Paradox of an identity thief
Growing up everywhere and belonging nowhere–or maybe everywhere?
I can’t exactly place my earliest memory as a child, but I do hazily remember what I assume to be Al-Jazeera on a bulky Panasonic. I faintly recall my mother beside me, crouched over while rocking me into comfort, yet her eyes never faltered from the LCD lights. It must have been at least four in the morning in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), yet my nagging cries and incessant tears kept her up.
On March 19, 2003, President of the United States George W. Bush ordered the launch of airstrikes on Iraq’s capital of Baghdad due to false suspicions of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, ultimately leading to the nearly 9-year-long Iraq war. I would have been about a month and a half old.
When I tell this story, no one quite believes that my memory truly serves me that well—and who knows? Even if it may have come to me in a dream, it will always serve as a reminder of my perception of what it meant to be Iraqi, or lack thereof. As a Russian-Iraqi who grew up everywhere except home, I have always been told who I was, whether by the news anchor on TV, the unsolicited opinions from strangers and friends, or even the Merchant in Aladdin who called me barbaric.
I always found it difficult to accept myself as such, though it was impossible to challenge as a child. And how could I? The characters who looked like me and lived inside my television were always the bad guys. How would I prove I wasn’t the vulgar, militaristic, hot-headed Arab I was broadcasted to be?
Identity, especially in reference to culture, is by no means linear. In and of itself, we have inherited small fractures of culture from all over the world. We import spices from India, finish our meals with tea from China, and sleep on Egyptian cotton sheets. Though culture courses through our blood in ancestry and tradition, it also finds the space to flourish and coexist outside ourselves. To be forced to accept what the world has determined of me is to also accept that, admittedly, my entire existence is a paradox.
Because though I am Iraqi, I am a Russian and a Canadian who was born and raised in UAE’s smallest Emirate. Growing up in both Canada and the UAE has given me the ultimate ‘melting pot’ experience. I grew up with Palestinian, Afghani, Egyptian, Persian, and Portuguese friends—all with families who took me in and raised me as their own.
My mother refused to play anything but Fairuz when driving me to school, ultimately familiarizing me with the Lebanese dialect. My co-workers at my first job as a 16-year-old invited me to their Diwali celebrations every year, my great-uncle tried (and failed) to teach me German every summer I spent in Austria, and I broke my fast eating French Gratin in a Syrian house every Ramadan.
I accumulate all these experiences as trinkets and trophies; as evidence that I go against the grain, and do not conform myself to a mould of others’ expectations. I am adorned with the specks and slivers of everyone I have ever known, and it has made me the person I am today.
However, that does not mean I am any less Iraqi or Russian than I have made out to be. Even though my Arabic frankly spits out of me like a sputtering motor, and I hardly passed my first-year Russian course, they are an imperfect reflection of who I truly am.
My insistence on taking the shirt off of my back for a stranger is the standard in Baghdad, and my love for reading and writing is contained between the pages of books that rest on Al-Muttanabi Street, long after the bookstores are shut for the night. There is an Iraqi proverb that goes, ‘The reader does not steal, and the thief does not read.’
My ability to withstand gruelling Canadian winters comes from my Russian roots, and my guarded nature pays homage to the nesting dolls that have sat at my bedside table for as far as my memory recollects. The smouldering Baghdadi sun that strikes my back negates the cutting winter winds of Moscow within me and has only deepened my affections and curiosities to the polarizing sides of me. Most people say fire and ice don’t mix, but I’m doing just fine.
So here I stand, an amalgamation of my experiences, teetering on the edges of what defines ‘culture’ when the lines have always been boundless. If culture intrinsically expands and shapeshifts itself freely, why can’t I do the same? I am Russian, Iraqi, Emirati, and Canadian, all in my unique ways, and they exist within me all at once.
Though my story is far from unique, it is a testament to the idea that we inherently find belonging while seeking to understand exactly where we belong. In a world that seeks to simplify, challenge yourself to go beyond embracing your complexities and redefine what it means to be authentically yourself.
Culture is ever-fluctuating, ever-changing, and ever-growing, and so are we. So yes, I can be vulgar and a little brutal, and while vodka isn’t my cup of tea, I’ll always prefer mine with cardamom and extra sugar.
