Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The Black Madonna






When I was living and studying in Poland I saw an icon of the virgin Mary . It is called The black Madonna ,and " she" is the protective saint of Warsaw.
I asked about it and never get a satisfying answer : one was " the church which the icon was there , had been burned to earth , the icon was damaged ..and that is reason of the black color.
Years after I went to Ethiopia, and toured the country , that when the military regime was still in power. Every where there were paintings of Carl Marx and Lenin. The were in black . I liked the idea of coloring them with the skin of the Ethiopians!.
In the eastern orthodox churches; Jesus and Mary are always having a fair skin . when I see eastern Jews with their brownish skins , I wonder from where the colors of the icons in our churches came?!
So the Ethiopians had ethoipnised their gods , so not to alienate from them !
Raouf


P: Walking around this captivating place, I was approached by a team of journalists from Addis who were doing a short TV segment on tourism in Ethiopia. They asked to interview me and I protested, not knowing anything about tourism in Ethiopia. My guide, Mesfin, gave me a stern look and I caved, smiling for the camera and saying all sorts of ridiculous things. "Is St. George better than Petra?" they asked. "Yes, it's better than Petra because it's completely free-standing." Mesfin nodded with approval at my fumbling speech. "Is Ethiopia better than other places you've visited?" they continued. "Well, better than many places, I suppose." Mesfin nodded again, egging me on. "Yes," I said. "It's the best."

Sunday, October 28, 2007

A film about 'us'

Salata Baladi - a film by Nadia Kamel
for list of upcoming screenings in France, Egypt, USA and the Netherlands see schedule below مواعيد العروض القادمة في فرنسا وأمريكا وهولندا تجدونها أسفل الصفحة

الهوية هي مانورث لا ما نرث، ما نخترع لاما نتذكر - محمود درويش
"Identity is what we leave behind, not what we inherit. What we invent, not what we remember." - Mahmoud Darwish
The Director: Nadia Kamel

المخرجة نادية كامل
ولدت نادية كامل المخرجة المصرية، في القاهرة سنة 1961 حيث تواصل حياتها وعملها. وهي ابنة والدين عملا بالصحافة ولهما تاريخ طويل من العمل السياسي، فنشأت نادية كامل في بيت منغمس في السياسات التقدمية وشغوف بالفنون والثقافة الشعبية. وقد درست في مجال الكيمياء والميكروبيولوجي قبل ان تتمكن من توجيه كل طاقتها إلى عشقها الدائم لفن السينما في عام 1990. ومن خلال عملها كمساعدة إخراج لرواد في صناعة الأفلام المستقلة في مصر المعاصرة، ومنهم عطيات الأبنودي ويوسف شاهين ويسري نصرالله، حصلت نادية كامل على قدر كبير من الخبرة والتجربة في صناعة كل من الأفلام التسجيلية والروائية. وعندما بدأت في العمل على أولى مشروعاتها في عام 2000، ايقنت نادية كامل أن ساحة الإنتاج المصرية متشبعة وليس بها الا سوى هامش لا يذكر للمخرجات والمخرجين الجدد وللموضوعات غير التقليدية. فتوصلت إلى أن تناول الموضوعات الجريئة التي تتطرق الى الطابوهات والمحرمات، يقتصر وجودها على هوامش الخطاب المصري التقليدي وهي الموضوعات بذاتها التي كانت تأمل نادية كامل أن تناقشها ي مشروعاتها. فالمسألة اذا تتطلب منها المجازفة بإنتاج أفلام خاصة بها محدودة الميزانية. وقد تم إنتاج فيلمها الأول، سلطة بلدي، من هذا المنطلق وبروح الاستقلال التام. وبعد مرور خمسة أعوام من العمل المنفرد، انضمت إليها شركتان مشاركتان ("لي فيلم ديسي"، و"ڤينتورا فيلم") في استكمال انتاج هذه الحكاية العائلية التي تحتفي وتتمسك بقرن من التفتح على الثقافات والتعددية المصرية.

Salata Baladi Directed
by Nadia Kamel
Egypt, 2007 , 105 minutes
Description: A multilingual, multiethnic documentary about director Nadia Kamel's complex family background। Twenty-first century Egypt, spurred by the rallying cries of a global clash of civilizations, risks drowning in a nationalistic frenzy। Mary Kamel, Nadia's mother, was born in Cairo to a Jewish father and an Italian Catholic mother। She converted to Islam when she married her Egyptian husband Sa'ad. Mary and Nadia join forces to give Mary's grandson, Nabeel, a glimpse into possible alternatives: the family's century-old history of mixed marriages. Like many Egyptians, after a hundred years sprinkled with multiple immigrations, a few conversions and a few mixed marriages, Nabeel is a mix of Egyptian, Italian, Palestinian and Lebanese with some Russian, Caucasian, Turk and Spanish blood as well. From his Muslim, Christian and Jewish descendants, he inherits a track record embracing socialism, fascism, communism, nationalism, feminism and pacifism. But as Mary weaves her way through the family tales, she bumps into her own fears and the continued silence shrouding one branch of the family grows distressingly louder. Mary has been boycotting her Egyptian Jewish family in Israel for 55 long years. Inspired by the fresh perspectives of her 10-year-old grandson, the family breaks arguably one of the most vicious taboos in modern Egypt. Language: Arabic, English, Italian, French, Hebrew (English Subtitles)
Nadia Kamel worked as an assistant director for over ten years before her debut feature documentary Salata Baladi. The daughter of journalist parents with a long history of political activism, Kamel grew up in a home steeped in progressive politics and a passion for the arts and popular culture. Born in 1961 in Cairo, Kamel studied microbiology and chemistry at the University of Cairo prior to pursuing a career in film. When Kamel first began to work on her own projects in 2000, she realized that she would need to take the risk of producing her own low-budget films. After nearly five years of working solo, she was joined by co-producers Films d'Ici and Ventura Films in the post-production of this family tale.

Friday, October 26, 2007

The twitching uterus

I am hungry and it shows.
Not just for marble cake.
I am baby/man/sex/love hungry.
My appetite is voracious and terrifying I begin to see. It is the appetite of a thinking thirty-something with no clue what to think, and liable to throw herself in the path of any fertile loin that points itself casually in her direction - desirous of death by impaling - not for her any more the anxious, half-arsed adolescent fumbling of her entire twenties.
In that hellish poor-woman's emporium, Zara, I hear a baby voice that makes me think of Safiya and as my friend Andrea once memorably said, "my uterus twitches".
I am pursued for a date by a man that I am not drawn to - who thinking me beautiful and aloof (and posh) asks me out; by the second date I have seduced and 'drained' him as he says and I think he is scared and can now just smell the woman - the woman who wants to mate - and mate and mate - until the death.
In work I feel unloved... 'Unloved' I ask- is that what work was ever for? Why do I continue to search for love in all the hardest places - love from the shiny women at the make-up counter; love from the friendly greengrocer; love from my cold flatmate; love from my laptop; love from the street cat-whore. These are all hard surfaces that will not yield and embrace me, however much I radiate desire.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Feeding wild hyenas (and a spelling lesson for Raouf!)

(The 'tow'/two spelling colour codes: red is what I have added; the blue is what must be taken away)

Raouf: Man and Hyena
Fascinating! This man hugs his hyena and feeds her. We are accustomed to a sort of ‎seconded hand information on hyenas (how they are vicious!) but when I saw this photo I ‎checked the internet hooping to fiend something about this ritual habit. I did not find anything. Only ‎some photos and short videos on feeding them for the tourists' delights .‎
How little we know and how big is our ignorance about our world‎- Raouf

Persephone :
There are two men in Harar who feed the wild hyenas outside the city gates. When the hyenas emerge from the brush every night, the man calls them by name, and they approach him gingerly to snatch the donkey meat from his stick. In the darkness, only their eyes are visible – strange, otherworldly eyes that flash like fireflies. It is a mysterious and wonderful ritual, part of Harar's relationship with the hyenas that spans 500 years. Though they roam freely at night, sometimes within the city walls, the hyenas have never harmed a soul.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Elly at her best!‎


When Elly moves from her deep sleep, she is like the whale in the ‎Sindbad story. When the poor Sindbad had swum from his broken ship, ‎landed on a small island trembling from cold, and began to kindle ‎some fire, he realised it was not an island... it was a great sleeping whale!‎
Therefore, we have to imagine the reaction of both of them when the ‎fire began to burn over the back of the whale.‎
Elly the great white whale has decided to move.‎
The Blog now looks better (I think) and more elegant, and it gives the ‎impression that it has a purpose… sort of!‎
I am glad that I can deal (till now because I am also unpredictable) with two unpredictable, intelligent, stunning ‎girls: The Elly and the PERSEPHONE to whom I gave the title i usually give to certain characters to signal them apart from the herd!‎

BOTH OF THEM GAVE ME SOME INTERESTING GIFTS. E'S IDEA TO ‎CREATE MADNY AND P'S AGREEMENT TO PLAY WITH ME IN HER ‎ETHIOPIAN PHOTOS ‎
‎ ‎
‎ ‎

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

will i ever get any space


i wonder

Monday, October 22, 2007

And they told the demon, "Be gone!"

This I overheard from a man in one of those phone booths in an Internet cafe. I stopped and tried to listen further, but it was a muddled monologue of 'they told me this and we have to do that'. The man looked wretched and was ever-polite. I felt wretched and was prepared to be rude to the children kicking the partition separating our computers. I didn't - I felt to weak. Flu is my demon. Further demons sit on my left shoulder. The Programme Assistant at work is a bureaucrat/a paper-pusher/a jobsworth and she drives me to long fruitless distraction with her busy-body, petty officialdom and love of hierarchies. The truth is I could crush her - personally that is. I hesitate to do so not only because I fear for my job but because I know she is not wicked just mediocre. I on the other hand am capable of a polished and ruthless verbal meanness and to exert my greater powers of intellect upon the poor whining creature would be a form of bullying. And it is silly to give in to the demon of contempt; the girl needs occasional flattery and what will that really cost a good Christian like myself? My mother recounted her parable: In Lourdes as a young volunteer, she was assigned to work in one of the bathhouses by an officious and rude older woman who riled everyone with her uncharitable manner. My mother decided that the only course of action was to flatter the woman until she calmed down, remembering why they were there - to help the terminally and gravely ill pilgrims take a dignified bath at this site of the Virgin's apparition. My mother is wise first and a Catholic second I think.

Raouf by virtue of you judging me, I know not to judge others.

She is not shy!


"This girl from Harar watched me with curiosity as I snapped pictures of the butcher and his wife. As she lingered behind me with a gaggle of friends, I imagined her saying, "Why on earth would you take pictures of goat carcasses covered in flies, when there are beautiful girls waiting to be captured?" When I turned around to greet her, she surprised me by stepping forward and boldly asking to be photographed. Her face was such a wonderful mix of wit and sauciness – and the gold tooth was just too fabulous for words."

Raouf: she is not that shy! She is proud of her golden tooth, glittering, when she moves ‎her sensual lips into a smile.‎
She is full of colours: her brown face, her bit darker shadier lips, her greenish- ‎bluish "tarha" around the pretty face over part of the head.‎
I could imagine certain boys - where she lives -had experienced kissing her ‎golden tooth! What a sensation, for them and for her!‎
How did the photographer catch the tooth in the middle of all the colors ‎surrounding her and the girl? ‎

THIS PHOTO IS FROM PERSEPHONE's COLLECTION FROM HER ‎TRIP IN ETHIOPIA
I AM HOPING TO DO A NEW ADVENTURE OF WRITING that I comment on her photo and she adds a comment!!
P TOOK ‎THE PHOTO AND I TOLD HER THAT I LIKE THEM AND WOULD LIKE ‎TO COMMENT. SHE IS GENEROUS AND ADVENTUROUS ALSO!‎
TWO EYES, TWO CULTURES, ONE PHOTO! ‎

Saturday, October 20, 2007

The Elly


To Elly ‎
wish you more IN :‎
‎- practical steps towards interesting creative work‎
‎-deep analysis of what is happening around you ‎
‎-peace with others, accepting them as they are or ‎abounding them completely
‎-more chances in coping with your emotional needs ‎
‎ Wish you less IN : ‎
‎-rushing to judgment ‎
‎- changing moods ‎
‎- interest in useless assholes‎
I am writing this because she - in her Elly ways- surprised me by announcing her birthday after it passed!
ma'lesh
‎ So on this rare occasion, when The Elly becomes An ‎Elly in one of her many Ellys waiting for her coming birthdays weeks (we ‎are not interested in the past) ‎
Raouf ‎
‎ About this photo: it is from Persephone's collection from her ‎visit to Ethiopia. She was generous enough to allow me ‎some comments on them. Some of them, like ‎
her comment on this one catches the eye "The Archangel ‎Mikael fought a tremendous battle against a lioness. Finally, he hurled her against ‎this rock - the impact created this impression. The legend is undoubtedly more ‎interesting than the truth.‎ I think this comment is very human in dealing with fantasies... I titled it ‎‎"separate reality" It is a title of a book by Carlos Castaneda; ‎reading him affected my life in a better way .‎

Friday, October 19, 2007

I do not know!



Really I do not know how to describe this photo. It reflects a feeling of waste and sadness. In the beginning I thought I would call it 'Junk'. But No! It is more than that; its emptiness resembles some of the human beings we meet in life... they seem promising and real, yet when you come nearer you will discover their desolation.

Disappointments have no gender!‎

I did not invent the expression 'phantom pregnancy'; Lenin used it to show his frustration at the way a political movement came to ‎nothing. There is no gender here... there are people ‎ya Elly who give you wrong, false impressions about themselves, and trap you into their web by your misjudgments of them. ‎'Phantom pregnancy' is something we meet in our daily activity, even ‎within ourselves... You know that from your experiences.

My birthweek

By maternal decree, this is my birthweek; not because the poor woman was in labour for that long but because the very great woman loves her daughters to distraction and thinks one birth day is not enough to celebrate their (traumatic) ejection from her womb and into her arms.
Yesterday was my birthday and I recorded some nice things from that day:

I made tea for Amir and myself and took it into his bedroom, sitting on the floor with my back against his bed. As we woke up slowly sipping the hot black, vaguely filmy, liquid, we talked about some things - how this new girl Lucy he met at a wedding is 35 and has only ever studied and travelled; he is hopeful as she sent him a flirtatious message on facebook. I talked about Paul who gave me my first birthday card and took me out to dinner and is so different from me and doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Ma called and Bee and Charlie sent messages, so did Maira and Paul and I have several messages on facebook from people I have not spoken to for ages, and emails from Waleed and Carl and Atef and Ben and Doug. I saw a cat sitting on a high wall and I stopped to miaow at it and it look annoyed and turned back to stare at the tree above it; I too looked at the tree and back at the cat and back at the tree but could see nothing of interest; again I searched hard amongst the autumn leaves and this time I saw a tiny squirrel cowering on one of the far branches. I said good bye to the cat and walked down Victoria Road, passing the Lebanese grocers, Gebel az Zaytoon; I waved through the window and it was not the handsome shop assistant I know, but another which is not important. On the tube to Piccadilly Circus a young girl behind a hand mirror applied powder roughly over and over to her face, then she used a teaspoon to curl her lashes and with harsh brushstrokes added blusher, and a cheap mascara; when she packed up her mirror I saw how fresh she looked. I sat in the sunshine in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts at the foot of the giant bronze sculpture of the three-legged Buddha. Bee came late looking tired, pushing her pram hurriedly - I shouted "Bee!" happily and jumped up to hug her; her baby, Hettie or 'the boodle' was screaming; she lifted her out and I made faces and the boodle opened her eyes wide at her strange auntie. In the Members' Cafe, I queued to get a flapjack while Bee fed boodle. Behind me two old men wondered aloud what a marble cake was; I said, a marble cake is made with two pastes - a cocoa and vanilla paste swirled together to resemble marble - I know that because it was my favourite cake when I was younger. The men look at me mesmerised and smiling and thanked me and one of them said, can I buy you a piece and I said no there was no need, and that was kind of them, and they continued to joke and flirt with me. When it was my turn, I asked for the biggest piece of flapjack they had, and a woman behind me laughed and said she loved my forthrightness and I said well, I would hate it if they gave me just a small crumbled piece. Bee and the boodle and I walked round the gallery looking at Georg Baselitz's upside down, fractured paintings and the boodle tightly held against her mother's chest in the 'carry-me' pooed loudly in front of her favourite scratchy, swirly painting. We walked through St James' park and then Hyde park and I approached large geese with trepidation while Bee pushed the boodle round in circles to ensure she kept asleep in her swaddling. I put Bee and the boodle in a taxi home and I wandered down Queensway and along Westbourne Grove and found nothing to buy in Oxfam and, tired, took the 31 bus home.

The sirens

You gender the one who deceives and betrays exclusively as a woman, Raouf. So are you presenting us again with an Eve or with the Sirens or a Lady Macbeth? Poor great man to be led astray by fickle humans (who themselves have been corrupted by their beautiful women) - what is left for him but to crucify himself (or sulk)?!
I hope you are not turning into a mysoginist, young man!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Phantom pregnancy

‎‎In Arabic is called 'a lying pregnancy'...‎
I prefer 'a wishful pregnancy', because I want to write about disappointments with human beings and their relationships.‎
When I was in Egypt last winter I met some people who everybody ‎claimed were great and fantastic. Usually I am a skeptic and suspicious, but usually also I fall into the trap, mainly because I scold my self for being ‎suspicious!‎
Things which attract me to such people are my wishful thinking that they ‎are different than other "normal" people and that I could have a rapport with ‎them.‎
I used to blame myself until lately - some days ago - I came by this ‎fantastic idea (discovery) on phantom pregnancy. Remembering a great ‎unknown African (dead) writer Emos Totola who wrote The palm wine ‎drinker and the woman of the Jungle... gave me some compensation for my ‎misjudments. He wrote such a fantastic opening to a chapter entitled "the ‎gentle man should not be blamed if he is deceived by the beautiful woman". He described the "gentle man" ‎wandering in the market place till his eyes settled on the pretty woman ‎who told him to "follow me" so he did. She led him to the jungle and ‎began disintegrating on the way: first her hands disappeared, then her legs till she ‎became just a moving torso. ‎
‎I told myself: I am not going to blame my self because I believed in the ‎'lying pregnancy' or I blocked my doubts…‎
Those people had been discovered by my favourite writer…‎
The difference between the woman of the jungle and the other people is ‎that "they" did not disintegrate in front of my eyes; I had to follow them till ‎the end!‎ ‎

'Sex and joy'

The art exhibition, 'Sex and joy'

He says putting the exhibition together has taught him "how similar we are in terms of images of sex and joy, but also about the unease in the representation of this private act".

"There's no civilisation which hasn't had problems with it," he adds.


The curators have made a point of only including works which show sex between consenting adults. There is nothing which suggests violence or sex with children.
While many of the works can be seen at any major gallery on permanent exhibition, this collection bans under-18s from attending.

Certainly when a work is old it appears to us as more acceptable as art rather than pornography.

Professor Kemp says art is also more complicated than porn, arousing a mixture of emotions. The other big difference is the quality.

"It became clear where pornography stops and art starts," he explains.

"If you look at the frescoes from Herculaneum, they employed major artists.

"If you went to Soho to a brothel today, you don't expect major artists to be deployed.

Destroyed

"If you take the Japanese works, they are very explicit, more so than in the West.

"But the levels of artistry are high, they are sumptuous, beautiful, delicate and refined."


The Japanese prints were made by leading masters including Hokusai. The woodblock prints show men and women in elaborate clothes and equally elaborate poses and were intended for use in brothels and private homes.
There are also Chinese works showing beautiful scenes of gentle love-making in quiet gardens. Chinese erotic art is a little known tradition because so much was destroyed in the Mao era.

The exhibition throws light on how different cultures at different times have viewed sex.

What it reveals above all is how styles of art have changed over the centuries, while human beings and their desires have essentially stayed the same.

Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now runs until 27 January 2008 .

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/7045772.stm

Published: 2007/10/16 11:03:34 GMT

© BBC

Monday, October 15, 2007

Sisters


Sisters!

‎Do you remember this great face and the fantastic girl... I commented ‎on her at the very beginning?‎
She is an elder sister to this little one. The elder sister in Egypt,in the middle ‎and working classes, gets the title "ABLLA"; it is the same title kids call their ‎woman teacher!‎
The elder sister is important in the family: she plays the role of the mother ‎even when the mother is alive, and when the father dies, she takes responsibility for her younger brothers and sisters.‎
Elder sisters even as young as this one takes her younger sister with her, ‎holding her hand, protecting, even punishing her… she is responsible for her from such an early age!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

El Balakounah!


El Balakounah! It is an Italian word we use – as with many other words in our daily dialect: terso, secondo, robabieka (old junk) premos, prema, and so on…
Sometimes the family convert it into a room, or use it as a storing place, because Egyptians are not used to throwing out old things. It is also a place where you can have fun observing what is happening underneath in the street. or alternatively, you talk with the neighbors, gossiping and plotting or just exchanging information!
Before the widespread ownership of refrigerators, it was very common and elegant also to buy mud pots for water: a “Qullah” to cool the water especially in the summer by putting it in the Balakounah and covering it after putting inside ne’na (mint) or lemon so the water has a refreshing taste!
This chair - did somebody put it there as a secret sign!? Or did somebody clean the floor and forget to put it back?!
Never the less it is typical scene from an Egyptian Balakounah!

time to relax

This is her time to relax:
With a cup tea! In addition, maybe a shisha!
Look at this woman. She is in her house, in her daily house clothes. She has tied around her head - and hair – the mandeel mahalawy, as it is called. It has nothing to do with Islam; my aunts used to do the same and my mother, maybe because of the dust in the house when they were moving around doing their routine cleaning. They also tied it firmly over their heads when they had a headache, sometimes they tied a big copper key with it as it is believed to be a cure for headaches.
They drink tea many times a day with a lot of sugar: morning, noon, after meals, and after noon and night.
Such a cheap relaxation!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The little lost one, lost for good

I woke myself with a high-pitched miaow. It was me - as Perdita - dying.

She was very bony to the touch at the end; stroking her felt like running my hand over dislocated bones, but she still purred and looked at me with her uncertain face – unsure whether to succumb or flee. On Monday night Ma and I walked around the garden in the dark, shouting “Perdita, wuss, puss” and whistling Ma’s special cat whistle.

That evening on the phone to Jean in France Ma recalled with pride how Perdita’s pitiful miaow had answered her, as the cat limped out from behind the shed. I had run in and grabbed the tiny torch, and there she squatted, immobile. I walked through the flower-bed and picked her up – she was light as air, and she let me carry her upstairs to her bed. Perdita would never let anyone carry her – she would struggle and scratch and jump free. We brought her plate of food and water bowl up onto the bed and she ate something but mostly had a voracious thirst. She didn’t move around the bed, pawing and nesting; rather she turned gingerly on an axis and settled hunched on her paws, careful not to put pressure on her jutting, swollen paw.

It was after letting out her high-pitched miaow that she died on her bed with Ma and Charlie watching. Charlie wept, Ma told me. This morning, with spades, Ma and I tried to dig a hole, but we struck rock and Charlie was afraid the foxes would tear apart her little body.

Now Ma and Charlie have taken her to the crematorium, and in the shallow grave near her shed we will lay Perdita, “the little lost one”, in a pot.

Best cats!


We call cats “best!” … the ancient Egyptian 'Cat-God' is called BEST... There was a recent discovery in the Delta of mass graves of mummified cats in a place called “Tell Basta” .. (It is also the name of my grandfather!)
Egyptians do not keep domestic pets, but they treat cats with respect. They believe they have secret powers so they do not harm them!

the boy, the bread, the smile


Because of the shortage of baking places to bake bread, and because of the bad quality of the bread baked enmass, lot of individuals took up making bread at home and selling it. Usually young kids would set up their mobile 'shops' anywhere. It is easy to snatch the 'shop' and run away when the police come raiding.
I wonder – when I see such energy – to hold onto life with dignity, how that energy, or the dignity will survive the hardship of poverty.
The boy is smiling, a sweet one, for the time being!

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

faces to backs


Two photos with astonishing meanings: Girls are sitting with their back to what is happening behind them. Boys are looking straight forward, even smiling a bit!

I am not sure why the girls are turning their backs: are they not willing to be identified? Ya, most probably; I think they left their houses claiming to their parents that they were going to study with each other in one of the girl's houses and took the opportunity to escape and have some fresh air on the Corniche.

The boys, just leave without any explanation to their parents and meet, making plans, sitting on the same seaside. Both parties have no money to meet in cafés. Even if the girls had some money, they would not dare to go to café houses.

Relief

It was a terrible moment to receive a letter (not a love letter) from the one I love, and such relief to allow myself to love again for a bit.

Old men with tea and cotton


Sitting in front of their shop, the old men show their profession: they make things from cotton: mattresses, cushions and usually for the new bedroom for the newly wed couples.
It is still a great profession, and in demand, in spite of the spread of non-cotton materials, and is cheap.
You can ask the "menajed" (the man who makes the mattresses) to come to your home with his tools and make whatever you want. Hospitality rules demand that the client offer unlimited supply of tea and coffee and of course one meal from the table of the house.
All the neighbors would come, comment, and say Mabrouk
It is a small feast!

Monday, October 8, 2007

The young shoeseller


What age do some people begin working? Who stole from them the joy of a slow and normal growing up?
He is selling some secondhand shoes. Sitting in the middle of nowhere, learning to deal with corrupt the policeman who would leave him and his shoes in peace if he gives him part of his earnings. And the hassling of the clients: Poor and annoyed like him from the way life disappoints them.

internet hunting

The Elly is getting wild!waoo
She is not anymore "Elly" she became in a rare of metamorphism: The Elly and I think that happened during certain time, in certain day in the way to Lisbon or out from it.
The internet dating which I red today is a great proof of my doubts!
Some time I look at "Charmed" in TV trying to follow the dark places inside my children brains. The idea impresses me, how it is so easy, that a person can pass certain transformation from a "normal" human being to something different, scary and harmful.
That if we can be safe saying "normal" human being.
So , the Elly hates and despise men, but she would not leave them in their situation what ever it is, but chasing them through the internet to have her revenge from them , reduce, and laughing at them.
To my knowledge from certain films that a woman who had been raped is getting hare revenge from the rapist and men who had fallen in her hand by humiliating or killing them . For me that is fair enough.
But the elly as it seems decided that all the misfortunate "affairs" are the result of encounter those "bad" men.
I wonder: are there special places where "bad" men and women gather so could be avoided? 9 of course beside garbage cans where certain cats (and people) like to collect their food and "lovers" from there!
I know it is tiring debate who is bad and how much a person could be as bad as a rapist, Aim not going to be part of it , because of my basic believes in life that" we" are the creators of our happiness or misery , not the others ,but through them.
Elly, before her new "changes" was such a sweet sensitive pretty woman who was looking for things she knows from her experience are not exist in mass production such as love!
Alternatively, I was having my own dreaming about her. My be she is a Dracula in hidden?



A film about a village

http://www.sonsofeilaboun.com/links

I got this link in my mail. It is short but very moving... you will discover why.

Here is a Palestinian film about a normal people to continue the debate on the other film
raouf!

Sunday, October 7, 2007

School Photograph

Shock and awe, part 1

I can't stop insulting men.
Nice men - I am sure they are nice men, but I hate them and I haven't even met them.
I joined an Internet dating site to be adored and to abuse, I now realise, and that makes me a little worried. Persephone calls it my shock and awe tactic or hook 'em and sink 'em.
I have begun correspondence with complete strangers by ripping their profiles to shreds, and continued in a mocking, if flirtatious tone.
That is except for Stefano, the Italian whose utter sincerity and modesty in his profile made me take him for a sweet, vulnerable child in need of gentle encouragement and nurturing - so to him only have I been kind and patient.
I am an odd sort of Internet dater. I want but I don't want. I am femme fatale or mother, bitch or older sister. Who would want such a crazy creature?

Friday, October 5, 2007

On Home and a film

The post Elly wrote about Munich made me feel a bit uneasy about my feelings towards "home", whatever it is: the motherland or fatherland or homeland.
A long time ago, I discovered I had no sentimental emotions regarding "home".

My first long voyage far from Egypt took me twelve years without feeling the slightest 'homesickness' for Egypt. Truly. I missed certain places such as a coffeehouse, a part of the river Nile, certain hours of the day, some streets and very few people. In the beginning I was worried about my 'patriotic' feelings, but gradually and secretly I was feeling relief that I had no emotional ties to many things and people I mentioned above.

That is why I was feeling uneasy about Elly's post, inspite of liking it, because she connected her feelings with an interpretation of the film, Munich
Elly wrote: "I need to know that home is there. And you may believe you are criticizing Israel in Munich, but really you are merely chastising it and underlining over and over again the reality of the homeland. It is there and you have the luxury of choosing at whim whether you like it or not. And what inexpressible relief as well as agony that gives to you!
So what about the relief of the Palestinians - will they ever have any damn relief?
"

But I never had this urge or feeling that I want to return 'home'. I created two homes for myself: a simple house in Amsterdam where I do not share anything with the Dutch population... No history, no schools or playgrounds, no streets which witnessed my first kiss with a girl... In addition, I have another small flat in October city, which it is a new city and has no character or even history by itself! I lived in Warsaw for five years, Baghdad four years, Beirut four years. In addition, so many years in Sudan. Some of these places I like and miss, and that is it - nothing more.

I saw the film, Munich, in Amsterdam about a year and half ago. I liked it because I felt Spielberg tried hard to be objective and say something that would not agree totally with the Jewish mainstream thinking about 'Home'. I saw the Palestinian camps in Lebanon and in Gaza; all my life I have known all sort of Palestinians - rich and poor, fighters and politicians. I saw them leaving Beirut in one of their big and contentious exoduses.

The film also gave me uneasy feeling, a sort of frustration and hopelessness.
I did not feel sorry for Avner, because he is a killer. The Black September fedayeen had a cause. They had been betrayed by the Arabs in the massacre in Jordan, and by the world since 1948, so they decided to take things into their own hands. The Israelite hajanah had killed so many Arabs before, so what Avner was doing was to continue what his culture and religion demand from him.

That is the main difference between the two sides in the film, which the director could not or would not grasp. I was looking in the film for justice, not justification. I was not looking for home or homeland because I know that both politicians and killers do not believe in them in spite of what they claim.

Still the film is a daring step. I do not believe there were innocent people in the film; they all shared certain dogmatic ideas about being righteous, and that the "others" are wrong, and that according to my book would put them in a grey area. I had a feeling the director was aiming the message of the film towards those people!

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Raouf, this is the story of another Raouf

From the blog, An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle

This is " Iraq al Jadeed ", the New Iraq of the sectarian Iranian Government, with its militias and thugs and "Islamic" revolutionary Guards...who landed with the Occupation

This is the New Iraq of the "Islamic" fundamentalists, the pious ones, the " God fearing ones." ...who arrived with the Occupation.

This is the New Iraq that America brought to us. This is American Freedom and Democracy. This is American Liberation.

This is my Dear Raouf. This is the gentle, kind, Raouf.
This is his body. These are the marks of the New Iraq. These are the hands and arms that embrace us daily in the New Iraq...

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Skirting a life

It is impossible to explain quiet agitation and mental suffocation.
I am expanding and the space is getting tighter, strangling me here, flattening me there.
I can't bang and slam up against anything and I start to move oddly, skimming the ground and brushing along walls.
It is agony this painless anger and uncertainty. I am light enough to evaporate and heavy enough to sink to the bottom.

A blue house for Maryam's blue doors

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Siwan house for the Moroccan door, (see My Marrakesh)

el bent el Eskandraniea

Some time (years) ago I was thinking about taking some photos of Egypt and writing comments: a lot of photos and short comments.
I tried to do it myself, but it did not work. I am simply not a photographer.
Once I told Elly when she was in Egypt about my idea; at the time I was in Amsterdam and she sent me some photos she had shot, and I liked them. However, I thought that photos in black and white were more impressive, with the advance of technology they have disappeared even from Egypt!

Elly published some of her photos in Madny. They are from Alexandria, a city I like more than Cairo, because of its cosmopolitanism and the sea.
It is the city where I went after getting my freedom from the desert prison in Wahat Gargha. So you can imagine after more than two years in the desert how I felt!

This Girl from Alex I had put her yesterday in my msn photo. She is haunting me with her uncertain smile, and what she tries to hide in her eyes.

My old ideas was: "Egyptians: birth, life and death"
So! Now I have done it!!
At least part from it. A thousand miles begins with one step.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Fear literalists of all faiths

Lately one can clearly notice a general increase in islamophobia driven by personal prejudices or political ideologies, previously monopolised by the Somali Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but now inherited by some weak Dutch politicians such as Welders whose party counts barely nine seats in the Dutch parliament, or the unknown Ihsan Jamy who created what he called the association of ex-Muslims. Both Welders and Ihsan Jamy are merely searching for a role to play in order to draw attention to themselves, and the best way for them to do so, is to launch a scathing criticism of Islam and promote a rejection of Muslim holy signs such as the Qur'an.

The silly idea Welders has proposed is to prohibit the Qur'an's use for non-academic people arguing that it is a book that drives people to hate each other. This is a spectacularly stupid idea, because he clearly ignores the texts in the Torah and the Bible that literally encourage people to judge others.

The Bible states regularly and repetitively that God has chosen Jews to be his "chosen people" without considering non-Jews. Moreover, God is often referred to as the "soldiers' God", a God who gives the Jewish soldiers orders to win over other people and tribes:
When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you- and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. [a] Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession" Deuteronomy (Chap7)

In another part in the Torah, we find a text about the attitude towards inhabitants whose lands get seized by the people of Israel where their God tells them:
You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young. The LORD will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you" (Deuteronomy-7)

And we find that prophet Moses orders the killing of the prisoners “…Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.
"Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." (Deuteronomy 31)

As for the Bible, we can find in Saint Paul’s book And if we want to take a position against puritans/literalists, let us read what Saint Paul wrote: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders. (1 Corinthians 6).
In other words, none of these will enter paradise.

Mr. Jamy argues that Islam punishes people who leave Islam; he should definitely listen to what Sheikh Jam’a, the mufti of Egypt, did: he acknowledged the right for Christians who converted to Islam to return to their original religion. Or he should also read Saint Paul’s opinion on those leave Christianity; in the chapter about abandoning faith he says:
“… it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because,to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. (Hebrews 6)


Jesus also showed a certain attitude towards non Jewish people. In Mathieu’s book we find the story of a Canaanite woman who begged Jesus to cure her child from the devil “…Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. ( Matthew 15).
And finally Jesus cured her daughter although he considered the Canaanites to be less valuable in comparison to the Jews.

And have we forgotten the official position the Vatican took until recently: the church used to blame today’s Jews because it considered them to be descendants of Jesus’ killers, using for this the same sentence Jews used to ask the roman’s authority to crucify him:
he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"
All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 15)
!"

We do not want a debate on religions here, we simply want to point out that “if you live in a glass house, then don't throw stones”. We should look at the holy books from a historical point of view, where and when they were written, and as “enlightened Muslim analysts” suggests, the reasons they were written.

All holy Jewish, Christian and Muslim books present some common attitudes regarding women, abortion and adultery: Jewish religion invented stoning persons who committed adultery , and the Christian church burned women who were using magic and established courts to judge people relying on only religious texts.

Western Christian countries impose civil law on their citizens even though texts related to religious judgment are still present in the holy Bible or intolerant ideas are still present in the old Testament, but we could not find any politician or even a Muslim who wants to prohibit the reading of the Bible or the Torah. This is because the Qur'an respects Jesus and Mary and considers Jesus to be God’s word and spirit!

We Arab Christians refuse any aggression to Muslims and Islam the same way we severely condemn any aggression from a Muslim to non Muslims. For me and many Arab Christians like me, we consider the Qur'an as a fundamental part of our civilization and culture and we respect it and read it. Did we forget that the book, the Elders of Zion was written by western Christians in which they wrote that Jewish priests kidnapped Christian children and killed them and used their blood for sacrifice?

The majority of Muslims in Muslim countries have never thought of forbidding the reading of the Bible, so please do not try to draw people’s attention to yourself by shedding darkness on others.

Raouf.
Translated from the Arabic by Evy