how much is it for cinderella to piss?

once upon a time, outside a bathroom in Damascus.

April 19, 2011.

Cinderella is not a character of Arab descent (though arguably French by inception). Barbie isn't either, though the Arab spin-off Fulla, named after a Middle Eastern flower, is.


Arabic reads right to left, though the arrow to the bathroom points opposite. Here is where I found myself, waiting to relieve my biological foils, ushered by dolls and their distorted presentation of my experience. Not to mention gender norms, social stereotypes, and the murky ties between east and west.

But it cost more for me to piss, which led me to wonder if it costs more for cinderella to piss, and so I found myself flailing in the wake of her ball gown's societal imprint.

That's the cost of the ticket. Though I may do about as well associating with Cinderella as your randomly selected 26-year old girl from Damascus, Syria, or the greater Arab world does with Fulla. But there are far less pigeon-holed truths, as Asmaa Mahfouz vindicated.

Behold the cerebral plateau, behold the arab spring.

A step aside.

I don't see the arab spring to be bred off the desire to adhere to a western model, nor be reactionary to it or revolutionary against it. The root of the struggle is regionally personal - perpetuated by a unified human idea amidst an array of otherwise separate (and yes, sometimes even secular) ideals. But if Islam is to play a role in governance, it is not invariably destined to be an autocratic, militant or inherently conservative role; as Turkey, a country governed by a moderate hybrid of Islam and democracy, can attest.


Now Syria's on the bandwagon - the only country that I visited to really spark - which seems to be afoot in both canons and confetti. If emergency law's been lifted, I can only hope it is carried out to its word, and that the balloons rise from here.

All the best from Daraa to Dimashq.