Against the Loveless World

by Susan Abulhawa

Eastern music is the soundtrack of me, and dancing is the only nation I ever claimed, the only religion I comprehend. When I see women “belly dance” to music they do not understand, in clothes of a people they do not know—or worse, disdain—I feel they are colonizing me and all Arab women who are the keepers of our traditions and heritage.

remember the shock of it, then questioning how it is that death can be life’s only assurance and yet also its greatest, most devastating surprise.