From Baheyya From Remonstrance to Rights
"Egypt is so rife with protest these days it’s difficult and crucial to keep track. On any given day, at least one group of citizens takes to the streets to press demands, air grievances, and claim recognition. Sometimes, miraculously, they win. [...]
If it’s true that ordinary people are innovating new ways of dealing with the government, why is this happening? The erosion and near-collapse in the infrastructure of basic services (sewage, potable water, irrigation water) is a key factor, but even more aggravating to citizens is that they’re still required to pay fees for services that they don’t receive. What’s more, the services they’re being deprived of are the very minimum required for human survival. We’re not talking about affordable healthcare, decent schooling, or subsidised alimentary goods, things they’ve long ceased to expect from this government. We’re talking about clean water, for God’s sake! We’re talking about the right not to suffer routine police brutality, as in the case of North Sinai’s residents. We’re talking about the right to have alternative housing when the government decides to “upgrade” the neighbourhood you’ve lived in for 50 years by clearing you out.
Another factor that may be causing ordinary people’s street action is the inefficacy of existing representative structures. Ordinary citizens have a long and bitter experience with unresponsive or corrupt municipal officials, so they’ve realised that they must surpass these ineffectual intermediaries and make a beeline for the national symbols and holders of political power. A third factor may be the changing nature of protest itself. Ordinary people may have noticed that street protest is now a common and well-worn method used to advance all manner of collective interests, whether by poultry farmers or unemployed university graduates or citizens opposed to the construction of mobile phone towers or families of disaster victims or congregants after Friday prayers. They see these groups advertising their grievances and they mimic their tactics..."
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Citizen Protests in Egypt
Saturday, July 14, 2007
A YEAR HAS PASSED SINCE HEZBOLLAH'S VICTORY
رءوف مسعد
ها قد مضى عام على الاجتياح الإسرائيلي وعام على هزيمة الغزاة ..
عام على نصر مقاتلي حزب الله الذين تحصنوا بمعظم اللبنانين الفقراء وبمعظم العرب الشرفاء ..
أما من انحاز من اللبنانين الى الاسرائليين ومن انحاز من الحكام العرب الى الصهاينة نراهم ونعرفهم
فهم يحاولون انقاذ جلودهم المصبوغة بالحناء وشعر رؤوسهم المصبوغ بالأسود. من غضبة شعوبهم الجائعة المظلومة الآتية قريبا يوم اقتراب ساعتهم
ونحن ما نزال على العهد .. عهدنا مع حزب الله
نحن فقراء هذه العالم .. الباحثون عن العدل والحق والقصاص.نحن على العهد مع بيروت والضاحية الجنوبية ..نحن مع الجنوب
نحن مع لبنان وفيروز مع دروب قانا التي سار فيها المسيح..نحن لسنا مع الشوف ولسنا مع آل الحريري ولسنا مع العائلات العربية الحاكمة ايا كان مكان كرسي حكمها ..ولسنا مع النائحين امام الكاميرات ولسنا مع المستشيخين . نحن مع الثكالى ونحن مع اليتامى ونحن مع الأرامل مع البيوت المهدمة . نحن مع الذين شردهم الاجتياح الصهيوني الأمريكي المدعوم من بعض العائلات الحاكمة العربية . لسنا مع القصور ولا الخيول المطهمة ولا مع الذين يأكلون على مائدة بوش
نحن مع المقاومين لمشاريع الصهيونية ونحن ضد من يرفع علامة الصليب ليهين الآخرين ويستعبدهم باسم يهوه رب الجنود . وبدعاوى اسطورية عن مسيح آت يبني مجده فوق جبل صهيون
هؤلاء هم القتلة حتى لو تسربلوا بثياب الكهنة والمشايخ والسدنة
ها قد مضى عام على الاجتياح وعام على هزيمة جيش رب الجنود المختار
عام على النصر الذي حققه حزب الله
لهذا
نحن نريده حزبا لله كما اثبت ذلك في معارك الجنوب بعيدا عن المطامع البشرية والحسابات الحزبية ..ليكن حزبنا وحائطنا الأخير وسندنا ونصرنا المأمول
ومثل ما اعطانا حزب الله الحق في الفخر به ..يعطنا حزب الله الحق ان نحاسبه وان ننتقده فهو كما قلت من قبل، من سنة مضت ، حينما تقدمت بطلب انضمام الى حزب الله وأنا الفخور بجذوري القبطية الفرعونية الهيلينة .. قلت ؛ إن حزب الله اللبناني لم يعد فحسب للبنانيين ولم يعد حزبا شيعيا بل اصبح حزبا لكل من وقف مع حزب الله في قتاله وكل من ايده حربه و في نصره.
لهذا :
نعطي انفسنا الحق ان نتابع مسيرته وان ننتقده اذا رأينا ذلك واجبنا..
ولهذا :
نأمل ان ينحاز حزب الله لنا مثلما انحزنا له . ان يتعامل مع اجندتنا باعتبارها برنامجه .
اجندتنا باختصار بها بند وحيد واحد : ان يبقى لبنان منارتنا الثقافية الحرة في منطقة عربية مظلمة ..
ان يبقى لبنان رمزا دائما للأخوة بين الأديان في منطقة عربية متعصبة
ان يبقى لبنان ملجأ للمقهورين المظلومين في منطقة عربية ظالمة وقاهرة..
ان يبقى حزب الله لنا ..ان لا يبتعد عنا في منطقة عربية تسود فيها الخيانة والغدر .
ونحن نعاهد حزب الله : سنبقى مع حزب الله طالما بقي حزب الله معنا.
وليرجف المرجفون ..
سنبقى نحن وستذروهم الرياح كما العصف المأكول يوم ريح .
رءوف مسعد
Boy You
“Boy you’re going to carry that weight a long time
I never give you my pillow
I only send you my invitations
And in the middle of the celebrations
I break down”*
Boy You
It isn’t you
It’s you
from before. I won’t tell them who you are.
I think of you now. How much you would hate that.
Far, hiding. It isn’t hiding, you would say and I’d feel stupid. Worse, I would feel bad
I don’t like to look for you
I know you’re there of course
Others know where you are
They sit behind you, next to you and the back of your head means nothing
The back of your head is not full of meaning
I saw the fear in your hair, and a childhood in your neck
The back of your head takes no stand, declares no emnity, defends no religion
Everything that is foolish and beloved is caught there
Fragile it might be, but my hands won’t touch it either.
* The Beatles
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Joke of the day
this joke sent by ghalia Kabbani
A young Lebanese guy moves to Montreal and goes to a big department store looking for a job.
The manager asks, "Do you have any sales experience?"
The kid, "Yeah, I was a salesman back home."
Well, the manager liked the young man, so he gave him the job. "You start tomorrow. I'll come down after we close and see how you did, but let me give you a bit of advice. If a customer comes looking, say, for toothpaste, you might suggest for him a toothbrush, or shaving cream etc. you get the idea?" "Of course," the young man said. His first day on the job was rough but he got through it.
After the store was locked up, the manager came down. "How many sales did you make today?" The kid says, "One."The manager groans, "Just one? Our sales people average 20 or 30 sales a day. How much was the sale for?" The kid says, "$101, 237.64."
The manager exclaims, "What? $101,237.64? What did you sell him?"
The kid, "First I sold him a small fish hook. Then I sold him a medium fish hook. Then I sold him a larger fish hook. Then I sold him a new fishing rod. Then I asked him where he was going fishing, and he said down at the coast, so I told him he was going need a boat, so we went down to the boat department, and I sold him that twin engine Chris Craft. Then he said he didn't think his Honda Civic would pulls it, so I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4X4 Pajero."
The manager says, "You mean a guy came in here to buy a fish hook and you sold him a boat and truck?!"
The kid, "No no no, he came in here to buy a box of Kotex for his wife and I said, "Well, since your weekend's already fucked up, you might as well go fishing."
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
On men and women and a lot of misunderstanding -2
How many times i heard "my partner does not understands me" as if there were things to be understood! Or as if the person complaining has really understood him/her self or at least tried to understand their partner
That is one of the main reasons for the breakdown any relationship and it so fake!Understanding?!
dDd our parents understand us? Do we understand our kids? Do we ever try to put ourselves in other pepole's shoes?
Of course there are a lot of misunderstandings between all of us. Why is that? The simple answer is that we like to blame others when they hurt us; as if it is not us who gives them reasons and the means to make it easy for them to hurt us.
It begins from the first step in any relationship: each is hoping for something from this relationship and hiding it, waiting for the other to disclose his/ her "papers" and from that moment on the relationship changes into a game and each wants to win whilst sustaining the least damages.
That is one of the main misunderstandings: we are so vunerable and pretend to be tough and experienced
raouf
Monday, July 9, 2007
Joke of the day - III
Monday's joke!
Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were having a chat in Paradise while they were sipping the wine of Paradise. They were a bit bored; Moses said, "I miss walking on water like I did in the red sea... I will go and stretch my legs". He turned and went walking on the water in one of the rivers of Paradise; he walked about fifty meters and returned.
Jesus said, "I also miss walking on the water; he went and walked on the water in the same place as Moses. He walked about seventy metres then returned.
Mohammed was thinking: I'm also a prophet and the final one so why shouldn't I be able to walk on the water like those two? So he went just near the same spot and began to walk on the water. After about ten meters he was drowning; he cried, "Help!help!" So they rushed and pulled him out of the water. Moses asked Jesus, "Why didn't you tell him about the hidden stones that we walk over?"
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Saturday, July 7, 2007
مصادرة كتاب خالد البري
الأزهر يُصادر "سيرة أصولي مصري"
حتى لو تخيلت نفسك على أحد كراسي المؤسسة الدينية الرسمية.. المحافظة (الأزهر)، فلن تجد مبررا لمصادرة (الدنيا أجمل من الجنة.. سيرة أصولي مصري).. كما فعل مجمع البحوث الإسلامية، الذي يكاد يقتصر دوره الديني على المصادرة، وإنقسام أعضائه بين مؤيد ومعارض للتبرك بالبول وإرضاع الكبير وتولي المرأة للقضاء وختان الإناث.
لن تجد مفردة واحدة عدائية.. أو مُدينة لتجربة الزميل خالد البري في (الجماعة الإسلامية). لن تجد حكماً مع أو ضد. لن تجد جدلاً دينياً من أي نوع أو على أي مستوى. على العكس فـ (الشيخ طه) الذي قاده إلى "التجربة" التي استمرت حوالى تسع سنوات بين متعاطف ثم عضو، فمعتقل ثم متعاطف، يصفه خالد بأنه "أحد أطيب وأخلص من قابلتهم في حياتي".
فقط يروي وقائع، عاشها، وتواترت عن أساليب تجنيد ثم أنشطة أعضاء الجماعات الأصولية. لكنه عن حرص، وربما عن محبة، يتفادى أي هجوم عليهم، فحتى بعد الإفراج وقرار الإبتعاد عنها والإكتفاء بأداء الفرائض في المنزل والعودة لمشاهدة التليفزيون بعد مقاطعة خمس سنوات، واستعادة "أهلويته" ومدرجات تشجيع الشياطين الحمر، ظل لأربع سنوات تالية مقتنعاً بأنهم "على حق وأن الله تعالى ناصرهم لا محالة".
(البري) كما ملايين منا حلم في مراهقته، مع أسرته البرجوازية بزي الأطباء وبريقه، واستمر الحلم ملازماً له في مراحل تدرجه الأصولي، الذي وصل بعد شهور من تجنيده إلى "أمير إخوة ثانوي" في أسيوط، ثم أحد خطباء الجماعة في كلية الطب التي تخرج فيها بعاصمة الصعيد.. والتطرف. لكن قراره بعد سنوات بالتحول صحفيا / كاتبا أدخله في تجربة جديدة، هى إلقاء نظرة على مسيرته مع الجماعة. كان صريحا "لم أشارك في تدريبات "جهادية" وليس في جعبتي حكايات غريبة عن أمراء يتزوجون ممن بدا لهم من أقارب "الأتباع". فماذا لدى؟ ولماذا يهتم أحد بحكايات "عادية" لإنسان "عادي"؟"
بدأت السيرة بمقال أول في جريدة (العائلة)، حمد الله لأنها صودرت، فعنوان موضوعه "جريا على عادة الصحافة المصرية الراهنة في ابتذال عناوين موضوعاتها وتسفيهها"، وكما رأى فريق التحرير.. "أنا والجماعة الإسلامية وميادة الحناوي". لكن حظ فكرة الكتابة كان أفضل مع جريدة النهار اللبنانية، قرأ المقال الكاتب وضاح شرارة- الأستاذ بالجماعة اللبنانية- مع مواطنته الزميلة ليليان داود، وبعد اتصال وجدت تجربة (البري) الأصولية طريقها إلى ملحق النهار، ثم صدرت ككتاب عن الدار اللبنانية العريقة. وأخيرا عن دار "ميريت" ليصدر قرار مجمع البحوث الإسلامية في الأزهر بمصادرتها.
يحكي خالد بسلاسة كيف تحول من مراهق، ينهي عام 1986 سن الرابعة عشر، يفهم السياسة على انها "الشعب العربي الواحد" إلى "مؤمن بحتمية المواجهة العسكرية للقضاء على النظام العلماني الكافر".
كان الأضعف بدنيا بين لاعبي الكرة في الشارع، وبدا "الجنزير"، هدية أولى خطوات الاستقطاب الأصولي، "آلة سحرية" في الخناقات، صاحب هدية الجنزير سيتلقى 70 عصا "مدا" على قدميه فيما بعد عقابا على خطأ تنظيمي، وستحاول وتواصل الجماعة علاجه طبيا من المثلية الجنسية السلبية، مع اعترافه بها، وسيعتقل مرات.. آخرها امتد لسنوات طويلة، في حين س"يُدمي" جسد "مثلي إيجابي" بالجنازير أصر على الصلاة إماما بها، في واقعة شهيرة بأحد مساجد أسيوط.
(سيرة أصولي مصري) تستهل اولى درجاتها مع (الشيخ طه) الذي تدريجيا ينجح في الفصل بينه وبين الغناء، معشوق البري خاصة صوت ميادة الحناوي، لكنه ظل محتفظا بأغاني عبدالحليم الوطنية، ثم "البراءة من الكفار" وقطع علاقته بجيرانه المسيحيين، بدأت بوقوفه "ناضورجي" لعلقة تأديب "جهادية" لمسيحي، و"التمايز" عنهم، وعن التيارات الأصولية الأخرى وعن غير الملتزمين من المسلمين. أفهمه الشيخ طارق "ان الله لا يحب شريكا في قلب المؤمن"، وفي مرحلة لاحقة "أن مسيحي مصر ليسوا أهل ذمة لأنهم يرفضون جهارا تطبيق الشريعة ورفعوا السلاح في الزاوية الحمراء".
كان قرار "التمايز" صعباً، فطفولته متداخلة مع العشرات منهم، تعلم في مدرسة الرهبان الفرنسيسكان، وما زال يتذكر حسم (الأُخت أوجنين) وهي تُسمع لهم سورة الحديد، لغياب مدرس الدين، وعدم تهاونها في كسرة أو فتحة.
حكايات عادية يرويها البري، حملات منع الاختلاط من لعب الشارع إلى الجامعة، متعة قراءة (تحفة العروس) و"التكبير أثناء القذف"، قتل مسيحي أقام علاقة مع مسلمة وقطع أذن وكسر ظهر آخر لنفس السبب.. إلخ. قيمتها في سياقها الإنساني، وعدم التعالي على أصحابها و"حسابهم"، فهم "بشر".
"بشريتهم" كانت أولى صدمات (البري)، مع مشاهدة معركة المسجد الدامية للأخ المثلي الإيجابي.. سيُعثر على جثته مقتولا بعد عامين،. ثم ترسخت صورة "البشر" مع تجربة السجن. لم يسهب في الحديث عن التعذيب، فقط إشارات وتلميحات، لكن ما أوجعه هو عزل الجماعة له لإصراره على إكمال دراسته وعلى الكتابة لأسرته يوميا، رأوه مُتعلقا بالدنيا، وتبين له انهم يفتحون خطاباته مثلهم مثل إدراة السجن. لن تجد، نهائياً، ما يُقارن بجرأة ما كشفه اليساريون عن تجربة السجن مع رفاقهم. لكن عميد كلية شريعة الأزهر / حلوان، أحد موقعي قرار المصادرة، قال مواجها الناشر محمد هاشم في برنامج (كتب ممنوعة) على قناة النيل الثقافية الخميس الماضي، إن صفحات السجن "العشرين" تستوجب الحذف، ولم يستطع أن يبرر لماذا، خاصة وأن (كمال حبيب) أحد قيادات الجهاد التاريخيين عبر عن دهشته من المصادرة، ورفض حجج (عميد الشريعة) بما فيها ما يتعلق بعنوان الكتاب الذي اقترح عضو مجمع البحوث، كما أصر على تسميته في تقريره "الدنيا أحلى من الآخرة"!.
العنوان، جملة عفوية "تنفس" بها (البري) لنفسه مع أولى خطواته حرا بعد الإفراج.. "الدنيا أجمل من الجنة". ليدخل لسنوات مرحلة التباس ثم تحول فكري، انتهت به يجد نفسه "إنسان مختلف تماما عن ذاك الذي كنته. أفضل أو أسوأ، لم يكن يهمني، لكنني بالتأكيد صرت أكثر تسامحا وإحساسا بإنسانيتي وإنسانية الآخرين".
محمد طعيمة
العربي
8-7-2007
A word on the word 'Abuse'
The word 'abuse' on its own has become synonymous with three forms only: physical, sexual and verbal. We talk alternatively of 'human rights abuses', but in this regard we rarely use simply the noun or verb-form. We do not talk about the abuse of an Iraqi man or say the Iraqi children are being abused by the international community; it would suggest - absurdly - that a sick individual is 'abusing' them one by one. But I believe that the power of this word, on its own, - to shock people into the realisation of the kind of harm and suffering being inflicted on the individual as a result of the decisions, prejudices, grudges or inaction of other individuals - must be harnessed (Mother Theresa famously characterised an infinite - and therefore supposedly unmanageable - number of victims of poverty in India, as 'one and one and one...'). The problem of the widespread near-acceptance of the human individual's abuse of another human individual can be observed more closely at the national level and at the - further microcosmic - level of the family.
On this blog I often refer to the 'human rights abuses' of one country or another, and in doing so I am aware that, whilst I might succeed in shocking and maybe upsetting the reader, I rarely provoke in them quite the intensity of nausea the majority would instinctively feel on hearing of a 10 month old baby girl abused and strangled by her uncle, for example (a horrific story the media have jumped on here). 'Horrific, incomprehensible, sickening, devastating' are all words that come to mind when we hear of a child being abused by an adult, and yet each day hundreds of people - one and one and one - are abused physically and emotionally by government actions or inaction - and it strikes us more often than not as lamentable and maybe sad, and perhaps even 'tragic' - that poorly abused word. And daily we participate in or at least witness abuse of another - in our family, in the street, in the supermarket - any place and group and partnership in which a hierarchical power dynamic is at work. And it is here that you have something akin to 'institutional racism' - the institutionalised abuse of the other, acceptable on the slightest pretext: impatience, stress, disappointment with service, irritation and disappointment with the 'incompetence' of the other, who stupidly has not adapted to your individual rhythm or 'ethos' or that of the organisation or that dictated by an apparently homogeneous consumer society.
Yesterday I watched a consumer - a woman in her late twenties abuse a uniformed employee of Ikea; she was trying to impress upon the checkout assistant that she was gravely offended and inconvenienced by the service she had received regarding the take-away container she was offered. I commented to Amir that the way she was flailing her arms around and shaking her head, you would think she had had her children taken away by the authorities, in which case her desire to verbally abuse and physically attack the representative of that authority would at least be understandable. Her aggressive 'telling off' of the ever courteous African employee in his demeaning primary blue and yellow Ikea uniform was abusive. But this is a right give to her by her society (Amir -ever alert to these kind of things - could have sworn he detected an Israeli accent!), and by British society.
On my first foray into the brilliant Hackney library accompanying my sister, Bee, and her tiny baby - Hetty, I found the latest issue of the small publication, Race and Class. I'm a big fan and proceeded to use Bee's last 50 pence to photocopy one article: Integrationism: the politics of anti-Muslim racism by Arun Kundnani. I was very struck by the humane tone of the article that so distinguishes it from many others on the issue. Kundnani tells us that the "new conventional wisdom [on cultural diversity] is that a national story of Britishness must be promoted in order to bind the nation together around a set of core values, to which minorities must assimilate [...] but it is argued here, there cannot be one national story of Britain. Nor can one set of 'British values' be imposed as a condition of citizenship. Instead, an integrated society can only be built out of universal values of human rights, justice and democracy - the very values the 'war on terror' tends to undermine'. Yet 'British nationality had historically been complicated both by the absence of a clear idea of what it meant to be a citizen of the British state and by the fact that it was a state made up of multiple nations (England, Scotland and wales). The English resolved these difficulties by conflating an emotional belonging to England as a nation with a contractual belonging to Britain as a state; the myth of an ancient ethnos thereby filled the space where a British constitution ought to have existed."
The consequence of teaching this myth of a integrated and homogeneous British identity with a prior and proprietorial claim on all humane values - set in righteous opposition to the inhumane and inferior values of the (formerly) colonised - is that the other: the immigrant, the Muslim, the Asian, is considered to be stupidly and childishly attached to inferior values - an attachment that must be beaten out of them. That jealously guarded 'core values' such as the right of one man to enslave another and the right of a man to choose his daughter's husband must and do evolve and mutate for the good of society, thanks to the tireless work of individuals and groups across the centuries - not to reflexively punish the 'wrong doer', who after all according to their core values are doing no wrong, but to persuade them of the inutility, the pointlessness, and the harm of what they are doing. What we are living under in England is the legacy of the Victorian empire, where 'righteous' punishment/abuse was liberally employed by everyone from the husband to the nanny to the school master to the factory foreman to the general to the plantation owner all the way to the Queen. How we love to punish in the name of superior values like discipline, loyalty and now perversely in the defence of 'freedom'. But abuse by any other name is still abuse.
Kundnani: "What is meant to be symbolised during the citizenship ceremony [for those who pass their 'citizenship test'] is not an equal exchange of one nationality for another but initiation into a superior civilisation. Such thinking sets ups a hierarchy in which different communities are ranked according to their inherent distance from British norms of civility. While that distance is perceived as greatest in the case of Muslims, all groups seen as 'alien' by virtue of their culture are caught up in it. The clearest example of this is the way that Islam has been singled out for its treatment of women. British values with regard to women are construed as exclusively 'modern' while 'Muslim values' are essentially backward [...] What is striking here is the confidence with which this 'integrationist feminism' obliterates any complexity to these issues in an effort to present British society as naturally liberal and Muslim as naturally sexist. [...] Thus, for example, the epidemic of domestic violence which infects all sectors of British society, and includes two women every week being killed by their partners, receives less media attention than the problem of 'honour killings' carried out by Muslims. It is right that the specific justifications which Muslim men use to legitimise violence is exposed. But this should not be done in such a way that combating violence against Muslim women is seen as fighting against a culture, while combating violence against women is seen as a fight for rights. [...] Additionally, integrationists have no sense that Muslim w omen have long been fighting for their rights within their own communities. [...] Renunciation of one's identity becomes a pre-requisite for emancipation ands a new kind of superiority is entrenched in the name of feminism. State coercion is then justified as a possible means for bringing about this 'emancipation'."
Feminists of Muslim origin that I work with, will defend until their dying day their right to expose individual abuses in the name of Islam or national security where they see them: they will refuse to be intimidated by the right in their country, who claim such abuses are central to their core values; or co opted by the right in other countries who will use them as a stick to beat an enemy state or culture; or silenced by 'cowardly liberals' who would prefer to ignore abuses than risk playing into the hands of conservatives. The feminist and human rights movement should not have a political or national agenda or it risks averting its eyes from politically inconvenient abuses in the name of whichever too-fragile ideology.
One of the best pieces I have read in a long time from a feminist and human rights campaigner is by Azadeh Forghani: Open Letter to Farah Diba: "Kindly Come and Do us a favour, Oh Lady." (translated from the Farsi by Niki Akhavan and Simi Shakhsari for the web site, Payvand). For those of you who don't know the background, Farah was the last wife of the last Iranian Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and now living in exile in Paris, she still wishes to be called by her old title Empress. Azadeh Forghani is one of the women’s rights activists who was arrested for peaceful protest on March 4th 2007 in front of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. It was on Women's Day, March 8th 2007 that Forghani received a message of congratulations from Farah to herself and the other women's rights activists who had been detained on March 5 following a peaceful protest. Forghani's thoughtful and intelligent response is born of awareness and experience of not only a life-time of institutionalised (in the family, the school, public spaces) abuse but a history of abuse by the state in Iran. Here is an excerpt:
"It is not permissible to use my work or those of others in creating tumult and making personalities. What we did was our duty and nothing beyond it, the price paid was negligible compared to what I have learned from Iranian history, culture, politics, economy and global issues. To the best of my ability, I have approached social issues from seven to eight different perspectives both in thought and action. Now I know the similarities and differences, real or imagined, between the true world of our women of various social classes and the world exemplified by the empress. And I have pretty much learned the reasons and motivations behind various actions.
Let’s go to the real issue at hand. As far has her freedom of expression is concerned, the empress’ symbolic gesture is her own business and has nothing to do with me. Yet our judgment about the nature and reason for her actions does have to do with us. She or anyone else is free to issue statements, and this is their right. However, the empress’ baseless, untimely, ostentatious, and senseless act which was carried out without any consideration of its consequences for us, is an offense to human morals and political honor. The shallowness and pointlessness of her act is her business, but she has offended and transgressed on the domain of our freedom to act and collaborate towards gaining our rights. I will explain.
Mrs. empress! Examine your own conscience or take as witness the objective conscience of another and tell us what relation—any at all—have you had or do you have with the women activists of June 12 and March 4? Their commonality is in their years of struggles for true freedom, eliminating oppression, liberty, and reaching to the minimum of women’s human rights. They have been led to these paths by social forces and a feeling of responsibility for and co-existence with women who are disenfranchised, downtrodden, unemployed, poor, low-wage workers, honorable teachers, nurses, and office employees. What link can you claim with them, other than--in the most honest and best case scenario--a sense of empathy? But is this enough to justify suddenly jumping in the fray and grabbing the opportunity?
Have you spent a penny from your massive wealth on a women’s movement which has cast aside all aristocracy and class-based snobbery? Has any from your family, friends, or acquaintances experienced, even for a few hours, the danger of activism, forming organizations, collecting signatures for petitions, negotiations, arrest, twenty-four hour interrogations, jail, constant social insecurity, distress, job insecurity, etc.? During the last 28 years, 10 of which I have been following closely, has your lifestyle and activities even had a needle’s point of connection—never mind a lively and meaningful one—with the independent women’s movement in Iran? All of the answers to these questions are negative. I have occasionally watched you, your friends, and supporters on satellite television expressing your views. I, like all other activists who are part of this movement, noticed the pretentiousness, the deep chasm, and all of the resources that are unjustly available to aristocratic women on that side, and these factors have made us completely lose hope in you (And of course I want to emphasize that I do not speak here about the aware and clear-headed women on that side who know their place and who carry out political and cultural activities).
But you, empress, under the influence of or in collaboration with those around you, jump in the middle and opportunistically and ostentatiously issue statements, as if we are with your camp. And with your actions you place us, an independent movement that does not rely on any foreign support or on you, under suspicion and leave us to the hands of the interrogators and don’t give a damn when they say: “here is the proof that you get money and orders from abroad, your work does not reflect the needs and desires of women, so there!” Yes, these are all the familiar indicators of your being divorced from social reality and the will of people, being irresponsible and unpopular, and your opportunism in trying to reach your previous paradise."
I think that there is a popular misconception about the defence of human rights as a glamorously international pursuit; a misconception exploited by conservative nationalists and middle-class liberals alike. As Forghani makes clear in her letter, the struggle for an end to human rights abuses is far from glamorous and in her case is not for a 'minority' or 'ethnic group' - that those on the far right like to tell us are being privileged over a now mythic 'indigenous peoples', the white working-class - but for the familiar and local people in Iran - her mother, brother, neighbour, as well as the poor village girl in a distant province. Her fight is against abuses that come in many guises: class, racial, economic, sexual, territorial. Recently, when watching (too late at night) the documentary film on the building of Israel's apartheid wall, Mohammed Alatar's The Iron Wall, the one thing that struck and wounded me the most was the level of abuse the West Bank Palestinians were made to suffer on an hourly, daily basis. Abuse is shamefully banal and when we abuse we all become ugly thugs, no matter our professed belief system or our superficial markings of piety or liberalism. Young settler girls who have been taught to throw stones and insults at Arab children walking to school, have themselves been abused by being subjected to the hatred of their parents. Abuse is local and if the individual wants to fight it they do not need to board a plane with a fat salary from an international NGO, they have to confront their own abusive behaviour and that of those around them.
Elly
Friday, July 6, 2007
On men and women and a lot of misunderstanding
When I watch National Geographic films I feel always thrilled by the 'honesty' of all the living species, except for human beings who are confused in their most important activity which is their relationship with the other sex.
All the living creatures live strictly as nature has provided them with its eternal code. They function according to their 'position' in life, following - without grumbling - their 'duties'; they live and perish according to the code.
But not human beings; they have no code: they are cheaters, unfaithful, liars, vindictive and the only species who hurt and kill their own sort!
And on the issue of relations between the male and female we find that it is the most hurtful and painful issue; sometimes it leads to killing, murder and suicide!
The simple answer is: human beings do not have a code of behaviour concerning 'the other'; we have only selfish, ruthless needs and desires.
The funny thing is we never state our needs and desires openly to the concerned party or partner; rather we mask and hide them under smiles, pretending we have completely different interests.
Usually in such relations one of the partners is less wicked, less experienced, more honest, and less corrupted than the other. So this partner finds him or herself time and again being left hurt, and deserted without any logical explanation or even a reasonable lie!
Why are we doing this to each other?
It is the old primitive instinct of the hunter: moving stealthily, hidden, to get something (or somebody) in a dishonest way... the mere pleasure of getting what does not belong to you.
The invention of prostitution was - and still is – one of the rare human paradoxes; there is no hiding of intention, no masking of desires, no need to pretend; the costumer comes, takes what he wants, pays, and leaves. What a fantastic solution for all the lies and hurt. But it is MEN ONLY CLUB, created by men to behave exactly and honestly as they feel: practising fetishism, sadomasochism, and all their hidden unfulfilled fantasies; all the things they pretend they do not desire when they sit down to discuss, with their sweethearts, the future of the earth!
to be continued)
Thursday, July 5, 2007
From a theme park in the Golan heights to housing in Libya for “women who are vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct.”
Tonight at a conference on a maverick alliance's scheme to broker a peace agreement between Syria and Israel for the return of the Golan Heights - a part of which would be turned into a park open to citizens of both countries, I had to listen to much bullshit: from the Israeli who feared the nuclear weapons of the Iranians, but seemed to have forgotten those in his own possession; and from the feted Syrian speaker who began appealingly enough: He said that a lot has changed since he left Damascus for America 50 years ago; at the time Muslims lived beside Jews whose next door neighbours were Christians who lived opposite Alawis.
So far so good.
Then in response to a Kurdish speaker's concern that there were no schools in Syria allowed to teach the Kurdish language, the man with dual Syrian and American nationality held up his thumb and index finger and framed a zero to emphasise how much he knew about the discrimination of Kurds in his native country. Rather, he argued that there could be no state democracy until there was democracy within the family, and in the meantime he believed Syria to be the safest country in the world to live in right now: better a dictatorship where he feels secure, than, well, the chaos of Iraq. A disingenuous comparison I feel. Nor did it escape my notice or the Kurd's that Mr. Dual Nationality resides in the United States, so he might well find living under a Syrian dictatorship not too hard to bear.
Then a polite mustachioed man stood up in the back to deliver the final comment: he told of a recent play at SOAS that had recreated the Jewish Libyan community of the 50s - its colloquialisms and dress - and so accurately that he felt he was back in his childhood. Then he made a witty remark, the full irony of which few understood; he said that perhaps Basheer Assad could follow the great example of the 'reformed' leader, Qaddafi, and come up with his version of Israestan, or whatever he called the one-state solution, that would be ruled in alternate years by Israel and Palestine. I went up to the mustachioed man afterwards to ask him what he meant. He said that the great 'reformed' leader, Qaddafi - who Tony Blair had recently hugged on a visit to Libya - was little reformed, and one should be wary of the peace deals such men make. I liked this guy immediately and later told Ruba that he was surely gay; not only had he not tried to pick us up, he had a lightness of touch, and a rare - and not tokenistic - sensibility to the suffering of women in Libya. He surprised me when I asked him if, in the light of his earlier comment, he was Jewish, and he answered that he was Muslim. He then asked if I was Jewish. I also said no. Christian then? Well, not exactly I replied. Generally each was surprised the other showed an interest in the Jewish Arab community.
He also told us of the day six years ago when Qaddafi had ordered 1,500 prisoners shot in a single day because they had complained about the quality of the food. And I thought again of the eerily silent voices of the hundreds of political prisoners tucked away in jails in the countryside around pretty holy sites I had visited in Syria. I finally returned home after another depressing talk - this time on the Western betrayal of Hamas (see Alistair Crooke in the London Review of Books), and googled Libya and Sexuality. I found this:
The Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls
“They just want us to be silent. They just want us to keep quiet.”
— A child detained in the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls, April 23, 2005
Financing from the General Secretary of Social Affair’s social fund (sanduk al-iktima’i) established the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls in the 1980s. It is located in a larger compound housing people with disabilities and juvenile males who have been convicted of crimes. It houses girls (both Libyan and non-Libyan) below the age of 18. The director of the facility described the usual admission process, involving girls who are fearful for their safety should their families learn that they have had sex (consensual or forced): “Usually girls are afraid. They go to the police, who send them to the public prosecutor, who transfers them into temporary detention. If the father or family is sympathetic, they [the girls] can get a pass to stay at home.”
When Human Rights Watch visited the facility in April 2005, five girls—three Libyans and two Egyptians—were detained, all aged sixteen and seventeen. All of the girls had been tested for communicable diseases without their consent, and four of them had been forced to undergo virginity examinations administered by male forensic doctors. Three of the five girls told Human Rights Watch that they were victims of a rape or an attempted rape. They were brought to the facility by families who no longer wanted to provide them with housing.
Girls at the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls, many of whom are in fact victims of crimes and not perpetrators of them, are treated like criminals. Once in the facility, they are detained indefinitely and require permission from their fathers to leave. During their detention, they are provided with no education except religious instruction from a sheikh who visits the facility once a week to teach the Qu’ran. Girls complained of being hit or sent to solitary confinement if they talked back or misbehaved in even the smallest way. The mandate of the facility allows the authorities to hold girls in solitary confinement for up to seven days. However, staff at the facility admitted to holding some girls for periods of two to three weeks and showed us a record log of the days girls were held in isolation. The girls we interviewed reported that staff sometimes handcuffed them while they were in isolation. While the food they were provided was sufficient, they told Human Rights Watch that personal hygiene supplies were inadequate. One girl said, “[t]hey give you soap and shampoo only once a month. They don’t care if it runs out.” The girls are only allowed visitors with the permission of a prosecutor.
Mona Ahmed, has been detained in the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls for over a year. She became pregnant following a rape and was brought to the facility by her father. While the family initially doubted that she had been raped, the rapist eventually confessed. However, her father continues to prohibit her from leaving until she agrees to give up her child, who is kept in the facility with her. She told Human Rights Watch, “the rapist confessed but my father is complicating things. Only my father can give permission to release me. My father will agree only if I give up the child so that he can marry me off to his friend.” She does not know whether she will ever be permitted to leave the facility.
Nada Mounir, seventeen, was brought to the facility on April 21, 2005 after the death of a relative who tried to rape her. She attacked him with a knife in self-defense, and he subsequently died of complications. She told Human Rights Watch, “[h]e tried to rape me but he didn’t succeed. My parents were in another house. He came from behind the house. He kissed me. He had a knife. He pulled me down by my hair and said he was going to do it but I took the knife and stabbed him. I told my mother about it. She took me to the police station. They [the police] took me to the prosecutor who brought me here.” Her family refuses to visit her or agree to take custody of her. She does not have a lawyer.
Joke of the day II
An Eagle and a Donkey were on an aeroplane. The eagle was enjoying pressing the button to call the hostess. She asked him, "Yes sir Eagle what can I do for you?"
The eagle answered, "nothing, I was just fucking around."
He had done this many times.
The donkey liked the game so he decided to play it too. He pressed the button, she came ans asked, "yes sir Donkey what can I do for you?"
"Just fucking around", he replied.
The Eagle and donkey were really enjoying their time, but not the hostess who went to complain to the pilot. The pilot told her, "If they repeat this silly joke again throw them from the plane."
So, when they called her again she opened the door and threw them out...
The eagle stretched his wings and was soon flying safely in the open skies
But the donkey was crying in panic, "I am falling and will die"
The eagle told him "if you do not know how to fly, why were you were fucking around?"
send your jokes!
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Appropriate poem for 4th July
From Iraqi Democrats against Occupation
America, America
God save America
My home sweet home!
by Saadi Youssef*
The French general who raised his tricolour
over Nugrat al-Salman where I was a prisoner thirty years ago . . .
in the middle of that U-turn
that split the back of the Iraqi army,
the general who loved St Emilion wines
called Nagrat al-Salman a fort . . .
Of the surface of the earth, generals know only two dimensions:
whatever rises is a fort
whatever spreads is a battlefield.
How ignorant the general was!
But Liberation was better versed in topography.
The Iraqi boy who conquered her front page
sat carbonised behind a steering wheel
on the Kuwait–Safwan highway
while television cameras
(the booty of the defeated and their identity)
were safe in the truck like a storefront
on rue Rivoli.
The neutron bomb is highly intelligent,
it distinguishes between
an “I” and an “Identity”.
God save America
My home sweet home!
(Blues)
How long must I walk to Sacramento
How long will I walk to reach my home
How long will I walk to reach my girl
How long must I walk to Sacramento
For two days, no boat has sailed this stream
two days, two days, two days
Honey, how can I ride?
I know this stream
but, O but, O but, for two days
La L La La L La
La L La La L La
A stranger gets scared
Don’t fear dear horse
Don’t fear the wolves of the wild
Don’t fear for the land is my land
La L La La L La
La L La La L La
A stranger gets scared
God save America
My home sweet home!
I too love jeans and jazz and Treasure Island
and Long John Silver’s parrot and the terraces of New Orleans
I love Mark Twain and the Mississippi steamboats and Abraham Lincoln’s dogs
I love the fields of wheat and corn and the smell of Virginia tobacco.
But I am not American. Is that enough for the Phantom pilot to turn me back to the Stone Age!
I need neither oil, nor America herself, neither the elephant nor the donkey.
Leave me, pilot, leave my house roofed with palm fronds and this wooden bridge.
I need neither your Golden Gate nor your skyscrapers.
I need the village not New York.
Why did you come to me from your Nevada desert, soldier armed to the teeth?
Why did you come all the way to distant Basra where fish used to swim by our doorsteps.
Pigs do not forage here. I only have these water buffaloes lazily chewing on water lilies.
Leave me alone soldier.
Leave me my floating cane hut and my fishing spear.
Leave me my migrating birds and the green plumes.
Take your roaring iron birds and your Tomahawk missiles. I am not your foe.
I am the one who wades up to the knees in rice paddies.
Leave me to my curse.
I do not need your day of doom.
God save America
My home sweet home!
America
let us exchange your gifts.
Take your smuggled cigarettes
and give us potatoes.
Take James Bond’s golden pistol
and give us Marilyn Monroe’s giggle.
Take the heroin syringe under the tree
and give us vaccines.
Take your blueprints for model penitentiaries
and give us village homes.
Take the books of your missionaries
and give us paper for poems to defame you.
Take what you do not have
and give us what we have.
Take the stripes of your flag
and give us the stars.
Take the Afghani Mujahideen’s beard
and give us Walt Whitman’s beard filled with butterflies.
Take Saddam Hussain
and give us Abraham Lincoln
or give us no one.
Now as I look across the balcony
across the summer sky, the summery summer
Damascus spins, dizzied among television aerials
then it sinks, deeply, in the stories of the forts
and towers
and the arabesques of ivory
and sinks, deeply, from Rukn al-Din
then disappears from the balcony.
And now
I remember trees:
the date palm of our mosque in Basra, at the end of Basra
the bird’s beak
and a child’s secret
a summer feast.
I remember the date palm.
I touch it. I become it, when it falls black without fronds
when a dam fell hewn by lightning.
And I remember the mighty mulberry
when it rumbled, butchered with an axe . . .
to fill the stream with leaves
and birds
and angels
and green blood.
I remember when pomegranate blossoms covered the sidewalks,
the students were leading the workers’ parade . . .
The trees die
pummelled
dizzied,
not standing
the trees die.
God save America
My home sweet home!
We are not hostages, America
and your soldiers are not God’s soldiers . . .
We are the poor ones, ours is the earth of the drowned gods
the gods of bulls
the gods of fires
the gods of sorrows that intertwine clay and blood in a song . . .
We are the poor, ours is the god of the poor
who emerges out of the farmers’ ribs
hungry
and bright
and raises heads up high . . .
America, we are the dead
Let your soldiers come
Whoever kills a man, let him resurrect him
We are the drowned ones, dear lady
We are the drowned
Let the water come
*Saadi Youssef was born in 1934 in Basra, Iraq. He has published thirty volumes of poetry, seven books of prose, and has rendered into Arabic major works by such writers as Walt Whitman, Constantine Cavafy, Federico García Lorca, George Orwell, Nuruddin Farah, and Wole Soyinka. He left Iraq in 1979, and after many detours, working as a journalist, publisher, and political activist.
Joke of the day
An Arab man decided to marry.
He was looking for a virgin.
Every time his mother found him a candidate he would ask to be alone with her for five minutes. He would open his zipper, show her his penis and ask her "what is this?". The girl would answer after some minutes of reflection "It is a penis". He would close his zipper and tell his mother that she is not a virgin.
In the end when he showed his penis to one girl, she could not answer anything. He was thrilled and insisted that she must answer. She said she did not know what she was looking at! He was so glad that he told her "it is a penis"
She asked with an unbelieving look in her eyes "Penis? I thought that penises were usually bigger than this palm date!"
If you have a joke please do not hesitate to send it so we can post it
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Lebanon, it's Paris calling
A photo of Ehden: the village where all Zghotiots spend their summer 
By a guest writer
Once every week from Paris, I call my parents who live in the Zgharta, North Lebanon.
Zgharta, a very conservative Christian city, is becoming more open to Muslims. How is that? Simply because Suleiman Frangieh, who is the most popular politician in Zgharta, is a loyal ally of Syria and, with Hezbollah, is now co-leader of the opposition. According to this collaboration, most of the Christians in this city and its neighbouring regions are strongly against western hegemony in the Middle East and are more in favour of an Arab led policy.
The latest phone call I had with my parents was a very worrying one: my mum told me that the radical organisations fighting the Lebanese army in the North are threatening to attack Christian schools, universities and churches, even in Zgharta. Why? Ironically it is to harass those who collaborate with western countries! Of course, anyone who has any common sense will find this threat outrageous. However, rumours abound every day of these attacks being prepared. Last week, they were saying it was the turn of the school of my 10 year old sister. Mum panicked (I heard this story days later), but to reassure me, and herself of course, she told me that the army remained all day long at the school to control any suspicious movement.
There are two ways to deal with radicals: to judge them harshly and punish them, or to try to understand what made them monsters and to help them get out.
Of course, the second option is politically incorrect. For all media now, radicals are just animals, as if violence were genetic, and the genes only present in Muslims! What about western politicians? They are surely a worse species of animal because they are completely conscious of how many millions of people they are sending to their death and that they are dooming millions of others to harbouring this unpleasant feeling: HATRED.
So, as powerless and peaceful as I am, I address this to those who are threatening people’s lives for political reasons. I could be addressing those radicals in northern Lebanon, or equally the western politicians who have gone to war, and from a safe distance, killed millions and inspired the hatred of one particular religion, as well as those who encourage them - their supporters in the case of the former and voters in the latter case. Let us consider, however, the second point which is, I repeat, politically incorrect and has never seriously been considered as an alternative way of dealing with this big problem nowadays. We might ask: what is their objective; their motivations; their ulterior motives; what are they fighting for?
Of course, you will say that many are engaged in fighting in the service of many different ideas and ideologies, but they do not kill for that. A big difference between non violent and violent people engaged for their cause is the social and economical status that plays a big role in deciding how one can express his/her beliefs. But guess what these people are fighting for?! One was convinced he was fighting in Jenin against Israel, another said he was fighting Crusaders! What a fine brain washing these people have undergone! Everyone has been brainwashed - by leaders, by the mass media, by scientific dogma, by clerics… How to stop all this? How to explain to people that the best way to develop an opinion is through open discussions and individual research, and not through the passive reception of information or ‘knowledge’?
Take television for example. How many times did you hear or see on the big channels a funny Muslim? Did you ever hear someone telling a Christian “you are really fanatical” whereas a Muslim is regularly judged only because of his or her Muslim identity! Yesterday I was checking the Lebanese news and the biggest news of all is that the front page is now divided into two parts, for the two fronts: the first in the North, the second in the South! It is ridiculous! Now we will probably hear of a third, or fourth front exploding… Can’t we just live in peace?! Those who have stayed in Lebanon live haunted by the spectre of bombings and constant worry about the lives of their beloved, not to mention the shitty economical situation.
My aunt joked the other day that Lebanon will be rewarded for building the biggest mental asylum ever; the whole country will soon be populated only by crazy or depressed people! For those who left (almost all young people) live in the hope of coming back one day and building up a new Lebanon… Of course I might sound very naïve, but I hope that one day people will be ready to talk and to admit their mistakes and to stop killing other people’s children to further their own interests!
PEACE & LOVE
Evy
اشعار الحبوسين
قصيدة للموت
جمعة الدوسيري
خذوا جسدي
خذوا كفني وبقايا جسدي
خذوا صورة لجثماني في قبري الوحيد
ارسلوا الصور الى العالم
الى القضاة
والى ذوي الضمائر الحرة
ودعوهم لسماع الحكم عليّ
اجمعوهم لكي يستمعوا الى الحكم عليّ
امام ضمائرهم وأمام اولادهم
الحكم على هذه ى النفس البريئة
هذه النفس المضيعة
التي عذبتها ايدي من يدعون انهم حماة الحرية
تم اعتقال الدوسيري في باكستان وحبسه في زنزانة انفرادية منذ عام 2003 . تثير حالة جمعة الدوسيري العقلية قلق محاميه . فهذا البحريني الجنسية البالغ 33 سنة حاول الانتحار 12 مرة منذ حبسه في جوانتانامو . وقد وجده محاميه مرة و قد شنق نفسه في زنزانته و قطع شرايينه ,, وتم انقاذه في اللحظات الأخيرة .في خطاب كتبه الدوسيري عام 2005 ؛ كتب " ان الهدف من جوانتانامو هو تدمير الناس . لقد دمروني "
Monday, July 2, 2007
My sister's daughter
This is for Elly's nieces...
since Pharaonic times there has been a tradition, still continuing - in Egypt and some other Middle Eastern countries - to celebrate the seventh day after the birth of a new born baby; it is called " EL SEBO'O" (you can see it is almost the same pronunciation as the Jewish SHABAAT which is Sabot in Arabic (the seventh day)
Number seven is a sacred number in old eastern religions.
So when the baby has completed seven days on our earth the family and friends celebrate by putting the baby in a big open basket (remember the story of Moses ?!), surrounded by a lot of sweets and seeds of different plants. A female member of the family (usually the sister or aunt) carries the basket, and moves inside the house from one room to another, followed by other members singing "hergalatek bergalatac" (there is no translation for it; it could be Pharaonic) in order to orientate the baby in his or her family house.
In every room they stoop and distribute the sweets and throw the seeds around. Another female from the family approaches the baby carrying a metal pot (hoon) which is the pot to ground garlic and beats it beside the baby's ears telling the baby to obey them.
For me it is one if the most touching ceremonies for the new born babies.
So what ELLY - the most important aunt of those two beautiful babies - are they expecting her to tell them?
اشعار المحبوسين في جوانتانامو
من صحيفة الاندبيندنت
بتاريخ 21 - 2007
ليونارد ديولي
ان نشر اشعار المحبوسين في جوانتانامو التي كتبوها على الأكواب الورقية ، تثير في النفس مشاعرا مؤلمة .
وتعتبر الادارة الأمريكية ان افكار المحبوسين هناك ، بالغة الخطورة فلم تسمح لهم بأوراق واقلام اما الاستثناء الوحيد فهو عشرة دقائق مرة كل بضعة شهور حينما يُسمح للصليب الحمر بزيارتهم ويسمح لهم بكتابة رسائل الى اهلهم . وحتى هذه الرسائل من الضروري ان تمر على الرقيب في المعتقل .
ويوجد في جوانتانامو حوالي 380 محبوسا ؛ بعضهم من كبار اعضاء القاعدة ، لكن معظمهم تم اسرهم بواسطة اجهزة الشرطة والمحابرات في بلاد مختلفة تعمل احهزتها بالتنسيق مع احهزة المخابرات في امريكا.
بعض الحبوسين عبر عن الامه بالشعر . البعض الآخر بالانتحار او محاولته .
ان " قصائد الأكواب الورقية " قصائد تحمل في طياتها مشاعر مؤلمة: تتحدث عن غيبة الأزهار عن الحرمان من سماع هسيس الآساور في ايدي النساء وعن صدى صوت القيود الحديدية.
مذلة القيود
سامي الحاج
يأتيني من بعيد هديل الحمام
من فوق اغصان الشجر
فتغرورق عيناني بالدموع
عندما تناغي القبرة رفيقها
تسطر خواطري رسالة الى ابني
محمد
انني مكروب.
وفي ضيقي
لن التجأ سوى لله
الظالمون يهزأون مني
يتحركون بلا قيود في ارجاء الدنيا
يطلبون مني ان اشي برفاقي
يغرونني بالمال
يغرونني بالحرية
كما يهز البرق السماء
تصعقني غواياتهم
عطاياهم حية رقطاء سامة
تنفث الرياء كالسم
اقول لهم
عنكم تماثيل تمجد الحرية
و مبادئ حرية التعبير والاعتقاد
اقول لهم
ان العدل لا يقيم في التماثيل
وانتي يا امريكا
يا من تضطهدين الايتام
وتزرعين الرعب يوميا في قلوبهم
وأنت يا بوش
العالم يعرف الكذبة المنافقين
الى الله اشكو مذلتي وأتوجه بدموعي
كم انا حزين ومشتاق للأهل
وأنت يا محمد
لا تنسني
اني مكبل بالقيود وتذلني الأغلال
فكيف لي ان اكتب شعرا ؟
وبعد ان اقضي ليلتي
في السلاسل والمذلة فكيف اسطر قصيدة ؟
روحي مثل بحر عجاج
يمور بالعنف
انا سجين
لكن سجاني من ارتكب الجرائم
الظلم يحيط بي
يا الله
اجمعني مرة اخرى بابني محمد
يا الله انصر الحق وثبته
سامي الحاج كان يعمل مصورا في قناة الجزيرة.كان في زيارة لأخيه في دمشق عقب الحادي عشر من سبتمبر . هناك تلقى تعليمات من الجزيرة بان يسافر الى باكستان ليغطي المعارك المتوقعة في افغانستان . تم اعتقاله في باكستان وترحيله الى جوانتانامو.
( ترجمة رؤوف مسعد )
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
Madny 2
After Noumeri - the ex president of Sudan - was dismissed from power in 1983, I went back to Sudan to do a story for Radio Arabic Netherlands about what was called THE UPRISING: the "uprising of the people who sit in the sun", el shamassah
In the beginning I did not get the meaning, but then I realised it is an expression used in Sudan to identify the freelance workers - so to speak - who just sit in the sun waiting for somebody to hire them for a day's work; most of them carry their tools with them so they can begin work the moment they arrive at their destination with their 'boss'. Now you can find them in what is called the new cites around Cairo such as the Sixth of October.
After I had stayed a while in Khartoum I decided to take the train and visit Madny which is about six hours trip, although the distance is only 200 miles. When I arrived I was shocked to see how she, Madny, had deteriorated since the last time I saw her in 1965 after I was released from prison one year earlier.
I went looking for a hotel to spend the one night I decided to stay; the only hotel I could find had no place for me except on the roof where they showed me many beds lined up beside each other. It was already night and I felt depressed and tired, so I accepted. I spent a restless night with the sounds, feeling crowded. Early morning I put some tea in my stomach and went for a walk, trying to reactivate my memory about the old places. I found myself walking in the direction of the Nile: the blue Nile which comes from Ethiopia running north to meet the white Nile coming from Uganda in a place in Khartoum called "el Moqran" (the union,) and when I arrived I found so many changes to the "Corniche"; the worst thing of course was that I lost my way until I found a woman who sells tea and coffee sitting under a big tree. I went towards her, sat on a small stone used as a chair and asked her to give me Jabana (coffee) without sugar. She asked me astonished: not even one spoon? I said no thanks. She could not accept that so I tried lying and told her that I am diabetic and the doctor forbade me to drink anything and coffee especially without sugar. She expressed her sympathy and offered me a good Jabana with herbs which I enjoyed and asked for again, and we talked and she asked me about myself and so on...
When I wanted to pay her she refused to take money saying: but I just gave you coffee without sugar and also you are sick.
After a lot of insisting from my side (I felt guilty about the doctor story) she took the money. After that I felt much better thinking about the dignity of this poor woman sitting under the tree selling tea and coffee!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Madny is tired and needs art, colour and people!
Girl in Yellow Shorts
boys bikes blueFrom my collection: 'A strange November in Siwa Oasis, Egypt'
Post inspired by the colours and life in My Marrakesh
Re-riding the nouvelle vague
Contrary to the belief of my landlady (who thinks the idealism of the 60s is dead in this generation), it is perfectly normal for me to go to the local Blockbusters and hire Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 film, Weekend. I'm not being pretentious; I just want to know what else I'm supposed to reasonably watch at le weekend?
It also seems to me quite rational that Godard intersperse his scenes with huge pink and red flashing text against a black background.
And it hardly seems extraordinary that the anti-hero protagonists of his film - a scheming bourgeois couple Sunday driving (Godard hated nothing more than Sunday drivers) pass through a landscape of upturned burning cars, with the bloodied bodies of the car's erstwhile passengers scattered liberally across the road. That the scowling fake blonde soon-to-be heiress and her dour scoundrel of a husband-fag stuck to his lip, should manoeuvre their convertible sports car through this Sunday afternoon carnage without scarcely raising an eyebrow, is to be expected. They are bourgeois and they are in a hurry, after all.
I'm totally prepared to go along with the premise that the most cinematographically effective way of treating the class struggle is to shoot a comically absurd scene in a provincial town in which a neatly dressed, bloodied and hysterical girl screams at the yokel who has crashed his tractor into her sports car, killing her Armani-clad boyfriend; she shouts at him threateningly demanding to know how he - an unsightly and insignificant anonymous member of the masses could dare to take the life of one of the St Tropez elite - her beautiful rich boyfriend, whose artfully arranged and sculpted bloodied body still manages a superior sneer from the other side of life.
What, other than good common sense, could have motivated Godard to have Algerian and Congolese rubbish collectors refuse the now car-less and starving bourgeois refugees-in-their-own country, a morsel of baguette with the retort that this is how France has dealt with its former colonies - offering them bread and snatching it away with a kick up the arse. What donkeys we are. The two men, their eyes full of hatred for their colonisers, go on to recite - each on behalf of the brooding other - long passages of revolutionary text.
Godard insists that one can only smash the complacency of the middle classes by exposing them to the brutality that underlies their precious civilisation, so the disembowelment of the ruthless bourgeois husband by a band of bandanna-wearing hippy anarchist cannibals living wild in the woods, is the only logical conclusion for the film.
Whatever happened to such sensible filmmaking?
This is how 'moderate' Abbas is
Abbas is not so much moderate as moderated by his newly close allies: Ehud Olmert, Hosni Mubarak and Condalezza Rice. This is one gang I would never want to join. Amongst other disturbing news I read in The Guardian yesterday, this stood out like a nasty red pimple: "Mr Abbas cancelled the licences of all non-governmental organisations."
Unfortunately this is one unsightly pimple I can't squeeze and it is ruining my day. Outlawing and shutting down NGOs is the favourite past-time of many repressive regimes, including the Saudi Kingdom - another unattractive member of Condi's gang.
Dalia Nammari
Associated Press
Sunday, June 24, 2007
"Abbas on Friday ordered all non-governmental groups, including those allied with Hamas, to get new operating licenses, and they now have a week to comply. It was one of his most far-reaching moves against Hamas yet, since the militants took control of Gaza more than a week ago.
[The adjective far-reaching makes this emergency law-style decree sound merely decisive and thorough - a form of tough love]
However, heads of those groups warned that Abbas' decree may be difficult to enforce since Hamas' social network provides vital services in an increasingly impoverished society, often stepping in where the cash-strapped government fails to deliver."
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Waiting for baby
Waiting is a peculiar agony; my younger sister could not stand the implicit pressure of a family in waiting for her baby, so much so that she ceased to answer the phone and holed up with her husband - also a younger child.
Two younger children on the defensive against a family that almost crushed them; my sister, on escaping the nest, discovered that her tyrannical older sisters were not her life-blood, or her guardian angels, but fragile creatures sucking the air out of her sturdier body. Now we think of this 30 year old baby sister and her unjust suffering; the uselessness and unwantedness of our greater years and faux-wisdom is slightly shameful.
I misplaced my phone that rings with regularity: it's my older sister - the already a mother of Safiya; my mother; my father - "Any news", "No", "Any news?", "No".
Why do I think of tragedy and grief? What a cowardly catholic at heart I am, that I believe in original sin and punishment and hardly dare give nature its due.
Come on baby. When you're ready
الكتابة على الحائط
وفي الزنازين المصرية سوف يجد السجين ان هناك من سبقه وسجل انطباعاته شعرا ام شعارا.
.. من اشهر من كتب شعرا في السجن وردده بعد ان حفظه هو المصري فؤاد حداد .. وحينما كانت الظروف تتاح كان يتم تهريب الكتابات الى الخارج مكتوبة على اوراق لف السجائر.
اول رواية نوبية كتبها محمد خليل قاس كتبها في معتقل الواحانت وتم تهريبها بنفس الطريقة.
السجين والمعتقل السياسي العربي يواجه معاملة لا انسانية .. تتركز في حرمانه من ادوات الكتابة ومن الكتب عدا القرآن او الأناجيل . من كافة انواع الترفيه . يرغم على العمل اليدوي مثل العمل في الجبل وتكسير الاحجار كما حدث ايام عبد الناصر. يواجه الضرب اليومي المنظم والإهانات الذي يصال الى الموت كما حدث مع شهدي عطية الشافعي . يعيش مكدسا في زنزانة صغيرة مع افراد آخرين يصل عددهم إلى عشرة .. في زنزانة لا يفتح بابها الآ ساعات قليلة كل يوم . تؤخذ منه حاجياته الشخصية حتى صور عائلته.
هكذا بعد كل تلك السنوات استطاع سجناء جوانتانامو المتهمون بانهم قتلة وأرهابيين ، ان يصلوا الى العالم الخارجي عبر الفن والقصائد التي تظرهم بانهم بشر مثل غيرهم .. يعانون من فراق الأحبة ويحنون الى الحياة بدون سجان
رؤوف مسعد
Saturday, June 23, 2007
There are only lovers and the enemies of love
On finishing watching Jules et Jim. Encore
There is too much to say now, and so I will try write only part of two conversations I remember:
"Albert was wounded in the trenches...
l'm OK now but when l woke up and found a surgeon digging in my skull, l thought of Oscar Wilde: God, spare me physical pain! l can cope with moral suffering!
The disgusting part of war is it deprives a man of his own individual battle."
----------------
"Are you in pain?
Not me, not anymore.
Because we mustn't suffer not at the same time. Once you stop suffering, l'll suffer"
Ahlan, ahlan bikum to Malak's Gateaux Soiree
Art and cakes and love and smiles in Cairo
My impossibly beautiful and talented friend, Malak, has opened her latest art installation at the Cube Gallery in Cairo.
I could not be there, but if you click on the link below you can watch a slideshow of Malak arranging her petits gateaux in glass cases, and gracefully welcoming people to her opening night.
I think Malak believes she is not photogenic, but not only is this not true, she has such an engaging smile and open manner, that everyone at once falls in love with her and, and admires her, and wants to take her home and feed her...
http://www.slide.com/r/dhULD5-m1T9rxVifauFIFeOQIpR3Q3ec?view=large
Crocodile Tears over Gaza
From Uri Avnery's Column,
Gush Shalom
16/06/07
WHAT HAPPENS when one and a half million human beings are imprisoned in a tiny, arid territory, cut off from their compatriots and from any contact with the outside world, starved by an economic blockade and unable to feed their families?
Some months ago, I described this situation as a sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United States and the European Union. The population of the Gaza Strip as guinea pigs.
This week, the experiment showed results. They proved that human beings react exactly like other animals: when too many of them are crowded into a small area in miserable conditions, they become aggressive, and even murderous. The organizers of the experiment in Jerusalem, Washington, Berlin, Oslo, Ottawa and other capitals could rub their hands in satisfaction. The subjects of the experiment reacted as foreseen. Many of them even died in the interests of science.
But the experiment is not yet over. The scientists want to know what happens if the blockade is tightened still further.
WHAT HAS caused the present explosion in the Gaza Strip?
The timing of Hamas' decision to take over the Strip by force was not accidental. Hamas had many good reasons to avoid it. The organization is unable to feed the population. It has no interest in provoking the Egyptian regime, which is busy fighting the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother-organization of Hamas. Also, the organization has no interest in providing Israel with a pretext for tightening the blockade.
But the Hamas leaders decided that they had no alternative but to destroy the armed organizations that are tied to Fatah and take their orders from President Mahmoud Abbas. The US has ordered Israel to supply these organizations with large quantities of weapons, in order to enable them to fight Hamas. The Israeli army chiefs did not like the idea, fearing that the arms might end up in the hands of Hamas (as is actually happening now). But our government obeyed American orders, as usual.
The American aim is clear. President Bush has chosen a local leader for every Muslim country, who will rule it under American protection and follow American orders. In Iraq, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, and also in Palestine.
Hamas believes that the man marked for this job in Gaza is Mohammed Dahlan. For years it has looked as if he was being groomed for this position. The American and Israeli media have been singing his praises, describing him as a strong, determined leader, "moderate" (i.e. obedient to American orders) and "pragmatic" (i.e. obedient to Israeli orders). And the more the Americans and Israelis lauded Dahlan, the more they undermined his standing among the Palestinians. Especially as Dahlan was away in Cairo, as if waiting for his men to receive the promised arms.
In the eyes of Hamas, the attack on the Fatah strongholds in the Gaza Strip is a preventive war. The organizations of Abbas and Dahlan melted like snow in the Palestinian sun. Hamas has easily taken over the whole Gaza Strip.
How could the American and Israeli generals miscalculate so badly? They are able to think only in strictly military terms: so-and-so many soldiers, so-and-so many machine guns. But in interior struggles in particular, quantitative calculations are secondary. The morale of the fighters and public sentiment are far more important. The members of the Fatah organizations do not know what they are fighting for. The Gaza population supports Hamas, because they believe that it is fighting the Israeli occupier. Their opponents look like collaborators of the occupation. The American statements about their intention of arming them with Israeli weapons have finally condemned them.
That is not a matter of Islamic fundamentalism. In this respect all nations are the same: they hate collaborators of a foreign occupier, whether they are Norwegian (Quisling), French (Petain) or Palestinian.
IN WASHINGTON and Jerusalem, politicians are bemoaning the "weakness of Mahmoud Abbas".
They see now that the only person who could prevent anarchy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was Yasser Arafat. He had a natural authority. The masses adored him. Even his adversaries, like Hamas, respected him. He created several security apparatuses that competed with each other, in order to prevent any single apparatus from carrying out a coup-d'etat. Arafat was able to negotiate, sign a peace agreement and get his people to accept it.
But Arafat was pilloried by Israel as a monster, imprisoned in the Mukata'ah and, in the end, murdered. The Palestinian public elected Mahmoud Abbas as his successor, hoping that he would get from the Americans and the Israelis what they had refused to give to Arafat.
If the leaders in Washington and Jerusalem had indeed been interested in peace, they would have hastened to sign a peace agreement with Abbas, who had declared that he was ready to accept the same far-reaching compromise as Arafat. The Americans and the Israelis heaped on him all conceivable praise and rebuffed him on every concrete issue.
They did not allow Abbas even the slightest and most miserable achievement. Ariel Sharon plucked his feathers and then sneered at him as "a featherless chicken". After the Palestinian public had patiently waited in vain for Bush to move, it voted for Hamas, in the desperate hope of achieving by violence what Abbas has been unable to achieve by diplomacy.
The Israeli leaders, both military and political, were overjoyed. They were interested in undermining Abbas, because he enjoyed Bush's confidence and because his stated position made it harder to justify their refusal to enter substantive negotiations. They did everything to demolish Fatah. To ensure this, they arrested Marwan Barghouti, the only person capable of keeping Fatah together.
The victory of Hamas suited their aims completely. With Hamas one does not have to talk, to offer withdrawal from the occupied territories and the dismantling of settlements. Hamas is that contemporary monster, a "terrorist" organization, and with terrorists there is nothing to discuss.
SO WHY were people in Jerusalem not satisfied this week? And why did they decide "not to interfere"?
True, the media and the politicians, who have helped for years to incite the Palestinian organizations against each other, showed their satisfaction and boasted "we told you so". Look how the Arabs kill each other. Ehud Barak was right, when he said years ago that our country is "a villa in the jungle".
But behind the scenes, voices of embarrassment, even anxiety, could be heard.
The turning of the Gaza Strip into Hamastan has created a situation for which our leaders were not ready. What to do now? To cut off Gaza altogether and let the people there starve to death? To establish contacts with Hamas? To occupy Gaza again, now that it has become one big tank trap? To ask the UN to station international troops there - and if so, how many countries would be crazy enough to risk their soldiers in this hell?
Our government has worked for years to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need to negotiate an agreement that would inevitably lead to the withdrawal from the occupied territories and the settlements there. Now, when it seems that this aim has been achieved, they have no idea what to do about the Hamas victory.
They comfort themselves with the thought that it cannot happen in the West Bank. There, Fatah reigns. There Hamas has no foothold. There our army has already arrested most of Hamas' political leaders. There Abbas is still in power.
Thus speak the generals, with the generals' logic. But in the West Bank, too, Hamas did win a majority in the last elections. There, too, it is only a matter of time before the population loses its patience. They see the expansion of the settlements, the Wall, the incursions of our army, the targeted assassinations, the nightly arrests. They will explode.
Successive Israeli governments have destroyed Fatah systematically, cut off the feet of Abbas and prepared the way for Hamas. They can't pretend to be surprised.
WHAT TO DO? To go on boycotting Abbas or to provide him with arms, to enable him to fight for us against Hamas? To go on depriving him of any political achievement or to throw him some crumbs at long last? And anyway, isn't it too late?
(And on the Syrian front: to go on paying lip service to peace while sabotaging all the efforts of Bashar Assad to start negotiations? To negotiate secretly, despite American objections? Or continue doing nothing at all?)
At present, there is no policy, and no government which could determine a policy.
So who will save us? Ehud Barak?
Barak's victory in this week's Labor Party leadership run-off has turned him almost automatically into the next Minister of Defense. His strong personality and his experience as Chief of Staff and Prime Minister assure him of a dominant position in the restructured government. Olmert will deal with the area in which he is an unmatched master - party machinations. But Barak will have a decisive influence on policy.
In the government of the two Ehuds, Ehud Barak will decide on matters of war and peace.
Until now, practically all his actions have had negative results. He came very close to an agreement with Assad the father and escaped at the last moment. He withdrew the Israeli army from South Lebanon, but without speaking with Hizbullah, which took over. He compelled Arafat to come to Camp David, insulted him there and declared that we have no partner for peace. This dealt a death blow to the chances of peace, a blow which still paralyzes the Israeli public. He has boasted that his real intention was to "unmask" Arafat. He was more of a failed Napoleon than an Israeli de Gaulle.
Will the Ethiopian change his skin, the leopard his spots? Hard to believe.
IN THE dramas of William Shakespeare, there is frequently a comic interlude at tense moments. And not only there.
Shimon Peres, the person who in 55 years of political activity had never won an election, did the impossible this week: he got elected President of Israel.
Many years ago, I entitled an article about him "Mr. Sisyphus", because again and again he had almost reached the threshold of success, and success had evaded him. Now he might feel like thumbing his nose at the gods after reaching the summit, but - alas - without the boulder. The office of the president is devoid of content and jurisdiction. A hollow politician in a hollow position.
Now everybody expects a flurry of activity at the president's palace. There will certainly be peace conferences, meetings of personalities, high-sounding declarations and illustrious plans. In short - much ado about nothing.
The practical result is that Olmert's position has been strengthened. He has succeeded in installing Peres in the President's office and Barak in the Ministry of Defense. In the short term, Olmert's position is assured.
And in the meantime, the experiment in Gaza continues, Hamas is taking over and the trio - Ehud 1, Ehud 2 and Shimon Peres are shedding crocodile tears.
Read also, 1967: A Personal Testimony
demos
Every time I read or see something about what is happening now in Palestine I feel depressed.
First we don't know exactly what is happening besides 'the news' we receive from BBC and CNN and Al Jazeera. I also read some Arabic news papers: Al Hayat, Al Sharq al Awsat and An Nahar. The first two are Saudi-owned and the third is Maronite! I have to be suspicious of what I see and read.
I learnt to hate Hamas when I was in Beirut (1978-1982) where the PLO was around the corner and Hamas was not there; I was told that it is Israel who created Hamas to oppose the PLO. Now I have my doubts when I see how Israel and the West and the Egyptians and the Saudis are praising Abbas! They all opposed Hamas when they won the elections. I think the common Palestinian there - in Gaza and the West bank - feels as confused as myself.
Abbas put his cards with the Western Camp, but he will go home with nothing as the loser in "The weakest Link" takes less than thirty pieces of silver. The Gaza camp facing both Israel and Egypt and soon will be starving.
The Western Camp of Abbas have food to offer, but nothing more for sure.
I do not go now to any demonstrations as I used to before. Abbas is NO GOOD and Hamas ALSO no good.
I still have my heart with the people in Gaza and the West bank... only my heart with the people in these two camps!