Love can feel like the softest of sentiments. Especially when we’re surrounded by cookie cutter templates of what it looks like, on a day like Valentine’s Day.
Even if you don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, you can make your love a form of resistance to commodification, resistance to the superficiality of pinks and reds and cuddly toys. If you do celebrate it, enjoy the hearts, flowers, cards and meals. Make your love a form of resistance in a world of growing hate, division and despair. Make it intentional, a statement of humanity, respect and value for another.
Stories that make the news often depict such templates of love, that don’t fit the soft focus Hollywood or Hallmark depictions.
A mother in Afghanistan educating her daughters at home in the face of erasing women and their rights is love as resistance. Images of a wedding in Gaza amid the destruction is the real-life version of love as resistance. The photographs of medics treating orphaned children in the destruction of Palestinian hospitals, rescuing babies under rubble – this tenderness is love as resistance.
In London, the imam who in 2017 stood over a terrorist who attacked the Finsbury Park mosque to protect him from being attacked by crowds may be described as a hero – he was recognised for his heroism. But his act of saving the man should also be seen as an act of his love in the face of discord and violence.
In the same year, in the US, two men were stabbed to death on a train in Portland, Oregon, defending Muslims from slurs. That incident can also be seen as love as resistance. There are countless brave acts of love. The women’s marches holding hands, the peace marches with people from all backgrounds.
Too often, we see stories of hate and division on the news, on social media. But even in these spaces, we so often also see stories that stand out, that become the blood in the veins of our social discourse.
There are so many other examples that give voice to love and humanity. And poets and musicians and artists understand this all too well. Mahmoud Darwish through his poetry resisted with love. So did Umm Kulthum, Fayrouz and many others through their songs.
Love is powerful in all its forms – romantic, familial, and communal. It is the ultimate tool in times of hardship. Through storytelling, love is not just experienced – it is documented and shared.
Those who seek to oppress and dehumanise will seek to erase the stories of love. And often the most striking of these are found in the most difficult circumstances.
In Gaza last year, when three-year-old Reem was killed, we saw the deep emotion of her Palestinian grandfather Khaled Nabhan, who called her the "soul of my soul". His existential love for her can also be considered resistance against oppression . And people stood with him a year later when he too was killed. There are so many such stories just in Gaza.
Love is not passive. It is an act of defiance. In today's world, it is our distinction from Al. It is about speaking up when silence is demanded. It is about loving the truth, facts and justice in a world that can seek to distort and destroy them.
As we increasingly walk in the shadow of polarisation and confusion, we can become tired and disoriented, unable to resist feeling defeated. And too tired for resistance can mean too tired for love. Because hate is easier.
I think of my own story. Years ago, I wrote a book titled Love in a Headscarf, a tale of my search for love. At the time, I thought it was just my story. But now I see it as an act of resistance, in the face of constantly being told love wasn’t for Muslim women, for South-Asian women. That as a woman with such an identity, I wasn’t seen as worthy of love or with a right to it. To challenge that, my story for me became one of love as resistance.
Your love is also resistance. Your love is an act of defiance that asserts your existence beyond mere survival. It is a declaration that you are not just alive – you are human.
High profile Al Shabab attacks
- 2010: A restaurant attack in Kampala Uganda kills 74 people watching a Fifa World Cup final football match.
- 2013: The Westgate shopping mall attack, 62 civilians, five Kenyan soldiers and four gunmen are killed.
- 2014: A series of bombings and shootings across Kenya sees scores of civilians killed.
- 2015: Four gunmen attack Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya and take over 700 students hostage, killing those who identified as Christian; 148 die and 79 more are injured.
- 2016: An attack on a Kenyan military base in El Adde Somalia kills 180 soldiers.
- 2017: A suicide truck bombing outside the Safari Hotel in Mogadishu kills 587 people and destroys several city blocks, making it the deadliest attack by the group and the worst in Somalia’s history.
About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Abu Dhabi Awards explained:
What are the awards? They honour anyone who has made a contribution to life in Abu Dhabi.
Are they open to only Emiratis? The awards are open to anyone, regardless of age or nationality, living anywhere in the world.
When do nominations close? The process concludes on December 31.
How do I nominate someone? Through the website.
When is the ceremony? The awards event will take place early next year.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Mina Cup winners
Under 12 – Minerva Academy
Under 14 – Unam Pumas
Under 16 – Fursan Hispania
Under 18 – Madenat
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
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South Africa squad
: Faf du Plessis (captain), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock (wkt), Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen (wkt), Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Duanne Olivier, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada.
The candidates
Dr Ayham Ammora, scientist and business executive
Ali Azeem, business leader
Tony Booth, professor of education
Lord Browne, former BP chief executive
Dr Mohamed El-Erian, economist
Professor Wyn Evans, astrophysicist
Dr Mark Mann, scientist
Gina MIller, anti-Brexit campaigner
Lord Smith, former Cabinet minister
Sandi Toksvig, broadcaster
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Seemar’s top six for the Dubai World Cup Carnival:
1. Reynaldothewizard
2. North America
3. Raven’s Corner
4. Hawkesbury
5. New Maharajah
6. Secret Ambition
If you go
- The nearest international airport to the start of the Chuysky Trakt is in Novosibirsk. Emirates (www.emirates.com) offer codeshare flights with S7 Airlines (www.s7.ru) via Moscow for US$5,300 (Dh19,467) return including taxes. Cheaper flights are available on Flydubai and Air Astana or Aeroflot combination, flying via Astana in Kazakhstan or Moscow. Economy class tickets are available for US$650 (Dh2,400).
- The Double Tree by Hilton in Novosibirsk ( 7 383 2230100,) has double rooms from US$60 (Dh220). You can rent cabins at camp grounds or rooms in guesthouses in the towns for around US$25 (Dh90).
- The transport Minibuses run along the Chuysky Trakt but if you want to stop for sightseeing, hire a taxi from Gorno-Altaisk for about US$100 (Dh360) a day. Take a Russian phrasebook or download a translation app. Tour companies such as Altair-Tour ( 7 383 2125115 ) offer hiking and adventure packages.
