We love to pretend things are black or white. Sin or virtue. East or West. Tradition or betrayal. But the truth of our lives? It’s a swamp of contradictions we are forced to wade through, a middle ground no one wants to admit exists.
In our world, a woman can wear a hijab and still sneak out at night. A man can pray five times a day and still beat his wife. Parents can preach honour while covering up the abuse that happens inside their own homes. Communities can claim “family values” while gossiping each other into exile.
That’s the messy middle no one wants written about the hypocrisy we are all told to protect, to guard, to silence.
We are taught to preserve the facade: that Arab families are perfect, that men are protectors, that religion only liberates, that women are complicit in their own oppression because they “chose” modesty. The truth is, our cultures are split between what we perform in public and what we survive in private.
We are told: Don’t air our dirty laundry. But the laundry is rotting, and the stench follows us everywhere.
The messy middle is where the contradictions bleed through: where a woman raised on “haram” learns her father has another family; where a boy grows up with a mother who sacrifices everything and a father who demands her gratitude; where queer Arabs are told they do not exist, yet exist everywhere, suffocating in silence.
And still, we carry on the performance. At weddings, at funerals, at Eid dinners, at every gathering where the script is rehearsed and performed like theatre. No one dares break the act.
But here, in the messy middle, is where belonging actually lives. Not in the polished stories we tell outsiders, but in the contradictions, the fractures, the shame, the secrets. In daring to say: yes, we are Arab, and yes, our house is on fire.
The messy middle is not betrayal. It’s honesty. It’s where we stop performing and start breathing.
Because if we can’t live in the middle, in the contradiction, in the discomfort, then maybe we were never really living at all.
