My writing about the Arab world has focused mostly on women, because I spent my time with women, and because the stereotypes to be broken down about the Arab women I’ve come to respect and admire are many and insidious. Yet, whenever I bring my writing to other writers for workshopping, the same question always comes up: What about the Arab men?

From time to time, I try to answer this question. (Ironically, last week, while providing some really thoughtful feedback on a chapbook called ‘My Men of the Desert’ that her magazine rejected, an editor praised how much my short collection had to say about women’s agency….)

So, it really struck a chord last fall when, commenting on how much the media and politicians have focused on the deaths of women and children in Gaza as the thing that should make the population under bombardment sympathetic enough to deserve a ceasefire, a Palestinian woman asked, “What about the men? The paramedics, the doctors, the drivers, the men digging children out of the rubble….” Despite doing such a large share of the caring and protection work in Gaza, “military aged men” are still reduced to merely that: capable of violence.

This haunted me, and for several days over winter break, I set aside all the more urgent things in my PhD and my personal life, and tried to play out this story.

This week, Flash Fiction Magazine has published the product of that effort, “Men at Work.”

This was Tamer’s resistance, a builder amidst calculated destruction threatened from three sides and above, building despite the blockade restricting cement and supplies, innovating a way to build a better future against the odds. Every project was an act of survival, for its occupants, and for Tamer’s sense of self, of dignity, of hope. Tamer is a maker, and every unmaking burns another scar across his already callused heart. 

I hope you’ll take a few minutes (it’s flash fiction, so it’s very short!) to sit with Tamer and his family.

As one commenter has already said, “This deserves a wider audience,” so I hope you’ll share it on Facebook or wherever you share things.