Ambassador to who? To them!!
One of the joys of being a blogger is people’s perception of who I am through the words that I write. I love it when people email me saying, “Hey Mona! I know how you feel.” Or “Hey Mona, I am going through the same problems, but I never thought someone else would discuss them or understand them.”
Side Thought
This morning, a guy emailed me asking if my real name is Mona, and I will say this for the last time, “Yes, my real name is Mona! MONA! MONA!” I am not hiding who I am! In Arabic my name means: A wish or desire. In Italian it means: Lady. Hence, Lady Lisa or Mona Lisa. In Irish or Gaelic it means: A Nobel One. So no, it is not a blog name. It is my name, and I appreciate that my mother named me Mona. (She would be happy that I appreciate anything!) 
Down Memory Lane
One time, an Iraqi girl that I knew at University asked me this silly question, “Why are your eyes like this? You look like a REAL Arab!” You should have seen my face after she said that. Because I was in shock, I couldn’t reply to her silly and obvious question. I am an Arab. I look like a real Arab. I have olive dark skin, dark brown hair, and brown big almond shaped eyes. I look like my ancestors and the people that came from the middle east. I am an Arab. Even if I try to hide it, to never speak Arabic again, and to change my first and last name, I will always carry not only the outer look, but the blood of an Arab.
I am an Arab. Dammit people! Say it you Arabs out there reading this now: I AM AN ARAB!
Ambassador to Them!
This evening, I got a cute email from one of my favorite Blog Watchers named Incandescent Chimera (Sarah) saying this about me on her blog,
Rebellious Arab Girl is a unique blogger named Mona, who resides in Canada. She is outspoken, self-expressive, deep, honest and digs right to the core of issues surrounding Arabs and her environment. Not only is she a spokesperson and an ambassador to us as Arab youth but as a character who stands out in your typical Arab community. She is down-to-earth and represents a mirror of hope for Arabs who are constantly bombarded with many issues in the environment such as marriage, ethnicity and religious identity. She is a strong character and her blog’s outspokenness which some conservatives may find controversial is a mirror of harsh reality and truthfulness about the pressures we endure in our society. Her blog has made a marvelous unique stance against many social norms and stereotypes we are constantly labelled with frequently. Moreover, it paints a picture about Arab survival and coping mechanisms in the western world. She is indeed an inspiration to all Arab youth and her views lack controversy and contradictions unlike many of us who are constantly faced with social dilemmas we fail to represent or combat appropriately. I strongly urge anyone who is failing to understand Arabs to look at her as an ambassador for all of us. Her topics range from typical daily rants, observations and a straightforward analysis of the truth in simple words. Her writing and composition is indeed beautiful, simple, meaningful and greatly triumphs you into the 21st century life of a typical western Arab who never compromises her values or her identity from back home.
I wrote this because her birthday is coming up and she needs to recognise and be well aware of her achievements and deep influence on the younger generation of Arabs particularly those living in the West. Happy Birthday, Mona! We love you! Keep writing and keep inspiring us to move forward~ Love you always. -Sarah
Sarah lives in the other side of the world. I never met her. I don’t know how she sounds like in real life. I don’t know her habits and the way she acts, but somehow, she figured me out. I think I need to spend more time reading other blogs and understand people too. That’s my other problem as a blogger, no time to talk to other bloggers, but they know everything about me and want to know me more. Sarah and the rest, my new year’s resolution for 2010 is to be a better social networker. I don’t promise I will improve quickly, but I promise I will try to get to know other people that actually like me for who I am.
Internet, what a beautiful invention.
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I looove FouseyTube!! All of his videos are... 
It’s a pleasure indeed… we always love reading your experiences and I reckon this will further build on our cyber-internet networking based relationships in the future and for many years to come.
Peace
@Incandescent Chimera
Thanks cutie!!
Well written Sarah. Being an Arab but not a youth, well maybe at heart (debatable sometimes), I agree that Mona meets issues head on, she does not mince words or even try being diplomatic. Shocks us all into stopping and listening, which is a good thing, us Arabs are not good at listening.
I have to admit some of Mona’s blogging sometimes rubs me the wrong way, so what? I read and move on. The reason it is uncomfortable because it points out deficiencies in the way my generation raised our children. An upbringing that does not prepare them for dealing with diversity and other cultural environments. As globalization and technology shrinks distances the issues that Mona addresses become more relevant not only to expatriate Arab youths but to those who live in their home countries.
Maybe the “them” that Sarah refers to is not the Arab youths but rather their parents.
Kudos to Sarah for being perceptive and to Mona for being true to herself.
One of the sweetest voice on earth is hearing your own name and to top it all … its self praise. Endless self praise. It will keep us young, motivated and makes us the center of attention.
We all exactly know how much you hate arab culture, now bring in some good topics to widen/enlarge our pea brains, i.e. throw some light on topics which are taboo in arab culture? How do you see them and what are those subjects which no arab would dare talk about?
And yeah don’t perceive that I am an Arab!!! soon after looking up my ip.
I ain’t no typical/illiterate/dumb/horny/psycho/pseudo-plastic/idotic f*****ng arab MALE, in contrary to what region will be shown to you upon ip lookup.
Okay, I have a proposition to you if you’re willing to explore…
-> Are all arab cultures the same? or would you mind rating them?
e.g Arabs from: Oman, Kuwait, Yemen, KSA, Lebanon (Cross French Breed), Palestine (Poor guys left alone by the whole sold out ‘Islamic Ummah’ as they call it), UAE, Iraq, Syria and Egypt or more if I missed few out.
Rating Criteria should be:
1. Literacy (Etiquettes wise, Generally speaking)
2. Capacity to respect other non-arab humans? except ‘Whites’.
3. Religion wise. i.e. How much in %, the masses follow and practice it? (Since mostly muslims are muslims by chance and not by choice).
4. Friendly in nature wise.
5. Not so sold out to West (Read JEWS) i.e. (EU,US).
PS. So show us some guts(I would have said balls; since you aren’t a guy so you’re exempted from that aggregative adjective) and don’t be a chicken by humiliating the question in revert and please answer if you can the way it has been asked.
PPS, Always Remember; Questions aren’t stupid but answer can definitely be.
Thanking in anticipation.
XOXO
HI lovestinks! I can do that research! And no they are not all the same! P.S where r u from? What do you mean by no#4? Friendly in nature wise? As in, environmentally friendly? I think the answer to that is, towns have been historically built within the close vicinity of a natural resource, and a fresh water supply has always been the most vital factor. Since Arab gulf states dont have the fresh water supply (they go through an unenvironmentally friendly and expensive process called de-salination) their populations far exceed their actual (real) capacity. And by real capacity Im not talking about how much desert they have left to build on.
@Hey Mais;
I would love to stay anonymous as it would facilitate in prevailing unbiased opinion and replies without giving a clue if the person questioning is Muslim, Jew, Arab, Black, White, Afro, French, American, British or Australian etc.
Obviously if I give these answers; the nature of answers would drastically change, which is awfully and ethically against the rules of engagement; to JUDGE before answering.
@Oussama
So you agree that the parents are the problem? They are the ones that brain washed their kids to not be able to deal with the current rapidly changing life we live in.
First of all, I do not hate the Arab culture. If you concluded that from my blog posts, then that is your problem and you are wrong.
Secondly, you have no right to come here and tell me what to write. I don’t write to satisfy you. I write about a problem that I believe in, and I discuss my opinion about it. My visitors who want to engage in the discussion are more than welcome to share their opinions about it here on my blog.
@LoveStinks2
I perceive you as an Arab, since your IP address comes from the heart of Arabia, KSA. So, you mentioning me the fact that “don’t judge me or bother to know if I am Arab or not,” really made me take notice of where you are from and why you are acting like this. If you have not, then I would not give a shit about who you are or where you are from. To me you are just a person who wants to argue with me for fun. You don’t care at all about any Arab issues, but all you want to do is stir an endless debate about lame topics. I met many like you. They lurk on my blog every day. You are nothing special.
I will answer your question just to satisfy your curiosity. No, I do not think that all Arab countries share the same cultural values. I think I argued about this on my blog before, if you bothered to actually read and understand, that Arabs not only judge each other based on their dialects and country they are from, but also the region and town they are from. That’s their problem. They can never unite as Arab speaking people and hold true to good morals, and the great cultural values that they are supposed to share. That’s why Arabs are not progressing as a culture. They let the rest of the world do that job for them, and they only speak the devils language, money.
The rest of your questions I am not going to bother answering. They are redundant from past blog posts.
Oh, wait a minute; you took it all wrong~! I did not meant ‘Values’ but the ‘bads’ of arab culture. So i guess I didn’t concluded some wrong views off your posts – you do the same!, condemn and discourge bad habbitual problems mostly encountered by you off Arabs. And I seriously appologize if I sounded like an Arab hater! which certainly I am not. I thought I would have freedom of speech.
You would have been a ‘west hater’ as well had you not been living in Canada in the later years of your life. You opened up and accepted them because you admired and adopted their good civil ethics whilst working, educating and living with them. Which explains the birth of ‘rebellious Arab girl’, otherwise how would on earth you would have analyzed bad ‘habits’ off Arabs. You needed a second variable to compare the first.
Secondly, it was a ‘request’; I’m a strong believer that nobody can tell anyone what to do; let alone writing.
Lastly, are you telling me to fuck off? and never ‘share’ my opinion? I mean only you can share opinion about ‘Arabs’? Can’t I ‘assist’ you and do some more ‘elucidations’ on the same opinion as yours? i.e. the bads of Arabs?
I was just asking (REQUESTING) you to change gears on the same opinion of yours, that it! No offense should have been taken.
XOXO
@LoveStinks2
After reading your comment, I see that you like to use the thesaurus a lot just to sound smart.
From reading your comment, again, I still think you believe I hate Arabs, and if I wasn’t living here, I wouldn’t. And you think I adopted living here so well, that I started hating everything else. You are wrong! Wrong. Wrong. And for the thousands time, wrong. I DON’T HATE ARABS! I DON’T HATE THE ARAB CULTURE! I find faults in it based on the life style of the 21st century! I do comparisons because an educated person can only come up with a valid theory or conclusion based on comparisons! In my case, I have every right to compare because I LIVE BETWEEN BOTH CULTURES. I AM IN THE MIDDLE! Understand that you closed minded man. You have no idea what this blog is about or anything about me. And like I said, you only want to come here to stir a pointless debate. You can comment all you want, but I am not answering you anymore. You are wasting my time.
P.S. I have no reason to change gears to be on the same opinion as yours. And I am not asking you to do that either. Just accept the difference, try to understand it, and don’t come up with your own conclusions that make no sense. To argue with me properly, read my entire blog. Don’t judge me from a month or two months worth of posts. Those mean nothing. It’s like reading a book from the end of it and thinking you understand everything.
woot so that means youre keeping your blog
i remember your other post sying you dont now if youre going to keep it
Omg, lol! I hope I havent started a war =)
Mona, Ossama Im so glad someone has hopped on board that the arab kids need to be saved! 2 down, 1 billion to go!
Don’t worry I won’t be bothering you anymore with ‘requests’ for changing topics/gears. It was my first experience and lesson well learned. But i must admit YOU(Your Posts) ARE ADDICTIVE and I hate myself for that!!!!! arrrggghhhhhh! There is some sticky additive you use in your writings.!!
I SWEAR, I ain’t an arab! I posted it from some middle eastern server (I am not sure which one was it) on purpose just for fun, I knew you’ll lookup and you did and made the perception which i wanted you to !. See how lame and childish your answers are exactly based on the type and nationality, race and religion of the questioner. I wonder if you could ever answer without looking up an IP !! lol, that answers your taunt on my using a thesaurus. Maybe you don’t expect this enlish (which in no way is examplery or impressive) from an ARAB guy … (Which I AM NOT).
I’m thousands of miles away from Arabia/Middle east! I am not embarrasing you! some ppl can make others perceive what they want them to perceive! And this really works sometimes and its a lovely feeling. try it; you’ll surely enjoy!. It works for me though!
~~PEACE~~
adios.
Hey Mona,
Hope you have understood my side of the story and have whole heartdly accepted the appologies for portraying some thing which i wasn’t planning or intended to. I take my words back if they have offended anyone by any means.
SORRRY.
@}-{
Ahhh.. you are that Pakistani guy that lives in KSA, and emailed me yesterday or day before asking me about Arabs and I didn’t reply.
What is the point of you knowing about Arabs anyways? Cuz you live around them and don’t understand them? So you came to the website of an Arab girl that lives thousands of miles away to get your answers? Why not learn about an Arab that lives around you. There are many Arab bloggers that actually live in the middle east. Try them.
By the way, the more you label me as childish, the more you make me believe that I am good hearted, innocent, and don’t act like you. Next time before you message me on my blog, don’t email me with the same email address.
Since when was Pakistan and their social/political/and economic human rights better than arab countries? Pakistani laws are equally barbaric to the average gulf country, but offcourse better than KSA. I have to say however in general from what I have experienced is that the educated Pakistanis are decent. Also, I have alot of respect for them publishing things like this http://www.hrcp-web.org/currentstat.html x
When did i say they are better than anyone’s? They may sound barbaric but the beauty of PK is that you can buy judges directly and don’t need to hire an expensive ‘liar’(lawyer. So no matter how barbaric they may seem; you’ll always get a flyby
I didn’t knew you’re an arab blogger operating from Canada(1000′s of miles away) until recently and by that time I had already finished reading half of your posts.
And would any Arab even invite/welcome me for this conversation in the first place or be friends with me in the first place except a minority .0001% of the population which i most likely wont be meeting or knowing before i get fed up and move on to a better place for greener pastures??
I never compared PK to Arab world. But still to answer your ’2nd taunt’ of the day regarding HRCP;
Human rights should be considered when the humans in question have sovereignty. So it shouldn’t be a priority…vis-a-vis geo-political situation in there at the moment. Noone gives a flying fuck about Human rights or any rights; everyone is concerned and praying hard to get current government topple and bring in a regime which would secure PK’s sovereignty even at the cost of military coup.
I understand, but you contradicted yourself because youre social and political rights relate to the government which you have, to a larger or lesser extent. Anyways we’re getting off topic, honestly I am usually up for a debate but this topic has been covered to death. And since this is an arab blog, I dont want to discuss pakistan.
@Mona
Well it takes two to Tango, I admit part of the problem is in how we raised our kids, but then we had to cope with rapid change in politics, technology and cultural diversity.
The sad part is that the younger generation although they grew up in an environment which was open to the world (internet, satellite TV, mobiles, mobility, etc…)failed to evolve and meet the challenge. After all your generation, at some point in time, has to grow up and mature in order to take charge of their destiny. You can not blame us forever for all your problems only some.
There is a problem of apathy and lack of innovative spirit and drive in the Arab World. It is like we are afraid to leave our comfort zone no matter what is at stake.
@yazz yazzo
Yes, a few blog posts ago, someone provoked me, and I had every reason to never shut down this site!
Hi lovestinks
”I ain’t no typical/illiterate/dumb/horny/psycho/pseudo-plastic/idotic f*****ng arab MALE” Unless theres a empirical/scientific analysis to what youre saying you cant just say those things. I understand in Saudi Arabia the government and religious institutions give men god like status, which I think is disgusting. In Europe the men are not angels at all but the institutions are fairer to women.
In fact once I had a conversation with a PAKISTANI guy and it went like this
pakistani guy: Hi mais how are you?
me: Hi, Im fine thanks
pakistani guy: do you have a boyfriend
me: no
pakistani guy: do you want one?
me: no
pakistani guy: (agsumbillah this is true) OK FUCK OFF THEN!
And he spent the whole year staring at my body like he had never seen a girl umm can you please tell pakistani guys to stop being so horny and pseudo plastic!
xoxo!!
Im sorry Mona I had to say that I cant believe with all the problems Pakistan has this guy thinks that theyre much better than Arabs!
@Mais
It’s ok.. I tend to agree with you and I had similar problems as well. I try to brush them off. Some people are so ignorant about their own culture or not happy with it, that they find faults in others to satisfy their beliefs.
@Mais
P.S. I thought you were gonna write me a guest post. There are some days like today where I don’t feel like writing, and waiting for you and other eager writers to do the job for me!
I will mona but I need to think of a really good topic that hasnt been done to death. And something which people can understand, hmm. Do you have any ideas.
@Mais
I will give you a hint or an idea. Write about the most taboo thing in the Arab culture that parents refuse to teach, but it is everywhere around the youth.
sex and relationships? Hmm I guess in the context of Islam it would be an interesting topic,.. Actually I have a better topic!! But thanks for giving me inspiration XXX!
Hi Mais & Mona!
Nor do I represent PK & neither do you represent Arabs. Because we dont represent majority and if 1 million people are doing something wrong doesn’t make it right! And yes i don’t like my culture nor yours, there’s nothing to like in it except family values.
It’s an endless debate when it comes to comparing cultures and religions. You throw shit on me i will throw bigger shit back on you {Do While(1)}and so on. If i give you two foul instances of confrontation with Palestenian(ARAB) guy/gal, would I be superior then? Obviously not! E.g. prostitutes exists in every religion, culture and nationality; does it compel you to consider the whole nation a pros if YOU ‘happen’ to find ONE?
Mais> I’m sorry Mona I had to say that I can’t believe with all the problems Pakistan has this guy thinks that they’re much better than Arabs!
>>>>>> When did I Say that I or ‘we’ are better off you? I wrote those ‘adjectives’ to deny being an Arab! Because dear Mona would not have bought the idea that these comments are coming from a non-Arab, as she is too busy looking up IP’s before answering as being fundamentally being judgmental thanks to IP lookup() available. (Especially in my case).
Regarding being stared all day means you must be really v.v.beautiful and attractive. You should appreciate their good taste!
PS. When will you close the comments section, dear Mona? :up:
@LoveStinks2
Ahh… you are one of those people. Mais, ignore him. Everyone, ignore him. He just wants attention.
P.S. Every comment you submit on my site has your IP address attached to it. It’s a WordPress feature. I don’t work hard to see the obvious.
Oh thank God you recognized! Plz Mais dear, listen to mommy! IGNORE ME!!! BAN ME, DELTE ME, CHOP MY HEAD OFF {You barbaric arab
}!! because I wrote something different and apparently beyond comprehension. You all totally missed the point and went on the collusion course when there was no dire need as there was no collusion/conflict in the first place. You had your reasons; i had mine, what the big deal? I was openings up your mind up and create some value for your posts.
One last suggestion; put a banner on the forehead of your blog that says: For ‘whiners’ only.
This [Blogging] is the lamest attention seeking gimmik by the way as per my standards; had i been looking for attention; i would have done something better, zillion times better than posting (replies only) and that too anonymously.
And yeah, you should reckon what Yasser Arafat once said: “Palestine is the cement that holds the Arab world together, or it is the explosive that blows it apart?”, Think! I agree with the later.
Q: What do you call Arab public relations?
A: An oxymoron.
شكرا لك يا عزيزتي أميرة لديك Ùهم غبي
Lovestinks, I honestly understand where youre coming from, I think the way the gulf states in particular treat non arabic speaking Muslims is unfair. However you are going about it the wrong way. x
@LoveStinks2
enough, dude.. you’ve successfully proven that you’re such a loser.. and you do contradict yourself too..!! you accuse bloggers for being attention seekers, whilst you are working your a** off to debate about something that cannot be changed by simply invading others blogs.. do yourself a favor and simply “grow up”..!!! or better.. get a life, loooser..!!
@LoveStinks2
I find it funny that you said earlier that my blog is addictive and you cannot stop reading it, yet now, you hate it and cannot understand why people blog. And if you think I whine so much, then you love to read a whining blog and argue on it. Like how am I supposed to satisfy you? You don’t like anything. If I agree with you will that make you stop coming here and literally insulting me for refusing to change my mind? You do not like Arabs. I get the point. You think Arabs treat non-Arabs like shit. I agree even more, and if you have been reading my blog for long, you see that I argued and exhausted that argument about Arab’s racist backward mentality many times.
In the end of all this, stop getting angry. I don’t know why you are angry at all. It’s just a blog. I am just anonymous girl far far far away in a different land, living a different lifestyle, and really is not bothered by words on a screen that much. Why are you?
So please end this, because your veins are about to pop over nothing. Relax and enjoy the winter.