I can declare with full pride that I am a normal person. Yes I am! I don’t suffer from “psychological emptiness” nor from “blindly following the ways of the West”. I am free from all these “societal diseases” and I a normal member of the Male/Arab/Jordanian/Eastern society. Isn’t that great?
How do I know I am normal?
Well.. The newspaper told me so. I don’t wear an earring. I have no piercing. No tattoos. No necklaces. Thus I am normal and good.
…
Now seriously. What is it that bugs a female journalist so much about some guys wearing an earring to make such a fuss about it on the front page of the “Lifestyle” section of Al-Ghad. What is the problem of all the psychologists and other experts who always come out with the same answers when asked about any “strange” things that young people do?
“Men’s Jewelry: Self Display Reflecting A Societal Crisis”. That’s the headline in the supposedly liberal Al-Ghad.
It is always the same bullshit about how all these “youth behaviors” are in imitation of the West, incompatible with our “Eastern society”. What kind of lack of self confidence do we suffer from when every innocent “deviation” from the accepted norm becomes a cultural conspiracy or a sign of psychological illness.
And can’t the editors choose a more fun or inspiring story for the cover of their lifestyle section. Or de we insist, as Jordanians to insert the word “crisis” even in the supposedly “light section” of out papers.
Look. I’ve never had an earring. I never had long hair. Hell I never even wore a T-shirt that says fcuk. And no, I would not be too thrilled if my soon-to-be-teenager son decides to wear an earring. So I actually fit the supposed conservative description of a “male”.
But I just don’t understand why journalists can’t just “leave those kids alone”.
Comments
7 responses to “Hey! Journalists! Leave those kids alone!”
This section of Al-Ghad has been a hopeless case for a long time now… trying to do “features” on social issues and ending up with nothing more than a judgmental essay with quotes from “young people” and “experts” that suit the journalist’s view. Worse yet was the weekly youth supplement from Al-Rai… which turns young people into a subject rather than an audience, and goes on analyzing different types of crisis like fashion, cell phones, music, you name it…
Oh, note also, that very rarely does the front page of al-ghad’s “lifestyle” section have original local photography. I couldn’t read the caption on the photo here but I wouldn’t be surprised if they just got it from the internet and slapped a caption on it.
why journalists can’t just “leave those kids alone� Because those kids are controversial, therefor they bring more readers to buy the newspaper, therefor it earns the newspaper more money.
Mass media never was about the truth, real stories or topics that actually affect the public. it’s about getting stories that can market the media more, and gain acceptance from there target audience. That’s also why the word “Crises” is up there in the headline. The same is happening with blogs these days (your blog is one of the few exceptions). blogger only care about topics that can get them more hits, not with topics that really maters.
About the topic itself, I also don’t wear piercing, tattoos or any other provocative clothing (i listen to metal though. good thing it only shows by an earphone, otherwise I’d be eaten alive
). I don’t imagine myself ever wearing one, but just because i don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Until the day we learn that different =/= bad, we’ll be stuck with headlines like these all the time.
the cliche “odd to our jordanian society habbits”… who thinks what? Amman for instance, is very hidden for many arab common visitors or tourists, I would even say that Amman is a consortuim of many groups on different scaling parameters, we live in closed groups barely interacting in the open.. which in my opinion is an obstacle to capture Amman in a scientific research view, a tourist’s view, or even to Ammanis as we all have our seperate experiences, many common inspirations but diffenately a distant points of measurements to have many people declaring stands and generalized opinions about things.
Ok, it’s true that talking about this things= selling a lot of copies of the paper! But i think we should also think a little about some “habits” changing in our societies. It’s surely a signal of a “weak” culture (our) that is slowly changing and just copying a strong one (western). It’s not a tragedy if we consider the single things (earring, tatoo, etc), but it’s a tragedy if we consider that we are not able to have an identity anymore. When a man have a strong personality he is able to choose what to take from another personality, we are like a man copying everything from others because he is totally without a personality! This is sad. I live in a country with a “strong” identity, Italy. It’s a western country, but i swear i don’t see italian guys and girls so affected by “american style” like our youth, this is because they are proud of their history and culture, they like NY but they know that it’s a null compared to Rome or Florence history. They can look “hip hop” style, but they are proud of Italian style dressing. There is a huge difference between copy and assimilate. We copy, others assimilate.
The editor seriously needs to get a life.
Tattoo and jewelry were never strange to Arab society or communities… the article as always is misinformed and under-researched. Al Ghad to me is not a serious paper but rather sensationalist and tabloid like.
i loved your article and i loved the responses so far, i dont have anything much to add here except you gotta try this : being a muslim who prays and have a pony tail and wear a silver bracelet and listen to rock music and only watch independent movies and read books which are considered to be a taboo and to top this all out who ever see’s you ends up calling you john or assumes you are a christian!
people were and are and will always be afraid and feel aggressive when it comes to anything new and imported, the fear of the unknown and the unreachable with the current logic will always cause a threat to humen, just as we fear the earrings and the tattoo’s they too in the west world fear the unreachable according to there logic, the fasting the pilgrim, my point is a human will always be a human disregarding wither he was an arab, amirecan, asian..
one last thing crosses my mind before i end this, was the funny, surprising thing i came to know, that even the old bedwin women who used to have tattoo’s on the bottoms (ass incase you didnt understand) and even other sexual places!! and now they claim that the youth is so lost in the western civilization and imitating them!! dont get me wrong i dont mind them doing it back then just as i dont mind the youth doing it now, lets get a little open minded and stop looping our selves in this empty circle, for god’s sake the pharos had hieroglyphic inscription stating the conflict between the fathers and sons, how more sad and funny does it get..
Peace and Love..