voice.

Same idea.

Basically what the small screen and the lousy ear plugs and ducky voice do is that they penetrate the ‘mood’, the peripheral rhythmic setting you’re establishing and in this way you can really tell if you’ve written something worthwhile.

My opinion of Avatar…it’s a rip off of Dances with Wolves. The exact same idea: white man infiltrates the natives and becomes better at being ‘savage’ than they are themselves.

Then, the white guy, armed with superior firepower ‘guns’ or whatever, helps the natives fight back.

I think I know why James Cameron set the story on a distant planet.

He wanted the natives to actually win.

The problem with James Cameron movies is that they’re two dimensional, black and white, even when they’re in vivid colour and ’3D’.

The natives didn’t do anything to deserve being extinguished and he milked the concept of the ‘noble savage’ for all it was worth!

It worked, I guess, for most people.

But I can’t help wondering, are white people really so insecure? What is it with this obsession to ‘out native’ the native?

There are many many examples of this kind of plot curve.

I think it all started with James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans.

Isn’t the fact that Western powers dominate the globe and their foreign policies manipulate and strangle the economies of indigenous economies all over the globe, enough?

Do people in Western powers also have to obtain mastery of other people’s cultural exploits as well?

Is this the fantasy?

This little rant of mine might seem out of the blue.

About a week ago I went to an information session for the Hajj group I’m planning to go with this year.

In November the Hajj will culminate on the day of Arafat. About two and a half million people from around the world will gather on the plane of Arafat, outside Mecca, and spend the day in prayer and contemplation, as a kind of dress rehearsal for the Day of Judgment.

And in the process we will sacrifice a sheep in a  commemoration and re-enactment of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael (peace be upon them).  That’s what the Hajj is all about.

It’s following in the footsteps of Abraham, and his wife Hagar and his son Ishmael (peace be upon them).

It’s not a competition.

No one can tell who did a perfect Hajj and who did not.

It’s an individual thing between a person and God, and if done right, it means the pilgrim will emerge from the ordeal with all their sins wiped clean.

It’s a very Muslim thing.

So imagine my consternation when I was emailing a lady at my booking agency, telling her about my availability during November (I had taken the whole month off but have since re-opened a few days at the end of the month), and she informs me, in a ‘la-dee-da’ manner that, “Oh, I know all about it. A girl friend of mine went a few years ago. She’s not Muslim, but she went anyway.”

GRRRrrr!

Now to be honest, she’s not the first one who’s infiltrated the Hajj. Way back in the 1800′s Richard Burton, (not the actor who was married to Liz Taylor but the explorer) the same guy responsible for bringing the erotic (in fact what Arabs considered downright pornographic) collection of stories called the 1001 Arabian Nights and likewise the Kama Sutra to England.

He was a perverted Englishman who seemed to delight in exposing the licentiousness of indigenous cultures!

Well he heard about some Arab tribes that were planning to go on the Hajj and he wondered what it was, so he went too, incognito.

Nowadays there are signs outside Mecca saying Muslims go this way, and non-Muslims don’t go further. Most of the time it’s on the honour system, but there are authorities that do check.

I wonder what Richard Burton thought of the rituals. Was he disappointed there were no natives dancing around a cauldron with the remains of human sacrifice in it? Rather just some men dressed in two pieces of white cloth, and women covered up to their faces and hands, circling around a square building, the Kaaba, crying “Labaik Allahuma Labaik”. “Here we are, our Lord, we have come” (rough translation).

When I was young and the other kids would ask me about some of the things we did in our religion, there was always a curious expression on their faces when they did so. It was hard to describe. It was like they were hesitating to ask because they were afraid of what I might tell them.

The closest I can describe it is a mix of fascination and disgust. You see, they’d seen the National Geographic issues with the topless natives and the feathers and stuff. Maybe they thought all us darkies did stuff like that.

I just kind of glossed over our practices. Frankly I was embarrassed. And yet now that I’m grown I’m wondering what on earth I was embarrassed about?

The essence of Islam is purity of belief in one God, and one God alone. Muhammad (peace be upon him) has absolutely no divinity and is a man just like ourselves, sent as a guide, a messenger and an example we must follow. Basically we’re not allowed to lie, cheat, steal, gossip, eat pork, drink alcohol, fornicate and commit adultery among other things.

What’s so weird about that?

And here I don’t mean to disrespect anyone’s beliefs, but frankly, to me, it’s not as unusual as eating a wafer and pretending that it’s a piece of Jesus (peace be upon him).

But it’s all relative.

Religions are full of things we take on faith.

There are definitely things about Islam that are abhorrent to people of other cultures.

But it’s not like some indigenous person goes and tries to be a better white than whites, is it?

All I know is that it’s 1:56 am and it’s been days since that lady told me about her friend who went for Hajj, and the thought of it still galls me.

I’ve been waiting over ten years to go!

Grrrr!

It’s repeated over and over again.

I thought, what’s the big deal if an outsider were to come and point out what they were doing wrong? After finishing Sold by Patricia McCormick, I think I’ve figured it out.

There’s something very odious about a person from another culture, especially a more technologically advanced culture, writing a book about poor little Nepalese girls who are duped into becoming sexual slaves.

No matter how good the intentions are, no matter how beautiful the writing (and definitely this book has some beautiful imagery in it) it comes across as extremely condescending that once again this poor little girl, who didn’t know any better, and her parents didn’t know any better, even though her mother must have known the stepfather was scum–once again she gets saved by the big good Americans.

And once again it confirms my suspicions that the stories about other ethnicities that win all the awards and get all the press tend to be stories that in subtle and not so subtle ways, denigrate the other cultures.

I talked about this in the speech I gave in Denmark at the International Board on Books for Young People (I.B.B.Y.) congress in 2008. You can read it here: http://www.rukhsanakhan.com/articles/Freedom%20of%20Speech.pdf

Basically these are stories that Westerners (and in particular Americans) might read to actually feel good about themselves.

And yet, the irony is, that Lakshmi’s story is not so different from the story of many girls who run away from home and become prostitutes in America.

I was hoping there’d be some bigger theme to the story. Some essence that distinguished it from a sort of propaganda type thing, but I can’t seem to find one.

And yet, I’d have no problem with the story if an Indian or Nepalese person had written it.

Like it or not it does come across as condescending when a privileged person writes about the ‘underclass’ of another culture.

But I don’t think Ms. McCormick may have been conscious of this. I think she probably wrote this book with the best of intentions in the belief that she was telling an important story.

I’ve met lots of authors who do this.

But what I don’t understand is why they feel just telling a story is enough.

Last October I was in Calgary for WORDFEST, a literary festival which hosted the creme de la creme of literature here in Canada.

It was an interesting experience. One of the other ladies I came to befriend was a lady named Mariatu Kamara from Sierre Leone.

A journalist had written her story called Bite of the Mango. It was a very sad story of what happened to her when she was abducted by child soldiers and had her hands cut off.

She’s remarkably well-adjusted.

A Canadian family sponsored her and she’s now going to college to learn social work. Mariatu won the Governor General’s award for the book and plans to split the money with the journalist who helped her write the story and her foundation which helps street children in Sierre Leone.

You see, she’s doing something good with the money. I guess I mean to say that she’s not just living high off it.

Deborah Ellis is another author who I admire because she donated the royalties of all three of her Breadwinner series of books to Women for Women Afghanistan.

She does so much philanthropic work that despite the fact that she writes about disadvantaged kids from other cultures, the fact that she’s so generous goes far to allay the ‘odious’ factor. (Mind you I only ever had problems with one of those books, the others I have included on my Muslim booklist.) But the fact that she is so very generous really goes a long way to overlooking any flaws in her work and makes me feel nothing but admiration for her.

Now, I don’t know if Ms. McCormick has donated any of the proceeds of her book Sold to helping out those girls who were taken from their homes and sold into sexual slavery.

I hope she does.

But part of Wordfest involved a writer’s retreat where we were positively pampered at the Banff Centre.

Banff is nestled in the Rocky mountains and we ate delicious meals in a cafeteria with panoramic scenery out of every window.

During the retreat we had a workshop and the issue came up of whether a writer had any obligation except to write the story.

I said they do. I said that we’re a bit like photo journalists in that if someone is dying in front of us it behooves us to put down the camera and help! Not just write about it!

Someone disagreed. He said what would have happened if that photojournalist who took that famous picture of the woman running down the road naked, Kim Phuc, had put down the camera and not taken that picture?  He said the horrors of that one picture helped end the war.

That may be true, but she was running, not dying.

Anyway, my point is, I think it’s wrong to write about another culture, especially one that is less wealthy and less …(you know it’s funny, every word that’s coming to mind has the connatation of inferiority, and yet I firmly believe that ‘primitive’ societies are not inferior in the least)…let’s just say less ‘advantaged’ without giving something back.

Donating part of the proceeds to help the poor.

I think it’s odious.

Basically you’re profiting off of someone else’s miserable story.

It’s an interesting line because there are indeed some women who feel that way.

In fact in writing Wanting Mor, I thought the stepmother was a bit like that too. But actually my stepmother is much more calculating than that. She decides she needs the labour that Jameela’s father can bring, and she underestimates his dependency on drugs. That’s why she marries so beneath her.

I’m afraid my original ending of the book wasn’t very satisfying.

It was to me, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have been to readers.

It was my daughter’s Afghan sister-in-law who gave me the better ending. She was only about seventeen at the time too.

SPOILER ALERT—–

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Basically she was wondering why the stepmother didn’t kick the father out.

It’s what many women in North America would have done, and yet it didn’t occur to me that this stepmother would do such a thing. It was a too ‘liberated’, too western thing to do. Maybe I’d seen too many movies like The Color Purple where the women really are helpless under the tyranny of men.

And yet, it made perfect sense.

The man was an addict, and I believe, that once he abandoned Jameela, he started using dope much more. There might have been a grace period right after he married the woman. She was richer than he, so it’s natural he would want to impress her by being on his best behaviour, at least for a while.

But after abandoning Jameela in the marketplace, I’m sure his conscience would bother him, and since he’d always used drugs to escape from his reality, it made a lot of sense to me that he would retreat even more into getting high.

Well like I said, my daughter’s sister in law said why wouldn’t the stepmother just kick him out?

I thought that had intriguing possibilities!

If he were kicked out, wouldn’t he now return to Jameela and see if she wouldn’t take care of her dear old dad?

It would be a chance for Jameela, unlike so many girls in similar situations, to have the kind of closure everyone craves.

And it would be a chance for her to really realize that she was, in fact, better off without him.

I must confess too, that it was one of those rare times that I was also thinking about all the North American children who might be read the book and be going through something similar.

I have done the presentation on Wanting Mor all across the country and I’ve taken to asking the students I’m presenting to if they know of anyone whose father ran off with another woman and is now a dead-beat dad.

I ask them this question because this scenario was playing out within my extended family and became one of the reasons I wrote Wanting Mor.

I’m careful in how I ask the question. I’m perfectly aware there might indeed be some kid in the class whose father is a dead beat, so by asking if they know of anyone, it lets them off the hook.

Most of the time half the kids will put up their hands.

Dead beat dads have become an epidemic in our society!

I knew the situation was bad, but I never realized it was this bad!

So when Jameela ends up rejecting her father’s offer to join him, staying put in the orphanage because she knows she has a better chance there, she also comes to realize that in fact that all her yearning for being back together, for having a father, for not being so socially stigmatized, was not in her best interest.

And I hope, that any youth reading the book, comes to realize this too.

That basically you can find other people who will encourage and support you.

I hope there’s a deeper purpose that Lakshmi, in Sold is going to experience. I really hope that the story isn’t just a sensationalized airing of dirty Indian cultural laundry.

I’m already a bit disappointed.

Lakshmi is a bit too eloquent to be believable. I think Ms. McCormick should have kept her language more simple.

There was one prose verse entry that just didn’t sound like a twelve year old could have written it.

Oh well. I know. It’s a nitpicky thing, but still.

Gosh I hate free verse novels.

They feel like the writer cheated. They’res kind of artsy fartsy.

I think the first one I read was Kiss the Dust. It was good but I think the format is annoying. I mean why couldn’t she just set the scenes and write it regularly.

I’d love to know what my friend Uma Krishnaswami thinks of Sold. It’s more on her turf.

I pretty much know where it’s headed.

The stepfather is developing into quite the pill.

I know, I know, after writing Wanting Mor, I’m the last person who should complain about a stereotypical bad South Asian father.

But it’s kind of funny. Even though the father is not a good example in my book, as the author, I really really felt sorry for him.

He didn’t realize what a precious resource he had in Jameela until it was too late.

I remember asking my oldest daughter (the one who’s married to the young man from Kandahar) whether she felt at all sorry for the father under the circumstances.

She answered without hesitation, “Nope.”

Geez, you’d think from reading all this type of literature that there aren’t any good fathers in South Asian families at all.

And sometimes I wonder if readers aren’t hashing out their own paternal issues when reading these kinds of books.

I think feminists get filled with righteous indignation when they read books centred around female heroines that suffer unspeakable cruelty.

But when I was writing Wanting Mor I really didn’t want to make any one gender the culprit.

I’ve known plenty of very wicked men, and plenty of equally wicked women. I believe in women’s rights but I also believe in women’s responsibilities, and likewise for men.

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a sequel for Wanting Mor.

I’ve never written a sequel before.

But I did find that when I’d finished the story, I was heartbroken to part with Jameela and the other characters I’d grown so much to love. I wanted to find out what would happen to Masood and Soraya and Khala Kareema.

And, most of all, I didn’t think Jameela’s story was over. There was still so much more for her to experience.

I did start writing it, but I got kind of stuck.

And it’s actually humorous. Tongue in cheek and in third person.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am most comfortable in writing in first person. It comes the most naturally to me.

 It’s quite disconcerting actually to read about Jameela from outside her head. You see her more as a normal girl, as others must see her.

Now after reading the beginning of yet another sad story set in South Asia, I am more determined than ever to keep it light and funny.

I like funny books.

And despite everything that Jameela has been through, I think she deserves some happiness. And from everything I know of Afghan culture, both Kandahari and Kabuli, they love to laugh. There is so much humour infused in their character!

It needs to come out more in literature.

It would be a tragedy if all the world knew about Afghanistan was tragedy.