Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Just a funny video...
Politically incorrect in the absolutely funniest way ... I'm waiting till I get some more comments before posting again. I know you guys are reading it, why isn't anybody posting?
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Naji El Ali: 20 Years On
Today, 22 July 2007 marks two decades since Palestinian caricaturist Naji El Ali was shot--and eventually killed--by mysterious gunmen in London. El Ali had been forced into exile in the UK after the PLO leadership pressured Kuwait (that would be the Kuwait I live in now) to discontinue their protection of the artist, who had gained Pan Arab fame through his cartoons which appeared in Kuwait's quality Al Qabas (which I notice did not run a front-page story on this one today...).
El Ali's assassination was another of Palestine's multi-layered tragedies: Some are convinced that Arafat himself ordered the shooting (the reasons given vary from the somewhat plausible political motivations to the simply silly). Regardless, Yasser Arafat does of course carry some of the blame for El Ali's killing with him in the grave for having insisted that Kuwait (where he would have been reasonably safe) force the man out. In London, city of international espionage, nobody could be safe with a situation where the government tolerated a modest level of terrorism in order to better keep an eye on all the spooks.
I was reminded of this event, and the debate surrounding who to blame, in a discussion I had on Facebook and thought that it might be a good idea to bring it up on the blog...Despite all the different groups who try to claim him, Naji El Ali was most importantly an artist, whose work can not be commandeered for one cause or the other. So I'm going to remain quiet about what I think and instead post a site in honour of Handala, El Ali's emblematic character who became the poster boy for Palestinian refugees: http://www.handala.org
El Ali's assassination was another of Palestine's multi-layered tragedies: Some are convinced that Arafat himself ordered the shooting (the reasons given vary from the somewhat plausible political motivations to the simply silly). Regardless, Yasser Arafat does of course carry some of the blame for El Ali's killing with him in the grave for having insisted that Kuwait (where he would have been reasonably safe) force the man out. In London, city of international espionage, nobody could be safe with a situation where the government tolerated a modest level of terrorism in order to better keep an eye on all the spooks.
I was reminded of this event, and the debate surrounding who to blame, in a discussion I had on Facebook and thought that it might be a good idea to bring it up on the blog...Despite all the different groups who try to claim him, Naji El Ali was most importantly an artist, whose work can not be commandeered for one cause or the other. So I'm going to remain quiet about what I think and instead post a site in honour of Handala, El Ali's emblematic character who became the poster boy for Palestinian refugees: http://www.handala.org
Friday, July 13, 2007
Where my Limits Stop
It's good to test one's limits. So after I've been blogging ceaselessly about the shortcomings of my religion of birth and my co-religionists (such as it were), it is quite relieving, in a way, to be offended by some crass type of assault on Islam. It almost makes me realise I still have some religious bones in my body; or perhaps I still have some concept of good taste.
The latest viral video to be doing the rounds in this part of the world, which will completely not help the "dialogue of civilisations", a recording of a young American woman soldier describing how a mosque on her base in the Middle East is regularly used for sexual liasons or, as our friend here from (what I believe is) Camp Doha in Kuwait puts it "a fuck". So when we learn that not only the rank-and-file but that Commissioned Officers are going into a "Hajji Church" to escape the heat of the desert and the monotony of barracks life, I was surprised to find myself in a mad rage. This type of thing should not be treated lightly, which is why I'm hoping this video gets a wide circulation--it is building steadily in Kuwait--and that somebody finds a way of doing something about it.
Now I'm wise enough to know that this sort of thing does and will happen--in an almost reciprocal way, I knew of Arab immigrants abusing the hospitality of churches in Europe (I remember having to explain to some fellows who I was helping with assylum applications that they shouldn't be putting out their cigarettes in a church garden), and amongst Europeans themselves there is the regular use of churchyards by the downtrodden to shoot heroin and sleep rough. The difference is, these people were not the downtrodden of the world; they were armed, trained members of a foreign army for which the host country has been ludicrously welcoming. What's more, and I suspect this will be the biggest factor in the dessemination of this video and its contents, our lovely GI Jane here saw fit to publicise her act through an oh-so-Yankee game of Truth or Dare, as if it were a flippant indiscretion, on the same level as kissing your married boss on the lips after one too many drinks at the Christmas party. Maybe this is how we deserve to be treated: We've gone and allowed this foreign army to come down and take out another Arab leader. This is what you get.
The latest viral video to be doing the rounds in this part of the world, which will completely not help the "dialogue of civilisations", a recording of a young American woman soldier describing how a mosque on her base in the Middle East is regularly used for sexual liasons or, as our friend here from (what I believe is) Camp Doha in Kuwait puts it "a fuck". So when we learn that not only the rank-and-file but that Commissioned Officers are going into a "Hajji Church" to escape the heat of the desert and the monotony of barracks life, I was surprised to find myself in a mad rage. This type of thing should not be treated lightly, which is why I'm hoping this video gets a wide circulation--it is building steadily in Kuwait--and that somebody finds a way of doing something about it.
Now I'm wise enough to know that this sort of thing does and will happen--in an almost reciprocal way, I knew of Arab immigrants abusing the hospitality of churches in Europe (I remember having to explain to some fellows who I was helping with assylum applications that they shouldn't be putting out their cigarettes in a church garden), and amongst Europeans themselves there is the regular use of churchyards by the downtrodden to shoot heroin and sleep rough. The difference is, these people were not the downtrodden of the world; they were armed, trained members of a foreign army for which the host country has been ludicrously welcoming. What's more, and I suspect this will be the biggest factor in the dessemination of this video and its contents, our lovely GI Jane here saw fit to publicise her act through an oh-so-Yankee game of Truth or Dare, as if it were a flippant indiscretion, on the same level as kissing your married boss on the lips after one too many drinks at the Christmas party. Maybe this is how we deserve to be treated: We've gone and allowed this foreign army to come down and take out another Arab leader. This is what you get.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Two Eagles Saved: Spun Gold for the Apologists of Israel
With a strategic victory downright impossible for either side, it is now a cliche that the war over television audiences' perception of the Palestine conflict is as important as any short-term military gains. At the beginning of the intifada, spokesmen of the Israeli state did not shirk from appearing, speaking Arabic, on Arab television screens to present their "case" (that Al Jazeera bent over backwards and made this possible, through a brave show of professionalism, is a long-overlooked fact in the Western media). Palestinians meanwhile learned a few tricks in the early days of battle: Michael Tarazi and Diana Buttu--a face it was hard to argue with--were brought out to Anglophone television viewers, instead of the regular bald, moustached party apparatchiks who were previously tasked with these missions (the re-appearance of this stereotype, in the person of Sufyan Abu Zaida, on Al Jazeera International recently, is a sad reminder of those Bad Old Days of the Palestinian image). So when an Israeli park ranger finds out that 2 endangered Golden Eagles were being "held" in Hebron, in what he later described as "cramped conditions", the mis-named Israel Defense Forces jumped at the opportunity for a media coup.
Surely, it must be a source of some consternation, not to say confusion, for the family of Gilad Shalit: If the Israeli military was willing to search the homes of innocent Palestinians in Hebron for the sake of two feathered friends, why not go look for Shalit in Gaza? Of course, the so-called Defense Forces might have taken the time to investigate what their settlers are doing to the defense-less people of Hebron (warning: You really need to prepare youself before watching this video), but about this I have not received any advice. Could it be, and in a way I hate to suggest this, that the Israeli authorities are actually more interested in scoring media points than might be healthy for a state? Or perhaps, that Israel is in need of proving, to itself for a start, what makes Israel, Israel?
The recent release of Alan Johnston paved the way for what will become EU acceptance of the Palestinian government (I have discussed this before)--the earlier one...or the emergency one... the Hamas cabinet, you know what I mean--and this left Israel badly in need of proving something to the world, at least to the Western world, and maybe the best step was to show, once again, just how "Western" Israel is in relation to the surrounding barbarians, i.e. me, my family and my mates. Now, with an ever-changing, dynamic Palestinian society, this is becoming difficult. Palestinian feminists would claim that the situation for women in Palestine is not quite equitous but, as our elections process, and the very existence of feminists suggest, we are not Saudi Arabia. Even the Alan Johnston debacle brought out the very best of Palestine: it displayed our "civil society" of trades unions and associations and school boards, where it became clear just how "modern" Palestinian society could be.
On the other hand, few issues show the differing world views of East and West as much as the treatment of animals, or animal "rights" as some would have it. In my new-old home on the Arabian Peninsula, there is much adoration for the beasts of Bedouin lore: the horse, the bird of prey and, garden space permitting, the Seluki hound, but even these here are now a novelty in the homes of the rich or trophies, with little appreciation of our relation, as humans, to these creatures. To be sure, these eagles, had they reached market, would have been the cherished living room ornaments of a harmless, pot-bellied "Lt Colonel" in the Palestinian armed services, who would have called himself "Abu Nisrain" (or "Father of the Two Eagles" in Modern Arabic--the word Nisr is actually "vulture" in Medieaval Arabic, but I digress), because our Lt Colonel friend is embarrassingly childless as of this writing, and wanted to use the eagles them to remind himself, and bemused guests working for European aid agencies, of his once-famous masculinity, which reached its peak back in the pay-as-you-go days of the Beirut Corniche.
For the now-dejected Abu Nisrain, his eagles have left his man-fantasy and gone to live in a theme-park world of Israeli nature enthusiasts, for whom nature, feathered, four-legged and scaly-skinned (and I'm not just talking about Netanyahu) fits into their Western model of nationalism. For us this is not so.
I was recently a guest--prisoner?--at the Kuwait Imax cinema where I saw the Siegfried and Roy flick. It struck me that it could have passed for a Nazi propaganda film paid for by the Las Vegas tourist board. Then I was taken back to an even more disturbing thought that has recurred to me over the years: If the European nationalists can weave a love of their surrounding "nature" into the story of their nationalism, why not us? We have no alps to worship, but there are some amazing pine forests in Greater Syria and Oman is blessed with mountain ranges, waterfalls, sand dunes, beaches... (OK, just get out of these parentheses and go to Oman). We do have our own instance of nature and natural beauty, and perhaps our lack of nationalistic pride in who we are and where we come from--literally--has resulted in a complete absence of any environmentalist movement to speak of within the Arab Homeland (I hate the phrase "Arab World" I mean, when did that one come about?). Going back in time, we can see there must have been some sense of pride in the surrounding Old Country. Everybody, or at least everybody who can still read Arabic, knows of the Taghreebit Bani Hilal and the love the refugees who were scattered to Palestine and Morocco had for the old country of Najd. Many air-conditioned shopping malls and American fast food restaurants later, the attachments with the old country are under threat, and the vast piles of rubbish left in the desert by picnicers never elicit a word of serious protest. We have hastily decided that the desert is a place of itchy sand and kept only the paternalistic politics of Bedouin life, abandoning the environment to fend for itself.
So all in all this episode has been for me, as so many others have, a multi-layered disaster. While our in-house rifts prevent us from capitalising on the safe release of Johnston, the Israelis take two golden eagles all the way to the bank. A further two of my own countrymen, however dim and misguided for trying to sell two eagles, are now to be detained in conditions which will probably make an eagle's cage seem luxurious. Lt Colonel Abu Nisrain will now be staring ever more vacuously into his child-less existence, and will probably beat his wife, who will accept her fate as a desperate soul in an increasingly lawless realm run by men with guns. Ergo, we are now less modern, and this sucks.
Surely, it must be a source of some consternation, not to say confusion, for the family of Gilad Shalit: If the Israeli military was willing to search the homes of innocent Palestinians in Hebron for the sake of two feathered friends, why not go look for Shalit in Gaza? Of course, the so-called Defense Forces might have taken the time to investigate what their settlers are doing to the defense-less people of Hebron (warning: You really need to prepare youself before watching this video), but about this I have not received any advice. Could it be, and in a way I hate to suggest this, that the Israeli authorities are actually more interested in scoring media points than might be healthy for a state? Or perhaps, that Israel is in need of proving, to itself for a start, what makes Israel, Israel?
The recent release of Alan Johnston paved the way for what will become EU acceptance of the Palestinian government (I have discussed this before)--the earlier one...or the emergency one... the Hamas cabinet, you know what I mean--and this left Israel badly in need of proving something to the world, at least to the Western world, and maybe the best step was to show, once again, just how "Western" Israel is in relation to the surrounding barbarians, i.e. me, my family and my mates. Now, with an ever-changing, dynamic Palestinian society, this is becoming difficult. Palestinian feminists would claim that the situation for women in Palestine is not quite equitous but, as our elections process, and the very existence of feminists suggest, we are not Saudi Arabia. Even the Alan Johnston debacle brought out the very best of Palestine: it displayed our "civil society" of trades unions and associations and school boards, where it became clear just how "modern" Palestinian society could be.
On the other hand, few issues show the differing world views of East and West as much as the treatment of animals, or animal "rights" as some would have it. In my new-old home on the Arabian Peninsula, there is much adoration for the beasts of Bedouin lore: the horse, the bird of prey and, garden space permitting, the Seluki hound, but even these here are now a novelty in the homes of the rich or trophies, with little appreciation of our relation, as humans, to these creatures. To be sure, these eagles, had they reached market, would have been the cherished living room ornaments of a harmless, pot-bellied "Lt Colonel" in the Palestinian armed services, who would have called himself "Abu Nisrain" (or "Father of the Two Eagles" in Modern Arabic--the word Nisr is actually "vulture" in Medieaval Arabic, but I digress), because our Lt Colonel friend is embarrassingly childless as of this writing, and wanted to use the eagles them to remind himself, and bemused guests working for European aid agencies, of his once-famous masculinity, which reached its peak back in the pay-as-you-go days of the Beirut Corniche.
For the now-dejected Abu Nisrain, his eagles have left his man-fantasy and gone to live in a theme-park world of Israeli nature enthusiasts, for whom nature, feathered, four-legged and scaly-skinned (and I'm not just talking about Netanyahu) fits into their Western model of nationalism. For us this is not so.
I was recently a guest--prisoner?--at the Kuwait Imax cinema where I saw the Siegfried and Roy flick. It struck me that it could have passed for a Nazi propaganda film paid for by the Las Vegas tourist board. Then I was taken back to an even more disturbing thought that has recurred to me over the years: If the European nationalists can weave a love of their surrounding "nature" into the story of their nationalism, why not us? We have no alps to worship, but there are some amazing pine forests in Greater Syria and Oman is blessed with mountain ranges, waterfalls, sand dunes, beaches... (OK, just get out of these parentheses and go to Oman). We do have our own instance of nature and natural beauty, and perhaps our lack of nationalistic pride in who we are and where we come from--literally--has resulted in a complete absence of any environmentalist movement to speak of within the Arab Homeland (I hate the phrase "Arab World" I mean, when did that one come about?). Going back in time, we can see there must have been some sense of pride in the surrounding Old Country. Everybody, or at least everybody who can still read Arabic, knows of the Taghreebit Bani Hilal and the love the refugees who were scattered to Palestine and Morocco had for the old country of Najd. Many air-conditioned shopping malls and American fast food restaurants later, the attachments with the old country are under threat, and the vast piles of rubbish left in the desert by picnicers never elicit a word of serious protest. We have hastily decided that the desert is a place of itchy sand and kept only the paternalistic politics of Bedouin life, abandoning the environment to fend for itself.
So all in all this episode has been for me, as so many others have, a multi-layered disaster. While our in-house rifts prevent us from capitalising on the safe release of Johnston, the Israelis take two golden eagles all the way to the bank. A further two of my own countrymen, however dim and misguided for trying to sell two eagles, are now to be detained in conditions which will probably make an eagle's cage seem luxurious. Lt Colonel Abu Nisrain will now be staring ever more vacuously into his child-less existence, and will probably beat his wife, who will accept her fate as a desperate soul in an increasingly lawless realm run by men with guns. Ergo, we are now less modern, and this sucks.
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