Remembering Childhood in the Middle East: Memoirs from a Century of Change

Suad Joseph (Lebanon/United States)

Suad Joseph is professor of anthropology and women’s studies at the University of California, Davis. Her research on her native Lebanon has focused on ethnic/religious con- flicts, women’s networks, family systems, and the socialization of children in notions of rights, citizenship, and nationhood. Her books include Muslim Christian Conflicts: Economic, Political and Social Origins (coedited with Barbara Pillsbury). She is convenor of a faculty seminar at the University of California Humanities Research Institute on Gender and Citizenship in Muslim Communities. Suad Joseph ^ lebanon united states As far back as I can remember, I had big eyes—big brown eyes that saw everything. Before I learned to speak, before I learned to listen, before I learned to walk, before I learned to reach out, my eyes could talk, hear, gesture, and touch. “Eyes like those take a lifetime to make,” my friend Dipok said. In rural Lebanon in the mid-1940s, elders often taught children that they could speak, listen, move, and feel through the language of eyes. Children learned to observe others closely and were continually reminded that they were being observed by others. Persons often spoke to each other through glimmers of the eyes, nuances of speech, intonation of the voice, and shifts of the body. Recipients of such indirect communication focused on interpreting the meaning of what they had observed and attributed intentionality to their conclusions. In this face-to-face society in which persons expected and hoped that most of their lives would be spent with familial and known others, meaning was always complexly woven into multiple modes of communication. It was assumed that meanings, and the vehicles through which meanings were communicated, were shared and decipherable to familiar others, making it possible to observe, recognize, understand, and respond appropriately. Perhaps because I was the youngest in my family, perhaps because I was a female, I spent a lot of time watching Mama, Baba (my father), my older sisters, and brothers. I learned indirection at the side of Mama and my oldest sister, Linda, who was like a second mother to me. I watched them talk through indirection to others, listen to the indirection of others, decipher their intentions, and respond. eyes of indirection Suad Joseph ^ Mama spoke with her eyes. She had big brown eyes. She saw everything, heard everything, felt everything with her eyes. I was sure of it. Mama was an expert at indirection. She was particularly acute in interpreting the meanings of interactions. Relatives and friends frequently came to her to discuss their encounters and indirectly ask for her views. She always offered a con- fident view. To my child’s eye, Mama was always right. It seemed that few others won arguments with her about interpreting indirect communication. I watched Mama’s eyes. Her eyes always told me what to do. A glance from my Mama was all it took. Her eyes told me when to say no, when to say yes, when to be silent, when to speak up, when to fear, when to hope. She taught me to look at other people’s eyes. To listen to what their eyes said to me. To watch their bodies, their gestures, their movements, and to see the words behind the words. I was to give more weight to the readings of indirect than direct communications. I developed a sense of certainty that Mama was talking to me with her eyes and I had to listen. Eyes were always watching me, Mama said. So we had to be diligent in our behavior and our own observations. She took great pride in immaculately dressing us in clothes daily washed and ironed despite our meager means. Baba came home one day and told her she was right about people watching us. He said he was doing business with a rather well-to-do man at the man’s home. It was early morning and Baba said the man told him he wanted to go to the balcony because he and his wife liked to watch some brothers and sisters walking together to school. He said the children were so well-groomed and so well-behaved that he and his wife enjoyed the sight of them. Baba walked to the balcony. As many school children paraded past the house, the man pointed out the children he admired. Baba’s eyes opened wide, he reported, as he turned to the man...