“Would any man please go to the meeting point” — said the husky voice on the PA system. And then, closer to my ear: “Gosh someone’s desperate! Did you hear that? They want any man to go the meeting point!” Only then did I realize that the announcement was for me. It was not “any man” but “Iman” who was wanted at the meeting point.
For once, the right pronunciation had been used. It doesn’t happen very often here in London. English people struggle with my name. Even though it is a relatively easy name — two syllables, four Latin letters, no guttural sounds or non-Western phonetics; still they find it hard.
To be fair, I usually spell it with an e at the end, the by-product of a French education. This spelling results in a rather entertaining array of pronunciations, sometimes Imane like insane, more often Imane rhymes with barn and most commonly Imane as in Barney.
Except that I don’t find it entertaining. There is something so intimate in a first name that when people say it wrong, I feel immediately misunderstood. It creates an instant barrier.
This was best expressed in a film I once saw. It was a Sally Potter film called “Yes”. This film was Sally Potter’s reaction to Sept. 11. In her wonderfully idealistic world the only answer to the carnage was a love story, the idea being that love conquers prejudice and cuts across the cultural divide. The problem with her well-intentioned film is that there was only one Arab character, the male lead, and he did not even have a name. In the only powerful scene in a film that otherwise left me cold, he screams at his American lover, telling her, “look at me, I know so much about your history and your culture and yet you cannot even pronounce my name!”
Sometimes I wonder whether I should find a nickname or change the pronunciation to something immediately recognizable. My brother has recently taken to using Ah-Med when giving his name to non-Arabic speakers, while my uncle Abdulaziz has long been called Alec by his British business contacts. Maybe I should do the same. But the truth is I love my name. It has such a beautiful meaning.
Only twice have I ever used a name other than my own. The first time was when I worked as a volunteer for Saneline, a telephone help line for people suffering from mental illness and their families. Once I had completed my training and was about to go live, the superviser took me aside and asked me whether I’d mind not using my real name. I had such an exotic name she explained, much better to use something neutral, it helps callers feel more at ease. The last thing you want is for callers to get pulled into a conversation about the counselor, she said. So I chopped my name in two and became Ann. I took the supervisor at her word. I assumed that had I been called Peaches or Trixie-Belle she would have made the same request. But now I’m not so sure it was the right thing to do. Agreeing to her request simply reinforced the idea that Muslim people are not part of mainstream British society.
The second time was on holiday in Mexico. It was on a tour bus. I was approached by a very drunk man, who just would not go away. He kept asking me my name. I didn’t want to tell him and so in the end I blurted out “Emma”. It was the first name that had come to my mind. And the effect was startling. He just said: “Pleased to meet you Emma”, shook my hand, and left me alone. Had I told him my real name, it would have been an invitation to more questions.
For the rest of that trip, I was Emma, and it was quite an eye-opener. People responded to me differently when they did not perceive me to be non-Western. The difference was not in terms of being liked or disliked, I do not pick up antipathy when I present myself as Iman, but in terms of being known. Being an Arab makes you an unknown, it is a culture which most British people are unfamiliar with. Meeting someone with an Arab name usually results in a certain feeling of hesitancy, a kind of reluctance to take a step toward you.
How do the British feel about people from Arab countries? It’s hard to say but the results of a recent poll by YouGov made fascinating reading. The poll was a beauty pageant of sorts. Respondents picked their top three on a number of categories from a list of 23 countries. There were only two Arab entrants: Dubai and Egypt.
When asked to pick countries they rated positively, the Arab countries rarely scored. But when asked which countries they rated least favorably, our entrants won a couple of medals, but not one gold. For example Egypt got silver on “least dynamic country in the 21st century” and “place where they’d least like to eat”, and Dubai for “country they’d least like to take a holiday in” and “least beautiful country”. On the political front, Dubai came 3rd in the “least democratic country” category, while Egypt came 5th. But on the whole, neither Egypt nor Dubai generated strong reactions from the people polled.
Who scored worst? Israel. It was the country that was most consistently rated negatively. It was judged to be the least deserving of international respect, the least beautiful and the country where they would least like to live and least like to take a holiday.
Back to my name, the truth is most British people are open-minded and tolerant. They may find my name hard to pronounce but they are curious to find out more. They hear so little about us, that they have to rely on stereotypes and negative media portrayals to get a picture of us. I guess I’ll make the dialogue that little bit easier: I’ll remove the e and give them a head start. “Iman” like “he-man” without the h.
— Iman Kurdi is a Saudi writer based in London.([email protected])
