A letter from my 16-year old self
P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }
My head runs in overdrive. Every minute of every hour of everyday. I think, analyse, and over-think everything and everyone that I encounter. Sometimes to the point of actual, literal headache. It can be anything. A comment, a sign post, a mishap, a lyric, a glimpse, an injustice, an unaswered question. And then just like that my thoughts escape me. Friends, who unfortunately stand on the receiving end of many of my life ponderings, have told me for a long time to start a blog. To at least make my thoughts coherent and put them out there, just incase someone happens to be interested. And so I did, I started several blogs, but every time it came down to the writing process I would freeze. I have too many thoughts, too many ideas, and so many of them are too dear to my heart. I have always felt immense pressure of doing them (and me) justice. And so I never really knew where to begin. I want to write about the things that mean the most to me. Strangers on the bus. Feminism. Dreams. The Educational System. Sweden. Finding Yourself. Great Love. Palestine. The meaning of Life. Films. Racism. Amazing Friendships. LGBT rights.
And just like that, it came to me. You know when cheesy writers say that their big story 'comes to them' like Harry Potter appearing before JK Rowling on her daily train journey? Well... it's not quite as poetic, but I was cleaning out my room yesterday and found two hand-written pages that were stapled and taped together. It was titled 'My Cultural Identity,' addressed to "'Mr. Lilja' and dated '13/9-2006'. It was a school assignment by my history teacher in High School. I thought it was going to be cringy to read, because lets face it: i was 16 and had written like 4 essays in my life. But. I was surprised. And proud! That my 16-year old self was so eloquent, with such a strong and confident voice: one which I feel years of higher education has marginalised. I was thinking and analysing issues eight years ago that have today become such an important part of my everyday life. I am happy that it wasn't in essay-form (shout out to Mr. Lilja!) which, now, as an adult I feel has become part of the death of creativity and intellectual growth. I dont mean to be cheesy, but there are a few teachers, particularly from my time at Kungsholmen who have really shaped me into who I am. And this has to be one of those incidents, because I cant remember ever questioning my cultural identity before writing this.
So here it is. My first blog post. An un-edited letter from my 16-year old self! A lot of my ideas and thoughts on this subject have changed since I was 16, and perhaps I'll write more about my updated view on the topic at some other point. But hopefully this will act as a brief introduction to who I am. Also: Apperently the correct English translation for "främlingpass" (i mention this in the letter) is "Aliens's Passport" which is a fucking weird name for paper-less people if you ask me.
It was an early Sunday morning, two minutes to two, precisely, when I blessed the world with my mere existence. Only three months earlier my family (Mom, Dad + three brothers) had received their Swedish citizenship after four years in the country. I was to become the first completely Swedish family member.
Lets go back a long long way in time and try to understand how I wound up in Sweden out of all places.
Early in the 1700's my great-great-great (well, you get the picture) grandfather came to Palestine from Bulgaria with Napoleon's troops. The myth is that he was a big part of some major massacre and therefore got the last name "Al-Jazzar" which means "The Butcher" in Arabic. Anyhow, his children and children's children stayed in former Palestine up until 1948 when the Israeli state was formed and my father, including seven siblings and two parents were forced to move to Lebanon in exile.
Due to the fact that Palestine was still a British mandate my dad and his family only had 'främlingspass' which gave them great complications and lead to grave segregation during the time they were in Lebanon. Back to the story... in Lebanon my Dad met my Mom and they got married when she was 17, and had her first baby by 18.
So my Dad was raised in Lebanon from the age of 1, and yet every time he would show his främlingspass at a job interview they would turn him down.
The road was tough, however, Dad was determined to change his destiny and thanks to Ericsson the Swedish phone-company, he began his career with telecommunications. They finally settled down in Sweden after 20 years of living all over the Middle-East. Then I entered the picture, and they stayed in Sweden for five years after I was born (which was a record!) and then decided to move to Malaysia. Then Indonesia. Then back to Sweden. Then Jordan. And then back again. But at least we had somewhere to return every time. At least I did. Now it's been six years and we've still been in the same spot.
I am sixteen years old and I have moved 5 times in and out of Sweden. 'Where are you from?' people ask. 'Lebanon... or Sweden... or something...' I usually reply. 'But are you born in Sweden?' they ask back, as if this settles the matter. But what does it really matter if i'm not raised here? I've never watched Pippi or Emil i Lönneberga or Julkalendern... I wasn't even here for the hockey final 1995. But it's not like I belong to any other culture either.
Arabic was my first language and then came a combo of both English and Swedish. At home the Lebanese culture is still the dominating one. We celebrate the national day, we go out, and dance dabke, we listen to Fairuz, we're really loud, we eat Lebanese food, etc. But me, as a person, I'm growing out of the Lebanese way of seeing things and the entire traditions and so on. So yes, I am Lebanese to some extent, at least here in Sweden. In Lebanon I am Swedish.
I've never really thought about my cultural identity, and sometimes I find it unimportant. I have so many influences in my life that maybe it is of no importance where I am from? I think my family's restlessness has had a great impact on me and I will most probably follow in the same nomadic path. My eldest brother already has, he is currently living in Canada and three months ago the Jazzar family got a new Canadian addition! Eddie, the baby, will grow up with an even more complicated cultural identity than me. But what we can conclude is that you make what you are and you are bound to keep changing.
