On identity – or -
Like a good Arab man I am dealing with my issues and crisis’ through my stomach!
Never wanting to discuss the issue till I thought it was understood enough from my end and accepted and digested to be able to share it with the world and discuss it and see it through everyone else’s eyes, I got sucked into or rather tricked into going down this path.
Knowing of the dilemma I will face coming down to Amman (Jordan) for the art residency I made it a point to myself and I think also in an email to Makan (the contemporary art space) about how I didn’t think I had enough time to absorb Amman and create something based on that accumilation.
I wanted to have a contemporary experimental piece about being alone and detachment and seeing how the public here would react to that and to my view of being alone.
I did start with that in mind, working towards a show with screens and things, but bit-by-bit I figured out that it wasn’t as easy setting this all up. Interacting with a collection of people I started to feel less and less attached to this idea when I finally decided to kill it and move on.
Having killed my one year old child whom I had conceived in Amman last year when I was “stuck” during the Lebanese massacre by the Israelis I sat down and let Amman drown me.
It did, it was a difficult swim back where I was upset and I was frightened and I was negative and all in all I was foreign!
It took me a few open-minded steps to reach where I have reached now.
I started off with the whole idea of me wasting my time with this “art”, and that lead to an equation linking money to life and death… that’s a whole different essay!
That having got that out of my system, I went through with the notion of how I presented myself in Amman and how I had to be presented and explained at times.
I am Emirati born of Jordanian and Lebanese parents.
So technically I am Jordanian on paper but Lebanese by lifestyle and Emirati by birth and upbringing. Legally most Arab countries only allowed the children the nationality of the father in my case Jordanian, and sadly no identity from the mother and most Arab countries do not give citizenships to people born in it!
So all this goes into explaining where I was from, in a country where I was from, to a people I was from.
Coming back to the point of belonging and not belonging or better yet belonging but not fitting in, I just wanted to make it clear that with all my thoughts and interactions I was checking out Amman then in avertedly checking out myself.
I don’t want this to be a comment about the city itself, because I don’t know it, nor it's people. I only know myself and my feelings on belonging.
As a joke I kept saying how I was such a bad Jordanian I couldn’t even have the national dish Mansaf, which is basically a meat and rice dish covered with a warm salty type of preserved yogurt called Jameed.
The fact hat I don’t eat meat and that I am Lactose intolerant created a surreal idea of having the dish changed to fit me, thus me having some sort of an impact on the place every time I interact with someone and leaving some sort of feeling where I didn’t necessarily think is an orthodox one. So in short I am figuring out my identity issue of belonging here to the country’s national dish!
A vegan or a pesca (fish) based Mansaf is as absurd as I feel, I am Jordanian, no one can deny that, so yes I am Mansaf, but at the same time like the vegan part I am far too influenced by other things to be just that, Jordanian, or a real Mansaf.
Remembering now the tiny jokes and comments made at my mother’s (very very good) less greasy low fat Mansaf or “Lebanese” Mansaf, I think I had this issue in my subconscious for a while! My Mother took Mansaf and made it her own, yet still tasted good and like Mansaf, but a less greasy one.
I wonder if my idea of a whole different Mansaf where only the name and the concept are present would still be one.
Already having asked a few people about a Mansaf for lent i.e. vegan Mansaf the looks and laughs I got especially from the older ladies was answer in itself.
It wouldn’t be Mansaf!
Does that mean I can’t be Jordanian?
I oppose that idea, because no one can force what I am or am not on me, like everything else food has to adapt, if the notion is still the same then it would be Mansaf even if the ingredients are different, otherwise if we stick to the ingredients many things would be joined as one, I mean it isn’t that uncommon to mix a grain, a meat and a milk based product for a dish!
Tags: identity food belonging
Current Location: Amman
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