Brave Heart: July 2008

As usual I start my day by exploring Libyan websites looking for good news, but as usual no good news. I found this article wrote by Mr Khiri Abushaqour who seems he is living in UK for long time as I understood from his article.
His article was as a comment in one of Tansim’s posts about Libyan women. You can read Tansim post in this link, and Khiri article in this link.
First I would like to introduce Tansim for those who don’t know her, Tansim,her sister Dunia and Khalid are Libyan youth who really has potential to be our new journalists, the guys have the potential to be something in Libyan media if they have chance, all of them they totally understand Libyan situation and mentality and they try to make some differences in the way how we are looking to the matters. I totally believe these guys will have a great future in Libya and they will have the power to change things in Libya when the time is due.
Now I need to make our contribution to the debate. As Mr Khiri has made many invalid points in his comment, Mr Khiri as many others still link the bad situation in Libya and the Middle East to the religion. He still believes women wearing hejab by force or because they have lack in their confidence, I’m not sure he got this result.
As far as I know most of girls wear hejab by their own decision no one force them to wear hejab and most of them are successful ladies weather in professional life or academic one. I’m not sure why people always like hejab as a sign of oppression, may be Mr Khiri was affected by western propaganda about how Muslim women are forced to wear hejab which is totally wrong. I invite him to go and see in uk not in Libya what the percentage of Libyan girls living in uk are wearing hejab with their decision (keep in mind no one can force you to anything in uk otherwise you will be in treble).
He said ” Statistically and factually, Libyan women today, in general, are oppressed, prudish and backward thinking as opposed to free, open-minded and forward thinking”. Also I don’t know from where he got this result, in any normal society if the women are backward thinking this mean men are backward thinking as well because both of them in the same boat and the same condition, we can not imagine a healthy society by one wing, this lead us to an obvious result which is the bad situation of Libyan women is because they are part of the society not because they are just women, and he referred to that in his article by saying “In the 70s, women were in a much better state in terms of their aspirations and achievements” it is obvious as well this was the situation in Libya as whole women and men not just women because the political situation in that time. This point lead to me to assume Mr Khiri has left libya in 70s and that can explain why he see hejab as strange thing, that’s because the numbers of Libyan wearing hejab(in today view) in Libya was nearly zero, I have an old addition of AL-Arabi (Kuwaiti Magazine) in 1968 shows Libyan girl students wear miniskirt in the secondary school which was normal that days, but doesn’t exist now because of the Islamic awareness that exist today not because they forced to. As you may know Islamic awareness starts in middle of 80s and spread after that, where Mr Khiri was living away from Libya.
In my point of view Libyan women have all the right in Libya, they can work, drive, travel and if there is a problem is because of the traditional habits not because of the religion.
Finally: I’d like to focus on these points
Wearing hejab doesn’t mean the woman or the girl are oppressed.
The religion is not bad thing, but how you explain your believes is the danger and critical thing, we should blame people not the religion.
I have one question to Mr Khiri please explain to me why Turkish women are fighting to wear hejab? Do they like to be oppressed?
I ask all the Libyan blogger girls (Lebeeya, WA, CM, enlightened spirit,Ameera ….etc) to explain their ideas and views about this subject doesn't matter you wear hejab or not to explain to Mr Khiri or me who has a wrong undersatnding of the subject.

I really would like to thank Google, if i can i'd kiss (him, it) I'm not sure which one i should use
Google helps me to find my childhood best friend, who i didn't see him for 14 years. Salem was living in Libya till 1994 when Qaddafi decide to send all the Palestinian people to Gaza and west bank, since that day i lost the contact with him, the last time we were in the last year in the secondary school and he got 96% as result, Libyan government refused to let him study in Libyan university because Qaddafi decision. anyway since that time i lost the connection with him. I tried many times in the last years to get his contact details but i failed.one day i decide to search about his name and i found one blog belongs to his tribe, i wrote a line asking about him and if anybody could send me his contact details, this was last January, since that i didn't hear anything, but yesterday when i open my email, i found an email from him, walhi i couldn't describe my feeling (i thought i don't have feelings) what surprise, in 3 hours we exchange 24 emails, and after that i spoke with in the phone, he is living in Gaza now and he is a lecturer in Gaza university. now i really think to go to Gaza I'm not sure how but i believe i should do.
this sketch is one of his sketches , he is a very talent guy
Thanks Google again