. . Before He Was Born ‘There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.’ José Rizal 1 My name is José. In the Philippines it’s pronounced the English way, with an h sound at the start. In Arabic, rather like in Spanish, it begins with a kh sound. In Portuguese, though it’s written the same way, it opens with a j, as in Joseph. All these versions are completely different from my name here in Kuwait, where I’m known as Isa. How did that come about? I didn’t chose my name so I wouldn’t know. All I know is that the whole world has agreed to disagree about it. When I was growing up in the Philippines, my mother didn’t want to call me by the name my father chose when I was born. Although it’s the Arabic equivalent of Jesus and she’s a Christian, it’s still an Arabic name and isa is the Filipino word for the number one. I suppose it would sound funny if people called me a number instead of a name. My mother called me José after the Philippine national hero José Rizal, who was a doctor and writer in the nineteenth century.
