Big jeers for crocodile tears
At the start of every semester, I teach my belly dance students the proper way to cheer for each other: there’s the high-pitched yip; the soft aiwa; the loud zaghareet, a ululation reserved for a dancer who performs with story and sound in her bones.
Many people who come to my class are worried at first about how their bodies look. As we progress through the lessons, however, my students learn that dancers come in all sizes, and the dance itself is homage to the diverse capabilities of all bodies, perfectly imperfect, whole and human.
As they keep performing, my students also become increasingly aware that they all come from a tapestry of memories and insecurities. They realize that they all share the fear of making mistakes—but they all must try anyway. They all must dance anyway.
That is why cheering is obligatory, important, and, when heard, so encouraging. The cheers represent the dancers calling out: I know you’re afraid, but I applaud your courage and I’m here to witness your story.
The dance floor becomes a safe space, where students can be themselves, where they are cheered for simply moving, where risk-taking is encouraged. Belly dance, after all, has been misinterpreted, hypersexualized, and stigmatized, so much so that to even say that one is enrolled in a class is enough to raise eyebrows.
It’s something I saw frequently in my first years of teaching. Once, a student was dropped off by her friends, all of whom scurried away in fright when she invited them to join the class.
“They said they’re conservative, ma’am,” she shrugged, sheepish.
Her friends might have used the term “conservative,” but they might also have meant that they couldn’t leave their comfort zone just yet. The comfort zone is a psychological state where one is in familiar territory and feels that they can control everything. This might include perceived proximity to people with like opinions or dispositions, a discussion where one is shielded from anything foreign or uncomfortable, or a task that requires someone to use skills that they already have.
A comfort zone is a place of low or no anxiety, but it is also a place of stagnation, of no new learning. It is not to be confused with the safe space, where people are exposed to the unfamiliar and uncomfortable, where they are allowed to express themselves without fear, but where they are also supposed to respect others because no one is expected to be exactly like them.
The safe space is where people can control nothing but themselves. It is a space where they must allow the situation at hand to unfold as it will, to love the unexpected, and be ready for surprises. The safe space is a place of learning and growth, but it is not a place where one is shielded from justice and accountability.
Perhaps that’s why the internet laughed when Vice President Sara Duterte posted bail for her grave threats case: she proceeded to say in media interviews that she felt unsafe, and that she did not trust the police force and Philippine courts.
How ironic, the online world giggled, given her tirades against government officials. Raffy Magno, executive director of Angat Buhay, said it perfectly in his Facebook post: “Funny how due process becomes sacred only when power can no longer guarantee protection. History has a brutal way of making people live through the fear they once made others endure.”
Duterte’s words (all attempts at currying pity aside) reveal what world she thinks she lives in. Hers is a place where justice can be delayed or derailed; where everyone is violent and barbaric; where people are vindictive to the point of physical harm, murderous, uncouth.
This should come as no surprise from someone who supports an ex-president who joked about murder and misogyny, makes grave threats freely, and punches those who displease her. Hers is a world where everyone is assumed to be malicious and bloodthirsty.
She has revealed her comfort zone: hers is a space of violence, so that being exposed to formality, civility, and sobriety can be jarring.
My belly dance student progressed fast back then. She had never taken a dance class in her life, had been left by skeptical friends—so she danced a solo for her final, one of the very few in a batch comprising friends who vowed to perform together.
Alone, she glowed; she danced with precision; she moved with a mix of drama and mischief. When she finished, her classmates were on their feet in an eruption of applause and zaghareets.
I would see her likes duplicated every semester: the withdrawn student, alone and unsure, realizing that they are imprisoned by their comfort zone—and then breaking out in an explosion into the embrace of a safe space.
Because that’s what we do for those who dare to defy a world that demands conformity, that asks people to simply laugh along at grave threats or turn away at injustice. When people are no longer crippled by their fear, we cheer.
And when people try to use their comfort zone to manipulate us? We jeer. With joy.
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iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu
