A Series: Lessons I Learned Teaching in My 20s: عيب

عيب

What a vulgar word. So curt and short in letters, but so crushing in weight. It carries so much. It’s so deeply rooted in our cultural history — the roots so tangled, interwoven to the depths — if you tried, you wouldn’t be able to trace it.

I never hated the word; on the contrary, I’ve heard it so much that I’ve become desensitized to it.

I heard it in my childhood when I misbehaved. I heard it randomly in passing conversations amongst strangers. I heard it in school from my peers, Arabic teachers, and parents.

I still hear it daily. But I’ve recently begun to see how ugly the word is — how repulsive. I began to question feverishly:
Why did we give this word so much precedence over everything?
How can we so casually exist with people throwing it around so recklessly?!

I see the destruction this word has caused every day when I enter the university campus. I see the casualties of this word, the wounds on the faces of the young students I teach. I see the repercussions of it in the wrong choices they make, in what they fear the most. I see it mostly in how lost they feel — and their misguided pursuit of purpose and meaning.

I despise this word now so much it makes me seethe. It’s so repulsive, just saying it releases so much acid that lingers on my tongue far after the word has escaped my lips.

Shame is one of the most destructive emotions anyone can feel — especially when it’s being used as a penalty for anything and everything so unjustly.

In our culture, it’s used as a parenting technique. We hear it so much in the way we raise our kids, and it’s the first resort. The first thing that adults say when you do something wrong — when you spill a drink, when you mess up your clothes, when you make a mistake.

It starts with the most innocent mistakes, and then it grows to haunt you in your formative years. You are taught to refrain from being anything outside the norm. Even if who you are is beautiful — even better than the norm — it doesn’t matter. The quality, the content, the intention, the purity of it all — it doesn’t matter.

As long as it’s not what “people” are used to, then it’s عيب.

How can we raise good people when the priority in their search of who they are is not to feel ashamed?

Just visualize for a second the cruelty of it all — the constant fear that has been ingrained in us since birth, the fear of being shunned, of feeling ashamed, the pain and torture it subjects us to.

A recap from a real conversation I had with a colleague:

Him: شفتي الي صار بالسحب امس؟
Me: لا، أي سحب؟
Him: شلون ما شفتي؟ الكويت كلها قاعد تتكلم عن الموضوع، السحب مال مهرجان هلا فبراير، موظف وزارة التجارة اللي طلع كوبون من جَمَّه؟

He then details the whole thing to me, explaining the severity of the scandal — how the employee who stole was the one responsible for ensuring no one steals…

Me: و برمضان؟ الشياطين مربطة، شلون يسوي شي هل كثر حرام؟
Him: خلج من الحلال و الحرام، شلون ما خاف من كلام الناس؟؟

And that is exactly where my vengeance for the word comes from. Conversations like that — that I hear so often amongst the students (even though this one was with a full-grown adult).

How can عيب be more powerful to us than حرام?

This mentality has created a performative society with two very distinct lives — and the one behind closed doors is the twin opposite of the one we perform.

An unsafe society where you walk amongst strangers — no matter how well you know them, they remain strangers — because we all wear masks. It’s not mandatory. It’s a safety precaution. Anything but risking feeling ashamed.

How can عيب be the most powerful predictor of our behavior?

How can society’s perception be more powerful than God’s?

We’ve raised kids that are so terrified of what people will think — but never, ever think about what God thinks.

We’ve raised kids who wait for the night to hide from society’s watchful eyes — but forget that God never sleeps.

We’ve raised kids who think that as long as no one knows, it does not matter what you do.

That holds so much danger. It’s a detrimental mentality that leads to all the drug addictions, all the dropouts, all the violent crimes — all the evil we see proliferate around us every day.

Why don’t we raise our kids to love God so much, they fear upsetting Him?
Why don’t we raise our kids to know that mistakes happen, but it’s how you bounce back from them that matters, because God is the Most Forgiving?
Why don’t we teach our children that it does not matter what anyone thinks, as long as your intention was one that pleases God?

Can we start now at least?