Sunday, August 21, 2011
They said, I thought
They said, I thought
John Dunbar said:
''When I know who you are, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you! ''
I thought:
When I serve you knowing who you are and when I am you knowing who I am: I serve myself when I serve you.
John Dunbar said:
‘’ You never lose. You always win.’’ John Dunbar
I thought:
We only lose when we think there is loss.
Will Steel said:
‘’Life is meaningless ‘’
I thought:
It does not mean anything that life does not mean anything.
Will Steel said:
‘’Our suffering is our meaning’’
I thought:
We are imprisoned in our meaning. We are trapped in the false reflection of our words.
Will Steel said:
'' Having an extraordinary life is about being unreasonable''
I thought:
Maturity is the realization that irrationality is what makes you live a full vivid life!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Drop the Orientalist term ‘Arab Spring’
Drop the Orientalist term ‘Arab Spring’August 17, 2011 12:32 AMBy Rami G. Khouri
| The Daily Star |
A fascinating aspect of the current wave of citizen revolts that is toppling, challenging or reforming regimes across the Arab world is that people around the world use different terms to describe the phenomenon. The term that seems to have gained much currency across the Western world is “the Arab Spring.” I find this totally inappropriate, and have banished it from my own writing and speaking. I urge my fellow journalists to consider doing the same.
The most important reason for this is that this term is not used at all by those brave men and women who have been on the streets demonstrating and dying for seven months now. Every time I run into a Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian, Bahraini or Yemeni, I ask them how they refer to their own political actions. Their answer is an almost universal, “Revolution” (or thawra, in Arabic). And when they refer to the collective activities of Arabs across the region, they often use the plural “revolutions” (or thawrat).
They also use descriptor collective-nouns such as the Arab “uprising” (intifada), the Arab “awakening” (sahwa), or the Arab renaissance (nahda), the latter mirroring the initial Arab Awakening against Ottoman and European domination in the early years of the 20th century. I personally like the term “Arab citizen revolt,” which captures the common demand among all Arab demonstrators to enjoy full citizenship rights with appropriate constitutional guarantees.
The terms Arabs use to describe themselves are far stronger and more substantive than “Arab Spring.” Inherent in the term “spring,” for sure, is the idea of an awakening after the winter slumber. However, it also denotes a brief or limited transitional moment that soon gives way to the next season of summer. It mirrors Czechoslovakia’s brief “Prague Spring” liberalism of 1968, which the Russians quickly halted, and also the European revolutions of 1848 a century earlier.
Tellingly, the “spring” metaphor was not applied to the revolutions that swept the Soviet Empire in the 1980s and early 1990s. When real change happens, the world tends to describe this as a revolution, not a spring – except, it seems, in the Arab world.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but I am troubled by the unspoken connotations that accompany calling this phenomenon a “spring,” which downplays the severity of the challenge to existing regimes and downgrades the intensity and depth of the courage that ordinary men and women summon when they dare to take on their often brutal, well armed national security services. “Spring” is a passive term – it just happens to people – helpless people who have no power and no say in the process. The terms that Arabs use to describe themselves epitomize activism, will, empowerment, determination and agency, denoting citizens who have the power to change their world and are going about that business with diligence and perseverance.
I suspect that the popularity of the “Arab Spring” term across the Western world quietly mirrors some subtle Orientalism at work, lumping all Arabs as a single mass of people who all think and behave the same way. It might also hide another troubling factor: Many quarters of many Western lands remain hesitant in fully acknowledging – let alone embracing or supporting – the implications of free Arabs pursuing self-determination who have the power to define their countries and shape their national policies.
Western powers for the past century and a half or so have assumed that they can shape and control most aspects of power and policy across the Arab world, whether due to imperial self-interest, energy requirements, economic needs, or pro-Israeli biases. As Arab citizens shed docility and threaten to take control of their own societies, many in the West are unsure how to deal with this possibility.
Perhaps some in the West also do not want to acknowledge the full reality of Arabs reconfiguring their power structures, because Western powers (including Russia) supported those old, failed authoritarian systems that are now being challenged and changed. An “Arab Spring” conveniently removes the element of culpability and foreign complicity in the dark, bitter and endless “winter” that we endured for three generations of incompetent Arab police and family-mafia states.
Revolutionary, self-assertive Arabs frighten many people abroad. Softer Arabs who sway with the seasons and the winds may be more comforting. However, if in their greatest moment of modern historical self-assertion and nationalist struggle Arab citizenries find that major politicians and media in the West refer to them in the vocabulary of the wind and tides, we are certain to continue feeling the century-long impact of the great battle of colonialism versus nationalist resistance that seems still to define the Arab region’s relations with many Western powers.
Language may be the easiest place to start reversing this troubling legacy. Dropping the term “Arab Spring” for something more accurate is my suggested starting point.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
The most important reason for this is that this term is not used at all by those brave men and women who have been on the streets demonstrating and dying for seven months now. Every time I run into a Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian, Bahraini or Yemeni, I ask them how they refer to their own political actions. Their answer is an almost universal, “Revolution” (or thawra, in Arabic). And when they refer to the collective activities of Arabs across the region, they often use the plural “revolutions” (or thawrat).
They also use descriptor collective-nouns such as the Arab “uprising” (intifada), the Arab “awakening” (sahwa), or the Arab renaissance (nahda), the latter mirroring the initial Arab Awakening against Ottoman and European domination in the early years of the 20th century. I personally like the term “Arab citizen revolt,” which captures the common demand among all Arab demonstrators to enjoy full citizenship rights with appropriate constitutional guarantees.
The terms Arabs use to describe themselves are far stronger and more substantive than “Arab Spring.” Inherent in the term “spring,” for sure, is the idea of an awakening after the winter slumber. However, it also denotes a brief or limited transitional moment that soon gives way to the next season of summer. It mirrors Czechoslovakia’s brief “Prague Spring” liberalism of 1968, which the Russians quickly halted, and also the European revolutions of 1848 a century earlier.
Tellingly, the “spring” metaphor was not applied to the revolutions that swept the Soviet Empire in the 1980s and early 1990s. When real change happens, the world tends to describe this as a revolution, not a spring – except, it seems, in the Arab world.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but I am troubled by the unspoken connotations that accompany calling this phenomenon a “spring,” which downplays the severity of the challenge to existing regimes and downgrades the intensity and depth of the courage that ordinary men and women summon when they dare to take on their often brutal, well armed national security services. “Spring” is a passive term – it just happens to people – helpless people who have no power and no say in the process. The terms that Arabs use to describe themselves epitomize activism, will, empowerment, determination and agency, denoting citizens who have the power to change their world and are going about that business with diligence and perseverance.
I suspect that the popularity of the “Arab Spring” term across the Western world quietly mirrors some subtle Orientalism at work, lumping all Arabs as a single mass of people who all think and behave the same way. It might also hide another troubling factor: Many quarters of many Western lands remain hesitant in fully acknowledging – let alone embracing or supporting – the implications of free Arabs pursuing self-determination who have the power to define their countries and shape their national policies.
Western powers for the past century and a half or so have assumed that they can shape and control most aspects of power and policy across the Arab world, whether due to imperial self-interest, energy requirements, economic needs, or pro-Israeli biases. As Arab citizens shed docility and threaten to take control of their own societies, many in the West are unsure how to deal with this possibility.
Perhaps some in the West also do not want to acknowledge the full reality of Arabs reconfiguring their power structures, because Western powers (including Russia) supported those old, failed authoritarian systems that are now being challenged and changed. An “Arab Spring” conveniently removes the element of culpability and foreign complicity in the dark, bitter and endless “winter” that we endured for three generations of incompetent Arab police and family-mafia states.
Revolutionary, self-assertive Arabs frighten many people abroad. Softer Arabs who sway with the seasons and the winds may be more comforting. However, if in their greatest moment of modern historical self-assertion and nationalist struggle Arab citizenries find that major politicians and media in the West refer to them in the vocabulary of the wind and tides, we are certain to continue feeling the century-long impact of the great battle of colonialism versus nationalist resistance that seems still to define the Arab region’s relations with many Western powers.
Language may be the easiest place to start reversing this troubling legacy. Dropping the term “Arab Spring” for something more accurate is my suggested starting point.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2011/Aug-17/Drop-the-Orientalist-term-Arab-Spring.ashx#ixzz1VIkdj89i
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Love is Real Immortality!
Ernest Hemingway: All men fear death. It's a natural fear that consumes us all. We fear death because we feel that we haven't loved well enough or loved at all, which ultimately are one and the same. However, when you make love with a truly great woman, one that deserves the utmost respect in this world and one that makes you feel truly powerful, that fear of death completely disappears. Because when you are sharing your body and heart with a great woman, the world fades away. You two are the only ones in the entire universe. You conquer what most lesser men have never conquered before, you have conquered a great woman's heart, the most vulnerable thing she can offer to another. Death no longer lingers in the mind. Fear no longer clouds your heart. Only passion for living, and for loving, become your sole reality. This is no easy task for it takes insurmountable courage. But remember this, for that moment when you are making love with a woman true greatness you will feel immortal.
As quoted in Audy Allen's latest movie Midnight in Paris.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Jalal ad-Din Rumi __ I am not from this world
Why think thus O men of piety
I have returned to sobriety
I am neither a Moslem nor a Hindu
I am not Christian, Zoroastrian, nor Jew
I am neither of the West nor the East
Not of the ocean, nor an earthly beast
I am neither a natural wonder
Nor from the stars yonder
Neither flesh of dust, nor wind inspire
Nor water in veins, nor made of fire
I am neither an earthly carpet, nor gems terrestrial
Nor am I confined to Creation, nor the Throne Celestial
Not of ancient promises, nor of future prophecy
Not of hellish anguish, nor of paradisic ecstasy
Neither the progeny of Adam, nor Eve
Nor of the world of heavenly make-believe
My place is the no-place
My image is without face
Neither of body nor the soul
I am of the Divine Whole.
I eliminated duality with joyous laughter
Saw the unity of here and the hereafter
Unity is what I sing, unity is what I speak
Unity is what I know, unity is what I seek
Intoxicated from the chalice of Love
I have lost both worlds below and above
Sole destiny that comes to me
Licentious mendicity
In my whole life, even if once
Forgot His name even per chance
For that hour spent, for such moment
I'd give my life, and thus repent
Beloved Master, Shams-e Tabrizi
In this world with Love I'm so drunk
The path of Love isn't easy
I am shipwrecked and must be sunk.
I have returned to sobriety
I am neither a Moslem nor a Hindu
I am not Christian, Zoroastrian, nor Jew
I am neither of the West nor the East
Not of the ocean, nor an earthly beast
I am neither a natural wonder
Nor from the stars yonder
Neither flesh of dust, nor wind inspire
Nor water in veins, nor made of fire
I am neither an earthly carpet, nor gems terrestrial
Nor am I confined to Creation, nor the Throne Celestial
Not of ancient promises, nor of future prophecy
Not of hellish anguish, nor of paradisic ecstasy
Neither the progeny of Adam, nor Eve
Nor of the world of heavenly make-believe
My place is the no-place
My image is without face
Neither of body nor the soul
I am of the Divine Whole.
I eliminated duality with joyous laughter
Saw the unity of here and the hereafter
Unity is what I sing, unity is what I speak
Unity is what I know, unity is what I seek
Intoxicated from the chalice of Love
I have lost both worlds below and above
Sole destiny that comes to me
Licentious mendicity
In my whole life, even if once
Forgot His name even per chance
For that hour spent, for such moment
I'd give my life, and thus repent
Beloved Master, Shams-e Tabrizi
In this world with Love I'm so drunk
The path of Love isn't easy
I am shipwrecked and must be sunk.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Meet the man steering social media to challenge Saudi ban on women drivers | IJNet
by Heba Albiety
To challenge Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving, activists this summer got behind the wheel -- and in front of their computer and smart phone screens with a social media campaign.
But it wasn't only women agitating for their right to drive. In fact, it was a man who launched the campaign, Saudi Women for Driving on Facebook,Twitter and YouTube to support “Women Driver’s Day,”.
That man, Ali AlAhmad, is a Saudi journalist, researcher, activist and expert in Saudi political affairs and Saudi-American relations. He's broken well-known stories including the murder of Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl.
AlAhmad, who has taught his sisters and friends to drive, launched the campaign to drum up international support for Saudi women. He videotaped messages of support from women from women around the world.
IJNet talked with AlAhmad in Washington D.C. about the campaign.
IJNet: When and why did you decide to organize the Saudi Women’s Driving Campaign?
I decided to organize the campaign right after Manal AlSharief’s arrest for challenging the driving ban on women. I thought the campaign would encourage more Saudi women to break the ban and start driving publicly.
IJNet: Why did you use social media to promote the campaign?
I think social media is the most effective medium in countries that lack freedom of expression where traditional media does not reflect the real concerns of people.
IJNet: A Saudi male organizes a campaign that supports women’s rights. How did that happen?
The women’s driving campaign will not help only females but also males. The more we allow women to practice their rights and become more independent, the more women will share responsibilities with men and the easier life becomes for both of us. The campaign encourages women to make a choice and decide whether they want to drive or not. I support this action of making a choice and taking a decision.
IJNet: Do you know of any other men who supported the campaign?
The husbands, brothers, or sons of some Saudi women who took on the streets and started their engines accompanied them and/or videotaped while they were driving.
IJNet: How did using social media help the campaign?
I cannot think of any other way I could have done it if I did not use social media. The government can block websites whose content contradicts with their policy. On the other hand, they cannot block Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube because they do not want to ruin their image in front of the world.
IJNet: Do you think people’s reliance on social media reflects their distrust of traditional media?
In countries like Saudi Arabia, no one relies on official TV stations or on traditional media anymore. Saudis now get news from social media because it is the only place where they can get away from heavy censorship. People feel that traditional media is outdated because it does not reflect their concerns and their views. Not only that, people feel that the official media is fooling them.
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