GLR May-June 2023

In the Arab World, Geography Matters

E LIAS JAHSHAN’S mission in This Arab Is Queer is clear: he seeks to provide a platform for LGBT Arabs to speak for them selves. Asserting that Western coverage of queer Arab lives often focuses on sensa tionalist news stories that “rarely engage with Arab voices directly,” he has collected narratives from eighteen Arab writers from eleven countries and the diaspora to present a fuller, more accurate depiction of queer Arab life. Jahshan gave the contributors free rein, encouraging them to share any subject matter of their choosing. Many writers stu diously avoided “the trauma narrative” that has marked much Western understanding of queer life in the Arab world, which is based on the assumption that LGBT Arabs’ lives are relentlessly oppressed and driven to secrecy. These ideas are confronted di rectly in several essays, including Lebanese-Australian writer Tania Safi’s “Dating White People,” in which, after describing several problematic relationships with white women, she ex plains: “I wasn’t aware of the concept of racialized fetishization, but I knew how it felt.” A similar theme is struck in Emirati writer Saeed Kayyani’s “Trophy Hunters, White Saviors and Grindr,” which recounts a number of disturbing incidents with Western men and women, including a male lover’s declaration that Kayyani should thank the lover for having sex with him: “You know for a fact that you’d get killed in your country for this shit. I’m doing you a favor, man.” Of course, writers recognize the punitive legal system and re pressive measures that dominate the culture of many Arab coun tries, yet nuanced consideration of individual queer settings and circumstances often yields narratives of insight and possibility. British-Iraqi performer Amrou Al-Kadhi, in “You Made Me Your Monster,” traces his struggle with the Koranic stipulations that homosexuality is a sin and that parents go to hell if their children do. He then chronicles his embrace of drag, a transgressive ges ture that at its best “builds bridges and understanding.” A simi larly positive note is sounded by bookstore owner Madian Al Jazerah, a Palestinian Kuwaiti living in Jordan. In “Then Came Hope” he explains that, while he can’t celebrate his book publi cation in his store in Jordan, he is able to launch the book in Cyprus, where members of the activist group Queer Cyprus, all in their twenties, ask questions, mingle, and celebrate. Jordan is also the setting of one of the most inspiring pieces in the collection, Khalid Abdel-Hadi’s “ My Kali —Digitizing a Queer Arab Future.” Abdel-Hadi begins by recalling the personal attacks and public outing that greeted the appearance of his dig ital magazine MyKali. He describes the journalistic condemna tion and the roadblocks that were erected to stop the publication. His indictment of Jordanian media is fierce, but he insists that its destructiveness only spurred him on in his struggle to keep pub Anne Charles cohosts the cable-access show All Things LGBTQ with her partner in Vermont. 40

lishing. By the end of his piece, he can proudly report that MyKali is still publish ing after fourteen years. While censored in the Gaza Strip, Jordan, and Qatar, its bilin gual English-Arabic edition on the experi ences of queer Arabs regularly reaches 22,000 readers and boasts 76,000 followers across its platforms. The publication also hosts digital events that provide safe and vis ible spaces for queer artists. In this way,

A NNE C HARLES

THIS ARAB IS QUEER: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers Edited by Elias Jahshan Saqi Books. 288 pages, $19.95

Abdel-Hadi concludes: “ My Kali proves that it is possible to reach beyond state-sponsored intolerance. The internet offers a world of its own and MyKali continues to encourage a border less community.” These are encouraging words indeed. Other essays deepen our understanding of individual lives in various ways. In the beautifully written “Unheld Conversations,” Palestinian diasporic novelist Anbara Salam describes her mother’s silence upon the publication of her second novel fea turing a queer Arab female narrator. This prompts an observant meditation on the prevalence in Arab culture of “withheld con versations about queer identity.” “An August, a September and My Mother,” written by Egyptian pseudonymous contributor Amina, strikes a poignant chord in its recollection of the aftermath of an exuberant 2017 concert in Cairo of the queer Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leila. Amina remembers her feelings of pride and freedom when sev eral rainbow flags were waved amid the crowd of 35,000 spec tators. Those feelings quickly changed to fear as a homophobic backlash ensued the following day, and several flag wavers were arrested. Among them was Sarah Hegazy, a lesbian activist who suffered three months of torture in an Egyptian prison before being exiled to Canada and committing suicide at age thirty. Amina skillfully interweaves her personal story involving her inability to share with her mother moments of joy at the concert and in future love relationships. Amina ends the piece with a fantasy in which she dances with her mother at her wedding to a woman. The sad account of Sarah Hegazy’s life and death forms a powerful coda. To be sure, like many groundbreaking anthologies, ThisArab is Queer might have been edited more tightly. Sudanese-Ara bian Ahmed Umar’s well-written and engaging “Pilgrimage to Love” abruptly ends, leaving several unexplained narrative threads. Several essays lack a clear thesis, and the last offering, by Lebanese-Turkish-Australian Omar Sakr, “Tweets to a Queer Arab Poet,” isn’t an essay at all but rather a compilation of 43 ex hortations and observations that certainly need context. Despite its unevenness, this anthology represents an impor tant step toward exposing Western readers to the range of queer Arab writing. Editor Elias Jahshan’s expansive attitude toward his project as a beginning is revealed as he concludes: “I look forward to discovering the plethora of unique stories that are waiting to be told.” In this regard, he is not alone. As the land scape of queer Arab writing broadens and becomes increasingly available, Western readers have much to anticipate.

TheG & LR