Daugther of a Morrocan man and UK lady part 2

Submitted by Margaret (Poland), May 26, 2009 at 14:39

It was a temporary respite, for many the pull of tradition, religion and fear of hell will ultimately always ruin the lives of those unable to resist it. She wasnt like my mother and wouldnt bend to his primitive ideas, and he was beginning that journey down the road of mortality, when false fears implanted in childhood religious stories of a fate far worse than death loom on the horizon. My father had sinned endlessly since he came to the depraved west, his guilt drove him back to the cult, taking us with him, and ensuring our captivity.

He decided just before my 7th birthday that we were going on holiday to Morocco, to seek his fathers blessing for his upcoming marriage to the lady from the childrens home. Maybe he meant it when he told her that he would return to her, I know she believed him, we all did. She stayed in England looking after the house and we set off to yet more changes, none for the good.

My grandfather, his tyrannical father would not accept the marriage, to yet another non-Muslim woman. After all he said, look at how the last one had run out on her 3 children, a Muslim woman would never do that. No, my father needed a Moroccan virgin, a Muslim bride to give him sons and my father just didnt resist. He married the woman they picked out for him on that holiday. The first day we met her was at the wedding and although we were apprehensive, we were just kids and had no real say in the matter. My older sister was devastated at my fathers betrayal for she loved the woman who waited back home with all her heart, there was never really any chance that my sister could love this new woman, who couldnt even speak our language, nor us hers.

She seemed ok to me but I was a very trusting child, and longed to see the best in everyone. Life has long since taught me otherwise, but back then, anything was possible. I spoke some shy stumbling Moroccan words to her to try to show her that we were good kids and that was the end of that. We returned back to England, she stayed in Morocco waiting for a visa to be arranged for her immigration to be with my father.

The lady from the childrens home, whose name I wont say, cried so much when my father told her. I remember crying too, I loved her and didnt want her to go, but of course she did and in her place came the Muslim woman hand picked to serve my father and to look after us. Thats when my father threw himself completely into his religion, stopped having fun and started praying for his soul. Thats when the beatings began, when she came and he became a proper Muslim, together they were the stuff of my nightmares for so many years.

We girls need proper training; we needed the spirit knocked out of us to make us more pliable and subservient when our time came for marriage. Before the marriage my father himself had taught me how to read, and I learned very young, picking up my fathers newspaper, then his books. I had journeyed through the lord of the rings at the age of 7. He was proud of me back then, and I revelled in that. Post marriage he disapproved of us reading anything that wasnt to do with Islam. He binned my books, tore them in such anger, and she burned our toys and all the pictures of our real mother.

He started teaching us to read Arabic and memorise the Quran, each evening he gave a lesson and by the next day we were to have memorised it. No thought to whether we understood the words we were forced to memorise, thats not the important part, the aim is just to memorise like a parrot. If we failed our lesson then we were beaten. My fathers tools of choice for beating ranged from a whip to electric cables. He would make us stand still as he beat us until we bled, and if we moved at all it would go on for longer. I actually mastered the art of tuning out during the beatings, and could stay still through most of it, but in the beginning I flinched all the time and it made it so much worse when I did.
Sometimes if he was really angry he would rub salt or chilli into the wounds, and that was the extent of his cruelty. He wanted dutiful daughters, ones who wouldnt shame him and he would use any force necessary to ensure it.

My step mother out did him when it came to ingenious and cruel ways to punish us, she would heat up knives until they shone red and lay the blade on the soles of our feet, burning us so that we couldnt walk right. She would force feed us baby shit mixed with chillies, and whip us when we puked, which we always did. She was totally deranged and had even plunged a knife into her younger brothers hand when he was caught stealing (she said it was to save him from having his hand chopped off as Islamic laws require).

Her first child was a girl, by now my father had given up believing he would have a son and was just plodding through the miserable existence he had managed to carve out for himself. The pressure on a Muslim man to protect his family honour is more threatened when he has daughters than when he has a son. In Islam although men are portrayed as having insatiable sexual appetites, it is the women who are blamed for it, it is the women who are seen as the seducers and the ones more likely to have sex outside of marriage. A non-virgin daughter is a Muslim mans biggest shame, which is why daughters are not as valued as sons. In Islam a man can gain heaven by marrying off 3 or more of his daughters, so the aim is to keep them fresh for when that time comes.

How do you ensure your daughters don stray, when it is in a females nature to stray? Control, cover up, imprison, are the more common techniques and with them we were raised. Endless beatings that were never provoked helped to keep us fearful and obedient. Misdemeanours included not washing the dishes fast enough, over salting the food, not scrubbing the clothes fast enough. Not praying on time, not learning enough Quran. I was beaten if they caught me with books that were not Islamic, and as I said I loved to read, it was probably my most consistent defiance towards them. I read hiding in bed and began collecting my favourite books, which I would buy when the library sold old books off. I used to hide them under the bed, which is a pretty stupid place to put them and the amount I was collecting was pretty stupid too as their eventual discovery was inevitable. I loved the books because they were the escapism that I, as a worthless Muslim girl, needed to maintain any hope that life could be better.

In those pages I could be a woman with rights, with power and never be subjugated again, but the books always came to an end, and with that reality would come crushing back in. My parents found the stash of books and beat me so bad I was unable to attend school (thank goodness for legal requirements that all kids attend school in the UK otherwise I wouldnt have even had that) for 3 weeks until the marks on my face faded enough and burned all the books. I still read, I just never risked keeping books at home again.

I would often sit at the window and stare at the other kids playing outside and wish I was like them, that I was allowed to have fun and laugh like they did. My parents said that had I been a boy I could have played outside but that as a girl such a thing was unnecessary. I used to want a bike so that I could learn how to ride one, but the risk to our hymen was too great, and a girl with no hymen is even more worthless than a girl with one

Everything had a sexual undertone to it; my stepmother disapproved of male family members hugging us in case we got the wrong idea, not in case they did. In case through our behaviour we made some man stumble off the path of righteousness with our young prepubescent bodies. Covering up wasnt enough; the Islamic headscarf was still too tempting even on a child in their eyes. Our father would make random visits to our school to see whether we were still covered up because he couldnt trust us. I detested the scarf; it was hot, itchy and ugly to me. It was a constant reminder that I was just a worthless female. I didnt risk taking it off though; the beating my sister received when they caught her without hers was enough for the rest of us to never make that mistake.

That was the first burning, my eldest sister, all because it was sports day at school and she removed the scarf. My stepmother made us sit and watch as my step aunt held down my eldest sister, whilst she used the heated blade to sear the soles of her feet. I still remember the smell, it was nauseating and her screaming terrified us. It took over a month before my sister could stand on her feet properly as the burn became infected. It was only a few moths after that that she burnt me and my eldest sister again in the same way and my screams far out did hers that time. I was 9 years old.

I cant remember the exact age I was for my first suicide attempt, it was pre teen of that I am sure, and fortunately it was my step mothers birth control and I was too young to realise it wouldnt do anything. Its a telling sign of the state of my mind growing up, wanting to die, wanting to be a boy, wanting nothing more than to have parents who didnt make me bleed on an almost daily basis. My body still carries the scars in some places, a tale engraved on flesh that will last as long as I do.

My second suicide attempt was at the age of 11, only slightly more successful as I chose a better poison this time round, I took as many paracetamol as I could locate, which was quite lot and downed them after a brutal public beating in Morocco. I only made myself sick, so sick I actually thought I might have succeeded this time round. My uncle ran to fetch my father when he found me on the open roof, vomiting the blackest bile as I heaved what little I hadnt heaved already. My father said to let me die and thought no more of the state of mind I was in. One less female to stress about no doubt. By this time he had he prized son, which was why we were in Morocco, for the circumcision, losing me was a minor thing.

to be continued

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