Someone stopped me in the street the other day and with a sparkle in his eyes asked: “Is it true what you wrote about the Arab League’s Secretary General Amr Moussa that he doesn’t go to Beirut to resolve the Lebanese Presidential crisis, but to shake hands with Al-Manar channel’s presenters who wear the niqab?
Astonished, I replied, “Do you really think this is possible?
“No, he said, “But you wrote that.
“I was poking fun at this veiled presenter who seems to have caught that stupid virus that makes women refuse to shake hands with men as if they’re heeding a snake bite, even if this man is the Secretary General of the Arab League who continues going back to Lebanon to help resolve the strange situation over there that has kept a dear Arab country without a head of state for so long. It’s true that some other Arab countries have lost their heads too, but at least they still have a president for the world to see.
“I’m an ingenious reader, he said, “and I can understand what’s above and below the lines. You said in your column that the veil hides a treasure underneath it.
“That’s probably what every woman who refuses to shake hands with a man believes; it’s as if she’s protecting herself from her own seduction, that a simple hand-shake will immediately heave her into the abyss of debauchery.
“But how did you know that she is seductive? he asked.
“But how can anyone know what this niqab hides, or whether it’s a man or a woman underneath it? I said.
“But you said that Amr Moussa has a passion for women wearing the niqab, he insisted.
“Do you know any kind of man who can possibly have a passion for women who wears the niqab? I asked.
By then the sparkle had left his eyes and he said, “So the whole story was a hoax, just like everything published in newspapers these days?
“Just go back and read the column again, I said. “It was a satire like everything I publish in that space every week.
Looking hopeful that he may have finally uncovered some hidden truth, he said, “You were poking fun at the fact that the Secretary General likes women in niqab?
Losing my patience, I said, “No, I was poking fun at those women who think that all the men in the world want nothing more than to shake their hands, and so they pull their hands away quickly if a man extends it to shake theirs. I really never imagined that I’d ever need to present an explanatory note to my column because I though it obvious that the Secretary General who carries all the Arab world’s burdens on his shoulders, from the Palestine issue, to the Lebanese crisis to Iraq and Darfur, cannot possibly be preoccupied with the hijab and the niqab. Do you find it rational to think that the man exerting every possible effort to resolve the problem in headless Lebanon would be moved by any other motive in extending his hand to representatives of the media, than to welcome them?
“If he did have any other motive then it must be these women wearing the niqab and the hijab working in this Islamic channel that are the ones who are preoccupied with the Arab world’s problems and who will finally liberate Palestine, Iraq and Shebaa Farms, Mr. Ingenious Reader.
“What you should have written then, said the man, “is that the presenter pulling her hand away from Amr Moussa is downright ill-mannered, without resorting to satire, for that is what I understood now about your column.
“Thanks for your belated understanding of my column, which is now ruined by this superfluous explanation necessitated by your ingenuity, I said.
Mohamed Salmawy is President of the Arab Writer’s Union and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo.
