Are we really a perfect society?

Escaping from the political and economic reality, we allege — the people of the MENA* — being more socially successful than western nations; Even on a lower level, perfecting their image, families try hard to hide any flaws, bury any problems and escape from them rather than face them. However, the main question is — how did we end up here?

In recent years, With the social media’s boom, a host of scandals went public revealing a bitter social reality, The thing that has prompted the traditional camp defenders to assert that the system is working well and ideally.

In the MENA one thing, we cannot argue over, is the fact that our culture is a shameful culture which we can simplify by one sentence:” How people would look at me if I do this?”, A culture that focuses on pride and honor concepts…

let’s begin by explaining our society’s system. we consist mostly of extended families that include all relatives beyond the nuclear family*; Therefore, Decisions, within those families, are taken after the acceptance of the highest in the hierarchical system — the more traditional the family is, the more the decision’s importance does not matter.

In parallel, the West adopted a different system, namely, individualism that is distinguished by emphasizing self-independence — mainly in decision-making —, enjoying self-rights, and assuming self-responsibilities.

Whereas in extended families, the individual is identified only as a part of the group, which makes his decision taken and responsibilities assumed by the whole group.

As the reality is changing, the highest in the hierarchical system can’t keep up with new changes. In contrast, sticking to traditional values, they are still in charge of decisions which make the 3rd generation decisions heavily or even totally influenced by the 1st generation.

After that we have much a clearer image, we can start picturing how a family works. Perhaps, We can best picture it as a cycle. A special cycle’s property is that the final phase leads every time to the first one. Therefore, We can explain the reason behind the 1st phase by analyzing the last one.

— We will take an example of an average family in terms of finance, education, or even the location —

The family sees the girl as a deficient creature till she gets a husband. In their eyes, a girl’s main goal in life is to start a family, raise the kids and keep her marriage. However, the more the family is educated, the more this idea is undermined — I know we already took an average example but this point is so important to mention.

The final and the first phase

Thus, the main focus in this phase is to get the girl a husband. Accordingly, the mother starts to implement ‘princess ideas’ into the girl’s mind instead of implementing a ‘must study culture; In consequence, the girl starts giving importance to ‘the girly life’ and fantasying about ‘the savior knight of dreams’.

Once the wedding is finished, the wife begins to assume responsibility for an entire family (a family is not necessarily parents and kids, a couple is enough to start a family). Suddenly, she faces a horrific reality. A completely different reality from the happy or romantic side that she had imagined. Indeed, facing such a shock is already hard, but facing it with no knowledge is even harder.

Hence, the wife begins to seek help from her mother, friends, or social media (who express the same ideas unless they somehow managed to escape the cycle) who give her the same advices or commands that they followed, and therefore she reproduces the same cycle.

A close-up look

Lacking the reading culture, The wife starts to construct a perspective based on struggles that she lives (the same that the older generation lived because often both of the husbands came from that cycle) and translate this perspective into a knowledge that she bequests.

On the other hand, if the husband is not from the cycle, either he takes advantage of her life illiteracy or breaks up with her. Yet, if he is from the cycle, he starts facing and producing the same problems that he inherited from the cycle.

Nonetheless, in this cycle, the man is always who should feed the house. As a result, he got the whole economic power in his hands which ensures male dominance.

It is necessary to point out that true power is not possessing a strong position. In fact, the real power is resisting self-authority. Thus, Exploiting the powerful attitude randomly could lead to falling apart.

The second phase

The cycle’s men often are not truly powerful — in the meaning, we mentioned before — Which puts them in chaos, A chaos that affects him and her wife. At this moment the traditional men’s problems start to occur — by oppressing the wife and re-establishing the patriarchy etcetera…

Picturing society as a perfect one, made us obsessed with hiding our failures, even if an individual faces a situation, a strict decision is rarely taken! Instead, the family tries to bury any flaw or problem making it grow cancer.

These problems can go from simple ones to complex ones. Such as marital rape, family-inside sexual harassment, addiction, and the list never end.

With all these systemic problems the family extends to include new members — Children.

The Third and the last phase

The children’s decision is often taken randomly, such a decision should be taken when parents are financially and psychologically stable and even though it is not enough.! A knowledge about raising children should be learned from credible resources and multiple perspectives, in that way the parents could come up with their own raising-child philosophy.

What happens here is so chaotic, parents do not follow any of these rules, they treat situations according to what they have been told and all the responsibility is taken by the women…

This way we reproduce the cycle and the cycle never ends. stops. — yet, the decision to escape the cycle is tough but possible.

Escaping the cycle

Firstly, we should admit our flaws, recognize that our problems are not independents. yet, they are part of one systemic problem.

Secondly, EDUCATION, Education is the most necessary factor to break the cycle and not an incomplete education but a general broad education which consists of well preparing a citizen socially, philosophically, and knowledgeably.

And finally, we should reconsider the whole system and be brave to revolt against it and gain more individual freedom because dependence doesn’t prove love. Instead, it results in a disappearance and a melting into the group’s system.

Nearly all families wish all the best for their children, no one is evil! but the system is. It is not their fault to carry it out, but their fault not to break it out.

Yes, we love our families and they do also. so, such a change should not be done or responded aggressively. Instead, it should be done slowly, through persuading and dialogue.

• MENA: the Middle East and North Africa
• Nuclear family: Family consisted of only parents and children