Arab Lady for Cute Blac Guys

They say you can never go home again, and I guess in my case that's all too true. The name is Abdulaziz Hussein and I'm a young man living in the City of Ottawa, province of Ontario. I was born in the town of Jeddah, in the Western coast of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to an Ethiopian mother and Saudi father. A year ago, everything in my life was going so well. My father, Fouad Hussein sent me to Canada to study civil engineering at Carleton University. I fell in love with my new school, and with the City of Ottawa. It's in this town that I would meet the people who would change my life forever, a young Haitian guy named Robert Dupont and a young Lebanese Christian woman named Alisha Suleiman.

The place I once called home, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a complex place, to say the least. The heartland of Islam is seen as sacred by Muslims worldwide. The site of the holiest sites of Islam is a most revered locale. It's a fascinating place, and it's also a dangerous one. The laws governing morality and public behavior are pretty strict down there. Now, for Westerners reading this, you're probably thinking about the ban on female drivers and women having to wear the burka when they're out in public. Well, there's a lot more to Saudi life than that. If you're gay, lesbian or bisexual and live in Saudi Arabia, your life is in danger. A man named Amman Sheikh got executed for homosexual acts three years ago, in my hometown.

Down there, they don't play. If you don't follow the rules, there will be hell to pay. I think that's why I pretty much repressed my true nature while living in Jeddah. I felt sexually attracted to both women and men, but I didn't want anyone to find out I had bisexual tendencies so I kept it to myself. Of course, I had discrete encounters with Ali Mubarak, one of the young guys from my neighborhood, such things are common but not discussed aloud. The first sexual encounter I've ever had with a woman was with a curvy, big-bottomed Bangladeshi prostitute whose name I do not recall. Something with an R. Reshmi something or other, that was her name I think. Probably an alias but whatever. I bet you're surprised to read this. The country with the strictest laws in the world has prostitution in it. Cat's out of the bag now, I guess.

Prostitution is strictly illegal in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia but it's prevalent because the wealthy and powerful want it around. Let's face it, even in a country where men are allowed to have up to four wives ( provided they have enough money), that's not enough for some men. They always want more. Variety is the spice of life, I guess. If you're a man with money looking for sex, you'll find what you're looking for. Doesn't matter if you're in New York City or Jeddah, I think. My father arranged the whole thing. He wanted me to become a man before I left our homeland, since I would face many temptations in the West according to him. My dad should get the award for father of the year, don't you think?

I came to metropolitan Ottawa's very own Carleton University not knowing what to expect, since honestly, Canada and Saudi Arabia differ from each other like the sun and the moon. The same way the West has many misconceptions about Muslims, well we have plenty about Western society. My mother, Farjana Hussein warned me that Western women walked around nearly naked, and that they drank alcohol at least three times a day. Also, they would have sex with a man an hour after meeting him. That's what many Muslim women in Saudi Arabia think of Western women. As for Western men, my mother thought they were all closet homosexuals and drunkards. When I came to the Capital of Canada, I saw my share of queers along with 'supposedly Godless' young ladies in short skirts and provocative clothing but I also saw conservatively dressed women of all shades and faiths. I never passed judgement on any of them. The way I figured it, Saudi Arabia has its social rules and Canada has its rules.

Cultural relativity, it's not that difficult a concept, I guess. If I seem strange to your eyes, remember that you must seem equally strange to mine. I decided to make the most of my time in Canada. My professors at Carleton seemed surprised that I spoke English and French fluently. What they don't know is that we've got a lot of European instructors at numerous schools in Saudi Arabia. I've been fluent in the two aforementioned languages for at least ten years before I ever set foot in Canada. Granted, I spoke Parisian French and British English, which caused me to stand out while speaking to Canadians who spoke Quebec's mutated French and what passes for proper English in North America. Just a linguistic and cultural observation from the viewpoint of an outsider, that's all.

When I moved into campus housing, I had the good fortune of rooming with a fellow foreigner. Robert Dupont, a tall and brawny young man from the island of Haiti. Though we came from different sides of the world, and different faiths, we bonded instantly. This cross-wearing Catholic and red-and-blue Haitian flag waiver became like a brother to me. Robert and I hung out on and off campus. He moved to Ottawa, Ontario, from his hometown of Cap-Haitien, Haiti, to study law. His parents, Jean-Paul and Marie Dupont are well-to-do Haitian businesspeople. Robert became the first person I could totally be myself around. Although a staunch heterosexual, he had no problem with my being bisexual. My sexual identity became apparent when the computer we shared froze on the website BlackAndBisexual.com which I'd been making daily visits to. Robert helped me fix the glitch in cyber space, and assured me that he was not homophobic at all. Blushing, I asked him if he was gay or bisexual and he told me no. Robert was totally straight, but not narrow-minded. How cool is that? I wish we had people like him in the Islamic world. Maybe there'd be fewer beheadings of gays and lesbians living in Muslim countries!

Robert and I had very different approaches to our first year in Ottawa. My Haitian companion was a real extrovert, making friends everywhere he went. Just weeks after we moved into the residence, he began dating this French-Canadian chick named Sabrina Lefebvre. She's six feet tall, athletic, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Isn't he lucky? Somehow, Robert got himself like a hundred friends at school our first month there and became the go-to guy when it comes to parties. He dragged me to bars like the Honest Lawyer in the Byward Market area, and clubs like Mansion and Maverick downtown. Now, the hardcore partying he was constantly doing wasn't really my style but it sure beats staying home all weekend, watching TV, reading my comics or doing homework.

I'll forever be thankful to Robert for introducing me to the first love of my life, the one none of us will ever forget. Alisha Suleiman, the tattooed, weed-smoking Lebanese-Canadian Christian gal who took my breath away. We met at a Lebanese restaurant called Shawarma King near downtown Ottawa. I was waiting in line that afternoon because the restaurant was packed ( as usual ) and I noticed this tall, curvy young woman with light bronze skin, short spiky black hair and tattoos over almost every damn inch of her body. I looked at her bright red tank top, short black leather miniskirt and thigh-high black leather boots and felt...mesmerized. She looked at me and smiled, and asked me in Arabic where I came from. I gulped, flashed a shy smile and told her I came from Jeddah. She wished me a warm welcome to Ottawa, telling me her name and holding out her hand for me to shake.

I looked at her slender hand, and then my eyes met hers. That's how I met Alisha Suleiman. I've always found Arab girls from other cultures to be quite beautiful. Saudi girls are kept under lock and key by their families. Women from other Arab nations have a bit more freedom than that. Alisha Suleiman wasn't the first Arab woman I'd had dealings with, but she's the first one I actually dated. Actually, make that the first woman I've ever dated. Standing in line at the restaurant, I ordered some rice and chicken mixed with beef, lots of hummus, pickles, onions, and a ton of potatoes. Alisha ordered a Teriyaki sandwich and asked me if I wanted to sit together. We sat at a corner near the window, and yes, ladies and gentlemen that's how we first met.

As we ate and talked, I got to know Alisha Suleiman a bit. She was born in the town of Saoufar, near Mount Lebanon and moved to Toronto, Ontario, with her family ten years ago. She's studying criminology at Carleton University and she's also in an all-female band called Persian Kitty, with her lifelong friends Catherine Sabur and Isabella Bashir. I smiled at her and asked her about her band, whose other members were Arab Christian girls. I was fascinated by Arab Christians after meeting her. In Saudi Arabia, men and women spend a lot of time apart. It's part of our culture, and we take Islamic law very seriously. Alisha Suleiman and I exchanged numbers and added each other on Facebook. I hungrily browsed her Facebook profile that night on my computer, and grew fascinated by what I saw. Shots of Alisha at Mooney's Bay beach with her girlfriends. Alisha in her gown on graduation day, smiling beside her parents and friends. I was amazed at how happy and free she was.

I only have a few pictures from home with me and they're nowhere near as spectacular as Alisha Suleiman's. That night, I lay in bed, smiling from ear to ear while thinking about her. I told Robert about her the moment he came home, and just like the smooth player he was, my Haitian buddy told me to call her the next day and try to set something up. He encouraged me to act cool and play up the "new guy in town" and "stranger in a strange land" angle, and I am happy to say that I followed his advice to great effect. I called her the next day, and asked her if she wanted to see a movie. Original, I know, but she said yes, you know?

I met her that Friday afternoon and we went to see the movie Dredd at the Silver City movie theater in the east end of Ottawa. We had a blast, and afterwards we went to the Saint Laurent Shopping Center for some Chinese food. That day, two things happened that I didn't expect. I unknowingly ate pork at the Manchu Wok place ( a major sin for a Muslim ) due to my unfamiliarity with western restaurants...that's the first thing. The second? I got my first kiss, a two-second peck on the lips, from Alisha Suleiman. I'm going straight to hell for eating haram meats but I'm smiling because an angel kissed me. I honestly love my life!

Alisha Suleiman and I began seeing each other after that first date, and through her I began to experience so many new things. When I first came to Ottawa, the place seemed like a dead end to me. Sure, it was new and full of things I had never seen in Saudi Arabia but the place soon began to feel like a prison to me. I get stared at everywhere I go because I'm what they call a visible minority. If you're black, Asian, Hispanic, Arab or anything other than white and you're walking around Ottawa, they stare at you as if you're from another planet. Of course, if you bring up the issue of racism to white Canadians, they get mad and tell you that there's no racism in Canada, that the country is multicultural and tolerant. As if! I've gotten called every racial slur you can think and then some by ( usually drunken ) white folks on the OC Transpo bus and I've also gotten hassled by bigoted security guards at the Rideau Shopping Center.

Yeah, that's how I felt about Ottawa...until Alisha Suleiman came into my life. With her as my guide, I discovered a whole new side to Ottawa. We went to the festival at a certain Maronite Christian church in the east end of Ottawa, and I met the Lebanese Christian community. Most of them were nice people. In Saudi Arabia, they're not really fond of Christians and I must admit that while growing up, I absorbed nearly every prejudice of my people. However, I have always been an open-minded sort and once I started meeting some Arab Christians, I judged them according to their personality and character rather than their faith. I can't be hating on Christians when my best friend Robert is one and my girlfriend Alisha is also one of them!

The Muslim students at school weren't too friendly toward me because I've always been somewhat of an introvert. Also, after growing up in Saudi Arabia, I knew more about Islam than most Muslims from other places. So I wasn't interested in going to Muslim cultural events around Ottawa. I wanted to fully enjoy the Canadian experience for what it's worth, instead of trying to change everything around me into the place I left behind. That's why I went to hockey games, enjoyed swimming in the university pool and also playing paintball and flag football with friends in the park. I didn't go to Masjid even once. I prayed in my room, that was about it. For the first time in my life I was free without my parents or the clerics or the Saudi vice police to worry about. I could do whatever I wanted. So I enjoyed my freedom. With Alisha by my side, I felt like I could do anything.

It's amazing how fast and how wonderfully our relationship changed my life. You have to understand that in Saudi Arabia, and most Muslim countries, we have arranged marriages, dating and cohabiting isn't something we do culturally. Also, as the son of an Arab man and Ethiopian woman, I'm considered biracial in the eyes of many here in Canada but back home, I was often called an Iblis behind my back by the Arabs. They don't like Black people and don't hide it. In the Arab world, even though Africans have lived in Arab countries for centuries, since before Islam, we're not wanted. Case in point? My father never married my mother. She's his concubine, not his wife. He married two Arab women from the upper echelons of Saudi society but since like so many Arab males he's fond of Black women, he's got an Ethiopian concubine. Unfortunately for my father and fortunately for my mother and myself, his Arab wives produced only daughters, my half-sisters Fatima, Aisha and Sara. I'm his only male offspring so he named me his heir, especially since he damaged his plumbing in a horseback riding accident and while he can still walk and have sex, he can't sire offspring anymore.

My father only noticed my existence the day his doctor told him that the accident rendered him sterile. In Muslim culture, the male heirs are the center of the universe in the eyes of their fathers and society itself. They always inherit more than the female heirs, whether the woman in question is a poor gal from the countryside or one of Saudi King Abdullah's daughters. My father named me his heir when fate robbed him of all other options. Still, even though I stood to inherit his millions someday, I would still be considered inferior in the eyes of most Saudis. Simply because I'm of partial African descent through my Ethiopian mother. In their eyes, I am tainted. The Arabs are funny. They hate Black people but lots of Arab men sleep with and even marry Black women. I've never seen an Arab woman with a Black man...until I came to Canada and began dating Alisha Suleiman.

We'd been dating for three months and I was honestly in love with her, but when Alisha insisted on inviting me to meet her parents for dinner, I was more than a bit reluctant. She couldn't understand why I was nervous. I had plenty to be nervous about. For starters, I'm part Black and most Arabs, whether they're Muslims or Christians, they don't like us Africans. Also, Alisha's family is Christian and I'm not just Muslim, I am a citizen of Saudi frigging Arabia! My birthplace puts the M in Muslim! And just what is one supposed to wear when you go meet your girlfriend's parents anyways? I don't know how I get myself into these things! I asked Robert for help and my homey came through for me. I wore a green silk shirt and black silk pants when I went to meet with Alisha and her parents at East Side Mario's restaurant in Saint Laurent. The four of us sat inside the restaurant, and talked for a bit.

I sat opposite Victor and Vanessa Suleiman, with their daughter Alisha by my side, and we talked while enjoying a sumptuous Italian meal. The patriarch of the family, Victor Suleiman, is a tall gentleman in his late forties with bronze skin, curly black hair that's graying at the temples and he carries himself like the Ontario Provincial Police constable he is even when dressed in a suit and tie. As for Vanessa Suleiman, Alisha's mother, she's a petite, slender woman with long raven hair, almond-shaped brown eyes and looked absolutely lovely in her long green summer dress. They looked at Alisha lovingly and protectively while asking me about my life. I was honest with them, so honest in fact that I surprised myself and them. I am Muslim but I am not a control freak who abuses women, and I don't hate western society or women's rights, and I've come to treasure my friendship with several Christians. A lot of what I said contradicts everything about Saudi culture, which is supposed to be the finest exemplar in the Muslim world, but so what?

I'm not going to pretend I was happy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I wasn't. I grew up getting treated like shit by the women and men in my father's household, simply because I shared my mother's African blood, which is seen as inferior by the Arabs. I am glad to be in Canada, far away from Saudi Arabia, crafting a new life for myself. I love civil engineering and I will do fine in that field once I complete my degree. I don't much care for my father's wealth, I just want to be my own man. Oh, and I love Alisha more than life itself. My whole...existence, was basically nothing without her. All these things I said to the Suleiman family as they asked me about my intentions with their daughter. When I finished, I had them stunned. Victor and Vanessa Suleiman looked at me, then at each other. Alisha looked at me with empathy in her lovely eyes and gently reached for my hand. I just sat there, waiting for them. I'd given them a lot to digest, to be sure.

Finally, the Suleiman clan's patriarch broke the silence. Looking me in the eye, victor Suleiman told me he was sorry about all the things that I'd endured, but he had to look out for his daughter's well-being. When he said those words, I knew right then and there that he was pronouncing the death knell for our relationship. By Allah, the Arabs are all the same. It doesn't matter if they fellow Jesus Christ the Messiah or the prophet Mohammed, the Arabs hatred for other races, especially Africans, is simply...eternal. They'll take African women as their sexual playthings but Heaven help a Black man who wants to share his life with an Arab woman. I'd seen this song and dance before. Hell, I've lived it in Jeddah! Growing up in Saudi Arabia as a tall and skinny, awkward young Afro-Arabian man, I didn't have a lot of role models and my father definitely didn't step up. One man I admired was the former President of Egypt, Anwar El Sadat. Like me, he was Afro-Arabian, born to an Egyptian father and Sudanese Nubian mother. At one point, El Sadat was the most powerful man in Egypt, the most populous of all Arab nations. Were the Egyptians happy to see him marry an Arab woman named Jehan Safwat Raouf? Nope. President or not, El Sadat was still a Black man! The sight of an Arab woman with a Black man triggers an almost genetic insecurity mixed with hatred in Arab males.

I saw Victor Suleiman's eyes zero in on Alisha's hand entwined in mine on the table, and they narrowed to slits. You're not established in Canada, he said, I don't want my daughter to get hurt. When he said those words, my heart sank but I gave him a smile a hungry shark would recognize. Looking him in the eyes, I asked him if he would have said the same thing had I been a full-blooded Arab, or a white guy. My question incensed Victor, for his cheeks flushed with color and his wife Vanessa quickly laid her hand on his, restraining him. You have some nerve, Victor Suleiman nearly growled, glowering at me. His wife looked at me with admirable fake sympathy but I saw in her eyes that she supported her husband's decision. Alisha looked at them, eyes wide with shock. I can't believe you just said that, she said, glaring at her father.