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Ellie Kirzner in the House of Olives

Seeking a little glam with my Mideast politics, I chose a seat under the stunning Depression glass chandelier Friday night, May 4, at Beit Zatoun (“house of olives”) on Markham.

It isn’t the only pleasure in the airy venue, home to Project Hope, an educational org for Palestine’s children, and Zatoun, which sells fair trade Palestinian olive oil and peace awareness.There are also the squares of bread on the refreshment table for dipping into olive oil and spices, and congenial Jerusalem-born Zatoun founder Robert Massoud, who serenely circles the room like the host at a major reception.

Tonight’s speaker is Saudi poet Nimah Nawwab, born and raised in Mecca and an expert on Islam and Saudi customs, crafts, cuisine and calligraphy. But most of us are here because she is a leading light for Saudi female empowerment, though “feminism” is not a happy word for her.

It’s obvious that language-tweaking is not the only adjustment Nawwab, who has astonishing grey eyes, has made in a politically difficult landscape where most organizing ends in a petition to the king.

The poet, who readjusts her white headscarf as she speaks, was raised in a scholarly Sufi family. Her father read her Shakespeare as bedtime stories, and her mother refused to cover her face. When Nawwab married, she discarded the Saudi custom of separate entrances and living rooms for male and female visitors. When a woman in a niqab shows up, “I take her to my study,” she says, but she won’t compromise her home or principles to accommodate gender segregation.

Her target is male control (she would say “guardianship”) of women, and forced divorce, child marriage and other “man-made thou-shall-nots.” She and others have recently won the right to run and vote in local elections.

I’m noticing that she’s not denouncing royal rule, even obliquely or symbolically. The omission is smoking up the room. What happens when activists go too far and trigger a state reaction? someone asks. She pauses for a slight second. “They are called in,” she says in undisturbed tones. What does that mean? the audience insists. “I don’t know,” she responds. “I have never been called in.”

Staring up into Beit Zatoun’s lofty ceiling, I make a mental adjustment. Of course. Nawwab has survived on deftness and discipline – and things left unsaid.

Perhaps some revolutions at some moments are fought exactly this way.

ellie@nowtoronto.com | twitter.com/nowtorontonews

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