Better to believe in a flying cow than a lying monk I have a theory. Amina Arraf is real. She is very surreal.

She is gay, well, a lesbian, technically. She is half American, half-Syrian and she is an activist and lover, in a constant struggle to rid Syria of decades of oppressive rule, just like any other educated Syrian citizen, or Egyptian citizen or a Bahraini citizen or a Pakistani citizen for that matter, since we also call ourselves Muslims, at least by culture if not by default. So this so-called hoax that has been circulating about her is in fact a tactic by the cheap, distasteful and homophobic media pundits who like to play pranks with the intense feelings of politically active marginalized leaders of the marginalized. The truth is, being a Pakistani and living in the troubled waters of Pakistan, I personally have no interest in Syrian politics but she fuelled it. Do I sound guilt-ridden? Should I be ashamed of myself? Don't be mistaken, I really do have a whip. It was a beautiful distraction or a true calling. She is sensational, a breath of fresh air and energy. She is an inspiring Arab. Her blog is inspiring. Her soaring activism is a consolation prize for the intellectual neglect a lesbian feels when some homophobic Arab activists dub all the lesbians of their country politically challenged, "non-serious" and in the process alienate them from mainstream social activism or what do they call it? The march towards Marxist utopia? Back to the point of proving the theory that Amina Arraf is real, and that she exists, and continues to inspire those who are around her, away from the never ending euphoria of mass revolutions, violence and bloodshed. Even Jacques Derrida agrees, if you only agree with his theory of relative reality. I discovered Amina Arraf's blog and news of her disappearance from activists and scholars on Facebook on the same day. Both were mind-blowing. And eventually, being a religious signatory member of the petition hosting site Avaaz.org, I received an email to sign a letter addressed to the Turkish government, both the president and the prime minister to exert diplomatic pressure on the Syrians to release her. It is the same site that hosted the petition to save Sakineh from stoning to death in Iran over an alleged affair. It is the same site that hosted the call to stop corrective rape of lesbians in South Africa. It is the same site that hosted the petition to stop the Uganda gay death penalty, and apparently, that did stop. Now, theoretically, if Amina Arraf, the half American, lesbian activist from Syria is a hoax, then so is Sakineh, the victim from Iran, and so are the lesbian victims of corrective rape in South Africa. And oh, then that also means, there is no such thing as the victims of the Uganda gay death penalty. No, no. It is the same site that had sent me an email to sign a letter, again addressed to the Turkish government to save the lawyer Iman al Obeidi from Libya, the gang-rape victim of Qaddafi's 15 men. Now here's a catch: the Turkish government was absolutely fantastic. Iman ended up in Qatar only to be deported back to Libya! Now isn't that a hoax? I don't call myself an analyst, and neither is anyone going to pay any heed to my words because I am an ordinary female working citizen of Pakistan and trying every day to hush my sexuality because it really doesn't count here. Okay, so, I was saying, the 12 June entry of Amina's blog had the signature of the impersonator with Istanbul, Turkey written underneath. After reading it for the first time, I was in fits of hysteria. I thought, "Oh my God. The Turks have found her and she is probably critically injured by her abductors and just to protect her and to save Syria from being bombed by American drones, they invented the impersonator. It could have very well been the Turkish

president himself, who knows? The beauty of the hoax is, it has numerous, endless possibilities. And therefore, then, with the grace of God, Amina Arraf's blog became 'A Hoax'. But, thanks to the leading Muslim feminist scholar and Imam, Amina Wadud, I was wrong. I found another set of beautiful hoaxes behind the main hoax itself. And what do you know? The invented impersonators of Amina Arraf, are a couple of no ones, some ordinary straight people, looking for some extra attention: Specimens from the perverted nation of Lot who give homosexuality a bad name! I have only one, well two, well three, okay..a lot of questions. 1. Why? Why Amina Arraf? Why her? Just because she is gay, notable revolutionary woman? 2. Where was Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC and Reuters in all of this? Homophobia or Islamophobia? 3. Why isn't anyone suing the perpetrator of A Hoax who has been falsely mis-leading people on the basis of gay sexuality, as if it is an object taken for granted and non-human? 4. Is Avaaz.org really a hoax as well? 5. What is the credibility of ICT in perpetuating progress or mitigating oppression without having any dependency on field-level investigation or evidence? And leaving you to ponder over these questions, I conclude with thoughts from another Muslim feminist activist Jannah Bint Hannah. She says, "I held out belief in Amina Arraf until positive confirmation finally came through that her existence was faked. OK, so we are all so over her now. Am I embarrassed that I believed in her? No. Here's why: I'm reminded of an anecdote about Thomas Aquinas when he was a novice in the monastery. One day during lunch the other novices played a trick on him. They stood at the window and said, "Brother Thomas, come quickly and see! A flying cow!" So he heaved his fat bulk out of his chair and went to the window. Nothing there, of course. He went to sit back down with everyone laughing out loud at him. Then he said something that shut them all up: "Better to believe in a flying cow than a lying monk." Amina Arraf, sweet dreams, wherever you are