No

What is the difference between Alia Al Mahdi’s nude picture, and the forced virginity tests that 17 Egyptian women activists were subjected to on the 9th of march 2011? What is the difference between her body standing steadfast, chest open wide, legs spread a bit showing her clitoris, and the unknown body of a female mutilated and left to rot by the pro-Assad thugs in Syria?

The easy answer would be that we pick up our pens or switch on our computers to “give a voice to the voiceless”, to enable people to speak through our ink, but that would just be a bit too easy and above all, would lack honesty. Writing, for all the altruism giving it its letters of glory, is an eminently selfish act, for we, first and foremost, write for ourselves. As activists, we write to denounce, to highlight, to let the unknown be known, to make ourselves heard, in a word, to make us feel less helpless in the world we live in.

Here again. Another trip out gets me back to this coast. But the feeling doesn’t seem to want to fly away. Coming back it seems like this “thing” is irremediable; like a current that continuously pulls you away from the coast.

I see friends I miss to eagerly share stories of what I saw, but quickly then a weird sense of dispossession and disconnection seethes seeps in..; like some dysfunctional alarm clock snooze, it is unshakable, confusing and not easily tamed.

Suddenly, I realize where it comes from suddenly.

Remember the day we sat on a rock by the beach, transfixed by the waves, sipping our beers. And you made me promise the sea, out loud, that I would write more often. And so I write this, enamored as I am with your stories, your words, your knowledge.

Lately, I’ve been writing as a kind of revenge. To vengefully give a body and a life to what is not easily allowed to exist. Unrequited love, forbidden politics. Forbidden love, unrequited politics. What’s the difference anyway.