Banished for being different

Last week I had a blast from the past. A school friend finally resurfaced after an eight-year disappearance. I had lost contact, as people often do, with most of my school friends not long after graduation. I was pleased to see him. He was one of the very few that I had a good relationship with and felt comfortable to be around.

I wasn't known for my excellent social skills back then being more of the reclusive type.
But with him I shared a number of things, we both wore Bon Jovi T-shirts and listened to Gun 'n' Roses records (I was once warned I would be sent back home if I wore that Slash T-shirt again at school!) and we both were football fanatics, spending hours under the scorching sun kicking a ball around and talking about the coolest new rock music.

To everyone else around us, we seemed like misfits and when I heard my friend's stories, of his struggles, to be accepted for what he is, not only by his other friends and family, but everyone else around him, it confirmed one idea - that the Bahraini community is culturally phobic.
In a lot of ways it is a community obsessed with pretences and image control. Our seniors, the previous generation, tend to be over-protective of their own ideals and perceptions of what life is and how it should be lived.

They insist, at times, that their way is the right way, the only way, without taking a moment to think of the consequences of such an attitude. Surely, when they were young, they did things that their parents couldn't relate to, or disapproved of.

My father told me the story of a young man, from his earlier years, who had a bit of a bad boy reputation. What did he do? He rode motorbikes! Back then, that on its own was cause to label you as a rebel, a renegade. When in truth, it could've been that that young man's only fault was that he had a free spirit, an independent mind.

I understood what my friend went through, because I went through it too and sometimes it feels as if everyone around you condemns you, besieges you, undermines you, for no other reason than having your own thoughts, for being different, as if that in its own right is a crime that calls for banishment.

I was lucky in that my family finally came around before it was too late. They realised and more importantly, understood me, as a person and an individual and stood by me and supported me through it all. At the end of the day, that is what we are, we are individuals, with our own individual dreams. If someone dares to dream, dares to challenge the common understanding of life, that doesn't mean that they are mad. It just means that they are different, which, in most if not all cases, isn't necessarily a bad thing.

What I don't understand is why certain people take it upon themselves to put people's dreams down just because they think they are trivial, or go to extreme lengths to deter their attempts, mocking and belittling them. Perhaps they do that out of jealousy. I will never forget the time I was walking in Seef Mall with a couple of 'friends' less than three years ago and how they sarcastically giggled at the thought of having a book displayed on the bookstore shop-window.
What Bahrain's senior and current generations must realise is that the new generation simply needs breathing space, needs independence and more importantly the freedom to express what and who they are, be it through art, sports, music or fashion.

We should stop looking at creativity and talent as an oddity or novelty that will eventually wear out and fade, as if it were a hormonal phase a teenager goes through.

Instead of creating a cultural conflict, there must be some sort of compromise from both ends. The way to do that is left in all of our hands.

*Appeared in GDN Vol XXIX, NO. 202, Sunday, 8th October 2006