27ky ya Shahrazade - Long long time ago (2)

و لما كانت الليلة الثانية من الليالي الألف، عندئذ تجمع الكوانين في مكان أمين، و تطرق الحديث إلى موضوع الدين، و أخذت كل فنانة، تحكي قصتها بعبارات رنانة

و تبين للعيان، أن الدين مازال يشغل الأذهان، حتى في مجتمع الكوانين، بالرغم من أسلوبهم الأثيم

And there lies one story that is never really told. That is never really revealed. A lot of us keep this element of our identity, this fundamental component of our experience cached away beyond any visible manifestation. It is held back by this conscious fact that religion and sexuality are irreconcilable. And in our case, religion, culture and sexuality are three distinct and opposed phenomena that seem to exist parallel to each other without ever coming to converge or border each other.

We have a compulsive neurotic streak never to allow the three to mix or ever come in contact. It brings to light a whole new understanding of the sacred and the profane.

How can we become queer and Muslim (or Christian or adherents of any faith)?

And I use the word 'become', because I believe once you 'are' a Muslim, you have fulfilled the very essence of the word, and thus are no longer part of this existence as we know it. You are outside space and time, you are in the afterlife.

For this life, we are constantly trying to 'become' Muslim.

And are equally in a perpetual state of being queer. This perpetuity is constituted by every time we think of desire, feel desire, act out desire, entertain thoughts about desire,....etc.

So can we be queer and still 'become' Muslim?

In this session our Aries friend, gave us a tour de force of his experience growing up in a less orthodox religious environment and a story that spanned not less than three different continents.

And the story is no less extraordinary just for its geographic scope and historical evolution but how it ended in manipulation and dogmatic patronizing the same way, more orthodox and mainstream religions do.

كان يا ما كان في سالف العصر و الآوان على شاطىء المحيط، عاش بني آدميين في سلام مع أرواح النهر و المطر، لحد ما خدهم القدر، فرماهم في عرض البحر و تعرضوا للذل و القهر، و لكي لا ينسوا الماضي القريب، مزجوا دين عجيب، سموه ولع القديسين، و مزجوا وحي الأرواح مع الروح الأمين و بعيد عن السمعين و القاعدين بقى اسمه فودو

And Ian's story reminds us of the creativity and tenacity of the human spirit and to the history and legacy of the cross-Atlantic slave trade, but what I find even more enchanting is how a fringe cult, created by the dispossessed for the dispossessed could end up oppressing the dispossessed!

Next comes our Scorpio friend to remind us how people's religious sensibility change over time. Egypt had its moments of Salafism way before Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail graced us with his presence, and had bouts of extremism and xenophobia way before Abdel Mon3m Al-Shehat spewed his poisonous vile in our faces.

Yet in a long history of nearly a 1000 years of being Muslims, the Egyptians tended to favour a particular brand of mystical, moderate sympathies that borderlines ancestral cults.

The story of how in 3 decades Egypt and its inhabitants turned from a Hanafi, mystically-inclined people to ruthless postivist patriarchal society is a sad and heartbreaking tale.

To be continued..