In its issue of July 3d, An Nahar daily spotlighted a new book by Yusra Mokaddam, “Morning of the 25th of December”. The publication which is the third by the sociologist, novelist and feminist activist after “Mo’annath Al Riwaya” and “Al Harim Al Lughawi”, is a genuine and expressive book that talks about the tax of motherhood. According to Mokaddam, An Nahar wrote, a mother is like someone confined to a cage. She ignores herself completely for the sake of her children, reminding her that bravery inside a cage never works. The book, Mokaddam explained, is a monologue in which the author speaks her mind. She recounts that she witnessed her father’s death while her mother was still in her twenties, an outstanding woman left with five children. The author, An Nahar said, watched her mother’s silent suffering at night and how this changed her into a strong and resilient mother struggling to protect her own kids during the day. Mokaddam spoke of an apostolic and mandatory motherhood, expounding that she could not see her mother but a faultless supreme human being. Yet, in other Lebanese communities, she maintained, a female is brought up to suppress her body and deliberately mask her intimacy. She concluded by saying that feminism to her is not radical, sustaining that she supports a peer-to-peer equipotent relationship. (An Nahar, July 3, 2020)
