Undergraduate / Honor Game -- "we are unique no matter what" life motto (Personal Essay) [4]

Dear honor-seeking community,
You raised me up on "we are unique no matter what" life motto and I still cherish it. Your warm streets, artistic walls and ornate buildings planted in me the love of your different architecture. Your narrow streets, huge old buildings with windows that are bigger than my size never drove my gaze away. You taught me loyalty to those who care and you taught me to care about those who don't see goodness in themselves or others. You ensured that your sons and daughters recognize each other anywhere in the world. You taught me that uncle Khaled, my mum's brother and aunt Hiba, my dad's sister are people of honor in our community. They have the respectable degrees, engineering and medicine respectively. You said I should trust them the most as they know more and they have the needed experience.

I am a proud daughter of your land. I grew up loving your beautiful beaches and Cornish. However, I never wasted time on anything but following my aunt's and my uncle's steps. These steps, like your winter's rough sea waves, threw me to another land's shore. They threw me to a land that had different life aspects and values.

Like a soccer game, your people take the honor if their team wins. But, allow me to say the honor lies in reflecting about living with your people.

I was sitting in my dad's car on the back seat comfortably. My mum is next to my dad in the front seat and my dad was driving with ten miles per hour speed. Suddenly, my dad brought up a hot issue of a young man who worked in his office. This young man dressed like a lady and was seen in a café by the sea with a group of men. Normally, as your community members react, a woman took photos of the young man, Emad and spread them all over social media websites. It suddenly became a public issue. What made me angry beside the woman's reaction was my parent's reaction when they said that Emad lost "Al Sharaf" which means the honor in Arabic. I wasn't comfortable in my seat anymore. I was questioning my parents about their opinion. What honor had to do with the fact that the young man dressed like a lady? In fact, I had the opportunity to meet Emad long time ago when I visited my dad's office. Emad didn't just look like any man. He had straightened hair. He smelled Divine, an Oriflame perfume brand for women. And there was no wonder in him having feminine passion. Emad turned out to be gay and I personally think it is his own life. No one has the right to judge or interfere as long as he is not harming anyone. I believe Emad hasn't lost 'Al Sharaf'. Emad defined his own honor.

My community, I wonder how you define honor. You said a man loses his honor if he has long hair or a woman loses her honor if she cuts her hair like a man. You have always told me that honor is the number of elites and rich people in one's family. Honor is the number of doctors and engineers in one's family. You told me honor is always doing what is 'right'. Yet, what is 'right'? More importantly, who identified the 'right' and the 'wrong'? Who defined honor?

Each one of your members can define their honor. It is not a law to be followed by everyone. I have the right like everyone else to define my honor. I believe that honor is learning for the sake of using knowledge and benefiting others with the knowledge gained. Honor is helping the unprivileged ones to live on your land. Honor is turning a dreamy idea into reality. Honor is being proud of one's breakthroughs no matter what they are. Honor is feeling unique and knowing that each one of your members is unique. This is what you taught me, remember; "We are unique no matter what".

Your unique daughter,

Your feedback is much appreciated :) !