If the truth, as Raouf says, can never be anything but hurtful and painful and harmful then the truth would alienate everyone.
Or rather that is what I fear and hence my typical nightmare:
I join a group somewhere, amongst which are some close friends. Some situation or incident provokes in me an hysterical response, in which I lash out and upset at least one friend, who I succeed in alienating along, of course, with the rest of the group, who subsequently and righteously turn their backs on me. This is the truth of alienation - it might seem interesting, but it is rarely genuinely desired. Scandalous and anti-social behaviour or displays of rage have been much glamorised and legitimised on film, but for many the fear of exposing themselves in such a humiliating and ugly way is so great, that we choose very carefully the 'embarrassing incidents' we relate publicly; those that we deem to be truly shameful we keep hidden inside where they remain, stupidly, corrosive.
Alienation is the hellfire that one is cast into by others. This is a nightmare I wake up from but I know will reoccur.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
I am supposed to be completing my application form, and instead I spill this rubbish for you
يوميات رجل عجوز - تاريخ شخصي
لكن بداية علينا ان نحدد مدى الصدق في اي حاجة لها علاقة بما يقوله او يكتبه او يفعله البشر .. قليل للغاية !!
لماذا ؟ لأن " إخفاء الحقائق " هي سمة بشرية منذ أن خرج الإنسان الأول ليصيد الحيوانت واحيانا البشر .. متخفيا متسترا بالأحراش متجنبا الرياح حتى لا تكشف للفريسة موقعه وهويته.
ثم اصبحت عادة !
من هنا جاءت شكوكي حول ما يقوله الناس او يكتبونه بانها اعترافات . وكيف لا أشك وهناك شكوك كثيرة حول مدى صدقية " الكتب المقدسة " ومدى التحريف الذي اصابها !
ماشي ...
إذن فالفائدة الاساسية العائدة من كتابة " اليوميات " هي تلك التي تعود على كاتبها في النهاية .. فهو يتخفف من بعض تاريخه الشخصي ، يجكيه لمجهولين مثلما يحكي مجهول لمجهول آخر في قطار او بار بعض اسراره الخاصة وكل واحد يروح لحاله بعد ذلك . لكن الكتابة تسجيل يبقى طويلا خاصة مع وجود النيت وجوجول ومن لف لفهما .
انا باعتباري كاتبا في اوقات فراغي اكتب بهذه الطريقة واحيانا العب واضع اكاذيبا متعمدة كي اخفي حقائقا اخرى .
انا بالطبع لا اسجل مذكرات او يوميات ، منذ ان التحقت او تجندت في العمل السري ذلك خوفا من وقوعها في اي الأعداء ( البوليس ) او الزملاء ( من تنظيمات اخرى ) او المقربين ( الحبيبات او الزوجات )
في مرات نادرة اسجل " افكارا " في نوتة صغيرة مثلما حدث لي حينما كنت في المستشفى لمدة اسبوع لإجراء عملية استئصال البروستاتا . احتفظ بالنوتة حتى الآن ولم استخرج منها سيئا يذكر ، لكني سوف اكتب الكثير منها على البوستات تبع مدني !
كتبت عن الرجال العواجيز في روايتين لي .. سبقني في هذا الكثيرون من الكتاب : هيمنجواي مثلا ولحقه ماركيز وقبله الياباني بتاع منزل الجميلات النائمات الذي شكره ماركيز بعد ان اخذ الفكرة ولعب بها في روايته الأخيرة !
هيمنجواي كتب عن الفشل في العجوز والبحر ثم انتحر شخصيا . ماركيز يعاني من السرطان .. الخ
في غواية الوصال كتبت عن كهل متشبث بالحياة من خلال مطاردته للفتيات . في ايثاكا كتبت عن مرمم كهل يكشف حيواته الجنسية المتعدة وساديته ومازوخيته وفيتشيته.
المدهش اني في الفترة الأخيرة كررت بدون وعي ( ؟) مرمي في علاقة محيرة مع امرأة حلوة جميلة وذكية تصغرني بسنوات كثيرة. اشترطت هي بشكل غامض ان لا يحدث ايلاج ووافقت انا بوضوح كنت اريدها بأي شكل وبأي شرط . اعرف السادية - الماسوشية في هذا الوضع .كنت انا الطالب وهي المطلوبة الخادم للمخدومة .
ثلاث مرات وانهت هي الحدوتة من طرفها بالرغم من احتجاجي الصادق . وحتى الآن لم اعرف لماذا وافقت هي اساسا ان تعطيني جسدها العظيم وشبابها ووقتها واورجازمها( وصلت اليه بدون ايلاج ) وان تكشف لي خبيئة جسدها .
كتب كاتب شاطر " ان اكثر الأشياء صدقا في حياة انسان ؛ هي حياته السرية
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Diary of an old man
To what extent can a diary be honest? And how much truth does one want the others (especially family and friends) to know (not all of it surely) about oneself?
I would never be able to answer such questions TRUTHFULLY because I always believe that the truth can never be anything but hurtful and painful and harmful.
This leads me to believe that most intimate diaries must be well edited, and that writers who want to "confess" use literature and fictional narrators and characters other than themselves to open up.
Old men usually begin their day and end it differently from the 'non old men'. I begin it reluctantly and rather irritably - not expecting any good thing to come out of the approaching hours, which are full of hidden surprises most of which I expect to be unpleasant.
So why should such a person like myself want to tell others what has happened to him or what he is feeling about himself?
I tell myself: I want to leave something meaningful when I leave; meaningful to whom? The question comes from my alter ego who is doubtful and suspicious. But for a person like myself writing is necessary and important - it makes my day 'useful' and creates a certain direction for it; it keeps my mind active - alive, not busy with the trivial daily routine, but with other things the world thinks are important: Darfour, Gaza, war crimes, and so on. It is not about writing my diary in the following way: I got up feeling great and a friend emailed me asking me to reprint all my books in ten languages...
But here I am with a blog (not my idea but Elly's), facing technical problems, forgetting my password, making spelling and grammar mistakes - even in Arabic, looking for interesting ideas to tell to unknown readers!
Who cares?! I believe there are a reasonable amount of people who care to listen and to read how others think and feel. I began to be interested in 'old people' when I myself became 'a man of a certain age', and when I wrote Gewayat al Wesal (The seduction of Temptation). I wrote from a point of view that I took further in Ithaca. I had had a prostate operation when I was writing it and then Marquez published his last Novella, Mis Putas Tristes, and the man in it was 90 years old, so I felt encouraged!
I met a young woman in her early forties recently and I became sexually attracted to her, besides the fact that she is objectively an intelligent and attractive woman. I agreed to her 'conditions': that we would not have 'real' sex (no penetration). It was rather a sadistic thing to do, but I accepted it because I was fascinated by her. I know why I was attracted to her sexually, but I was curious to discover why she was attracted to me. We went to bed together three times and it was mainly me who 'did the work' - she was interested in herself; I do not blame her. There was as we had agreed no penetration. I remember I was laying beside her naked body and my mind was elsewhere - on the Japanese novel The House of the Sleeping Beauty that Marquez was fascinated by in Mis Putas Tristes. I was wondering about the strange situation one can find oneself in if one is fascinated or obsessed by getting one's hands (or other parts of one's body) on someone's body.
There was something unhealthy in this relationship and she found an excuse to withdraw from it.
When I think about it now I can still smile in a nostalgic way!
If I wrote about it in a novel then it would be an old story, written many times before.
But when I write about it in a blog as a sort of letter to 'whom it my concern', I know that there are some readers out there who will smile the same smile as me.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
When can a woman be left alone to be a man?
What the courts in Pakistan needed in order to prosecute 31 year-old Shumail Raj for homosexuality (Transsexual couple jailed for lying about husband’s gender, Times May 28th) was a 'confession' that she was indeed still a woman, and so they extracted one apparently without much difficulty. The problem now facing Shumail who underwent two sex-change operations in Pakistan in order to marry her female cousin, is that they were not entirely successful. So she is not yet a he because, although they have removed her uterus and breasts, he does not have a penis. The bride’s father wants the marriage revoked on the grounds that it is against Islam for two women to marry. It is more likely in this case, however, that the father was pissed off with the fact that as long as Shumail and Shazina's love marriage was considered legitimate, he could not force his daughter into another marriage that would have settled a long-running family feud.
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Nizar Sagieh on MERIP, “We Invite People to Think the Unthinkable”:
"the study of actual Arab history—laws, practices, poetry—is the best way for society, and in particular homosexuals, to reconcile with the Arab memory regarding homosexuality and also to find out the rational rules for the present time. For example, some notions in the Arab legal heritage may constitute a basis for the right to privacy, such as the well-known precept " man satar 'ala muslim satar Allah 'alayhi" ("whoever keeps confidential information related to unlawful sexual acts, his/her reputation will be preserved by God"). At any rate, Hurriyyat always focuses on the public interest. We try to prove that the criminalization of homosexuality in Arab history was related to the Islamic regime requirements ( rationalité axiologique, to use Weber's classification), and has never been justified by reasons inherent to homosexuality (rationalité intrinsèque)."
The right (only) man for the job
I want to congratulate Bashir Assad for winning the Syrian elections.
It was a tough race, but the president certainly made a compelling case for continuing as president and he deserves to win over any of the other candidates; all of whom proved their lack of commitment and political conviction by not making themselves known at all.
Nevertheless, I believe a number of my Syrian friends voted for another well-known national hero - the endangered hamster, but these were ultimately lost votes.
For a good recent article on the lack of political freedoms in Syria, see Mona Eltahawy at:
http://www.saudidebate.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=728&Itemid=148
Lesson 1: cry more on public transport
It is a very curious thing that I tried to do everything conceivable to make me hate myself this morning, and instead, for the first time in weeks, I feel quite a lot of fondness for myself. My drunkenly weeping on the tube, then the bus, over the phone to my younger sister, and in the arms of my unsuspecting flatmate, made me such a pitiful sight in my own eyes too, that I don't have the heart this morning to also beat myself up about being a stupid fool. Is there a moral lesson to be taken from this night out where I embarrassed Andrea and was generally inappropriate? Yes, a strange one: I don't sincerely mean to destroy and prostitute myself - it is a complete sham, and it might be better in the future to cry over the phone when sober to my pregnant sister who I have been looking after for weeks and let her look after me a little, as I am tough but not that tough and my wretchedness will out itself somehow or another. And I am tired, and I am lonely Raouf. And I am not just feeling sorry for myself - I am trying be kind to myself and I don't properly know how! And I miss Egypt and I'm not sure what to do about that as I don't have the strength to go back now.
Monday, May 28, 2007
المسيحية الصهيونية والوهابية السعودية والمصرية الحسني مباركية في حلف ضد الشيعة
The war against Hezbollah
During the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon I wrote a "message" to Hezbollah (http://harakamasria.org/node/7197 ) asking it to open its membership to Sunnis and Christians so that it becomes an "Arab party".
The message gained enormous support in many Arab blogs all over the Arabic world under the title "A Christian seeks membership in Hezbollah". Some of my leftist friends criticised me, however, for supporting an "Islamic movement", but I tried to explain to them that Hassan Nasrallah is a different and a novel player in the muddy sea of Arab politics. And I am still backing him and the party in spite of my Marxist and Christian background .
Lately I was busy with my book Ithaca and the reactions it is creating amongst Arab readers, so I was not fully aware of the great American-Saudi-Egyptian plan to "fight the Shi'a" in Iran and Lebanon till Elly posted on "madny " the CNN interviews with Seymour Hersh who is highly regarded journalist/writer on the middle east.
It is very scary to listen to what he is saying
Sunday, May 27, 2007
On a lighter note: where would we be without Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi on the Risks of Female Masturbation?
It is true, as Qaradawi points out that a girl could, instead of giving herself pleasure, "read a useful book, prepare her homework, or join a charity".
And if you are a good girl and get those things done early, surely then it's only fair to be left alone to play a little?
Human Bondages: love!
Maybe it is the difference in age between a person like me (70) and a person like Elly (30) which lets me believe that she is wasting her time looking for "love" and complaining that she cannot find it!
Also I think she wants a taste of everything: to be a "normal" middle class person which means accepting the norms of her class and "belonging" to it and at the same time criticising her class and rebelling against it. She could easily see the paradox of this attitude, but she cannot and will not free herself from it; she is a great example of the conscientious intellectuals of the West: a bit leftist, a bit conservative and a bit patronising; They - and she - are the grandchildren of the great missionaries who went to the savage people in the jungle (without invitation of course) and after them came the soldiers. There is not much difference between the Thomas Cooks and the Livingstons and the Gordons of Khartoum.
But what do the Ellys of our worlds have to do with this bloody history of her great nation? She is the product of this nation she hates, but clings to: the Sunday schools and gloomy intellectual sand the guilt of not being useful enough to herself and her fellow men and women. She is looking for "acceptance" and the easiest way is to find a man who will give her this: forgiveness for her laziness. her arrogance, her skin colour, her class and the history of her country.
And a man who tells her he sleeps with her because of love and her great legs etc.
But there are no men around - now or later- concerned with such issues (because they have their own); they are bored also and want to fuck and go to the pub or watch TV soaps!
And of course her family are busy producing new "Ellys" for this world so she is bored and lonely. Or that is what she thinks.
She knows that sex could be useful for sometime ... as with everything else: reading, seeing people, helping the family and so on
There is no quick remedy
Life in general disappoints her, her body betrays her and gives her pain.
She is too intelligent and sensitive and aware to ignore what is happening in the world around her and too wrapped in herself and her pains to participate in anything which demands a real effort from her.
She is the product of Western society where no brother would kill her because she is not a virgin (as in eastern societies). She can live with income support from the state and have health insurance and she can decide what she is going to do or not do about almost everything concerning her - not like a girl in Iran or Egypt from the same class (we are nor speaking here about Darfour or the camps ... so as not to be melodramatic)
My only advice to her when she is feeling bad or useless or lonely or bored: sit and listen to Qaradawi advising girls not to masturbate!
Sorry I have no serious advice though what she is passing through and feeling is very serious
اجتياح مدني
بعد استيلاء عصابة البشير على البلد تحولت الجنينة إلأى مطاعم سياحية برسم دخول ! واصبح اسمها حديقة الشهداء وقسموها على المنتفعين لكي يتضاعف رسم الدخول وتدور النقود على جيوب من ارسل الشباب للموت وحولهم الى شهداء في حرب البشير الداخلية التي كان شعارها الاسلمة والتعريب
وتحولت المدينة مثل كل المدن السودانية الى مركز للمخابرات وكان على من يريد من الاهالي مواصلة البقاء ان ينتمي .. ليس اماهم خيار سوى الانتماء الى الجبهة .. جبهة الانقاذ الاسمية بقيادة البشير!
بعد ان وجدنا فندقنا اشار علينا صاحب الفندق بالتوجه الى مبنى المخابرات حتى نسجل اسمئنا باعتبارنا اجانب نسكن فندقا ويشاهدوننا . بالفعل ذهبنا وبعد انتظار ممض لساعات ، تم استجوابنا : لماذا حضرنا واية مدة سنمكث .. الى آخر هذه البلاهات .
خرجنا بدون خسائر سوى الوقت لكن طعم الرحلة باخ واصبح ماسخا
إلى واحدة
كان ذلك بعد انتفاضة الخبز 18 و19 يناير وقمنا بتأليف عمل مسرحي ( لا اسميه مسرحية ) سويا مع بعض المصريين الذين تعرفنا عليهم وكانوا قد انتموا للمقاومة الفلسطينية لأسباب مختلفة . تجولنا في المخيمات مع " مسرحيتنا " وتعرفنا على روجيه عساف مؤسس مسرح الحكواتي اللبناني وساعدنا بأن نمثل العمل على مسرح بيروت . كانت باسمة المخرجة وكنت انا ممثلا!!
سكان المخيمات يقومون بشتى الاعمال البسيطة طلبا لكسب الرزق لكن مصدر الاعاشة الاساسي كانت المنظمات التي توفر لأولادهم فرصة التعليم داخل لبنان وخارجه وتربط بين العائلات المشتتة في ارجاء الدول العربية.
سكان المخيم هم "الوقود " الاساسي للمنظامت لذا حينما تم الاجتياح كانت القوات الاسرائيلية تقوم ب " تنظيف " المخيمات . بدأت بمخيم عين الحلوة وكان يقيم فيه الفنان الفلسطيني العظيم ناجي العلي وقد حكى بعد ذلك ما حدث وكتبته انا في " صباح الخير ياوطن " الذي نشرته لي "مطبوعات القاهرة " التي اسسها علاء سويف واحمد سيف الاسلام وشخص آخر لا اذكر اسمه الآن ..
ولعلك تعرفين عن مذبحة صبرا وشاتيلا التي قدمت فيها اسرائيل المخيم للقوات الكتائبية ليذبحوا سكان المخيم.
بعد وصول عرفات الى غزة ذهبت وتجولت بعض الوقت في المخيمات في غزة ورام الله . كتبت هذا ايضا في كتابي عن الرحلة " في انتظار المخلص " ..جدران المخيمات مليئة بالوسترات التي تمجد الشخداء .. سكان المخيمات في كل مكان هم الوقود !
ما يحدث الآن في مخيم نهر البارد هو تكرار للماضي مع اختلاف الاسماء والظروف : خرجت المنظمة من لبنان وحل محلها القبضايات ثم الاسملاميين والذي يدفع الثمن هم سكان المخيم
لكن هذا حديث آخر
شكرا لاهتمامك
Saturday, May 26, 2007
You wanted something personal?
Raouf has accused me of not writing enough personal stuff on this blog, although I don't recall him spilling his guts...
I admitted to Andrea today that though I am no longer depressed, I am not happy. It is almost like a superficial physical discomfort that starts to manifest itself as actual suffering: something that begins as mere, comic discomfort - like suffocating in an ill-advised polyester dress in mid-summer, balancing painfully on broken heels and with no way to quench one's thirst or cool down - suddenly represents some more serious malaise, and becomes acutely unbearable.
The pressure just builds up and there is no release.
I had a brief fantasy: I would take four lovers and I would be fulfilled and happy and busy. But what if each of the lovers is in some way a disappointment. Then it would be better to have only one, or none, to deal with. I know you think love is bullshit, Raouf, and that I must unlearn my attachment to the idea of it, but something that I need I find is entirely absent in my life: some sort of comfort, some sort of ease, some sort of soothing presence that calms rather than provokes my ego. Tonight I do not want a thrill, I want a strong arm or shoulder.
Point the finger at both
Raouf, you are right to suggest that Arabs should not always be so eager to point the finger at the US and Israeli givernment everytime violence erupts in their country. But I don't think accusing the US and Israel of cynical and nefarious meddling in another country's affairs, and protesting against the morally bankrupt and repressive regimes they live under, are necessarily mutually exclusive.
A word on 'conspiracy theories' (see Welch Club post below)
The Arabs are not alone in believing the conspiracy theory whereby the American and Israeli secret service are doing a repeat of Lawrence of Arabia. Most of the "leftist" thinkers in the West join them in this theory.
Since the invention of Mujaheddin in Afghanistan to overthrow the pro-Soviet government, this theory is gaining supporters. Then there was the overthrow of the Shah of Iran by the opposition which included Shi'a clerics, Communists and socialists and had a great effect in destroying such a theory; especially when the Ayatollahs turned against their former allies and took over the country. There is some truth in the 'creation of Bin Laden by the CIA' and some truth in the encouragement of Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, as well as some truth in the US encouraging Israel to invade Lebanon so many times. But this is not the whole truth.
The overwhelming tendency towards Islam in the majority of Muslims around the world as a "reference" is something the Western thinkers would like to play down - belittling its effect on hundreds of millions of Muslims who are suffering poverty and injustice from their ruling systems even if those systems claim to rule by Shari'a.
Look at the Muslims in the West as a counter example of the theory: what happened in England amongst the second generation of good Pakistani emigrants, and the increasing hate and discontent of most of the middle class emigrants towards the social-political systems in their second homeland.
Yes .. the CIA can recruit some "leaders" or Hezbollah or Hamas, but who can convince a person to put bombs around his body to kill others including himself? Not by giving him or her a handful of dollars alone!
There must be more to it!
raouf
Another kind of community
Reading The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
Not only do I feel left out, I wonder what strange courage it takes to say proudly: "I was completely available: at all times and in all places." and not concern oneself with the frightened men and women (like oneself) who whisper 'Sharmouta' or 'whore'. Raouf tells me he found the book boring and faked. It is true that it's repetitive - for the most part the book reads a bit like this: "I was fucked by 30 men; 30 men queued up and took it in turn to fuck me; I was fucked." I do wonder why Catherine M. insists on being so sexually passive - I haven't yet come across the words, "then I fucked him". Decide for yourselves; here's an excerpt:
"There are two ways of envisaging a multitude, either as a crowd in which individual identities become confused, or as a chain where conversely what distinguishes them from each other is also what links them together, as one ally compensates for another's weakness, as a son resembles his father even though he rebels. The very first men I knew immediately made me an emissary of a network in which I couldn't hope to know all the members, the unwitting link in a family joined as in the bible.
"I have already let it be understood that I was reticent in social relationships and I saw the sexual act as a refuge into which I willingly abandoned myself as a way of avoiding looks that embarrassed me and conversations for which I was ill-prepared. There was, therefore, no question of my taking any initiative. I never flirted or tried to pull. On the other hand, I was completely available: at all times and in all places, without hesitation or regret, by every one of my bodily orifices and with a totally clear conscience."
Contagious Censorship
Recently I have been censored three times. Twice on that shitbook Facebook, and once on another blog. It is a mild and inconsequential form of censorship, and I don't yet qualify for a campaign by PEN... Nevertheless it makes me feel uneasy and a little angry. I have been wondering whether those subjected to state and religious and cultural censorship, internalise this urge to censor, and so perpetuate not only the silence on certain issues, but the lack of frankness, the distrust of piss-taking.
Friday, May 25, 2007
About the 'Welch Club', from "Who's Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon?"
Courtesy of www.counterpunch.org
By FRANKLIN LAMB, Tripoli, Lebanon.
Given Bush administration debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan and its encouragement for Israel to continue its destruction of Lebanon this past summer, the situation in Lebanon mirrors, in some respects, the early 1980's when groups sprung up to resist the US green lighted Israeli invasion and occupation. But rather than being Shia and pro-Hezbollah, today's groups are largely Sunni and anti-Hezbollah. Hence they qualify for US aid, funneled by Sunni financial backers in league with the Bush administration which is committed to funding Islamist Sunni groups to weaken Hezbollah.
This project has become the White House obsession following Israel's July 2006 defeat.
To understand what is going on with Fatah al-Islam at Nahr el-Bared one would want a brief introduction to Lebanon's amazing, but shadowy 'Welch Club'.
The Club is named for its godfather, David Welch, assistant to Secretary of State Rice who is the point man for the Bush administration and is guided by Eliot Abrams.
Key Lebanese members of the Welch Club (aka: the 'Club') include:
The Lebanese civil war veteran, warlord, feudalist and mercurial Walid Jumblatt of the Druze party( the Progressive Socialist Party or PSP)
Another civil war veteran, warlord, terrorist (Served 11 years in prison for massacres committed against fellow Christians among others) Samir Geagea. Leader of the extremist Phalange party and its Lebanese Forces (LF) the group that conducted the Israel organized massacre at Sabra-Shatilla (although led by Elie Hobeika, once Geagea's mentor, Geagea did not take part in the Sept. 1982 slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian and Lebanese).
The billionaire, Saudi Sheikh and Club president Saad Hariri leader of the Sunni Future Movement (FM).
Over a year ago Hariri's Future Movement started setting up Sunni Islamist terrorist cells (the PSP and LF already had their own militia since the civil war and despite the Taif Accords requiring militia to disarm they are now rearmed and itching for action and trying hard to provoke Hezbollah).
The FM created Sunni Islamist 'terrorist' cells were to serve as a cover for (anti-Hezbollah) Welch Club projects. The plan was that actions of these cells, of which Fatah el-Islam is one, could be blamed on al Qaeda or Syria or anyone but the Club.
To staff the new militias, FM rounded up remnants of previous extremists in the Palestinian Refugee camps that had been subdued, marginalized and diminished during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Each fighter got $700 per month, not bad in today's Lebanon.
The first Welch Club funded militia, set up by FM, is known locally as Jund-al-Sham (Soldiers of Sham, where "Sham" in Arabic denotes Syria, Lebanon, Palestine & Jordan) created in Ain-el-Hilwa Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon. This group is also referred to in the Camps as Jund-el-Sitt (Soldiers of the Sitt, where "Sitt" in Sidon, Ain-el-Hilwa and the outskirts pertain to Bahia Hariri, the sister of Rafiq Hariri, aunt of Saad, and Member of Parliament).
The second was Fateh-al-Islam (The name cleverly put together, joining Fateh as in Palestinian and the word Islam as in Qaeda). FM set this Club cell up in Nahr-al-Bared refugee camp north of Tripoli for geographical balance.
Fatah el-Islam had about 400 well paid fighters until three days ago. Today they may have more or fewer plus volunteers. The leaders were provided with ocean view luxury apartments in Tripoli where they stored arms and chilled when not in Nahr-al-Bared. Guess who owns the apartments?
According to members of both Fatah el-Islam and Jund-al-Sham their groups acted on the directive of the Club president, Saad Hariri.
So what went wrong? "Why the bank robbery" and the slaughter at Nahr el-Baled?
According to operatives of Fatah el-Islam, the Bush administration got cold feet with people like Seymour Hirsh snooping around and with the White House post-Iraq discipline in free fall. Moreover, Hezbollah intelligence knew all about the Clubs activities and was in a position to flip the two groups who were supposed to ignite a Sunni Shia civil war which Hezbollah vows to prevent.
Things started to go very wrong quickly for the Club last week.
FM "stopped" the payroll of Fateh el-Islam's account at the Hariri family owned bank.
Fateh-al-Islam, tried to negotiate at least 'severance pay' with no luck and they felt betrayed. (Remember many of their fighters are easily frustrated teenagers and their pay supports their families). Militia members knocked off the bank which issued their worthless checks. They were doubly angry when they learned FM is claiming in the media a loss much greater than they actually snatched and that the Club is going to stiff the insurance company and actually make a huge profit.
Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (newly recruited to serve the bidding of the Club and the Future Movement) assaulted the apartments of Fatah-al-Islam Tripoli. They didn't have much luck and were forced to call in the Lebanese army.
Within the hour, Fatah-al-Islam retaliated against Lebanese Army posts, checkpoints and unarmed, off-duty Lebanese soldiers in civilian clothing and committed outrageous killings including severing four heads.
Up to this point Fatah-al-Islam did not retaliate against the Internal Security forces in Tripoli because the ISF is pro-Hariri and some are friends and Fatah al-Islam still hoped to get paid by Hariri. Instead Fatah al Islam went after the Army.
The Seniora cabinet convenes and asks the Lebanese Army to enter the refugee camp and silence (in more ways than one) Fatah-al-Islam. Since entrance into the Camps is forbidden by the 1969 Arab league agreement, the Army refuses after realizing the extent of the conspiracy against it by the Welch Club. The army knows that entering a refugee camp in force will open a front against the Army in all twelve Palestinian refugee camps and tear the army apart along sectarian cracks.
The army feels set up by the Club's Internal Security Forces which did not coordinate with the Lebanese Army, as required by Lebanese law and did not even make them aware of the "inter family operation" the ISF carried out against Fatah-al-Islam safe houses in Tripoli.
Today, tensions are high between the Lebanese army and the Welch Club. Some mention the phrase 'army coup'.
The Club is trying to run Parliament and is prepared to go all the way not to 'lose' Lebanon. It still holds 70 seats in the house of parliament while the Hezbollah led opposition holds 58 seats. It has a dutiful PM in Fouad Siniora.
The club tried to seize control of the presidency and when it failed it marginalized it. Last year it tried to control of the Parliamentary Constitutional Committee, which audits the government's policies, laws and watch dogs their actions. When the Club failed to control it they simply abolished the Constitutional Committee. This key committee no longer exists in Lebanon's government.
The Welch Club's major error was when it attempted to influence the Lebanese Army into disarming the Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah. When the Army wisely refused, the Club coordinated with the Bush Administration to pressure Israel to dramatically intensify its retaliation to the capture of the two soldiers by Hezbollah and 'break the rules' regarding the historically more limited response and try to destroy Hezbollah during the July 2006 war.
The Welch Club now considers the Lebanese Army a serious problem. The Bush administration is trying to undermine and marginalize it to eliminate one of the last two obstacles to implementing Israel's agenda in Lebanon.
If the army is weakened, it can not protect _over 70% of the Christians in Lebanon who support General Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. The F.P.M. is mainly constituted of well educated, middle class and unarmed Lebanese civilians. The only protection they have is the Lebanese Army which aids in maintaining their presence in the political scene. The other type of Christians in Lebanon is the minority, about 15% of Christians associated with Geagea's Lebanese Forces who are purely militia. If the Club can weaken the Army even more than it is, then this Phalange minority will be the only relatively strong force on the Christian scene and become the "army" of the Club.
Another reason the Club wants to weaken the Lebanese Army is that the Army is nationalistic and is a safety valve for Lebanon to ensure the Palestinian right of return to Palestine, Lebanese nationhood and the resistance culture led by Hezbollah, with which is has excellent relations.
For their part, the Welch Club wants to keep some Palestinians in Lebanon for cheap labor, ship others to countries willing to take them (and be paid handsomely to do so by American taxpayers) and allow at most a few thousand to return to Palestine to settle the 'right of return' issue while at the same time signing a May 17th 1983 type treaty with Israel which enriches the Club members and gives Israel Lebanon's water and much of Lebanon's sovereignty.
Long story short, Fatah el-Islam must be silenced at all costs. Their tale, if told, is poison for the Club and its sponsors. We will likely see their attempted destruction in the coming days.
Hezbollah is watching and supporting the Lebanese army.
Franklin Lamb's recent book, The Price We Pay: A Quarter Century of Israel's use of American Weapon's against Lebanon (1978-2006) is available at Amazon.com.uk. Hezbollah: A Brief Guide for Beginners is expected in early summer.
Dr. Lamb can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com
A lesson from Karamazov
A heartbroken friend who has been badly used and coldly discarded by a silly girl, asks me over and over again, how someone can be so cruel as to not reply to any emails - all of them cries from the heart beseeching her to have mercy on him.
It is true that love is mercy; it is not a democracy.
I told him that the lesson I took from Brothers Karamazov was that the people we most despise are often our own victims, not as we always assume, the people who have injured us.
Dostoevsky's old man Karamazov hates with a particular venom one local man: once long ago he cheated and harmed this man, and now his victim is a living reminder to old Karamazov's of his bad character and repellent behaviour. And so this other man is a nuisance, pitiful and worthy of his hatred.
We should remember this when we wonder why the Israelis and the Burmese government and the Americans so despise their victims and only wish to eradicate them so they can once again have a 'clear conscience'.
"I have violated the taboo with a clear conscience"
If I didn't have a migraine, I wouldn't be able to put down the latest book in the Cambridge Middle East Studies series, Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation, by Madawi Al-Rasheed:
"It must be said that after fourteen centuries of its existence, neither Muslim governments nor colonial powers have been able to control religious debate within Islam. Throughout Muslim history scholars and others had to live with religious diversity and a general inability to control religious interpretation. In fact the more they tried to control [it] the more such interpretations proliferated. As a world religion with a sacred text that is constantly interpreted in specific contexts, Islam, its interpreters and their interpretations can never be successfully controlled or pointed in a particular direction.[...]
"[Yet in Saudi Arabia] To study religion and politics from a social scientific perspective, without demonstrating the umara and 'ulama's contribution to Islam and Muslims, violates the taboo. To study both and conclude that they mystify the world, legitimise authoritarian rule, sanction despotism and produce both consenting and rebellious subjects amounts to blasphemy. To capture the ongoing Saudi debate that contests official religious discourse amounts to privileging the despised and dangerous other. I have violated the taboo with a clear conscience."
ابحثــوا عــن الجـنـس!
علاء حليحل
الإسلام السياسي الأصولي يسعى -عندنا وفي العالميْن العربي والإسلامي- إلى تطويق حياة الفرد في ضمن محرمات وممنوعات مستمدة من نصوص دينية. هذا برز في محاكمة مثليي الجنس في مصر وفي الحملة على رواية «إيثاكا» لرءوف مسعد التي تروي هذه الواقعة، وفي الوثيقة التي تنوي الحركة الإسلامية-الجناح الجنوبي صوغها، حيث لا يوجد فيها مكان للمثليين وللزواج المدني-وطبعًا خنق المرأة خلف «ألبسة محتشمة»!1. من أكثر الأمور التي تحتلّ عناوين نشاطات حركات الإسلام السياسي الأصولي -عندنا وفي العالميْن العربي والإسلامي- هي أمور تتعلق بالجنس وبالمرأة. فإذا صدر كتاب فيه توصيفات أو سرديات أيروسية أو جنسية، تثور ثائرة القيّمين على الأخلاق الرفيعة، ليطالبوا بإحراق الكتاب أو مؤلفه/مؤلفته، لأنه يخدش الحياء العام ويخالف الشرائع الدينية، هذا إلى جانب محاولات إخفاء المرأة خلف براقع وأحجبة وستائر سوداء أصولية تهدف «لحماية المرأة»! آخر هذه الهبّات ما يحدث مع الكاتب السوداني الأصل، هولندي المَقيم، رءوف مُسعد، الذي نشر مؤخرًا رواية بعنوان «إيثاكا»، وهي رواية تتحدث عن مأساة حادثة «كوين بوت» (قارب الملكة) التي وقعت في مصر في 2004، حين اعتقلت السلطات المصرية أكثر من 30 شابًا مصريًا كانوا يُجرون حفلة في السفينة، حيث قالت السلطات إنهم كانوا يمارسون اللواط.هؤلاء الشبان تلقوا أحكام سجن طويلة وجائرة، لأنهم كانوا يمارسون حقهم الشرعي والطبيعي في أن يقيموا علاقات حب وجنس مع من يرغبون، ما داموا لا يُلحقون الأذى بأيِّ أحد، وما دامت ممارساتهم الحميمة تقوم على الموافقة المتبادلة. والغريب في الدول العربية والإسلامية أنّ «أحكامَ الشريعة» وممنوعاتها وسطوتها لا تُفعّل إلا على المساكين والضعفاء والمُهمَّشين؛ فهناك على الأقل رئيسان لدولتيْن عربيتيْن (من الملوك والسلاطين والحُكام) يمارسان الجنس المثلي، وغريب أنّ الشريعة لم تهبّ ضدهما. كما أنّ الشريعة والغيورين عليها لا يَهبُّون من باب «الأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر» لتحرير الأقصى مثلا، أو لنصرة المذابح التي تنفذ ضد المسلمين وغيرهم، كما أنهم لا يتظاهرون ويستميتون في الحفاظ على وحدة الأمة في مناطق التنازع بين الأخوة. فالتطاول على الضعفاء أيسرَ، وبما أننا شعب شرقي متخلف، يسهل التحريض عندها في مسائل الجنس والجسد والنساء؛ فأسهل بألف مرة أن تُجند لمظاهرة أو لأعمال عقابية بربرية ضد مثليي الجنس أو ضد نساء «اقترفن الفاحشة»، من أن تحشد ألوفًا غيورة على الشريعة والدين من أجل تحرير الأقصى من الاحتلال أو القدس أو فلسطين أو العراق وغيرها.نحن أمة أمَة لغرائزها، وجميع المتشبثين بأذيال الدين من أجل معاقبة الغير على تصرفاته الحميمة والمتعلقة به وحده، إنما يفعلون ذلك لسبب انشغالهم بهذه الغرائز واستسلامهم لها، فلا يرون الدنيا إلا من خلال الجنس. هل تريدوننا أن نطالب جميع مُريدي وقياديي الإسلام السياسي بأن يكشفوا عن حيواتهم الجنسية وممارساتهم أمام الملأ؟.. هل هم فوق الممارسات والنزعات والمُساءَلة؟ عن هذا قال مُسعَد في لقائه مع موقع «العربية»: «والمثال الواضح هو النشاط «الجنسي» لنواب الإخوان المسلمين في مجلس الشعب؛ فالمتتبع لأسئلتهم واستجواباتهم سيجد أنّ نصفها على الأقل تنصبُّ في موضوع الجنس، الحجاب مثلا والزوبعة التافهة حوله، رواية «وليمة لأعشاب البحر»، أفيشات بعض الأفلام، الخ. إنّ الإسلاميين أسّسوا تجارة رابحة وكبيرة حول «الممنوعات الجنسية والثياب الحلال».»***2.في ردِّه على الحملة التي تُشنّ ضده، كتب مُسعد في موقع «كيكا» -من ضمن ما كتبه- ما يلي: «ذهب البعض في جهلهم بأنّ الجنس المثلي باعتباره بضاعة مستوردة من الغرب، وأنا أحيلهم إلى أشعار العرب في عصر ما قبل الإسلام مثل ديوان الكميت بن زيد الأسدي والى ابن الأثير الجزء الأول مادة حشيش والزبيدي في تاج العروس والى الميداني في مجمع الأمثال ج3. وإذا كانت الحكايات الدينية تقول إنّ هذا الفعل كان موجودًا في عصر النبي لوط فلماذا نلصقه بالغرب وبالصهيونية؟ ألم تقرأوا كتاب «تفضيل الغلمان على الجواري" المكتوب منذ أكثر من بضعة قرون وأعادت طبعه منذ سنوات قليلة دار الانتشار اللبنانية باعتباره من التراث العربي ولم يهاجم أحد الكتاب أو الناشر؟!»هذه المعاملة التي يلقاها المثليون في مجتمعات كمجتمعنا لا تنحصر في أرباب الإسلام السياسي الأصولي، بل تتعداهم إلى كافة فئات المجتمع. فهذا - على ما يبدو- موضوع يجلب الإجماع الكبير غير المنازَع، ويجلب تفاهمات حوله تنعكس في الشتم والسّباب وإطلاق النكات ضد هذه الفئة، على اعتبارها فئة «شاذة» خرجت عن الصراط المستقيم، الصراط الذي نتخيل أنه مستقيم، أو الذي أقنعونا به من خلال مئات السنين بأنه المستقيم بعينه!في اللقاء مع موقع «العربية»، جاء: «سألتُه (أي مُسعد) عن المخاوف التي تطارده خشية اتهامه بالشذوذ بعد كتاباته وزياراته وتردّده على أندية المثليين الجنسيين في الغرب، فأجاب «لم تعُد الاتهامات تهمّني فحتى ما تطلق عليه أنت اصطلاح «الشذوذ» لا اعتبره تهمة ولست في معرض نفيه وإنكاره أو تأكيده، فالسلوك الشخصي للإنسان ونشاطه الجنسي هو أمر بالغ الخصوصية لا يحق للآخرين التدخل فيه. ويتساءل مُسعَد «هل تستطيع أن تقول لي ما هو الأذى الذي يسببه النشاط الجنسي للمثليين؟ في السياق ذاته يقول مدافعاً عن سلوك المثليين: «إنّ السلوك المثلي أسلوب لحياة جزء من المجتمع حتى لو كان صغيرًا، أليس النشاط الجنسي لضحايا الباخرة المصرية «كوين بوت» عام 2004، هو شيء يخصّهم، فلماذا إذا يحاكمهم القانون بتهمة اعتياد الفجور طبقا للمادة القانونية التي قدمتهم بها النيابة العامة للمحاكمة وهم في الوقت نفسه وطبقا للمحاضر الحقيقة للشرطة لم يتعاطوا الجنس مقابل المال.»3.ردًا على «وثيقة حيفا» الصادرة أخيرًا، وبالأساس عليها، لما تحمله من توجه لبرالي ومنفتح من الناحية الاجتماعية، وكونها الوحيدة التي تطرقت إلى هذا الجانب بحدة ووضوح (كاتب هذه المقالة كان عضوًا في الهيئة العامة للوثيقة وعضوًا في لجنة الشؤون الداخلية التي صاغت هذا التوجه- مما اقتضى التنويه والمكاشَفَة الحَقَّة)، قررت الحركة الإسلامية-الجناح الجنوبي إصدار وثيقة خاصة بها، تُوضح لكاتبي «وثيقة حيفا» من أين جهة تشرق الشمس.ففي موقع «معريف» على الانترنت، صرّح النائب عباس زكّور (17 أيار الجاري) بأنّ العمل على وثيقة جديدة للتصور المستقبلي للعرب في البلاد يجري هذه الأيام، وستتمحور الوثيقة في أن يكون المجتمع العربي «من دون لوطيين وسحاقيات ومن دون سموم ومن دون زواج مدني وعلى النساء فيه أن يُلزَمن بارتداء ألبسة مُحتمشة». هل انتبهتم إلى أنّ أربعة من المواضيع الخمسة المُلحّة في هذه المحرمات تتمحور في الجنس والمرأة والعلاقات الخصوصية بين الناس؟.. ولا شكّ أنّ المماحِكين من الإسلاميين الأصوليين سيقولون صارخين: أنتم تستوردون منظومات غربية في وجه إسلامنا وتقاليدنا ومُحرّماتنا. وسأقول بهدوء: في مقابل محرمات كهذه مبنية على عقد جنسية وعلى قمع المرأة- أنا مع الغرب!وورد أنّ الوثيقة تنزع في الأساس نحو تثبيت الأصول والمعايير الاجتماعية التي يجب أن تضبط المجتمع العربي في إسرائيل وتُسيّره. وقال زكّور: «التطرق إلى المواضيع الاجتماعية كان من جانب «غير المؤمنين» وليس من الجانب الإسلامي. لا يمكن لأحد أن يتجاهل الجناحين الشمالي والجنوبي من الحركة الإسلامية (...) ولذلك فإنّ ما هو مقبول على امرأة شيوعية أو أخرى غير مقبول علينا وعلى نسائنا المسلمات.»الغريب أنّ زكور يعتبر النساء المشاركات في صوغ الوثيقة «شيوعيات أو أخريات» ولسن مسلمات (اللواتي ينتمين إلى الدين الإسلامي من بينهنّ)، لأنهن ببساطة لا يتلقين الأوامر منه. فكل امرأة مسلمة تتعامل مع دينها وحرياتها من منظور مختلف عن المنظور الذكوري القامع الديني هي ليست مسلمة بالضرورة، وهذا غير ممكن في سياقات ومصطلحات الإسلاميين. المرأة الصالحة هي من تسمع كلام زوجها ولا تغضب المشايخ. هذه في الواقع امرأة خانعة وليست امرأة صالحة. ويستمر زكور: «نحن لا ننوي فرض القيم الإسلامية على أحد، ولكن لا مناص من احترام القيم الإسلامية مثل وقف دعم المثليين وتسيير اللباس «المحتشم» ومنع الزواج المدني. هل فهمتم؟.. لا نريد أن نفرض ولكن لا مناص من... هذا استهبال للناس ولعقولها. لماذا عليّ أنا -كابن لعائلة مسلمة، إذا أردتم أن تعرفوا بالمناسبة- أن أتقيد بتعاليم إسلامية لا أومن بها أو أنني أقرأها بشكل مغاير؟ أليس اختيار نهج الحياة هو حقي، من دون علاقة بقراءات ومناهج الحركات الإسلامية؟الإسلام السياسي الأصولي يتبع الترهيب في كلّ ما يفعله. إذا لم تفعلوا كذا فستُشوُونَ في النار. إذا لم تفعلوا كذا فإنّ الله سيسخطكم، وغيرها من التهديدات المُهينة لعقول الناس. هذه الوسائل تنطلي على الكثيرين، وأكثر الطرق إقناعاً بـ «التوبة» هي ما يصفه رجالات الإسلام السياسي من عذابات القبور وهَوْلها، كأنهم جرّبوها أو كأنّ أحدًا عاد وروى لهم تفاصيلها. من لا يخاف من توصيفات كهذه؟.. وأية امرأة تستهلك طول عمرها تهديدات بنار جهنم إذا لم «تستر» جسدها، ستقاوم هذا الخوف والتخويف؟4.لا مانع من أن تصوغ الحركة الإسلامية وثيقة لها، فهذا حقها، ويمكننا أن نتناقش معها فيها. ولكن المشكلة هي في تكفير وإنكار الآراء المختلفة التي تتبنى وجهات نظر مختلفة للدنيا، لا تقوم على تحريمات وترهيبات ونصوص دينية يُفترض أنها مقدسة وتعرف الإجابات عن كل شيء. فضرورة تطبيق المُنوعات التي يتحدثون عنها هي قمع وإرهاب فكريين، وإذا حصل وحكمونا في أحد الأيام فسيتطور هذا القمع إلى قمع جسدي وممارساتي شنيع.«وثيقة حيفا» وغيرها تطرح مسارًا واقتراحاتٍ لتصوّرات رؤية أنفسنا في المستقبل. لا تحريم فيها ولا إنكار ولا دعوات لعزل مجموعات كاملة من الناس لمجرد ميولهم الجنسية (13% من كل مجتمع هم من مثليّي الجنس، وفق جميع الإحصاءات الدولية). إذا كان هذا المبدأ فإنني يمكنني أن أدعو مثلا إلى مجتمع لا مناص فيه من نبذ المتدينين وإقصائهم لأنهم يؤمنون بغيبيات غير مفهومة يسمونها «الإيمان». هذه طبعًا سخافة من جانبي، أن أقول وأفعل هذا، وهي سخافة من جانب الإسلام الأصولي أن يدعو إلى نبذ مجموعات غير قليلة من مجتمعنا لأنّ الشيخ الفلاني قرّر هذا (من أهّله بالمناسبة ومن يوزع هذه الألقاب؟). الحوار سيّد التقدم. تريدون الحوار؟ تفضلوا. تريدون التحريم والتكفير والتّجريم، فسنأتيكم بمثلها، لأننا نخاف على مجتمعنا وبيئتنا وقيمنا العلمانية المتنورة التقدمية.
يوم الجمعة - 25 أيار 2007
Article on Ithaca
See this link
http://www.fasl-almaqal.com/
It is the magazine of AZMI BOUSHARA who has been prosecuted by the Israeli authorities.
In the issue of Friday 25th, May 2007 there is an article by Alaa Helehel on ITHACA and the Muslim FUNDAMENTALISTS
raouf
Teens Wear Stab Vests
This is England: some signs observed from my bus
Plight of Mum and Baby Who Live in Garage
Nude Lap Dancing Beach
Hospital Boy Dies Hours After Being Sent Home
Warning: Anti Climb Paint in Operation
Muggers Glue N1 Man's Eye
Thursday, May 24, 2007
عن الناس والمدن -2
أما السبب الحقيقي للقتال فهو غامض لكنه على الأغلب محاولة المسلحين السيطرة على المخيم.
لماذا السيطرة ؟ للتحكم في مصادر الحياة في المخيم ..وايضا مصادر الرزق . فكل هذه المصادر شحيحة في المخيمات والتي لمن لايعرف عبارة عن مساكن متساندة على بعضها ، عشوائيات تتحمكم فيها جماعات من المسلحين المنتمين الى تنظيمات وجماعات . القانون السائد هو قانون المسلحين . لذا ينتمي سكان المخيم الى الجماعة التي يظنون انها ستحميهم . في الستينات كان الانتماء سياسيا : فتح او الديموقراطية او الشعبية . ثم ظهرت حماس والاحزاب الدينية وممعها جماعاتها المسلحة .
السلاح هنا مصدر للقوة والتحكم.
عشت وعملت في لبنان ( بيروت) بين 1998 و1982 ..اي حتى الغزو الاسرائيلي حينما جاء شارون يطارد عرفات وكل ما يمثله . فلبنان مكان ممتاز للعيش لمن يفهم قوانين هذا النوع من الأمكنة. ان تعرف اين هي الخطوط الحمراء ولا تخترقها ، ان تستمتع بالحريات الكبيرة المتاحة في بلد مثل هذ! لامثيل لها حتى الان في بلد عربي . طقس ساحر : جبال ووديان . طعام شهي واناقة في اللباس والحياة .
هذه هي فتح الإسلام بمسلحيها تريد ان تغير كل هذا . رأيت المسلحين في التلفزيون . اصحاء اقوياء يرتدون الثياب السوداء ويحملون الرشاشات ويقولون انهم سيحاربون إلى النهاية. لم يقولوا عن أهدافهم العسكرية او السياسية ( المعروفة والتي ذكرتها من قبل) كنت افكر وانا اتأملهم : ها هي القوات الاسرائيلية على فركة كعب .. . لكنهم بالتاكيد لن يتوجهوا إلى اسرائيل . سيوجهون رصاصهم إلينا نحن !
Another City from Another Time
When I was writing about Madny there was another city whose inhabitants were being massacred: just near Trablous - Lebanon ( I write it as we pronounce in Arabic). I saw the Islamic fighters on TV. They looked very healthy and determined to fight to the end, dressed in black with long thick beards. Why not? They will be going to a better place where are rivers of honey and wine and hoor el een and weldan mokhaldoon.
But why they are fighting the Lebanese army instead of Israeli troops? That is a silly question and for such questions we have an even sillier answer: because they NEVER WANTED TO FIGHT ISRAEL!! The Lebanese press say that the fighters in Fateh El Islam are not Palestinians. In that case why are we facing here another Jehad? Why suddenly (suddenly?) did they appear; and why now?
I lived in Lebanon from 1978 until 1982. I was working in Beirut as a journalist.
The city was 'according to my heart': clean, beautiful and cosmopolitan. Everything was there: drugs, drinks, fun, life and death; even Carlos was said to come from time to time. I had a great time, great food; there was a free press (as long as you knew where the red lines were), there were (and still are) Palestinians in camps and some of them were refugees, some were in the PLO and some were rich and some were crooks - like all people in this bloody world: victims and killers.
I left west Beirut in August, when the Israeli army led by Sharon (where is he now ?!) was chasing Arafat (I know where he is now!), and the Army was just at the doors of the city - almost inside it. How many years ago that is now. But it now as it looked in 1982 and as it looked last summer when the Israeli army were chasing Hezbollah
Did nothing change?
A lot is changing: now instead of a foreign army we have Islamic fighters!
A question for Khaled El Berry: is doniea ahla min eljana still?!!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
هي.. واد مدني وهي واحدة من اجمل المدن السودانية في الأقل.. تقع على النيل الأزرق القادم من الحبشة.. لعلي كنت في السادسة او السابعة حينما قدمنا من بور سودان حيث وُلدت . بيتنا في مدني كبير وبه حديقة بئر مهجورة .هو ملحق بالكنيسة لأن الكنيسة هي الأصل والبيت هو بيت القسيس . كنيسة للبروتستنت الإنجيلين. بالقرب منها تقع كنيسة الأجريج ثم كنيسة الشوام ولعلها كنيسة مارونية . مدني هي مكان الذكريات الأولى من الطفولة الى الصبا ومكان الخيبات الأولى واكتشافات الجسد الساذجة المحرقة ومدرستي الابتدائية وحب الصبا لمن احببت وسرقاتي الأولى من جيب والدي وسيجارتي الأولى انها المدينة التي خرجت منها باكيا حينما وضعني والدي في القطار المتجه الى الخرطوم منها الى مصر لأدرس في كلية اسيوط الثانوية الأمريكية ( هكذا كان اسمها ) خرجت منه جزعا على فراق والدي باكيا ورجعت اليه بعد ثمان شهور وقد بلغت واخشوشن صوتي ومارست الاستمناء وقمت بمغامرات جنسية مع صبية آخرين
قدمت اليها مرتان .الاولى حينما افُرج عني بعد اربعين شهرا من الحبس . وسافرت بعدها الى اهناك. ابحث من جديد عما ضاع مني او ما ظننت أني سأجده هناك . وصلت مدني في المساء الافريقي الملبد بالغيوم والعرق .كنت ابحث عن فندق رخيص فليس معي نقود كافية , سألت مصريا نقاديا يجلس في دكانته التافهة يرتدي جلبابا وسخا ان يدلني على بغيتي .كسّر لي مجاذيفي فقفلت عائدا الى المحطة واستقليت القطار المتجه الى الخرطوم حيث لي هناك اصدقاء وأكثر من مكان يؤتني.
في المرة الثانية قدمت اليها مع عزة شعبان وكنت قد شارفت الستين . كنا تجولنا في شرق السودان واقتربنا كثيرا من الحدود الإثيوبية ولم يعجب هذا الأمن السوداني الذي طلب منا الرحيل في اليوم التالي ورحلنا شبه مخفورين ( لكن بدون القبض علينا مع بعض التهديدات ) .. هذه المرة حمستني عزة للذهاب الى مدني . وجدنا فندقا لطيفا يطل على النيل به حديقة صغيرة جميلة كنا نجلس فيها في العصارى بعد نومة القيلولة نحكي عن ذكرياتنا مع حياتنا السابقة .
( يتبع )
Bus W7 up Crouch Hill
The bus's back doors were sealed shut. The passengers, all rising from their seats started to look trapped and it was then I began to feel the early summer heat closing in on us. "Let us off the bus, open the door" chorused voices not used to exclaiming in public. I was mute - my body greedily absorbing the rising tension, alert to the possibility of an escalation.
The incident was unremarkable but the bus driver was firm in his response and shut down the engine. The bus seemed to die. The girls blocking the front entrance, only one of them in school uniform, insisted they were under 16 and should travel for free but they had no proof. I could neither see the bus driver nor hear his voice. He did not waver and people started to descend from the top deck, and threaten a little here and there, then look for a way out.
The girls were black. Then a black woman in her 50s, in the back started shouting that they can travel for free under 18. "Yes they can, they can" she insisted when a fellow passenger tried to contradict her. A black man descended and said: "I gotta go, man; I got work; lets go man." He sucked his lips in disapproval and started pacing the lower deck playing with his phone. Two Eastern European boys said one after the other, "Look I paid for a ticket; can you give me back my ticket?". The old Indian man leaning on his cane, across the aisle remained focused on the white baby in her white bonnet in the seat in front. Then there was more tutting and we were not far off panic I thought.
I stayed seated and watched people suddenly become more than passengers, become a little wretched and anxious and angry. The Eastern European boys stopped in the aisle and relieved their tension by caressing the baby's cheeks, caught in its innocent gaze. Another bus arrived, the school girls vanished. The bus started up and people around me now shiny with sweat fell back into their seats, an incident of rage and injustice averted. Again our impotence and silence. The Indian man patted the mother in front of him on her bare shoulders and said, not this stop, you need to wait for the next set of traffic lights. She nodded twice, thank you thank you, then turned to the man beside her, "Is it not this stop then for the 210?" Was she still not sure? "Your baby is lovely" I said and got off the bus smiling shyly.
"It’s so easy for someone who has the money and the arms just to take a corner of the camp, hijack it, and just fight with the others." Zaki Chehab
For news of the fighting in the refugee camp in Northern Lebanon, I am following the excellent www.democracynow.org and Amy Goodman and her guests tell me all sorts of information I am not sure I want to hear - and do not know what to do with - in rush transcripts of broken English and speech made inaudible by gunfire.
I am more than gloomy about this, I am pushing and pushing my brain to take in the horror of this conflict for the refugees 'caught in the crossfire' of the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam. This is a massacre, and people are being shot at directly; they are not just in the line of fire: their homes and their bodies are being targeted in this tiny patch of land allocated to 40,000 stateless Palestinian people.
The fleeing refugees, reports Nicholas Blanford, "say the situation in the camp is extremely [inaudible]. There are many dead under the rubble of bombed-out buildings. They’re all extremely angry and upset with Fatah al-Islam. They say that they’re not Palestinians, that they’re foreigners, and they have nothing to do with them. They say that Fatah al-Islam have been shooting at vehicles trying to leave. And there is a demonstration in the camp now. They’re taking advantage of the ceasefire to come out in the streets -- over 300 people, one woman told us -- to basically demand the Fatah al-Islam to leave, because the Palestinian population in the camp is suffering.[...] There’s been no electricity there since Sunday, when the fighting broke out. People are telling us they’ve run out of food and they’ve run out of water, and they’re hiding in the rubble of their bombed-out houses, praying just for any opportunity to get out. [...] of course, the bulk of the casualties is from the Lebanese army’s shelling of the camp. And it’s been -- it’s quiet now, but it has been very heavy in the past, yesterday, especially yesterday afternoon, when you could watch from the high ground above the camp and see the mortar shells being fired from the Lebanese army positions, exploding from one end of the camp to the other, setting buildings on fire. [...] we’ve been hearing from soldiers on the ground here that the militants are threatening to fire rockets and mortar shells into nearby Tripoli."
Madny
Part 1
Its name is Wad Madny and it is one of the most beautiful cities in Sudan. It is the first place of my memories when I was about seven years old; it is where I first discover the cruelty of human beings. It is my first "school": it is the place of sexual orientation, love, finding Christ, failure, and disappointment.
My father was a priest in Madny. We lived in a big house attached to the Protestant church. We left Madny when I was about 15 and I have returned to 'her' twice: when I was released from the prison of wahat el kharga in the western desert in Egypt, and when I was 60. And each time I had a different and strange impression of this city.
The first time I returned was a great disappointment; I had no money, was travelling cheap and looking for memories to reassert my place in the world after 40 months of imprisonment. I arrived at sunset: everything was dark and gloomy. I wanted to spend the night in a hotel so I went from the railway station to a small shop nearby to ask for directions. The owner was an Egyptian from Nagada dressed in a dirty galabiyya, and aggressive; he put me down and I turned around and took the train which was leaving for Khartoum where I have friends.
The second time I arrived with my friend Azza. We had travelled in Sudan in 1997 and been deported by the Sudanese Mokhabarat from the borders near Ethiopia (but this is another story as they say!), and I was depressed, but Azza convinced me to make a detour and visit Madny. So we arrived, and found a nice hotel overlooking the Nile...
(to be continued)
Monday, May 21, 2007
To Abdel Monem the Blogger
I do not like to call people who are not very close to me “dear”
I am stingy with my emotions
I will call you just Blogger
That is why they put you in prison
Because you are a Blogger
Prison is a cruel human invention: humans invented it to humiliate other human beings
I will not repeat to you all this nonsense about prison being for “men’; when you are in prison you are a hostage
That is the reason why they put you inside
But you are freer than those who put you in the cell
Because you have your freedom.
They have only their fear
You have people who do not know you, demonstrating and asking for your freedom
In addition, you have people who wait hours at the prison gates to deliver you clean underwear, a box of cigarettes and a kiss
Between my prison experience and yours there are about 40 years
In the end nothing changed
Because we remain alive and productive and they disappeared
We are all over the place and nobody remembers them
Because prison is against God who created people to be free and gave them a brain to think and a tongue to express what they think
That is your fate and that is our fate
We will be always be around
They will be forgotten
Mash'allah!
الى المدون عبد المنعم
أكره ان انادي من لا أعرفهم جيدا بلقب عزيزي او عزيزتي فإنا مقل في الكشف عن عواطفي واكره عواطف المجاملات..
لكنك مدون ولهذا السبب فأنت سجين.
ولهذا فأنا اخاطبك ..
والسجن تجربة لئيمة وحقيرة وأسوأ اختراع بشري " تميز " به البشر في دناءتهم عن اسلافهم القردة وأولاد عمومتهم الذئاب..
لن اقول لك :السجن للجدعان وكل هذا الكلام الفارغ، فحينما تكون في السجن فأنت رهينة لا تملك من امرك شيئا..
او هكذا يريدك من حبسك .. ويريد قهرك .
لكنك برغم قيودك تملك حريتك . تملك فضائك ..
اما هم من سجنوك فليس امامهم سوى مواصلة الانحدار حتى نهاية دربهم البائس. انظر إليهم والى من سبقهم وقل لي من يذكرهم الآن ومن يتذكرهم او يذكر ايامهم ؟
نحن نمتلك فضاءنا وأصدقائنا وأحبائنا والذين يخرجون في المظاهرات دفاعا عنا والذين يقفون على ابواب السجون لكي يمدوننا بغيار ولقمة وعلبة سجائر وقبلة .
من يسجنونا يستخدمون الوقت الضائع ، يواصلون تناول حبوب التنفس وأدوية الجلطة لكنك تعرف كما اعرف ان لكل داء دواء إلا الحماقة اعينت من يداويها!
هم محبوسون داخل مقصوراتهم وأرائهم التافهة وحقدهم وخوفهم ومعرفتهم بنهايتهم الكئيبة البائسة.
ليس هذا كلام للتسخين وكنت اتمنى ان لا تجتاز هذه المحنة لكن كل نفس مسيرة لما قدر لها..
هذا ما قُدر لك وعليك ان تجتاز قدرك هذا .. فهو ليس امتحانا . فالرجال والنساء لا يُمتحنون في الزنازين ؛ لكنهم يمُتحنون حينما يُمنحون الحرية.. كيف تراهم يا ترى يدافعون عنها ويدافعون عن حق الآخرين فيها أيضا !
هذا هو امتحاننا الأكبر ..
وكما قال الرسول عليه السلام : قمنا بالجهاد الأصغر وأمامنا الجهاد الأكبر.. جهاد مواصلة الإيمان .
إيمان شخص مثلي هو الأيمان باني لست على صواب دائما لكني اعرف من هم الذين على خطأ .. اؤلئك الذين يخالفون دورة الطبيعة وقوانينها ..
السجن هو مخالفة للطبيعة في سماحتها وحساباتها الصارمة العادلة .. لأنه إهانة للخالق الذي خلق الإنسان حرا وأعطاه العقل ليفكر واللسان ليقول ما يعن له ..
وعلمه بالقلم .. علمه ما لم يعلم .
بين تجربتي وتجربتك حوالي اربعين سنة ..
لكن النتائج واحدة
من حبسوني ماتوا .. من عذبوني لا يتذكرهم.أحد نحن بقينا وهم زالوا..
انت مدون لذا انت سجين .
نحن نملك حرية لا يحلمون هم بها .. الذين سجنوك ويسجنوننا ويحتفظون بنا رهينة .. نملك حرية إننا باقون وهم لن يهتم احد بمعرفة مآلهم .
بين تجربتي ماتوا. حوالي اربعين سنة ..
لكن النتائج واحدة
من حبسوني ماتوا ..وزالوا كعصف مأكول يوم ريح !
.. ونحن بقينا وسنبقى مليء السمع والبصر !
ماشاءالله !!
رءوف مسعد
"As we ate, an Israeli soldier playfully pointed his gun at us"
In The Battle for the Holy Land tonight on Channel 4, we are finally treated to an excellent and horrifying display of human baseness: we get to see the Israelis acting as a mob in Hebron.
You thought only Arabs could constitute a mob? This lot are even more convincing: we see little and big thugs: pint-size settler children throwing stones and childish, racist insults, and the best of all: we see the young and 'brave' settler men with fuck-off big black beards. Now we have to ask, who are the religious fundamentalists in the Middle East?
Notoriously right wing journalist Rod Liddle (author of many of the anti-Arab, anti-Islam diatribes in the English press of the last few years) went to the West Bank to look for evidence of Israel's democratic state. Whilst shamelessly repeating the myth that the Israelis 'made the desert bloom' where the Palestinians have made nothing of the land - that is what remains for them after their occupiers have helped themselves - he did find, he admitted, "a fundamental flaw" in the much championed 'only democracy in the Middle East'.
Watching the documentary, I witnessed something more explicit, more sordid on the individual and communal level than this 'fundamental flaw': gross ignorance, spitefulness, vulgarity and cowardice on the part of Israeli settlers. And while Rob happily accepted the myth that Palestinians neglect to irrigate and farm their land to its full potential - the inference being that they are lazy donkeys - he had no problem accepting from his articulate Palestinian hosts and guides a hospitality that was never less than perfectly gracious, patient and generous. Yet Rod, while shocked by the glaring inequalities and a ritual humiliation of West bankers, leaves admiring Israel for at least making a 'thoroughly efficient modern state in the middle of an inefficient region'. And at most?
And with what amazement did we hear the innocent replies of the mother and daughter settlers, emigrated from Brooklyn, when asked why they think Palestinians might be angry with them: "We don't know why they are angry." they say. "Maybe because of Islam. Maybe because they hate the West and Europe and they see us as an outpost of the West."
Not then, because you have built an ugly big wall around their houses, stolen fertile ancestral land and forced them out of their homes, then denied them access to their water? No, it cannot be for material and economic reasons - it must be IDEOLOGY.
"Well I don't know" said the nicely educated young girl finally admitted: "I never spoke to any of them."
Then my dear sweet child, you are an idiot and so is your mother. And while we are crying at the cruel and unnecessary suffering you are subjecting Palestinian men, women and children to, and shouting at the television for the injustices you perpetrate under the blind eyes of the IDF, we are also laughing at your incredible ignorance from the West, and from the Arab world or the Islamic world, or whatever you want to call it.
Suite française, and sleeping with the enemy
Irène Némirovsky, a French Jewish writer of extraordinary frankness, brilliant wit and rare insight was gassed to death at the age of 39 at Auschwitz.
In the years before her murder, on the run and hiding with her young family in Burgundy, she wrote a novel that was to be in five parts (hence its title Suite française) but in the event only reached two. With this is mind, it is even more remarkable, perhaps, that in her novel she divides French society under German occupation into two groups; not the occupied and the occupiers, but the lovers and those that want to punish the lovers. Or to put it another way, the young and lustful and playful and hopeful, versus the old and frigid and vengeful.
In Part Two, Dolce, the beautiful, sensitive and educated protagonist, Lucile, the wife of a prisoner of war - a spoilt and passionless man of property, calls on her dressmaker and notices a German soldier's belt on the bed:
"'How can you?' murmured Lucile.
"The dressmaker wavered between several attitudes. Her expression was a mixture of insolence, confusion and deceit. Then suddenly she lowered her head. 'So what? German or French, friend or enemy, he's first and foremost a man and I'm a woman. He's good to me, kind and attentive [...] Our lives are complicated enough with all these wars and bombings. Between a man and woman, none of that's important. I couldn't care less if the man I fancy is English or black - I'd still offer myself to him if I got the opportunity. Do I disgust you? [...] On the one side there's me and him; on the other side there's everyone else. People don't care about us: they bomb us and make us suffer, and kill us worse than if we were rabbits. And as for us, well, we don't care about them."
The cover of the English edition is both off-putting and disingenuous. Unlike the French edition from which the author's strong, sensuous eyes stare directly at the reader from a black and white portrait photo, the English edition features a different kind of 'stock' black and white photograph: in the background, a crowd of working men in their flat caps, and in the foreground digitally tinted, is a couple in an innocent embrace, the pretty young woman's head slightly bowed towards his chest, so she appears considerably shorter than her lover, and he looks up humbly, yet defiantly as if challenging any enemy to take away/rape/steal his French woman. Their refugee status is suggested by the simple valise at their feet.
Yet this novel does not feature a woman that in any way resembles the young girl on the cover. The woman are resourceful, independent, sensuous or vain, but rarely so naive and vulnerable. And several of them fantasise about absent lovers or take illicit lovers. They sleep with the enemy. Imagine, then, if the cover featured a French woman straddling a soldier in German uniform?
As the uptight and frightful Viscountess, "who knew there was no hope of the Viscount satisfying her, since he had little interest in women in general" exclaims, "'It's scandalous!". While Lucile says, "'It's sad' [...] thinking of all the girls whose youth was passing them by in vain: the men were gone, prisoners or dead. the enemy took their place. It was deplorable, but no one would even know in the future. It would be one of those things posterity would never find out, or would refuse to see out of a sense of shame."
We must sleep with the enemy; so as not to see our youth and beauty slip by, and because it is not always our most obvious enemies that are trying to destroy us: "'How revolting!'" exclaims the Viscountess on hearing the melodious singing voices of women with German soldiers that drifts on the still night through Lucile's open window, "'I'd really like to know who those shameless girls are. I'd make sure the priest knew their names.' She leaned forward and eagerly leaned into the night."
In the future they/us will choose to forget such politically inconvenient 'scandals', of course.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
A desire frightening for the subject and the object
I watched a young male friend implode; and while I watched him writhe in agony, I feared more that he would explode over my bed.
I watched a friend lose his desexualised, nice, polite Palestinian face that the politically conscious girls greedily claimed, and take on a harder one stark with shadows and a desperate lust, that he insists he can only interpret as love. Love for a girl I don't care for - a silly, cold girl who used him to write her PhD proposal and then shouted at him on the phone, full of scorn, that his less than perfect text made her lose face.
I watched him show me eagerly the horrible love poetry he bombarded her with, it's Arabic words translated into a childish tongue. And interminable, sickly letters protesting, beyond his love, his great education and suitability, where the European girl cares little for mention of such considerations.
I listened to him cling to meaningless, throw-away compliments, that he interpreted as promises from her to him, her lover, believing he is her ultimate, in both senses, lover. And now she is with a new man, a base one: "But he is not even handsome", he keeps repeating, "and he is stupid: I destroyed him in a debate and she greatly admired me for this."
Sweet intelligent fool.
She cannot know, I'm sure, that she's the heir of a mercantile people, where marriage was business. In Palestine it is family ties, and we laugh at the sentimentality of kinship, and forget how we exchanged our daughters coldly for a commission or a contract.
He wanted to touch me - his friend who he had been too ashamed to tell of his now long-lost virginity, and suddenly confessed a passion for my lips.
Each night he suffers, he tells me, from wet dreams. His desire for sex is in his eyes almost catastrophic, hideous, whereas his love for the girl who took his virginity is beautiful and tragic. But our Young Werther has a penis and his great love is awful and unwanted.
Her lack of self-love makes his love intimidating, frightful, absurd.
And he fails to understand that what is sent/given in one spirit can be received/ignored coldly in another.
How to be kind? And thoughts on Beer in the Snooker Club
It occurs to me that people in England, at least, are starved of opportunities to be kind, to be useful. If one watches the eagerness with which people jump up on the bus when someone even approaching old age gets on, and the keenness with which a stranger directs you to the address you cannot find, or gives unsolicited advice in a shop, then one feels the terrible and unexploited desire to be 'good', when so many situations call for one to be cynical: critical and uncompromising for fear of being taken advantage of, being laughed at, being 'unnatural'.
Our suspicion is thus killing something in us, for it reveals to us day in, day out, the frightful, hard, trapped creature we have become, with our knowing faces frozen in a semi-permanent frown or sneer.
On a suffocating coach ride, Bath-London, the hulking vehicle turned a difficult corner, and I observed from the window an elderly man making a signal to the driver that is was clear and safe for him to advance. It was a completely superfluous, foolish act, as red-lights prevented the other cars from advancing into our slowly turning rear end, but who amongst us would have wanted to shout out, "what are you doing old man; there is no need for your help."?
After I finished reading Beer in the Snooker Club by Egyptian writer Waguih Ghali, I lived for a long time with that book in my flat in Cairo overlooking the depressing Ministry of the Interior, and wandering the streets of downtown, burdened further with the thought of Ghali killing himself in the spare bedroom of British publisher, Diana Athill. I felt an immense sorrow that I could not fully explain by my own loneliness as a foreigner.
Later I returned to the novel and considered Ram's role in his own life, and found it an excruciatingly circumscribed and pitiful one. Ram, that narrator of Beer in the Snooker Club, born to a landowning Coptic Christian family, is the only son of the poor relative: his mother was widowed young and now relies upon the generosity - with all its attendant obligations - of her siblings. He has been educated in the British school system in Cairo, and dreaming of the mythical London of Piccadilly Circus and pubs, he and his best friends, Font and Edna, travel to England to experience sexual and political freedom and find as well dreariness and meanness and small-mindedness. There he and his lover, Edna, drift apart, and he returns to Cairo understanding that England has 'killed something natural' in him.
What Ram subsequently fails to do is to act out his compassion, and desire for other people. And this is during a period in Egypt, the late 1950s, post the 1952 'revolution', when the young people are moving out of the spaces and roles formerly proscribed entirely for them by their parents, a corrupt elite and the British presence. Font - a dogmatic Marxist, scornful of his privileged roots, adopts the garb and posture of a street vegetable seller. Ram, finds this absurdly and depressingly 'gimmicky' just as the communism of Edna, an Egyptian Jew, and her incessant championing of the fellaheen leaves him cold.
So, he reasons, to act 'righteously' in the defense of the downtrodden, is to be a parody both of oneself and ones roots, and of those that one is claiming to stand up for; it is to proscribe who and what is authentically Egyptian and to disdain and reject everything - even one's innocent childhood - and everyone else that does not take this purging seriously.
Ram does act briefly - alone and secretly - to send photographs to the newspapers that expose abuses by the government. But he jokes that for his pains - the real risks involved, he prefers the idea of having gone to prison, rather than the heroic act of actually going.
His potent hatred of his wealthy French-speaking family's disingenuineness, their greed and cowardice and sham magnanimousness, does not provoke him to act and speak upon any legitimised, public platform against both them and their class. Rather, Ram chooses to expose himself to ridicule and mere disapproval by performing apparently childish pranks - pushing his odious American-educated cousin into the pool, making a scene at a society party. By making it impossible for anyone around him to consider his protests as serious and legitimate political acts, he can be disruptive and irreverent from within; but it is a lonely and claustrophobic role which engenders only greater cynicism and emotional numbness in the young man.
As long as Ram divides his time between his politically committed friends and a depraved and decadent elite, he has only the rare opportunity to show kindness, for with the former he feels too self-consciously as if he is performing a political or social role, and with the latter in order to resist the powerful obligation upon him to be the good son, he can only be flippant - 'naughty' and 'rude'.
There is, though, one small incident Ram's character narrates that I keep returning to:
"It took more time than necessary to park the car in front of the house where Font lives; [...] A little boy watched me lock the car.
'I'll look after it for you,' he said.
'It's all right,' I said. 'Don't bother.'
'I'll polish it too,' he promised.
'All right,' I said and started going upstairs. Then I returned to the car and told him he could sit inside if he wished. I unlocked it and showed him how to work the radio. He was thrilled; his bare feet contracted with shyness. 'I'll clean every bit of it,' he said. 'Thank you very much,' I said and went upstairs.
Later Ram returns to the car with Edna and Font
"We heard music as we approached the car, and I remembered the little boy who offered to clean it. He was curled up in the front seat, asleep, the rag with which he had cleaned the car still clasped in his hand. We all peered at him as I explained how he came to be there. Edna put the radio off and woke him gently.
'Where do you live?' she asked. He rubbed his eyes and looked at us from under his eyebrows, his head bent. Then he saw me and smiled.
'I've cleaned it three times,' he said.
'It's beautiful,' I said."
Ram and his friends realise the boy is an orphan and homeless and Ram watches Font's face: "I could see the genuine frustration and the anger at his inadequacy and the injustice of it seep up to his eyes and blind him with useless fury."
Ram's own response to the boy is far more poignant; his comment on the cleaned car: "It's beautiful" is a gift to the child, and in giving, Ram briefly unburdens, to the child and the reader, a heart heavy with unexpressed love and pity for the other.
From Writing in the Dark, by David Grossman
"when the predator is closing in on you, the world does indeed become increasingly narrow. So does the language that describes it. From my experience I can say that the language with which the citizens of a sustained conflict describe their predicament becomes progressively shallower the longer the conflict endures. Language gradually becomes a sequence of clichés and slogans.[...] The shrinking of the “surface area” of the soul that comes in contact with the bloody and menacing world out there. The limiting of one’s ability and willingness to identify, even a little, with the pain of others"
From The New York Times, May 13, 2007
“To our joy or to our misery, the contingencies of reality have a great influence on what we write,” says Natalia Ginzburg in her book “It’s Hard to Talk About Yourself,” in the chapter in which she discusses her life and her writing in the wake of personal disaster.
It is hard to talk about yourself, and so before I describe my current writing experience, at this time in my life, I wish to make a few observations about the impact that a disaster, a traumatic situation, has on an entire society, an entire people. I immediately recall the words of the mouse in Kafka’s short story “A Little Fable.” The mouse who, as the trap closes on him, and the cat looms behind, says, “Alas . . . the world is growing narrower every day.”
Indeed, after many years of living in the extreme and violent reality of a political, military and religious conflict, I can report, sadly, that Kafka’s mouse was right: the world is, indeed, growing increasingly narrow, increasingly diminished, with every day that goes by. And I can also tell you about the void that is growing ever so slowly between the individual human being and the external, violent and chaotic situation within which he lives. The situation that dictates his life to him in each and every aspect.
And this void never remains empty. It is filled rapidly — with apathy, with cynicism and, more than anything else, with despair: the despair that fuels distorted situations, allowing them to persist on and on, in some cases even for generations. Despair of the possibility of ever changing the prevailing state of affairs, of ever being redeemed from it. And the despair that is deeper still — despair of what this distorted situation exposes, finally, in each and every one of us.
And I feel the heavy toll that I, and the people I know and see around me, pay for this ongoing state of war. The shrinking of the “surface area” of the soul that comes in contact with the bloody and menacing world out there. The limiting of one’s ability and willingness to identify, even a little, with the pain of others; the suspension of moral judgment. The despair most of us experience of possibly understanding our own true thoughts in a state of affairs that is so terrifying and deceptive and complex, both morally and practically. Hence, you become convinced, I might be better off not thinking and opt not to know perhaps I’m better off leaving the task of thinking and doing and establishing moral norms in the hands of those who might “know better.”
Most of all, I’m better off not feeling too much — at least until this shall pass. And if it doesn’t, at least I relieved my suffering somewhat, I developed a useful numbness, I protected myself as best I could with the help of a bit of indifference, a bit of sublimation, a bit of intended blindness and large doses of self-anesthetization.
In other words: Because of the perpetual — and all-too-real — fear of being hurt, or of death, or of unbearable loss, or even of “mere” humiliation, each and every one of us, the conflict’s citizens, its prisoners, trim down our own vivacity, our internal mental and cognitive diapason, ever enveloping ourselves with protective layers, which end up suffocating us.
Kafka’s mouse is right: when the predator is closing in on you, the world does indeed become increasingly narrow. So does the language that describes it. From my experience I can say that the language with which the citizens of a sustained conflict describe their predicament becomes progressively shallower the longer the conflict endures. Language gradually becomes a sequence of clichés and slogans. This begins with the language created by the institutions that manage the conflict directly — the army, the police, the different government ministries; it quickly filters down to the mass media that are reporting about the conflict, germinating an even more cunning language that aims to tell its target audience the story easiest for digestion; and this process ultimately seeps into the private, intimate language of the conflict’s citizens, even if they deny it.
Actually, this process is all too understandable: after all, the natural riches of human language, and their ability to touch on the finest and most delicate nuances and strings of existence, can hurt deeply in such circumstances, because they remind us of the bountiful reality of which we are being robbed, of its true complexity, of its subtleties. And the more this state of affairs goes on, and as the language used to describe this state of affairs grows shallower, public discourse dwindles further. What remain are the fixed and banal mutual accusations among enemies, or among political adversaries within the same country. What remain are the clichés we use for describing our enemy and ourselves; the clichés that are, ultimately, a collection of superstitions and crude generalizations, in which we capture ourselves and entrap our enemies. The world is, indeed, growing increasingly narrow.
My thoughts relate not only to the conflict in the Middle East. Across the world today, billions of people face a “predicament” of one type or other, in which personal existence and values, liberty and identity are under threat, to some extent. Almost all of us have a “predicament” of our own, a curse of our own. We all feel — or can intuit — how our special “predicament” can rapidly turn into a trap that would take away our freedom, the sense of home our country provides, our private language, our free will.
In this reality we authors and poets write. In Israel and Palestine, Chechnya and Sudan, in New York and in Congo. Sometimes, during my workday, after several hours’ writing, I lift my head up and think — right now, at this very moment, another writer whom I don’t even know sits, in Damascus or Tehran, in Kigali or in Belfast, just like me, practicing this peculiar, Don-Quixote-like craft of creation, within a reality that contains so much violence and estrangement, indifference and diminution. Here, I have a distant ally who doesn’t even know me, but together we weave this intangible cobweb, which nevertheless has tremendous power, a world-changing and world-creating power, the power of making the dumb speak and the power of tikkun, or correction, in the deep sense it has in kabbalah.
As for me, in recent years, in the fiction that I wrote, I almost intentionally turned my back on the immediate, fiery reality of my country, the reality of the latest news bulletin. I had written books about this reality before, and in articles and essays and interviews, I never stopped writing about it, and never stopped trying to understand it. I participated in dozens of protests, in international peace initiatives. I met my neighbors — some of whom were my enemies — at every opportunity that I deemed to offer a chance for dialogue. And yet, out of a conscious decision, and almost out of protest, I did not write about these disaster zones in my literature.
Why? Because I wanted to write about other things, equally important, which do not enjoy people’s complete attentiveness as the nearly eternal war thunders.
I wrote about the furious jealousy of a man for his wife, about homeless children on the streets of Jerusalem, about a man and a woman who establish a private, hermetic language of their own within a delusional bubble of love. I wrote about the solitude of Samson, the biblical hero, and about the intricate relations between women and their mothers, and, in general, between parents and their children.
About four years ago, when my second-oldest son, Uri, was to join the army, I could no longer follow my recent ways. A sense of urgency and alarm washed over me, leaving me restless. I then began writing a novel that treats directly the bleak reality in which I live. A novel that depicts how external violence and the cruelty of the general political and military reality penetrate the tender and vulnerable tissue of a single family, ultimately tearing it asunder.
“As soon as one writes,” Natalia Ginzburg says, “one miraculously ignores the current circumstances of one’s life, yet our happiness or misery leads us to write in a certain way. When we are happy, our imagination is more dominant. When miserable, the power of our memory takes over.”
It is hard to talk about yourself. I will only say what I can at this point, and from the location where I sit.
I write. In wake of the death of my son Uri last summer in the war between Israel and Lebanon, the awareness of what happened has sunk into every cell of mine. The power of memory is indeed enormous and heavy, and at times has a paralyzing quality to it. Nevertheless, the act of writing itself at this time creates for me a type of “space,” a mental territory that I’ve never experienced before, where death is not only the absolute and one-dimensional negation of life.
Writers know that when we write, we feel the world move; it is flexible, crammed with possibilities. It certainly isn’t frozen. Wherever human existence permeates, there is no freezing and no paralysis, and actually, there is no status quo. Even if we sometimes err to think that there is a status quo; even if some are very keen to have us believe that a status quo exists. When I write, even now, the world is not closing in on me, and it does not grow ever so narrow: it also makes gestures of opening up toward a future prospect.
I write. I imagine. The act of imagining in itself enlivens me. I am not frozen and paralyzed before the predator. I invent characters. At times I feel as if I am digging up people from the ice in which reality enshrouded them, but maybe, more than anything else, it is myself that I am now digging up.
I write. I feel the wealth of possibilities inherent in any human situation. I sense my ability to choose between them. The sweetness of liberty, which I believed that I had already lost. I indulge in the richness of true, personal, intimate language. I recall the delight of natural, full breathing when I manage to escape the claustrophobia of slogan and cliché. Suddenly I begin to breathe with both lungs.
I write, and I feel how the correct and precise use of words is sometimes like a remedy to an illness. Like a contraption for purifying the air, I breathe in and exhale the murkiness and manipulations of linguistic scoundrels and language rapists of all shades and colors. I write and I feel how the tenderness and intimacy I maintain with language, with its different layers, its eroticism and humor and soul, give me back the person I used to be, me, before my self became nationalized and confiscated by the conflict, by governments and armies, by despair and tragedy.
I write. I relieve myself of one of the dubious and distinctive capacities created by the state of war in which I live — the capacity to be an enemy and an enemy only. I do my best not to shield myself from the just claims and sufferings of my enemy. Nor from the tragedy and entanglement of his own life. Nor from his errors or crimes or from the knowledge of what I myself am doing to him. Nor, finally, from the surprising similarities I find between him and me.
All of a sudden I am not condemned to this absolute, fallacious and suffocating dichotomy — this inhumane choice to “be victim or aggressor,” without having any third, more humane alternative. When I write, I can be a human being whose parts have natural and vital passages between them; a human who is able to feel close to his enemies’ sufferings and to acknowledge his just claims without relinquishing a grain of his own identity.
Sometimes when I write, I can recall what we all felt in Israel, for one singular moment, when the airplane of the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat landed in Tel Aviv 30 years ago, after decades of war between the two nations: then, all of a sudden, we discovered how heavy is the load we carry all our lives — the load of enmity and fear and suspicion. The load of permanent guard duty, the heavy burden of being an enemy, at all times.
And what a delight it was, to remove for one moment the mighty armor of suspicion, hate and stereotype. It was a delight that was almost terrifying — to stand naked, pure almost, and witness a human face emerge from the one-dimensional vision with which we observed each other for years.
I write. I give intimate private names to an external and foreign world. In a sense, I make it mine. In a sense, I return from feeling exiled and foreign to feeling at home. By doing so, I am already making a small change in what appeared to me earlier as unchangeable. Also, when I describe the impermeable arbitrariness that signs my destiny — arbitrariness at the hands of a human being, or arbitrariness at the hands of fate — I suddenly discover new nuances, subtleties. I discover that the mere act of writing about arbitrariness allows me to feel a freedom of movement in relation to it. That by merely facing up to arbitrariness I am granted freedom — maybe the only freedom a man may have against any arbitrariness: the freedom to put your tragedy into your own words. The freedom to express yourself differently, innovatively, before that which threatens to chain and bind one to arbitrariness and its limited, fossilizing definitions.
And I write also about that which cannot be brought back. And about that which is inconsolable. Then, too, in a manner I still find inexplicable, the circumstances of my life do not close in on me in a way that would leave me paralyzed. Many times every day, as I sit at my desk, I touch on grief and loss like one touching electricity with his bare hands, and yet I do not die. I cannot grasp how this miracle works. Maybe once I finish writing this novel, I will try to understand. Not now. It is too early.
And I write the life of my land, Israel. The land that is tortured, frantic, drugged by an overdose of history, excessive emotions that cannot be contained by any human capacity, extreme events and tragedies, enormous anxiety and paralyzing sobriety, too much memory, failed hopes and the circumstances of a fate unique among all nations: an existence that sometimes appears to be a story of mythical proportions, a story that is “larger than life” to the point that something seems to have gone wrong with the relation it bears to life itself. A country that has become tired of the possibility of ever leading the standard, normal life of a country among countries, a nation among nations.
We writers go through times of despair and times of self-devaluation. Our work is in essence the work of deconstructing personality, of doing away with some of the most effective human-defense mechanisms. We treat, voluntarily, the harshest, ugliest and also rawest materials of the soul. Our work leads us time and again to acknowledge our shortcomings, as both humans and artists.
And yet, and this is the great mystery and the alchemy of our actions: In a sense, as soon as we lay our hand on the pen, or the computer keyboard, we already cease to be the helpless victims of whatever it was that enslaved and diminished us before we began to write. Not the slaves of our predicament nor of our private anxieties; not of the “official narrative” of our country, nor of fate itself.
We write. The world is not closing in on us. How fortunate we are. The world is not growing increasingly narrow.
David Grossman is the author most recently of Her Body Knows, a collection of two novellas. This essay is adapted from the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture, which he delivered at PEN’s World Voices Festival on April 29, 2007. It was translated from the Hebrew by Orr Scharf.
Copyright © 2007 The New York Times. All rights reserved.