A School Without Co-Education

Hashed
The students of 'Proletariat School,' numbering in the hundreds, were all male. There was not a single female student in the school—a barren wasteland devoid of green plants or gentle breezes, even in the late hours of the night. No dew, no drops of rain; only a harsh dryness that cracks the earth. 'No water, no greenery, no beautiful faces!' There was no joy, no hope, no promise—only desolation and dust in every direction.
The past, burdened with its weight, views segregation and the separation of genders as virtuous behavior dictated by the values of good morals. They elaborate on this, until heads, cloaked in shame and rigid fatwas, rise beneath their aprons. Meanwhile, we see that balance, a thriving life, and protection come from awareness, refined ethics, and proper upbringing.
Mixing offers attraction and competition, transcending our heavy heritage, and overcoming deeply entrenched social constraints. Separation and isolation weigh heavily on us, alienating us from the era we live in and leading us backward, away from the future we desire. Life under the pressures of repressed complexes, swollen with intense tension, and rampant sexual obsession grips our thoughts and distractions, consuming our awareness and attention, resulting in unhealthy outlets and disgraceful behavioral deviations, while abandoning what is considered normal and healthy living.
It is not normal to wait for the weekend to travel over ten kilometers just to catch a glimpse of a girl you love; you may find her, or you may not, leaving everything to chance—of which there is little and rarely any.
It is not normal to harbor a deep love in silence for three consecutive years without knowing where the one you love is! I am not well if I spend three years loving from a distance, unable to confess or reach out to the one I adore!
It is unnatural for shame to consume you to the point where your forehead furrows under its weight, causing you to miss out on opportunities one after another, while your limp love yields nothing but disappointment, sorrow, and loss.
It is not normal to wish to spend a single night with the one you love, only to condemn yourself to death with thirty bullets in an unblessed morning. This is what I longed for on a suffocating day, ablaze with the revolution and volcanoes that churned within me—a struggle against a tyrannical instinct, an insatiable sexual hunger, and a predatory, terrifying urge.
If mixing were allowed, the utmost I could imagine would be the pursuit of love and the happiness we desire—the search for a passionate, complete love, for the dream knight who embodies a life of joy and authenticity, the suitable wife for the future. Yet, in our current state of separation, I find some who travel miles to engage in deviant acts with a female donkey, while others go to 'Sisbane' to quench their burning sexual desires in exchange for money.
Some of us watch television, following series and films, then live out the roles we imagine, sharing moments with actresses like Shams Al-Baroudi or Yosra. I found myself in heated debates with friends about the most beautiful women, dividing ourselves into teams, arguing passionately as we extolled their virtues, wagering on who was the most deserving of admiration. We sought out judges to settle our disputes, and when a ruling was unfavorable, we searched for another judge, only to witness the judges themselves divide, seeking yet another ruling: Who is more beautiful, Warda Al-Jazairia or Aziza Jalal? I stood in support of Warda.
Our dream was to learn and find a livelihood that would sustain us against hunger. When this dream, or some portion of it, was realized, we began to see mixing as a dream and a necessity. Human aspirations do not end with the fulfillment of a specific dream; dreams, too, breed like light.
My friend Mohammed Abdulmalik and I would go to Aboud Mixed High School, where he had a relative living within its premises. There, I witnessed freedom pulsating with light, love, and reconciliation with oneself, while I silently endured pain, alienation, and loss.
I felt a profound sorrow as I compared 'Proletariat School' to Aboud School, which thrived in mixing and vibrated with life, love, and joy. Our school, in this comparison, seemed as deprived as we were—a barren desert, with winds blowing dust into our weary eyes throughout the year. Meanwhile, Al-Shaheed Aboud High School in Dar Saad appeared more than just an elusive dream—and it pains me even more today to know that they have even changed its name.
I always wished we could stage a protest demanding our right to mixing, akin to the protest for better nutrition, but my shyness held me back from even whispering such desires. Inside me, a volcano roiled and boiled, while my shame and modesty formed layers of steel and ice that suppressed any revelation of my inner turmoil.
I swelled with repression and congestion, striving to shatter every tradition and belief. I attempted to view matters with a perspective that perhaps transcended a thousand years into the future beyond what was prevalent. I yearned for a world of vastness and orbits, a world unburdened by constraints, borders, and traditions. It was a surge from a deep well, the aftermath of sexual urges weighed down by shame and heavy customs encased in isolation and separation, by fire and iron.
I was radical to the point of madness, and such madness would not have existed were it not for my awareness of this oppressive shame, the strict social repression, and the immense pent-up frustration. I bear witness to my friend Muhammad Abdul Malik's balance in contrast to my thoughts, which swung between the hammer and the anvil, caught between the fire of suppressed desires and the heavy burden of shameful reality.
I studied and graduated from Proletariat High School in 1981 with a score of 82%, a challenging achievement at that time, qualifying me for a scholarship abroad. Yet I remained shy and lacking in knowledge, without anyone to advocate for my right to justice or support my case in any competition.

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Paralyzed by shyness and an overwhelming sense of dread, I couldn't muster the courage to cry out or even request a stop to get off the speeding vehicle. It devoured the distance with greedy haste, surging relentlessly towards its goal. Driven by panic, I resolved to jump rather than ask it to halt… It nearly proved the saying true: 'Shame kills.' I leaped from the car.. My body slammed onto the ground. In that first instant, I thought my frame had shattered like glass… My chin struck the earth with brutal force. My teeth clashed violently together. The jaws collided upon each other until I could no longer distinguish upper from lower.. I felt my head explode and scatter like shrapnel from a bomb. Sparks seemed to fly from my eyes, tumbling in every direction.. The impact made me feel like scattered wreckage, impossible to reassemble or gather; while the passengers inside screamed, startled by the sudden fall of one of their number, unaware I had leapt by my own will, driven by terror and shame.. The driver halted the vehicle at their cries to see what had happened? My body bore multiple injuries.. Blood streamed from scrapes and scratches scattered across my limbs.. My shirt was torn in places, my trousers now dust-covered and soiled. Dirt and grime were most evident, as if I'd emerged from the vehicle's exhaust pipe.. Blood flowed from the abrasions, some trickling from beneath my chin. The driver descended from the cab to investigate. Meanwhile, wrestling against the shock of the collision and the sparks of pain, an even fiercer wave of embarrassment and shame forced me to gather my strength. With a defiance unknown to youth, I struggled to my feet to signal to those in the stopped vehicle that I was unharmed and all was well. The driver, for his part, looked like the survivor, not me.. My defiant, rapid rise, spurred by shame, was potent and absolute, achieved without uttering a single word… I bore the appearance of one assuming full and unmitigated responsibility for the incident. After great hardship and battling the pain, I reached our home in Sharar. The first thing I saw when I looked at my face in the mirror was my wounded chin.. I saw an asymmetry beneath it – one side protruded, the other was recessed, jarringly out of alignment. The symmetry and evenness were gone. This imbalance, this flaw, remains noticeable to this day, visible to anyone who looks closely. Today, we have grown, and we and our homeland cry out at the top of our voices.. The vehicle carrying us hurtles recklessly – no brakes, no headlights, no doors.. A vehicle wrestled over by drivers without licenses, devoid of skill or mastery.. Madmen of war, incapable even of reckoning profit from loss.. The vehicle careens at maximum speed and madness.. Jumping from it has become impossible for us.. Now it races headlong towards the precipice.. The fate of us all, and of the homeland, has become unknown and terrifying. I conclude here with a reminder: silence, perhaps, also holds a meaning and a voice more profound and resonant than the clamor we hear.. And if our fears overwhelm us at times, and our silence grows louder than the noise, perhaps even this holds wisdom, lessons, and insight. What we need is a world, an environment, that understands it. For Shams Tabrizi once said: Silence, too, has a voice, but it needs a soul to understand it.