السبت، 23 فبراير 2013

#Libya: Breaking the Unbreakable

By Zanjabeel Almahdawi

Everyone has a dream, everyone plays a role, and everyone has to fight for something. No matter how big or small you were. You have some good you're trying to accomplish and bad you're trying to avoid. The main ones that almost everyone has is achieving success and keeping away from failure.

Since I was young, my big dream has been being an educated lady. At first, it was that I wanted to be a doctor. I think every child had that dream. I also wanted to learn English. Then, my dreams’ ship was hit into the rocks of reality. I realized how I could never study medicine as it was a dead end choice. So, I decided to start working on my linguistic skills. It started when I went to high school.

I am not going to say much about middle school. It was not very inspiring. I can't remember anything but tears I shed, hate I felt and injustice I underwent. I even hate remembering how the so called "teachers" intentionally insulted us. They would call us names, slap us on the face and cause so much hurt and pain. The problem is that the pain wasn't only the physical that would be healed with time; it was that which you spend a lifetime remembering and reliving.

I started high school with a lot of hope that the rough days were over and it's a new start. Only then, I realized how fun and memorable middle school days were. Compared to high school, middle school was nothing and I mean what I'm saying.

I learned something new. It was how despised, hated and socially disliked Hijabies were. Of course, we're all Libyans and we're all Muslims. Yet, the Islamic uniform of Hijab was different from one to another. It was not a problem to wear it but still have your bangs shown. The unacceptable thing was the "Abaya" or "Jalabeya". Everyone had negative thoughts about them. I still remember how my friends and I would cry in misery over not being allowed to enter our class and being ill-treated.

That had lasted for a year and a half, until the Libyan revolution of February 17 started. At that point we thought, like everyone else, the change of the regime would change the system the schools were run and the dark days are finally over. Surprisingly, they have not. In fact, the same respectful lady who used to fine us came everyday to do the same job she had spent her life doing.

That wasn't the only problem. The miracles that fictional novels' authors couldn't be creative enough to write about had all happened in the class we suffered to get a seat in. The past simple of the verb "see" would be "seed" and before reading any passage, that no one could understand, the teacher would comfort us by saying, "will be to the understand". You have got to be very careful if they said something like, "today, I don't fine", translation, I'm not fine or I'm not doing fine. Our ambition was to once see a real live inspector. It didn't happen though. But we can still dream, can't we?

We can still dream of an actual educational system. A system that's consisted of real teachers, responsible principles, and professional inspectors. We can still dream of having the right to speak our minds freely without any unfair limits. We have the right to practice our religion and not feeling we're the odd ones out.

I cannot mention any names of those who contributed in this crisis. Not because I don't have the guts to do so. I just don't want to mention some names and leave others. I, Zanjabeel Almahdawi, speak on behalf of my peers who have become hopeless to cause any change or make any difference.

I can prove everything I wrote is true and that I didn't exaggerate anything. Maybe someone out there could help save the rest of the students. We need your support so please don't just read this article and do nothing. I cannot talk about everything but if you were one of those rare to find that kind of people, if you have any sort of love to your country, if you bear sympathy for those innocent victims, if any of what I wrote affected you, will you help us and break the unbreakable silence of wrong doing and help voicing the sound of right?

I am still fighting for my dream to be educated against all the obstacles that stood in front of me. I could write this article without asking for anyone's help. It took me sleepless nights and a lot of struggling. I could swear that 90% of my peers and most importantly my teachers would not understand the language of this article. Although it is very humble. This is an enough reason to call for attention to this emergency. We will never become a better country by raising money for the youth for being Libyans, but rather by raising the youth who would make money to build Libya.
 tripoli post

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