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Non Fiction – Page 25 – Q-Zine

Q-Zine

Archives: Non Fiction

  • Love As Revolution

    Love As Revolution

    What first moved you to think about or explore revolutionary love as a concept?

    Jessica: The impetus for my fascination with the idea- and experiments in the practice- of revolutionary love was actually my mother. As a teenager she would say to me “to love is to free, to love someone is to free them”. She has a politics shaped by Marxist, feminist, anti-apartheid and decolonial thinking and by the particular experiences of her own early life in rural Uganda. She wrote recently:

    my commitment to feminist values grows out of my genuine love and respect for the woman who raised me and protected me as a child. As an adult that founding love and respect has progressively been translated into a renewed commitment to women and politics in general [1].

    I have to admit that tears rolled down my face reading this as I realised that in a way my own embrace of revolutionary love is part of this inheritance, part of a legacy of crafting a love that serves the interests of freedom. So revolutionary love to me is a concept very much rooted in left/redistributive post-colonial politics, in feminisms and, most potently, in motherlove.

    How does that play out in your own life and worlds of activism, relationships, ways we relate in society? Lives?

    Amina: The idea of revolutionary love as ‘unbound,’ ‘freeing,’ as a political act and as full of endless possibility has undoubtedly transformed the way I relate to others and to myself. It has taught me to think differently about self-care and my own sustainability, the ways that we look after each other as sisters, brothers, friends, comrades, family. It has also helped me re-configure my understanding of what it means to be in partnership WITH and how to share intimacy in ways that honour my beloved ones.

    Let me begin with this idea of self-care. Audre Lorde called it self-preservation, “an act of political warfare”, Toni Cade Bambara called it out when she said: “If your house ain’t in order, you ain’t in order,” Ntozake Shange reminded us that “to take pleasure in ourselves is subversive.” One of the things I have learned is that self-care is the key to my survival and that if I truly ‘loved’ myself (in a way that is revolutionary), then I would make room for whatever it is that I need to survive. In my life, that has meant creating an environment that allows me to be creative, healthy and strong. It has meant embracing all the parts of myself – the good and the not-so-good, the ferocious and the peaceful, my fire and my water energies. My self-care is by all means a process and every moment of every day I do the revolutionary work of asking myself: “what do I need to feel safe, secure and honest about who I am?”

    In terms of my relationships, I have learned to hold people with care and with intention. To hold them close to my heart center and to truly do the work required to love them….because love is work! It’s not just some airy-fairy feel-goodness (even though it does and should feel good)…but it is hard work! Reconceptualizing love in this way has meant challenging myself to spend the time required to come to an understanding for myself of what it means to love and to love deeply. It has taught me to recognise that my physical and emotional health and wellness is linked to that of my community and that to love myself is to commit myself to supporting the healing and well-being of those around me….to step into what brother Darnell Moore has described as “acting in deep participation with each other”.

    It has also helped me to shift the ways in which I view intimacy. For me, love as manifested through intimacy should be about possibility, it should seek to push open, and break free in the most pleasurable sense. We must be careful though, because love is also in many ways about power and we must also seek to deconstruct and unlearn some dangerous discourses lest we find ourselves replicating the very ideologies and systems we are seeking to dismantle.

    Why are concepts of revolutionary love important?

    Jessica: Politics is emotional. Economics is emotional. Exclusion is emotional. Activism is emotional. Psychic autonomy is emotional. Liberation is emotional. In evoking, exploring and living a politics of revolutionary love we are acknowledging that our work is not just about challenging the structural architecture of injustice but in shifting how we feel.

    I think we also need in our activist work to constantly feed the positive, to instigate joy and to create resources of inspiration that can nourish our work for inclusive, just and non-violent societies. Love is that resource. I walk alongside you because I care about your happiness, I want your freedom because your freedom is also my freedom.

    I agree whole-heartedly with you Amina that self-love is an important part of this. As a luminary feminist mentor-friend of mine Hope Chigudu says “do we really think we can transform the world if our own bodies and spirits are broken”?

    What moves you in the ways that people have explored revolutionary love in this Issue?

    Amina: There are so many beautiful love stories in this issue. What a pleasure it was to read all the submissions! I think what has touched me the most is being able to reflect on the many ways people are envisioning love that is trangressive, bold and imaginative. I hope folks reading this issue enjoy it as much as we have!

    [1] Caroline Bazarrabusa Horn in Voice Power and Soul II: Portraits of African Feminists. Accra: AWDF, 2012
  • It’s A Girl

    It’s A Girl

    By Anonymous. Photo by Oumeyma Milady

    I can’t figure out where to begin… but I guess it’s best that I start with my earliest memories of being attracted to a girl. I come from an average conservative Tunisian family. My mother and sister are veiled and my brother is a religious man. Until that first shiver I felt when my high school sweetheart held my waist, I had never considered that I could be a lesbian. No-one had ever talked to me about it.

    I started dating when I was 13 or 14, not because I felt particularly attracted to someone but because all my friends were coupling up and I thought it was about time I followed suit. That went on for a couple of years. I have no special memory of it, nor of the boys I was with, except the recollection of my first kiss. Disappointed would be an understatement. I was sick to my stomach, and almost threw up on the way home. Things got a little better after that first incident, but intimacy (with the boys I was with) never seemed particularly pleasurable for me. My body just wouldn’t respond. Now that I think about it, it seems strange to me how that did not bother me. But at the time it didn’t. I had an unstable home and I was completely absorbed by my studies so I never questioned it…

    As I said, that went on for years…My second year in high school is when it all changed. That was when I finally understood what my body knew all along. That year I started noticing a group of girls. Two of them defied my every conception of what a girl should look like. They were boyish and untidy but I found one of them to be extremely attractive. When I asked my friends about them, they told me they were a group of lesbians. The word didn’t ring any bells. I had only heard it vaguely before and always as something dirty and sinful. In my family, the word was never uttered. In my friends circle at the time (who were almost as conservative as my family), it was rarely brought up, and if so, like any other taboo, it was vaguely talked about in an atmosphere of fearful guilt. I was almost 16 at the time. But I had lived all my previous years in a shell. That made me prude and unadventurous. Anyway, back to her… For the purpose of protecting her identity, I’ll call her Sara (although that is not her real name). I know it sounds so typical, but from the moment I saw her, that girl wouldn’t leave my mind. At first I couldn’t even admit it to myself. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I helplessly wanted to get close to her… Yet I was scared, and she seemed so unapproachable. I started listening to music that girls sang about girls. I started watching movies about girls who loved girls and suffered for it and I cried my eyes out each time. I was literally stepping into a new world but I was making the journey alone. No-one else knew about it. I had no-one I could talk to about it. But with time, I grew a bit more courageous. I looked at her and smiled! I know it sounds trivial but at the time it was a huge step for me. And she smiled back.

    She came up to me one day and started a conversation. Before that moment I have never felt a confusion so intense. I must have sounded like an idiot! But she talked to me again.. and again.. and I grew more comfortable and more confident, and we grew closer.

    Those were some of the happiest days of my life. But also some of the most difficult. I laughed like a child when we were together. My heart almost leaped from my chest when she said something sweet to me. It was also when I started experiencing the famous “sexual desire” I had always heard about but never felt towards any of my ex-boyfriends. She helped me bloom like a flower.

    Now that I look back, I can even say she introduced me to myself. She was also the one to give me the courage to explore the wants and needs of my body. When she kissed me for the first time, I felt butterflies in places I’ve never felt before. And when we made love for the first time (clumsy and teenage-like as it was) I felt like I was floating on a cloud.

    Nothing ever felt like being in her arms. She was my first love… and as the rumors around me started spreading and I lost most of my conservative friends (nothing dramatic. They just stopped asking me to spend time with them and I got the hint) she became my world. That’s when the double life I’m still leading started. At home, I was still the good daughter, the good sister. No-one suspected anything. And to keep that up, lying to my mom had to become a second nature to me. My mother is a traditional housewife in her fifties who got a very modest education, got married early, and has spent all of her life worshipping Allah. Knowing what had become of her daughter would shatter her world. And this is not an exaggeration. Through all these years, the thought of her finding out was one of my worst fears. I am 22 now, and it still scares me.

    As for my love story, problems started in my final year of high school just as I was getting ready for my baccalaureate exam. It was such a difficult year. I cried myself to sleep almost every night. When we fought and broke up, I was completely alone. Most of my new friends were originally hers and so they sided with her although I was the one to get my heart broken. In my despair, I just wanted to finish the year and move out of my hometown. And I did.

    I moved to the capital. My first year in college was nothing like I expected. I still had difficulty making friends and was afraid of opening up to them when I did. Trusting people gets more and more difficult the older one gets. Maybe it was because I had just moved to a place where I knew no-one or because I had just gotten my heart broken by the only person I had ever loved or maybe I was getting used to my loneliness… The thing is, I got depressed that year. I had suicidal thoughts and barely managed to fight my way through them. Hope that things might get better was what got me through.

    I started a blog that summer. That helped me make new LGBT friends abroad who helped me through my depression. I also managed to go back to dating but I didn’t meet anyone really special. My second year in college I met the girl who would become, and still is, my best friend. Her nickname is Ray-Ray. She’s the first close friend I ever came out to. We were having a talk, and the topic of homoerotic love came up. Her laid-back and accepting attitude encouraged me to take a step forward. I told her and my other friend, who also showed a similar attitude, that I was bi-curious (I was too scared to say I was a lesbian) and they both took it well. It felt so good to finally start talking about that deeply hidden part of me but I was still scared that they might start treating me differently. The next time I had a date with a girl, I told them about it. Ray-Ray was so excited for me and even helped me get ready for it! It made my day. I had never felt so accepted before. When I came back from my date that day I told her the truth (that I was a lesbian) and she smiled and said it was okay and that she loves me and will always be there for me. She actually said those exact words (we’re both English Majors)! Tears of joy streamed down my face as I hugged her for what seemed an eternity. Her support meant the world to me especially after everything I’ve been through, and that is why she’ll always hold a special place in my heart.

    The following year, we made new friends. Together with 3 other girls, we became a close group who threw rousing (and prohibited) parties at our dormitory with enough alcohol to knock out half a dozen men! One night, we had all drunk a bit and were talking about ‘love, sex and magic’ (an aside, Ciara looked like a Goddess in that music video!) when I said I was spending the weekend with someone, one of the girls cried out “just don’t forget a condom, okay?” and Ray-Ray (tipsy as she was) said “She won’t be needing one” So the girls started throwing around guesses as to why not. “He’s sterile!” one of them yelled out giggling. “She’s sterile!” the other teased. “Come on tell us!” and that’s when it happened . “It’s a girl!” Meriam cried out and they all went dead silent.

    When I said yes, wild cheers almost deafened me. I had never imagined that the news of my sexual orientation would get a group of girls jumping around with excitement. Now I always get this goofy grin on my face whenever I remember it. One of the girls actually jumped on me screaming “You bitch! Why didn’t you tell us before?” It was a happy night for me! One of the happiest so far! I thought it would get awkward after that, but no. It’s been more than a year and they’ve even met some of the girls I went out with and they’ve always been so loving and supportive.

    I feel blessed to have met them. I truly am. Even though my love life hasn’t picked up as I thought it would by this time, their friendship has helped me through my breakups and the depression that usually follows. They’re always ready with a movie and a jar of Nutella waiting! I don’t know what would have become of me without them. They’re my anchor. When the darkness of living in the shadows becomes too stifling and the burden of secrecy becomes too heavy for a young girl like me, they are the ones who manage to guide me out of it. I can never forget their goodness to me, and I could not possibly be anymore grateful.

  • Pensées: Je me souviens

    Pensées: Je me souviens

    Par  Stéphane Ségara

    Je me souviens: Je garde encore beaucoup de souvenirs de nous, de notre petite famille. Mais j’ai très peu de moments d’amour en moi, où nous avons partagé cette chaleur familiale, où nous avons manifesté que nous nous aimions avant que la mort nous fasse perdre nos raisons. Lorsque je replonge dans ces souvenirs, alors que j’avais environ 10ans, il est très complexe de décrire notre relation familiale.

    Je me souviens: Nous étions comme cette famille nucléaire traditionnelle locale vivant des principes et des valeurs de vie qui tournaient autour du respect du droit d’aînesse, la politesse, l’obéissance absolue aux géniteurs, et sans oublier ramener de bonnes notes scolaires à la maison.

    Je me souviens: Nous avions très peu de moments de communion où nous partagions cet amour entre parents et enfants. Il ne nous était pas permis d’exprimer nos sentiments. D’un accord tacite, nous devions ravaler ces sentiments, nous ne devions pas les extérioriser.

    Je me souviens: Ma mère qui était très timide et assez sensible, essayait de donner une chaleur mais très sommaire. Elle avait sa façon à elle d’aimer mais que nous ne comprenions pas toujours, que nous trouvons trop distante. Pendant la période de sa longue maladie, qui l’emportera, je ne savais comment lui exprimer mes peines. Je feignais l’indifférent pas que je n’étais pas soucieux de son état mais par peur que mes sentiments ne soient sévèrement réprimés. Par moment, lorsque Maman faisait des crises d’évanouissement, je me retirais derrière la maison et je pleurais tout seul, puis je revenais le visage souriant pour ne pas laisser transparaitre un quelconque sentiment.

    Je me souviens: Mon père était très rigoureux, voire sévère dans sa manière de faire les choses. Il ne tolérait aucun écart de comportement. Par conséquent, nous étions très distants de lui et nos relations se limitaient à la simple présentation des notes scolaires. Cependant, son attitude s’atténuera avec la maladie puis le décès de ma mère. Mais je pense qu’il était déjà tard pour nous, ou alors qu’il a eu très peu de temps pour construire « notre amour ».

    Je me souviens: Durant la maladie de Maman, je ne lui tenais pas très souvent compagnie pour ne pas toujours m’apitoyer. Un jour, pendant qu’elle était allongée seule sur le canapé du salon, elle m’appela pour venir lui tenir compagnie et me demander de lui raconter une anecdote, ce que je savais bien faire avec mes amis. Elle me connaissait bien ma mère… Par timidité, et par honte de parler de ce que je ressentais en la voyant si amaigrie et affaiblie par la maladie, je n’ai rien pu lui dire, je suis resté là à la regarder. Et c’était notre dernier échange privé jusqu’à son décès quelques semaine plus tard.

    Je me souviens: Ma mère est décédée et c’est mon père qui m’a annoncé son décès. Il m’a interdit formellement de laisser transparaitre une quelconque larme, car personne ne devait me voir pleurer. Je devais rester « exemplaire et courageux » aux yeux de ma sœur. Et je n’ai pas pleuré publiquement, je n’ai pas exprimé de douleur publiquement même si tous les regards étaient sur moi pendant les obsèques, comme si le monde attendait justement une larme de moi. Je me souviens encore.

    Je me souviens: Le jour où nous commémorions le premier anniversaire du décès de ma mère, mon père a piqué une grave crise où il délirait énormément. Il ne s’en remettra jamais et mourra une semaine plus tard. Avec beaucoup de recul, je me rends compte combien mon père était rongé par le décès de ma mère et n’avait jamais fait le deuil au point de se laisser détruire par l’alcool. Il n’a jamais exprimé un quelconque sentiment et ne semblait jamais triste. Il était « courageux et exemplaire ».

    Je me souviens: Dans cette culture d’éviter d’exprimer mes sentiments, aux obsèques de mon père, je n’ai pas pleuré. Personne ne m’interdisait rien, mais je me suis interdit de parler de ma douleur. Mon père est mort lorsque j’avais 12ans.

    Je souviens: Il me revient encore qu’en si peu de temps passé ensemble, il ne m’est resté aucun souvenir d’un profond sentiment exprimé au sein de notre famille. Je n’ai pas le souvenir que l’on s’aimait même si j’ai le sentiment que c’est le cas.

    Je me souviens: Aujourd’hui encore, j’ai du mal à partager des sentiments, j’ai honte d’avoir des sentiments, il m’arrive même d’avoir honte d’aimer. Il est vrai que j’ai eu le temps de reconstruire beaucoup de choses, mais il est des expressions qui s’acquièrent très tôt et qui nous suivent tout au long de notre vie. C’est ma certitude. Avec ma sœur, rien ne nous empêche de nous parler de nos sentiments, mais nous n’avons pas ce courage, nous n’avons pas cette belle éducation. J’ai compris alors qu’aimer est une chose, exprimer son amour en est une autre…