Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: A typical Gaza wedding

A typical Gaza wedding
 
Marriage celebrations reveal a side of life in the city that westerners 
rarely see: joyful, glamorous and feminine
 
Harriet Sherwood
guardian.co.uk
, Sunday 11 March 2012 20.00 GMT
 
She slips through the door resembling any other Gaza girl, head scarf 
and jilbab concealing her hair and body, and emerges three hours later 
looking like a beauty queen. But before Aya Abu Shoqa steps outside the 
salon in her wedding finery, she dons a hooded ivory satin cape, 
complete with opaque veil. The only men permitted to see the full 
picture – hair piled up and threaded with fake pearls, eyelids 
glistening pink and gold, a dusting of pale powder shimmering over her 
bare shoulders, her tiny waist accentuated by a diamante-encrusted 
bodice, satin cascading down to her stiletto silver sandals – are her 
new husband and her close male relatives.
 
The groom is the sole man at the 20-year-old's wedding party; even the 
photographer and videographer are women. A separate men's party is held 
beforehand, but Aya – as is the custom – is not invited.
 
There are dozens of weddings in Gaza each week, sometimes dozens a day. 
It's a matter of demographics: Gaza City has one of the highest 
population densities in the world, and most of its residents are under 25.
 
The crowding of 1.7 million people into a tiny strip of land shapes 
Gaza's image in the eyes of the world, and prompted David Cameron to 
describe it as a prison camp. Impoverished refugee camps, homes 
destroyed by military bulldozers or shells, wailing women, gun-toting 
men and traumatised children – all these help to build a bleak picture.
 
But there is also joy, love and family celebrations. Weddings are the 
core of Gazan social life. In a place with no bars, clubs, cinemas or 
theatres, a party is still a party.
 
Aya's transformation begins around 11am, behind the blacked-out windows 
of the Top Beauty Salon in a quiet street of Gaza City. Outside it's 
pouring with rain and a gale-force wind is whipping the Mediterranean, 
just a few hundred metres away. Inside, a warm fug is created by 
steaming water, blasting hairdryers, hot sweet Arabic coffee, the odd 
cigarette and a lot of female chatter.
 
Aya is already in her wedding dress; she cannot risk dislodging her 
elaborate coiffure or smudging her makeup by putting it on later. Her 
gown, rented for the day for a typical $400 (£250), is a little girl's 
dream of shimmering satin, sparkling stones, ruffles and flounces. A 
veil, satin gloves and costume jewellery complete the ensemble.
 
The hair-styling takes an hour; the makeup around the same. In between 
there are nails to be painted, earrings and a necklace to choose, 
friends and cousins to talk to, and excitement and anxiety to bubble up 
and be contained. The session in the salon costs around $80 (£50).
 
Aya tells me she was introduced to Bahar around six months ago by family 
members. The couple swiftly agreed to a marriage. Since then she has 
spent time in company with her husband-to-be, but today will be the 
first occasion he has seen her without a headscarf, and tonight will be 
the first time they are alone.
 
Does she love him? "Of course," she says. "He will be my husband." Is 
she nervous about married life? "I am scared about leaving my home and 
my parents, but I'm also excited," she replies.
 
Her mother Niveen says she is proud that her eldest daughter – there are 
four younger ones – is getting married. "It is a big moment," she says 
with a wide smile. I ask Niveen what she is wearing to the party; for 
now she has on her headscarf and jilbab. A long, black dress, she says, 
giving little indication of her stunning appearance later.
 
Niveen is 36. She got married at 15, and Aya was born the following 
year. It was normal, she says, but adds that she now disapproves of 
marriage at such a young age. Does she hope Aya will have a baby 
straight away? Inshallah, if God wills it, she replies. Aya quickly says 
she still has two years at university to complete.
 
The usual process of a Gaza marriage begins with family members of the 
prospective couple sounding out – and checking out – the other. If all 
is agreeable, the couple's fathers will negotiate a dowry. Later the 
parties go to court to sign a marriage contract and set a date for a 
formal wedding. From that point, they are legally bound to one another. 
A brief ceremony on the wedding day is attended only by the groom and 
his male relatives. Otherwise the wedding is marked with separate men's 
and women's parties.
 
Aya's party starts at 6pm. A red carpet leads to a stage, on which there 
is a canopied dual throne for the bride and groom. Arabic music pumps 
over the heads – covered and bare – of 200 or so women. Aya is literally 
centre-stage, dancing almost non-stop for four hours, sometimes with 
Bahar, often with other women: her mother, mother-in-law; friends and 
cousins. She is effortlessly graceful and sensuous; Bahar looks a happy man.
 
Niveen is in her element. Black satin shows off her still-youthful 
figure; her head is covered in black lace. She greets guests, fetches 
chairs, fusses over her younger daughters, all the time shooting 
reassuring smiles and glances at the bride. But it's a moment of mixed 
emotion: pride and relief that her eldest child is married, coupled with 
a sense of loss as Aya now becomes the daughter of her husband's family.
 
This, Niveen tells me, is the day that young Gazan girls dream of and 
older women reminisce about. In another hour or two, the guests will 
have departed, Aya's makeup removed, the hairspray washed out, the dress 
ready to return to the hire shop. The wedding will be over, and Aya's 
new life as a married woman will begin.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/11/gaza-wedding-marriage
 
-- 
Sostieni Rete ECO
 
http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html
 
 

 
guardian.co.uk
, Sunday 11 March 2012 20.00 GMT
 
questa qua:
 
On March 8, the Guardian published “International Women’s Day highlights hurdles obstructing women“, (co-authored by 12 Guardian correspondents, including Harriet Sherwood), on the subjugation of women around the world.
 
The report didn’t mention female genital mutilation, which is practiced in 28 countries in Africa and parts of the Middle East, which between 100 and 140 million girls and women are estimated to have undergone.
 
There was similarly no mention of honor killings –  5000 women a year who are murdered (mostly in the Middle East and SW Asia) by their family for dressing in an unacceptable manner, wanting to prevent an arranged marriage, engaging in sex outside marriage, or being in a same sex relationship.
 
While many of the contributors to the report on the oppression of women across the world dealt with economic inequalities and abortion rights in the West, there wasn’t much to suggest the endemic culture of misogyny and gender apartheid throughout the Middle East.
 
Harriet Sherwood not only ignored such egregious systemic oppression of women in the Palestinian territories, but devoted 118 words  in a 750 word essay about Israel’s detention of a female Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist named Hana Shalabi.  
 
http://cifwatch.com/2012/03/11/harriet-sherwood-celebrates-intl-womens-day-by-championing-the-cause-of-islamic-jihad-terrorist/
 

 beforehand, but Aya – as is the custom – is not invited.
 
il piacere di vivere sotto la polizia religiosa :)

"Shylock"  ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:bb7a704c-3583-4fcc...@m13g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...

Oltre a quello di farsi scegliere il marito da altri.
 
Carlo "Jurassic Park"