The Rebel I Lost

It was around session eight, about two and a half months ago when we confronted our students with the question of self-determination, i.e. ‘the process by which a person controls their own life’. We went with them on a journey of self-discovery through which they became more aware of the events and circumstances as well as the individuals that shaped the course of their life and that eventually made them the people they are today. Awareness of who they actually are would enable them to make a first step towards thinking more critically about who they want to become. Pretty straightforward. So I thought.

There is something about our Arab culture that seems to conflict with this concept (or at least with its implementation), which is our almost uncompromising obedience to our parents. What our parents do not want us to be, we had better not become. What our parents would like us to be or do, we should take into serious consideration. What our parents tell us to be or do, however, we could engrave in our tombstones the same day they utter it. Although this is a blatant overstatement, the degree to which they yield power over our lives is nevertheless astonishing.

The question that logically ensues is thus: how do you reconcile self-determination, i.e. controlling your own life and determining your future, and these extremely strong familial ties and parental influences? If striving for self-determination means striving for control over our own life, the excessive parental meddling in our personal affairs seems wrong. But is it really?

To me personally, what is wrong about it is the feeling it produces. Even though I do enjoy a huge amount of freedom, it feels wrong and unfair that my parents have to impose certain things on me. My gut reaction is to be offended when I hear them intruding my choices about how I want to live my life. I feel patronised and limited in my independence and my autonomy and, and this is probably the overwhelming emotion, I sense that there is a deep lack of trust on their part in my own judgment and my ability to self-determine. I feel like they want us to do certain things the way they would have done them and did not (perhaps if they had done them, they would reconsider their approach). Whenever I fall victim to this parental jurisdiction, I feel like a boy who is being forced to live according to someone else’s wishes. Forced to live someone else’s dream.

On the other hand, if I take a second (in fact, more like days, weeks and years) to see beyond my initial visceral reaction, I can indeed identify certain aspects that feel ‘right’ about these parental interventions.

First of all, most of us share the profound conviction that we want to ‘give something back’ for all the trouble and pain and effort we demanded during our lives. An essential aspect of Arab or southern culture more generally is that our parents care holistically for us kids while we are growing up. Until we start working and/or get married, there is no solid reason why we should leave the house and go live on our own. But this comprehensive care package comes with a price tag, which is our responsibility to give something back. And usually, this responsibility is far from being implied or imposed, but rather a natural instinct of anyone who received so much love and care. Then there is experience. Undeniably, our parents have more experience in life and they have proven over and over again that they do. Life years seem like credits that give them credibility and authority for writing things into our agendas. For example, when I was adamant on buying that MP3 Player with 128 MB capacity for 150 Swiss Francs back in 2005, I should have listened to my father instead of my silly young mind. A few weeks later it cost less than half as much. Also, there are certain things that they know about the ‘real world’ that we are simply unable to understand because we have not experienced it yet. It is interesting that most parents seem to regret many of the choices they made and they think that their life would be better had they chosen a different path. So the fact that they have seen the ‘real world’, whether this means working or having a family, gives them clearer insights into what is truly important in life and what you should focus on while you are growing up.

While I grant the first point without hesitation (‘give something back’) I think that there is room to scrutinise the second one (‘experience’) and I have found myself disputing it on numerous occasions. The issue I have with experience is that, in my view, our parents are believing in a flawed concept which is some sort of ‘trans-generational experience’, i.e. the idea that their experience can be passed on to us children, which entails that we do not have to go through the same experiences or make the same mistakes. Or to put it more clearly: We are not allowed to fail the way our parents failed. Because what is the point of making the same mistake twice? While I do recognise the importance of leading your children on the right path and paving the way for them to thrive and grow and succeed in life, I think that trans-generational experience is a very limited concept that dismisses the essence of experience, which is trial (The word experience stems from the verb ‘experiri’, meaning ‘attempt’ or ‘try’ in Latin). Therefore, as much as our parents would love to bless us with their woefully gained knowledge and experience, they will probably never be able to fully do so. More than often we need to try it ourselves and we need to* fail ourselves* in order to learn from our mistakes and grow. And even though we then have to own up to the fact that we failed, at least we chose to try in the first place. Thus, (1) a sense of ownership combined with (2) an idiosyncratic process of trial and failure are indispensable components of experience, which its ‘trans-generational’ counterpart simply cannot provide.

Dear parents, we know that your intentions are always good. And that all you are continuously trying to do is warn us before we fall down that hole or make that mistake or miss that opportunity. And we are grateful for all the times that you stood in front of a hole and told us to avoid it. But although we evaded it that one time, I am not sure whether we have really learned how to avoid it. Sometimes, the learning moment only sets in when we fall down that hole. When we get to see the darkness and the dirt with our own eyes and not with yours. When we have to struggle to climb up again because we want to get back on our path. On the path that we chose for ourselves.

So, what does that mean for the concept of self-determination? It seems to me, and we emphasised this to our students, that our strong roots and families are assets we should not dismiss from our culture. Nevertheless, respecting your roots does not equate to succumbing to existing and pre-determined ways of thinking and traditional ways of upbringing. I truly believe that if we want to move on as people and as a society, a key factor in this progress will be freedom to self-determine to a greater extent (provided it is still healthy and respectful), even in the familial realm. This should not insinuate blindly opposing any suggestions, wishes or instructions coming from our parents. Rather, we have to be really clear about our values, our goals and how we want to reach them. And if we take enough time to reflect properly about where we want to get and how we want to get there, and if we are convinced that our path is the right one for our lives, we will be more authentic, powerful and persuasive when we confront our parents.

I lost the rebel inside me a while ago, when I started blindly adhering to the idea that my parents’ wishes are sacred. But with it, I have lost the drive to think critically about my own life and to stand up for my ambitions and my choices.

It is time to wake that rebel up again.