Amira Fattah is the kind of woman whom other women love to hate, primarily because of her keen intelligence, raw and exotic beauty and the sheer strength of her personality. Five feet eleven inches, curvy and bodacious, with light brown skin, almond-shaped golden brown eyes and a stylish Afro, Amira is simply gorgeous and definitely means business.
Assertive and ambitious are bold words but they don't even begin to describe the woman that Amira was destined to become. Born in the fiery realm of Egypt, Amira has come to North America to make her mark. The world was hers for the taking and Amira wouldn't let anyone stand in her way. The Afro-Egyptian has come to stake her claim, let the world beware...
Born in the City of Cairo, Egypt, to a Sudanese Muslim father and an Egyptian Coptic Christian mother, Amira Fattah was definitely no stranger to adversity from the get-go due to her unique upbringing. Being the product of an interracial and interfaith marriage doesn't make for an easy life, that's for damn sure. In certain parts of the world, where ethnicity, race and religion are complicated matters, being unique can certainly carry a heavy cost.
Amira grew up hearing about the hell her parents, Amir Fattah and Christine Dawoud-Fattah went through during their courtship. Even though Sudan is located right next to Egypt, the two countries have a complicated, at times tumultuous history. This goes back to ancient times, when the Kings of Sudan, then called Nubia, ruled Egypt for a time, an affront that many Egyptians lament to this day.
The fact that Amir was of African descent didn't sit right with Christine's parents, and the two of them ended up fleeing to Cairo from Christine's hometown of Beni Mazar and subsequently eloping. Never mind the fact that in Egypt, racial relations aren't what they could be. Amir and Christine refused to let anyone get in the way of their love. The fates smiled on the happy but beleaguered couple's union, and a daughter was born to them, Amira.
From the moment Amira was born, Amir and Christine knew that their daughter was special. A gal who was destined to do great things, at no matter the cost to those who stood in her way. In Egypt, just like the rest of the Arab world, interracial relationships are frowned upon, especially when it's a non-Arab man marrying an Arab woman. As an interracial couple living in such an environment, Amir and Christine Fattah endured all kinds of hell, but grew stronger as a result.
Amira had just started her first year at an elite private school located near the American Embassy in Cairo when the tumultuous events of the Arab Spring unfolded, shaking Egypt to its very foundations. Fearing for the safety of their family in these uncertain times, Amira's parents, Amir Fattah and Christine Dawoud-Fattah, fled to the City of Montreal, Quebec. The crown jewel of la belle province became the Fattah family's new home.
Amira adjusted quite rapidly to her new home in the City of Montreal, which was like another world compared to the City of Cairo, where she was born and raised. The people of Montreal seemed to get along with their friends and neighbors regardless of skin tone. Here and there, Amir saw women who wore the Hijab and men who were Thobes, the traditional Islamic male attire. Such a great and diverse multitude, and they were at peace with one another for the most part.
While her parents still lamented the loss of their home and old lives in Cairo, Amira was rapidly falling in love with the City of Montreal. The province of Quebec seemed like a magical place to the wide-eyed young woman. Amira had never seen black policemen or black schoolteachers in Cairo, but there were quite a few of them in Montreal. In Egypt, men and women who shared her father Amir's skin color were treated very poorly.
Anti-black racism is indeed alive and well in today's Arab world. Amira remembered the way a lot of people looked at her family as she and her parents walked around the Nile City Towers, one of the biggest shopping centers in the City of Cairo. The men would look at Amira's mother, disgusted to see an Arab woman holding hands with a black Muslim man. Sometimes, perfect strangers would spit on the ground or hurl insults their way.
When Amira went to the movies, shopping malls and restaurants with her parents in Montreal, people stared but seldom expressed any hostility. Perfect strangers would smile at them and make polite conversations with them on the bus or the train. Amira noticed lots of interracial couples in the City of Montreal. Black men with white women, black women with white men, Asian men with white women, Asian women with white men, South Asian women with white men, and so on. It was such a beautiful thing to see.
