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“The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people’s hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely. During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one’s face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one’s lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because they didn’t go round with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they’d understood correctly. Sometimes these misunderstandings were even desirable, since they gave people a reason to say, Forgive me, I was only scratching my nose. Of course I know I’ve always been right to love you. Because of the frequency of these mistakes, over time the gesture for asking forgiveness evolved into the simplest form. Just to open your palm was to say: Forgive me.” "If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms – if you find yourself at a loss for what to do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body – it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside, was so much less. It’s not that we’ve forgotten the language of gestures entirely. The habit of moving our hands while we speak is left over from it. Clapping, pointing, giving the thumbs-up, for example, is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together. And at night, when it’s too dark to see, we find it necessary to gesture on each other’s bodies to make ourselves understood.”

THEORY FOR MARGINALIZED GROUP EXPRESSION Like most of my opinion pieces, the

burning urge to write this one came from a rather intense argument. It was only my second Saturday night at college and while on my way with a couple more people to a party, the conversation led me and a girl towards the topic of the highly controversial Ukrainian feminist group, Femen. I had mentioned that I had come across their website and was shocked to be immediately greeted by a topless woman holding a scythe in one hand and a pair of bloody testicles in the other followed by slogans such as “Death for Patriarchy!” I stated that I think such radical groups, across the board, should think carefully about such forms of expression. The girl responded by saying that, given that I do not have a vagina, I couldn’t have an opinion on the matter.

To be fair, her response was a bit more complex than that. She did state that in order for the message to get across, marginalized groups cannot afford to be moderate or sympathetic, but must be firm in their stance against oppression. This, of course, has significant merit to it. There have been numerous moments throughout history where marginalized groups could not progress without radical representatives, however, this girl was missing two points. Number one: I didn’t say groups like Femen should not protest like that, merely that they should be cautious about how they do so. Number two: the world is a very different place, thanks to the development of communications infrastructures and mainly, the internet.

Regard ing number one: I implore these groups to be more cautious about their actions for one simple reason; the average citizen of privilege, he who belongs to the major and empowered ethnic group, sexual orientation, religion and socio-economic status, is not necessarily nor inherently a fervent bigot. In other words, the typical every day man of any country does not hold prejudice because they are

legitimately utterly convinced of its validity. They are racist, sexist or homophobic simply because that is what the society demands of them to be. They cannot even view their beliefs as oppressive because they simply regard them as the way things should be. Hence at their core, these individuals are not actually necessarily against gender, racial or LGBT equality.

Growing up in Egypt, by all accounts a highly sexist, homophobic and occasionally racist society, I was astounded by the absence of actual belief in these forms of oppression. When older men in my family expressed views that any western liberal would immediately deem as sexist, they did not back them up by derogatory convictions. For example, almost every man who has ever told me he believes a woman should stay at home while her husband goes out to work did not defend his opinion out of a belief that a woman is fundamentally inferior and could never produce the same results, but because that has been the norm, for the most part, for Arab-Muslim societies since their very inception.

It goes without saying that tradition is no excuse to condone what we can easily agree is oppression. A man who does not allow his wife or daughter to work because of his inability to step outside his culture’s comfort zone is still being sexist. However, what must be understood about this man is that he is doing it because he legitimately thinks that is the best course of action for the women in his life. He is no different than a parent who forces his child to go into traditional and ‘safe’ educational fields such as medicine or law rather than more risky ones such as art history or creative writing. Both are making mistakes that will ultimately harm their loved ones, but both are doing it out of misguidance, not malice.

So what does th is have to do wi th Femen and s imi lar rad ica l groups?

Well, picture if you will this average man that has been discussed. He is sitting at home watching TV. He turns on the news and there is a report on the latest ‘feminist’ protest. Keep in mind, this guy probably has no idea what feminism means. He does not understand that it is not a complicated philosophical theory, but simply the premise that women should be afforded the same political, economic and social opportunities as men. Also keep in mind that whatever this man has heard about feminism before, it probably was not very good. He has probably been told that it is ridiculous, unrealistic, a product of ultra-liberalism and that it just wants to put women on top. Now, keeping all that in mind, imagine he sees what is almost definitely a heavily biased report on the latest Femen protest. The channel will show footage of topless women storming significant figures such as Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Our average man will gasp. Maybe he will switch of his TV, maybe he will continue watching the reporter’s intense dramatization of the event, but one thing is certain; he will curse the day the feminist movement began.

There is of course no doubt that the main fault here rests on him. He has taken a scandalous report for granted, he has made a massive generalization based off of an extremely specific kind of feminist protest and he was waved off any consideration for a clearly significant cause simply because he did not like what he saw. Simply put, he cannot think critically. He does not know how to handle such an influx of controversial and challenging thoughts. He is ignorant. And that is exactly the point of this whole piece.

These average men, these individuals who are basically programmed by their society rather than allowed to adequately develop their own views on these issues, may have a predisposition to oppose the causes, but they are not necessarily predisposed to oppose the goals these causes are

fighting for. I have known many men, and even some women, who state that feminism is a dangerous cause that must be resisted, and yet they unconsciously support its very point. In other words, they believe that men and women should be equal, but are hindered from properly sharing and developing their views because of the huge stigma that feminism carries in some cultures. Of course, even that stage is a far cry for the average man as he needs to believe first in the equality of men and women and, for that to happen, he must first face the massive obstacle of controversy that surrounds these topics.

So should Femen and s imi lar groups stop a l l these protests?

Absolute ly not . Radical protesting is crucial to any cause worth fighting for and every now and then, society reaches such a horrid state of indifference towards very serious issues that there is no alternative but to slap it awake. Take for example the internationally adored poster-boy of peace, Nelson Mandela. Hailed for the last twenty years as one of the most powerful symbols of peace, Mandela was at one point a straight-up terrorist. In the early 1960’s, the ANC, Mandela’s party, formed a military branch called ‘Umkhonto we Sizwe’ or ‘Spear of the Nation’. This militia proceeded to bomb numerous government buildings, cut telephone lines and, overall, heavily disrupt government operations.

While these actions provided significant fuel for many white supremacists in the Apartheid regime to empower their flames of black hate, they were sorely needed. The government needed to be terrified. It needed to wake up and understand that this system of complete segregation was simply not going to work and that dire consequences awaited should they refuse to act to fix it. However, these actions cannot be justified easily. An elaborate set of conditions had to be met for most people to now regard them as the best solution for the time.

First of all, the regime had explicitly proven that non-violent protest was futile as the ANC had been doing so in major cities and universities for

much over a decade, and the government barely even responded. Furthermore, the situation was absolutely intolerable. Black South Africans could simply no longer, and should not have had to, bear the unfathomably intense oppression they had been experiencing from all fronts. Lastly, while seemingly chaotic, the attacks were highly strategic, carefully choosing targets that, upon being attacked, crippled government operations and forced officials to pay attention to the issues at hand. They did not make themselves pests or thorns that could simply be exterminated or plucked out, but explicit symptoms of the disease that was the apartheid regime.

So what does the Internet have to do wi th a l l th is?

Well, simply put, the astounding global influence the internet and social media now hold worldwide has dramatically deceased the necessity for these kinds of radical actions. The main point of them is to jolt people into conscience and make them aware that there are issues in society that need addressing and people need to be jolted because they are ignorant and unaware of what is happening. But with the internet, knowing what is happening has literally never been easier. As I am writing this, I could learn the basic issues concerning the Tibetan or Palestinian crises or be updated on the conflicts in the Central African Republic or Syria.

Of course, for one to actually get on the internet and exert the time and effort to look into these topics, one needs to be jolted. One needs to understand that they are significant issues that need immediate attention, which means we still absolutely need radical expressionists. However, this also means the jolt’s biggest goal should be to get people searching and must be very careful not to cross the line where their actions will be regarded as nothing more than evidence for the real bigots’ arguments. For example, going back to my concerns regarding Femen and specifically the incident of Yana Zhdanova rushing Patriarch Kirill. While it is easily arguable that such an action may

raise significant awareness regarding the oppression women face from traditional religious institutions, did she have to have ‘Kill Kirill’ painted on her back? Could it perhaps hinder the organization’s ultimately noble and necessary mission and convince average ignorant men that feminism is actually a ‘dangerous’ cause?

Given that I am not an activist and this is not a research paper, I do not know the answer to those last two questions and, even if I did, that is not the point of this piece. I am not trying to tell Femen, or any other radical human rights organization, that I have achieved the cure; the ideal formula to produce the perfect protest, a complete theory for marginalized group expression. But I am trying to say that, as individuals and organizations fighting for the causes too many people in the world do not even take seriously, we need to be very cautious about how we express ourselves. Once again let me emphasize that this is not to say that Femen and similar groups should not protest the way they do, but they must keep in mind that, while the average man does need to be jolted, it must be done in a manner that will push him to, at the very least, pursue a better understanding of the causes in question. If the shock is too strong, then we run the risk of alienation and, worst of all, further bigotry. But if radical groups can simply get average people to sacrifice a few meager minutes of their time to look into their heavily misunderstood causes, then the road to progress will be a smother one for it will be laden with allies who, in the first place, may have already believed in the core ideals of these groups, but simply needed to be educated about them.

QUESTIONS

I wonder if a poet can love a poet or if a dog can love anything or if there’s really rain I wonder if you’ll come home with me tonight or if you would have gone home with anyone who was willing or if we’ve ever touched I wonder if after reading you’ll understand or worse, understand I wonder if you know better. I wonder if I know better. I wonder if we ought to learn about each other Is it like eating candy, or greens? I wonder if you’ll wander away one day. Like a dog and the sand on the beach won’t tell me much except that you took your ball three miles down because you forgot you had it and then dropped it, in the dunes before running to the back of some restaurant with your nose sparkling

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REDISTRIBUTE. WRITE SOMETHING YOURSELF.

GIVE IT AWAY. LEAVE IT IN A BOOK. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE.

THINK. READ. DRINK IT IN. HOLD ON FAST. TELL US.

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