How I felt more Arab one week in Paris than 26 years in Milan - The Habibi Edit

Three weeks ago, I travelled to Paris for fashion week. Although I am not usually fond of the City of Lights like many others are, this time around, things turned out differently. In the past two years, I’ve had to move back and forth between Milan, my home, and Paris, for work, and have been lucky to build a small network of Arab creatives there I now call friends. And as an Arab creative living in Europe myself, I am always on the lookout for like-minded people that carry similar background stories as mine to connect with. Looking back, it’s in Paris that I feel the most Arab, here’s why: 

My personal tale begins the day my dad moved to Milan from Egypt in the ’80s. Fast forward to a few years later, and my mom amorously followed my Baba and has been living there since then. You would think that I was born in Italy, but actually, they preferred to have me in Egypt, in their hometown, where both of them were born. How romantic right…

A few months after my birth, my parents brought me back to Milan with them where I grew up and lived my whole life. The longest time I ever spent in Egypt was when my dad gave us a demo version of Cairo for 6 months when I was seven years old.  Since then, it has always felt like I can only experience being Egyptian or being Arab when I am back there while during the rest of the year, in Milan, where I have an everyday life and routine, I don’t get to experience that part of my identity at all. Ironically enough, it’s in Italy that I’m constantly brought back to my roots though, as I’m always being labelled as “the Egyptian”, “the Arab”, “the Muslim”, “the immigrant”, and “the terrorist” around. Although I have Italian citizenship, it is hard for people to perceive me as fully Italian, especially with a few centimetres of textiles over my head. 

I think we can all agree on the fact that wearing the hijab is an act of faith that is very visible. As a result, it’s always felt like my body is constantly perceived as a battleground where islamophobia and racism fight. I had to personally go through so much discrimination before deciding that I wanted to take matters into my own hands and try to challenge, and change, everyone’s bias and preconception about the veil. That’s where my journey with activism and social media starts. Since day one, my ultimate goal is to break those stereotypes associated with people that look like me and change the discourse about us. Needless to say that not ALL Italians have a twisted perception of us, let’s not fall into the same trap of generalisation, but it is still essential to understand why some do.

This conversation cannot start without specifying that in Italy, mass immigration is a relatively new movement. If we look at the country’s history up until the 1960s, Italians were in fact the ones migrating, and things only started changing from the 80s onwards aka when people started moving from the Arab World to Italy.

Western bias against the Middle East is anything but new however, I came to realize how in the last few years, more and more social movements are rising up to defy the status quo. It’s happening in many European countries, even in the USA, except for Italy! If you turn on the TV to switch on to any Italian channel, the only time you’ll hear them mention any person of colour is when it is related to a crime. This happens on an everyday base. Celebrities don’t get cancelled for putting on blackface on tv, editors-in-chief of magazines don’t lose their job for spreading hate speech about Islam and people still find it funny when comedians squint their eyes and mimic a Chinese accent. When I’m telling you that the situation here is bad, it really is...  

Television being the central piece of mass media in Italy, the above also includes other channels of communication including newspapers and the radio so as you can expect, the only way to challenge this narrative is through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and now TikTok. Today’s youth is blowing life into so many organizations, collectives, and movements to build a safety net for all people that share similar values. 

Activism takes many shapes and forms, the way I took it upon myself to do my tiny part in it by spreading awareness through social media, giving lessons in high schools about islamophobia, teaching kids about respecting other cultures, debunking conservative ideologies on podcasts, and writing articles about women empowerment and feminism. But what really shook people was my presence in the fashion world. My image challenges what your average Italian painted in his head about a woman with my background. To this day I walk into spaces that clearly were not made to welcome me but I am very proud of it because our mere presence normalizes our existence. 

One day, as a joke, I challenged myself to keep track of how many times someone would compliment me on how well I speak Italian. The not-so-funny reality is that the count exceeded the fingers on one hand. That “pat on the back” on its own is extremely violent and strips you away from your citizenship. Being a member of the first generation of immigrants* feels like we have to constantly prove that we are Italians. Frustration and exhaustion are like a pizza topping at this point and learning how to suppress your triggers become a survival skill. 

I know that so far I gave you a pretty unwelcoming scenario of Italy, nevertheless, it is still my home and it is important to be recognized as an active member of its society and to stress that no matter what. That doesn’t make Egypt less of a home for me. There is a sense of nostalgic love that I associate with my motherland. It’s such a weird feeling of not belonging to a place that belongs to you. This constant struggle is what the majority of kids of diaspora* are burdened with for a lifetime - or at least that is my case. 

By now you are probably questioning the title of this piece, so let me clarify. I would have never thought I would find myself eating Mahalabeya at night after the Valentino show in my hotel room, by the best Lebanese restaurant in town. If you have ever been to Paris, you would know that at every corner there is either a Syrian, a Lebanese or even an Iraqi restaurant with some bomb hummus and banging shawarma. I was mindblown by the fact that in Paris there is a giant museum called “Institut du Monde d' Arabe” dedicated to celebrating the Arab world’s history, culture and civilisation. I spent a whole day getting lost in the beauty of the place, exploring the art, the photography, the music of the region and beyond. I have never seen a Naguib Mahfouz book in Arabic sold outside of the Arab World. Needless to say that I walked out of the bookstore of the museum with a heavy bag. Also, I would highly suggest you google the Grand Mosque of Paris to see how magical that place looks.

Of course, I had the best Moroccan food and for two nights in a row, my friends and I went to enjoy a drink in bars owned by Arabs, with Nancy Ajram or Cheb Khaled playing in the background. But the cherry on top of that week was the DiscoMisr concert where I lost my voice singing “Helwa ya Baladi” in a huge crowd of Egyptians! It didn’t matter if my feet were killing me from wearing heels because my heart was so full to be enjoying and for once my identity with so many other people that looked enough like me as well. It was honestly a new feeling to be outside of the Arab world and still feel Arab, not just at home, but in public places as well. I wasn’t at a wedding or Jumuah prayer, I was just living life like any other human around the planet.

In France, the Arab/North African/Middle Eastern diaspora has now already reached the fourth or even fifth generation. Arabs can be found in most, not say all, layers of society. Although France is sadly famous for its extreme islamophobia and horrible political agenda against Islam, I see hope in the French-Arab experience. I see that there is indeed some kind of light at the end of the tunnel and that none of what I experienced in Paris would have been possible without the first generation of French-Arab who really fought for their fundamental rights recognised but look at where they are now. It’s far from being perfect, but it’s sure is better to some extent to be an Arab in France rather than in Italy as I felt more Arab in one week in Paris than 26 years in Milan.

If we go back to Italy for a second a clear example of lack of public spaces for minorities is the fact that we barely have any mosques to pray in. Not to associate Islam with being Arab, surely the two can co-exist with or without each other, but take a moment to think about this: In Italy, there are around 2 million Muslims but Islam is not formally recognized by the Italian government as a religion, even though it is the second-most-largest religion in the country. This lack of recognition doesn’t allow mosques to receive public funds and is the reason why we are not able to have many mosques. Now on top of that every time that we try to build one there is a very aggressive public rejection of it. So if we can’t even have a space to practice our religious rights, how can we even move forward? 

As Arabs, we never needed anyone’s acceptance. We have the richest culture, cuisine, music and so much more. I came to the conclusion that maybe I will never feel fully Egyptian or fully Italian but the truth is that I am both. I am a hybrid, I have a third culture that unites my love for the past and my love for Koshary. I am thankful to Paris for showing me that you can experience that. Would love to keep going telling you how I feel a little bit out of place in Egypt and not fully accepted by Egyptians but that’s for another time! >>