Meet Hanan Hazime

 

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hanan Hazime a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hanan, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Honestly, I am not sure where I got my resilience from. It seems to have emerged with me straight from my mother’s womb. The way I entered this world was quite traumatic; my mother had to be airlifted to a hospital 2 hours away from her home to give birth to an extremely premature baby. I had to fight to stay alive from the very first breath I took.

Since childhood I have had to be resilient to survive in a world that is generally hostile and oppressive to folks with my intersectional identities (Arab, Muslim, female, Mad/Neurodivergent). I am from a long line of resilient women who have had to endure war, genocide, colonialism, displacement, and abuse. My Mama is the most resilient woman I know and she helped instill a strong sense of resilience within me since infancy.

My sense of resilience is also derived from a combination of my personality, my spirituality/faith, and the empowering lessons I’ve learned from all the strong, resilient women of colour who have come before me. Sayyidah Zaynab, an important historical and spiritual figure in Shia Islam symbolizes the epitome of resilience for me and is my greatest role model. Despite the many hardships she endured, including witnessing the massacre of her family and friends, she continued to fight for justice and never wavered in her integrity and principles.

To me, resilience isn’t a choice as the alternative is to succumb to humiliation and despair or to entirely give up and perish. I refuse to be stomped on and I refuse to give up. As Maya Angelou says “You may trod me in the very dirt/ But still, like dust, I’ll rise.” Perhaps, there is a stubborn phoenix inside me who is continuously being reborn from the ashes.

I’d like to share with you an excerpt from a short reflection I wrote in my journal on the topic of resilience after an encounter with a broken-winged butterfly a short while ago:

Butterflies are so fragile, yet so resilient. It’s a miracle that they can survive at all. As if to prove my point, a rather dilapidated looking butterfly lands on the pink daisy in front of me. Her wings are a light brown with some orange strips peppered with white dots. Her left wing seems to have withered away slightly, and the edges of her right wing are completely torn off…yet, here she is pollinating this flower. I follow the broken-winged butterfly as she flutters from flower to flower. I am fascinated by her- absolutely enthralled. Despite the tattered wings, she is still flying gracefully. She seems more precious than all the other intact butterflies. As I watch the butterfly with withered wings, I have a sudden epiphany. This butterfly is me. I am not a flawless monarch dancing in the sky, I am a broken-winged but resilient butterfly who continues to survive despite her scars and imperfections.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am a multidisciplinary artist, creative writer, community arts educator and, creative writing instructor living in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. I identify as a Mad/Neurodivergent Lebanese-Canadian Shi’a Muslimah. I have a Master of Arts degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor. In May 2024, I graduated from a 9 month Lived Experience Transformational Leadership Fellowship at Yale University.

Through my intersectional and interdisciplinary artwork and creative writing, I aim to push boundaries, question arbitrary binaries, shatter stereotypes, and challenge the status quo. My art is my chrysalis — it nourishes my soul and allows it to heal, grow, and transform into something more beautiful, more resilient. Creating art and writing poetry lets me channel all of my passion, love, anger, pain, fear and myriad of other emotions, lived experiences, and states of being into a space that is spiritually fulfilling and therapeutic. Through the process of creation, I can transcend the material world and be closer to the ethereal realm, and to God.

My primary mission as an arts educator is to provide accessible arts education to marginalized communities with a special focus on crafting safe, empowered spaces for Muslims, Mad/Neurodivergent folks, Disabled people, and BIPOC individuals to discover and enhance their writing and art skills. According to Dr. Nicole Martins, an American Media Professor, symbolic annihilation “is the idea that if you don’t see people like you in the media you consume, you must somehow be unimportant” and I never want marginalized folks to feel that way, so I try my best to create inclusive spaces, opportunities and platforms for them. Representation matters! My own experience as a creative writer attempting to break into the Canadian literary scene has shown me that there are very few channels into mainstream success for marginalized folks. To bridge the gap, I am currently working on creating an alternative, independent literary press with a focus on publishing work by folks who are traditionally underrepresented in Canadian publishing (Mad folks, Disabled folks, BIPOC folks, LGBTQ+, etc.)

I hope to achieve this goal by starting with the production of an annual literary journal and/or chapbooks. My hope is to then build readership and submissions up to a fully-fledged small press. You can follow my Instagram @the.mad.muslimah to stay up to date about the launch of the press.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Knowing When to Slow Down- it is vital to stop and smell the roses on your journey. Take some time to watch the sunset. Observe the changing leaves in autumn. Listen to the robins singing in the spring. Spend time with loved ones. Enjoy lavender scented baths. Fall asleep to the sound of an afternoon thunderstorm. Lie in bed until noon. Spend a day doing absolutely nothing. Rest is equally as important as productivity. If you don’t take time to slow down and find the joy in stillness, you will burn out.

Introspection – knowledge of self is paramount; taking time to contemplate and reflect throughout your journey will help you assess and reassess your goals, needs, and boundaries. Looking inward can reveal important information about your successes, failures, strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and areas that need improvement. I wouldn’t have been able to keep moving forward if I didn’t take time to sit with myself and reflect on my past/current situations and then ponder over my next steps. In some instances, specific traumas needed to be addressed and healed before I could progress any further on my journey.

Perseverance & Persistence – much like a beating heart, the trajectory of your journey will not be linear. There will be highs and lows, ups and downs. The important thing is not let yourself flatline in the face of adversity. My mantra is that as long as my heart is beating, I will keep trying my best to achieve my dreams no matter what obstacles life throws my way.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I am seeking editors, writers, literary enthusiasts, as well as marketing and fundraising experts who may be interested in collaborating with me on the aforementioned small literary press I’m building. BIPOC folks, disabled folks, and Mad/Neurodivergent folks and individuals from any other marginalized groups are especially welcome to connect with me. I also welcome allies. I can be reached at [email protected]

Contact Info:

Image Credits

All photos were taken by me and my husband, Shae Stamp.

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