The day the government of Canada granted me refugee status marked the first day I ever experienced freedom. For in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as you may well know, women are not free. We're not free to move about when and where we want, nor can we control our fates. We're forever at the mercy of the men in our lives, first our fathers and then our husbands.
Once upon a time, I accepted my fate and the limitations imposed on me by faith, nationality and culture because I believed it to be the Will of Allah. Now I know better. Since time immemorial, men have used religion and culture to justify the subjugation of the female sex. Even though I no longer follow Islam, I still believe in the one true God...and He didn't make me inferior to anyone.
My name is Khadija Hassan-Daramola and I'm a happy wife and mother living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I study business administration at Algonquin College, and recently completed my first year. I've been living in Ontario since August 2011, but it's not until recently that the place started to feel like home. Why is that? Well, marriage and motherhood have a way of changing a woman, as I'm discovering day by day.
"Sleep my little Adam," I whispered, cradling my infant son in my arms. Sitting in the living room, I looked adoringly at Adam, my little miracle. He looked at me with his wide brown eyes, and I swear he smiled. "My angel," I whispered, and gently kissed him on the forehead. I returned to the nursery, and placed Adam in his crib. "Thank God for you," I said, blowing Adam a kiss before returning to the master bedroom.
"Babe is everything alright?" a sleepy male voice said, and I smiled at my husband Hakim Daramola. He sat up on the bed, his broad shoulders sagging a bit. It's not easy working to provide for a family. And Hakim has had much responsibility thrust upon him in a very short amount of time. "I'm fine and Adam is fine too," I said, sitting beside him and putting my arms around him. Hakim lit the nearby lamp and looked at me, his dark, handsome face filled with concern. "You sure mamas?" he said, cocking an eyebrow. Rolling my eyes, I nodded, then stretched and yawned.
"Go back to sleep Hakim," I whispered into my husband's ear, and kissed him gently on the lips. Groaning, Hakim nodded, and fell on the bed. Moments later, he was fast asleep. I totally envy Hakim's ability to fall asleep so easily. Of course, the fact that he just pulled a twelve-hour shift working security inside an empty building downtown probably got something to do with it. Gently I raked my fingers across Hakim's hairy chest. I love playing with his chest hairs. I don't know why.
I close my eyes, and when I do, I'm back...over there. I was born in the environs of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. My father Saif Hassan worked in the petrochemical industry. My mother Abrihet Tilahun-Hassan was half Arab and half Black, born in Saudi Arabia to an Arabian father and Ethiopian mother. With Saudi and Ethiopian blood coursing through me, would it surprise you that I didn't consider myself a woman of color and shunned my African heritage for much of my life?
In Saudi Arabia, even though people of African descent have been living in the Kingdom since its earliest days, racism is ever-present. Saudi men are fond of having dalliances with females from exotic places like Africa, Southeast Asia and the Philippines. The result is a growing number of mixed-race individuals like myself popping up at all levels of Saudi Arabian society. Most of these bastards, for that's what they are, lack Saudi citizenship, for only their fathers can confer it and since most Saudi men won't marry a non-Arab woman, that's tough luck for these poor souls.
I'm fortunate that my father married my mother, a mixed-race woman, in spite of strong objections from his racist family. In Saudi Arabia, blacks are considered inferior even though the prophet Mohammed spoke against racism in several Hadiths in the Koran. It's a shame, really. The heartland of Islam, a place dear to the heart of all Muslims, continues to treat women and people of darker hues very poorly. Until 1962, it was perfectly legal to own slaves in Saudi Arabia!
My life changed when I turned nineteen, and was promptly married off to a man named Ibrahim Salman, a close friend of my father's from his days at the King Faisal University. My husband was a cruel and abusive man, and my home life was pure hell. I despaired and actually considered killing myself, until my husband agreed to let me study at the only western-style, coeducational institution in all of Saudi Arabia....the prestigious King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
It's where I met the man destined to change my life forever. Until Hakim Daramola came into it, I honestly hadn't been living. I merely...existed. The first time I laid eyes on the big and tall, broad-shouldered and muscular young man with the fierce green eyes, I felt a frisson deep inside. From the way he carried himself, I knew he wasn't from Saudi Arabia. He walked with a confidence and assertiveness that the local blacks simply lacked.
