Personal Story
OUR STRUGGLE
Words by Mariane Amara & Photo by Mariam Armisen
Is “to love and be loved” a banal statement? Not at all. It’s first the unconscious dream of any child, then the ambition of any adult (with a beating heart, a desiring soul and a active body). It’s my own dream and ambition towards which my efforts move and, unfortunately, my concerns too. It’s a desire born out of the junction of differences, two desiring bodies that seek and find each other, two lives allied to one destiny. In my case, that’s not as simple as it sounds. For me, love is a militant act, a cry that targets the “average” people, since I’m a woman who loves women.
a guy”; I am neither a “mvoye “ nor a “koujeu.” I thus should fit somewhere that gives my life a sense and be assigned a label that suffocates me. Everyone would like my life to be all either white or black, because ambiguity is disruptive. Maybe they are right, and wrong at the same time, because I’m a girl AND I like girls.
We live in difficult times, hit by economic crises and disorientation. Howls of hungry hyenas against a minority herd thirsty to exist. Our traditional cultures failed, unable to meet our deepest aspirations. The (European) modern way of life, sought but not granted yet, leaves us in this broad and vague margin between the two; between two worlds that I love and I cannot reach, between two lives that I have to take to survive. In the eyes of my family, I’m an indecisive, imprecise girl - not fixed-up yet. To my friends in the gay community, I wear long hair but I make decisions, I dress “like a girl” and behave “like
Love in time of persecution means going beyond oneself, taking the risk to be disturbing, committing to a struggle for a share in the pie of happiness. It’s taking the risk of harming those who are dear to me because they do not understand me – my father, my mother, my brothers and my friends… quietly homophobes. All those who think, “Homosexuality, still, is no good...”. They say they love me, but hate who I am. They say they love me, but they wage a war against me, because I must change and become “normal”. In the name of “friendship”, they say: “why don’t you even have a baby? “. As for me, I want them to be there when I need them and no longer see me as an object needing repairing. To love my life means to accept the risk of hurting and disappointing those that I love, because I am a woman who loves women.
Issue 10, December 2014 | 91