My name is Charleston Winston. I'm a young Black man living in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. Some call me an adventurer just because of how I live my life. I'm not doing anything wrong the way I see it. I recently transferred to Ottawa's very own Carleton University from Hartford University in metropolitan Hartford, Connecticut. My parents Oliver and Martha Winston got tired of my living at home and sent me to study abroad because they wanted to breathe. I got sent to cold-ass Canada, which makes New England look like Florida comes winter time. It's not easy being an African-American in the Capital of Canada but I'm dealing. Got to make the best of a tough situation, you know?
Right now, I'm lying in bed with my girlfriend Fathiyah Al-Fatah, a young Arab woman whom I began dating in September 2011. She's originally from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia but has lived in the province of Ontario, Canada, for most of her life. Fathiyah is a business administration major at Carleton University, a fact that doesn't sit right with her father Abdullah Al-Fatah, a wealthy and powerful Saudi businessman who frequently rubs elbows with the Canadian social and political elite in the major cities of Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary. I admit that I was initially nervous about dating a young Arab woman. I don't mean to sound stereotypical but I hear that Arab guys are really controlling, that they don't respect women and they consider honor killings justified. Hell, there's a case in front of the Ontario legislature right now about an Arab guy, his wife and son who conspired to kill some of their family members.
Man, it's a scary world we live in. Seriously. I hate to say it but Middle-Eastern guys are quite backwards in the way they treat women. Some young American and Canadian women delude themselves into thinking Arab guys believe in gender equality. According to my Fathiyah, that's a total lie. In all mosques, the Muslim guys tell the Muslim women to pray in the back rooms because the presence of women isn't considered acceptable to Muslim men when they're praying. Fathiyah told me many disturbing things about the way the men of her faith treat women. Apparently, in Saudi Arabia women aren't allowed to drive and a woman needs to be accompanied by a male relative every time she leaves the house. Apparently, women in the Kingdom need their sons permission to do basically anything at all in the absence of their husbands.
According to Fathiyah, Arab guys firmly believe that women are their property. In pretty much the same way that the belt on my pants is my property. That's how these guys view women. And they're not going to change their mindset even if they live in Europe, America, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Women in the Western world delude themselves into thinking that men from the Muslim world can change their barbaric and sexist ways. According to Fathiyah, that's never going to happen. Islam isn't compatible with liberal democracy or gender equality, according to Fathiyah. My girlfriend tells me she pities Western women who actually believe the lies Arab guys tell about being moderate. Wow. I was stunned when she began revealing those things to me.
Fathiyah is different from the other Muslim women I see walking around Carleton University. Yes, she sometimes wears the hijab and yes, like most of them, she's soft-spoken and reserved. However, that's where the similarities end. My lady has a mind of her own. She firmly believes in gender equality. That's the reason she and her father as estranged. She assured me that if he were to find out she'd been dating any man, for any reason, he would have a fit. She also told me, with a cold fire in her eyes, that she would not hesitate to call the Ottawa Police Service and have her father arrested if he ever threatened her with harm to restore his so-called honor. Fathiyah has a mind of her own, and wants to live her life by her own rules. She doesn't want to be the virtual slave of some Arab guy just because the outdated teachings of Mohammed say so. She lives in Canada, where a woman can be anything she wants to be. Fathiyah wants to become a high-ranking businesswoman someday. When I ask her if she will only marry a Muslim guy, she told me that she will choose the man she marries based on how he makes her feel, not his religion. I was satisfied with that answer.