“ARE you this? Or are you this?” is the question asked of Madian al-Jazerah when he comes out to his mother in this powerful book.

She responds by closing one hand to indicate a hole while, with the index finger of the other makes a poking motion towards it — if you can poke, you are a man. If you are the penetrator, you still have value.

It’s a widely held opinion, especially in the Arab world. The “poker” is never at fault.

Wherever he chooses to put “it,” he’s always a man. If you are penetrated, you are devalued.

Al-Jazerah learned early that as a Palestinian, you can live a tortured personal as well as a political existence.

He describes his mother as strong, educated and dynamic, a Palestinian woman who raised her children to respect other religions and cultures. 

His Jenin-born father came from a prominent family of masons and builders and grew up in a Palestine where Palestinian Muslims lived harmoniously alongside Christian Palestinians and Jewish Palestinians.

Then, in 1948, came the Nakba (Catastrophe) when the state of Israel was created.

Some 700,000 Palestinians either fled or were expelled from their homes. Neither they, nor their descendents, have been allowed to return. Al-Jazerah’s family lost home, business, everything and went from riches to rags.

Being a Palestinian means being a refugee by default and, for many, the Nakba is not so much an historical memory but a daily, lived experience.

Al Jazerah, a blond, blue-eyed, light-skinned Mediterranean Arab looked out of the ordinary and his appearance complied with the colonial view of beauty. And he was a gay man, which made him a target for extremism and homophobia.

After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, he was forced to flee and found work in the US, a challenge.

Seven years later he returned to his family, now living in Amman, and set up Books@cafe, whose internet site proclaims it as “the first internet cafe in the Middle East cultivating a reputation for liberating the local cultures and intellect while promoting peace, equality and tolerance.”

Al-Jazerah turned a living into a cause but this came at a cost with false accusations, death threats, racism and homophobic attacks. He fought for rights, justice and equality in others, yet himself was a victim.

The narrative constantly tests the thin lines that separate our internal lives from external realities, reflecting on the contradictory emotions of estrangement, anger, vulnerability and  the cost of attempting to repair the hurt.

But Al-Jazerah doesn’t seek sympathy. He asks for understanding and willingness to challenge and act on issues such as the plight of  the around five million Palestinians currently recognised as refugees by the UN, almost one-third of whom live in refugee camps.

A whole chapter of the book, on activism, argues that it is in our nature to stand with and for others because we are born with compassion, moved by injustice, discrimination and despair.

As the author asks: “Are you this? Or are you this?” — a profound question and one we all should be answering.

Highly recommended.

Published by Hurst, £14.99.

SYLVIA HIKINS