July, 2006
Amman
El Mawardi Cafe, al-Rabiya
I was meeting my friend Rami for the first time since he relocated to Jordan since 2005, he has brought his friend, Mohammed, with him. Mohammed is a very pleasent, good-natured kid, he's three years younger than both of us, and he's a Shiite. Rami is also a Shiite, but his mother is a Sunni. After a pleasant introduction and a slew of jokes to break the ice, I asked Mohammed why did he move to Jordan. This is what he said:
My father, Ali, runs a contracting firm in al-Harthiya district in Baghdad. Six months ago, masked gunmen broke into his firm, beat my father until he was unconscious, then took him and dumped him in the trunk, and rode on...my father woke up shortly thereafter, and the first thing he did was empty his pocket of all the business cards of foreign firms. After a long and bumpy ride, the gunmen took my father and threw him in an empty room in a deserted, dirty house. They accused him of working with the crusading occupation.
The gunmen called on Mohammed's family, and demanded a big chunk of money as ransom (I can't remember the exact amount, but it was impossible), they wanted it in two days notice or his father will be beheaded.
Those two days were, needless to say, frantic. In between sits with his mother, his uncles and cousins, and selling everything they can get their hands on...Mohammed's family managed to obtain the desired sum.
As for his father, the Mujahideen said to him: You shall spend the day alone, tomorrow the Emir will come and decide what your fate shall be.
and with these words, they left. and Ali slept.
With the fact that Ali's father deals with foreign firms (Mohammed didn't say exactly what was the type of business) and his Shi'ism, there was little chance that the Emir will persuaded to understand the concept of mercy in this case. Also bear in mind that back in 2005, sectarain killings weren't as audacious as they were today, they were usually veiled in ransoms.
Sometime after that, Ali's father woke up, alone. After a time of defeated idleness...Ali decided that he will not go down without a fight, he tried with all his might to do something about the rope that ties his hands...after much wriggling, the rope somewhat let loose and he was freed - after a brief euphoria, Ali realized that nothing much has been achieved, perhaps the Mujahideen didn't care much about tying him up, because the room was locked and there was only a small, high window that will not provide exit to anything but a cat.
So this is how it ends, huh?
Ali's father looked around, gave up and cried...
Is there a God? the question was posed for centuries past, but in this particular case, I strongly think so.
As as footnote, Ali's father decided to feel the bricks in the wall, which was unpainted. Lucklily, one brick was loose...Ali's father did all what he can to further pull the brick out of way, after much work and effort, he did pull it out, and used it to destory the adjacent bricks.
Half an hour later, Ali's father went out in the open like a madman who has never seen the sun...the area in which he was was semi-barren, he went running into the middle of the desert, people who were in the area fled, and as he was crying for help from a pick-up truck, the driver alarmingly drove away, Ali's father collapsed in the middle of the street.
10 minutes later, however, the pick-up truck returned, carried Ali, and provided water and food for him. He drove him down into Ramadi, found a way for him to get into Baghdad, and wished him well with these words: "This is just you know that not everyone in Ramadi are bad people. I bid you farewell."
Ali's father returned late that day, the next morning, Mohammed and his uncles were supposed to hand a briefcase filled with cash to the Mujahideen in exchange for Ali's safety.
They were sitting dead silent when Ali's father came banging on the door....his mother cried again, but this time it was tears of joy.
The next day, Mohammed, his father Ali, his mother and his siters were on the road leading to Ramadi again, but this time they weren't stopping until they reach all the way to Amman, Jordan.
NOTE: The father's real name is not Ali, in the previous story, the boy was actually named Omar. I am recounting the story from my memory, so several details may be missing.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Mixed Emotions
On the end of my last post, I wrote: "and I can't wait to see what happens next, Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life"
and what a day!
The storm gathered by yesterday's evening...and by the time it was certain...I was too tired and went to sleep, I went to sleep at 2 AM...thinking that sometimes during my sleep, the most famous Iraqi of the 20th century will be executed...
I woke up at 9, mumbled Happy-eids to parents, then headed straight to the TV...and I recieved the images...the first thing that struck me was how unbelievable this was...Saddam was a part of my everyday patterns as a human being, I woke up, ate, drank, shat, slept, and Saddam is the undefeatable tyrant that never dies. It was hard, hard, hard to know that Saddam is no more, he was arrested, humilitaed and sentenced to death and I didn't feel much - but to know that he is gone is very strange - He was a given fact of life! and now he's dead...This doesn't happen in the world that I normally inhibit...
I also must say that from all the people that ruled Iraq at any given time, I do not hate any of them as much as I hate Saddam Hussein - through his stubborn Great Leader complex he has made us suffer so much, and pretty much a lot of the blame for the distingeration of Iraq as a fabric can be laid squarely on his shoulders, but while I was seeing these images, I had to keep reminding myself how much I hated Saddam Hussein, because they were flat-out disgusting. The problem of our politicians is that they always have to ruin the good stuff with the bad stuff, Mowafaq al-Rubay'ie, the national security advisor, said that Saddam looked very weak and pathetic while he was taking his final steps, but in the images I watched he looked just as brave, magnificent and charismatic as ever, despite his great evils, I must say that Saddam Hussein is the bravest guy that ever ruled Iraq. The problem is that Saddam is an extremely charismatic figure, he can drive many people to inspiration and is simply the most bravest man of all his opponents, Muwafaq, al-Maliki, al-Jaafari and al-Hakim wouldn't stand for two seconds alone with this guy, they all ran weeping to Americans...It's just, unfair, that they should be sing-songing like this while not only are they as cruel as he, but they are nowhere as brave or influential as him.
While I think that Saddam deserves a thousand hangings, I completely disapprove of the way they have handled this - they chose a very bad timing for it, the holy Eid is a day of joy, of happiness, of forgiveness, people do not want to start their day by watching a man insulted a thousand times with a rope at his neck, true, I completely understand the fact that there are hundreds of families who are glad to see Saddam suffer and die like their sons and families did, but they are not all Iraqis, and they are not all people, and true, maybe Shiites would feel there might be a religious conrguence for this timing as it is harmonious with the vengeful nature of Shiite Islam, as hatred of tyranny and cruel avengance are major pillars in their sect, but with the confusion of Iraqis everywhere and growing tensions, such delicate matters should not be handled as bluntly as they were when all the other people watch these images accompanied by the whole lot of insults and curses, on such a holy peaceful occasion, the feeling they give you is one of complete injustice and being cruller than the man they are hanging.
The joy that could have been to see Saddam executed was lost in the bad conditions to which Iraq is heading, from a strategic point of view, Saddam's killing could go a long way in dispiriting Baathists, as Baath is largely a personality cult - it is without doubt a significant hit to morale, but it still remains unknown how far could this psychologically curb them.
As for our naive Arab brothers here and Jordan, they completely condemned and rejected the sentence, they lost a 'great Arab leader who was the only one with balls' - yeah, Saddam did stand up, but look at the price we paid for that little hypocrisy of his.
I am sure many Iraqis have been relieved at the execution, and they have every right to, but it's a shame that this sight has saddened many others by the stupid way it was handled.
I don't know of a precise word for my feelings - Little if at all joy, unbelieving numbness and extreme disappointment. I've always wanted Saddam to be killed, but the guy had a way of making you feel sorry for him.
UPDATES: Here is the complete Saddam execution video that was partly aired on al-Jazzeera network from Kitabat.com, it's shot using a mobile phone by one of the guards, and it shows how his neck was broken in the end, the guard who shot it stands at the western side of the room - two other version have resurfaced, the other is from the right side of the room and was broadcast at Al-Sharqiya TV (bad audio quality though), while the other displayed photos of Saddam after he was killed and was aired on Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Beladi TV.
also, a fellow Shiite blogger has described this execution in the perfect words, which are the words of Imam Ali himself during the Great Civil War:
"Kalimat Haqq Yuradu Biha Batil"
"A word of right that is used for an implicit wrong."
and what a day!
The storm gathered by yesterday's evening...and by the time it was certain...I was too tired and went to sleep, I went to sleep at 2 AM...thinking that sometimes during my sleep, the most famous Iraqi of the 20th century will be executed...
I woke up at 9, mumbled Happy-eids to parents, then headed straight to the TV...and I recieved the images...the first thing that struck me was how unbelievable this was...Saddam was a part of my everyday patterns as a human being, I woke up, ate, drank, shat, slept, and Saddam is the undefeatable tyrant that never dies. It was hard, hard, hard to know that Saddam is no more, he was arrested, humilitaed and sentenced to death and I didn't feel much - but to know that he is gone is very strange - He was a given fact of life! and now he's dead...This doesn't happen in the world that I normally inhibit...
I also must say that from all the people that ruled Iraq at any given time, I do not hate any of them as much as I hate Saddam Hussein - through his stubborn Great Leader complex he has made us suffer so much, and pretty much a lot of the blame for the distingeration of Iraq as a fabric can be laid squarely on his shoulders, but while I was seeing these images, I had to keep reminding myself how much I hated Saddam Hussein, because they were flat-out disgusting. The problem of our politicians is that they always have to ruin the good stuff with the bad stuff, Mowafaq al-Rubay'ie, the national security advisor, said that Saddam looked very weak and pathetic while he was taking his final steps, but in the images I watched he looked just as brave, magnificent and charismatic as ever, despite his great evils, I must say that Saddam Hussein is the bravest guy that ever ruled Iraq. The problem is that Saddam is an extremely charismatic figure, he can drive many people to inspiration and is simply the most bravest man of all his opponents, Muwafaq, al-Maliki, al-Jaafari and al-Hakim wouldn't stand for two seconds alone with this guy, they all ran weeping to Americans...It's just, unfair, that they should be sing-songing like this while not only are they as cruel as he, but they are nowhere as brave or influential as him.
While I think that Saddam deserves a thousand hangings, I completely disapprove of the way they have handled this - they chose a very bad timing for it, the holy Eid is a day of joy, of happiness, of forgiveness, people do not want to start their day by watching a man insulted a thousand times with a rope at his neck, true, I completely understand the fact that there are hundreds of families who are glad to see Saddam suffer and die like their sons and families did, but they are not all Iraqis, and they are not all people, and true, maybe Shiites would feel there might be a religious conrguence for this timing as it is harmonious with the vengeful nature of Shiite Islam, as hatred of tyranny and cruel avengance are major pillars in their sect, but with the confusion of Iraqis everywhere and growing tensions, such delicate matters should not be handled as bluntly as they were when all the other people watch these images accompanied by the whole lot of insults and curses, on such a holy peaceful occasion, the feeling they give you is one of complete injustice and being cruller than the man they are hanging.
The joy that could have been to see Saddam executed was lost in the bad conditions to which Iraq is heading, from a strategic point of view, Saddam's killing could go a long way in dispiriting Baathists, as Baath is largely a personality cult - it is without doubt a significant hit to morale, but it still remains unknown how far could this psychologically curb them.
As for our naive Arab brothers here and Jordan, they completely condemned and rejected the sentence, they lost a 'great Arab leader who was the only one with balls' - yeah, Saddam did stand up, but look at the price we paid for that little hypocrisy of his.
I am sure many Iraqis have been relieved at the execution, and they have every right to, but it's a shame that this sight has saddened many others by the stupid way it was handled.
I don't know of a precise word for my feelings - Little if at all joy, unbelieving numbness and extreme disappointment. I've always wanted Saddam to be killed, but the guy had a way of making you feel sorry for him.
UPDATES: Here is the complete Saddam execution video that was partly aired on al-Jazzeera network from Kitabat.com, it's shot using a mobile phone by one of the guards, and it shows how his neck was broken in the end, the guard who shot it stands at the western side of the room - two other version have resurfaced, the other is from the right side of the room and was broadcast at Al-Sharqiya TV (bad audio quality though), while the other displayed photos of Saddam after he was killed and was aired on Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Beladi TV.
also, a fellow Shiite blogger has described this execution in the perfect words, which are the words of Imam Ali himself during the Great Civil War:
"Kalimat Haqq Yuradu Biha Batil"
"A word of right that is used for an implicit wrong."
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Iraqis: The Biggest Hypocrites
I have been reading articles here and there saying questioning the 'Iraqi' identification, saying that Iraq is really a bastard country formed of three separate Ottoman states in the early 20th century: Basra, Mosul and Baghdad. Such articles struck me as heavily unrealistic, great nations often come out of unholy marriages, case in point, world's current greatest nation, the United States of America. I came into life with a clear cohesion about the 'Iraqi' citizenship.
But after a while I began to understand where these un-Iraqi sentiments came from, with bloodbaths performed by supposedly authentic Iraqis against their own kinsmen, the social fabric is being quickly ripped apart, people first started throwing the worn-out conspiracy theories about how all these are orchestrated by the 'occupation and the jews', but they know deep down inside that it is not so, the fabric is quickly uncovering the great hypocrisy of the Iraqi nationalism. And it is time to say it out loud to the world.
The sense of Iraq's unity is a paradoxical, dare I say nonexistent thing, I used to think of myself as someone who loves his country, but slowly I became to understand that this was an illusion, like the slogan "Raise your head, you're an Iraqi." Exactly what Iraq has done, from the day it was created to the day that I am writing this to you, that should make me proud? We are a generation who practiced hurling out terms like 'the victorous, proud, chivalrous Arab nation' while in reality we suffered major defeats, exactly like the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which was another disastorous loss where the descendandts of Monkey & Pigs, Jews (Arabic trademark phrase) almost captured age-old Isalmic capital Damascus. We heavily borrow from our ancestors glories to gild our miserable defeats, Iraqi Ba'ath propaganda was never absent from a direct reference to the invention of the wheel, the glories of Nebuchedanezzar, or the linking of the Iran-Iraq war to the 7-th century Qadissiya, etc). We as citizens, would greet our president with cheers and kisses and sworn allegiances, only to shed them the minute we are safe inside our homes. This practice has severely damaged all pride, we are a nation of cowards, tyrants, and morons.
Some people point out to people like us, who left Iraq, saying look at these cowards, we are not cowards, we are realists. The love of the 'country' is a hypcrisy formed by years of living under oppression and refusal to admit defeats. There is nothing that my country has done so far, and I am speaking too for all Arab states, that makes me proud of the fact that I am of its citizens. You can see how this is evident by how people are killing for the sake of sect, religion, their areas, their families, but never their country. Some people, mostly Baathists and their sympathesizers, continue their own bullshit about the 'patriotic Iraqi resistance' and how we are fighting for 'Iraq', shut up, you are fighting for the lost thrones you had. There is no such thing as an Iraqi resistance, and there never, ever was. It was al-Qaeda and Baathists all the way, I don't hate Mes'ood Barazani as much as I hate Saddam Hussein, because the first guy is a motherfucker who's at least frank about it, but the latter, Saddam ibn al kahba abu el gawad Hussein, is a hypocrite who can still make people follow him out of mere cowardice to admit how pathetic we all are, continuing an idiotic routine of hypocritic national identification.
There are some things that could hint of a national identification, for example, when you go outside Iraq and u feel like a total stranger, you try hard to find other Iraqis like you, forgetting how incredibly hateful they were back home. There are bonds that are evident in places like gameshows, soccer matches, but they are also incredibly hypocritical, they don't amount to anything more than that and precisely that, as long as the more effective political hypocrisy is in effect, all other identifications are merely so that we won't be "caught with our pants down" in the face of the world.
This is why many Arabs support Osama bin Laden, because he is a guy who doesn't bullshit around and actually does something, I think Bin Laden is a big criminal and a great danger on Islam because of that precise fact, he's a person who understands Arabs need to stop hypocrisy with action.
Wherever i go in Jordan, I look at phrases like "Jordan First", I watch Egyptian movies where the ultimate cause is "the country of Egypt", but Maybe countries like UAE have something to be proud of, but these are money-bought flourishes that are brittle fronts that will be demolished with a few hammerings here and there. Iraq is particularly a good example of Arab hypocrisy, becuase all its glories are lies while its people degenrated into morons, some people want Saddam back, you monkeys - at least psychologically, do u want to return to a stable, but paradoixcal state of glorifiying Saddam's farts and belches? Some people said this is because of Saddam, well he's gone now and look what have you done to the country? IT IS YOU. YOURSELVES. this is why we must stop the hypocrisy of identifiying with "Iraq" in its current meaning and be brave enough and say how much of a losers we all are. I do not hate my country, but I don't really care for it that much, I'd love to see it flourishing and stable, but I wouldn't die for it, so it's not enough - the difference is that I'm brave enough to say it. I only love my family, my friends, and recently my area (as a post-effect of the sectarain civil war), but I don't really love my country. In fact, I think it's a big shame that people are dying becuase of such a stupid, hypocritical lie. I would cut my arm and hand it to you on a plate if you can find me a single Iraqi who'd die for his own country. There's just no such thing. Islamism is real, Shiism is real, Iranianism is real, al-Qaeda is real, but al-Ba'ath party is the true example of Iraqi patriotism: fake identifications with a myth of glory that is based upon truer past achievements that we had nothing to do with.
I leave you with the words of an Iraqi writer on the Internet which has greatly moved me, I have added a few of my own here and there:
"I write these lines with big sadness and grief because I belong to this country of cowards and tyrants, this is the truth that many of you are trying to hide, how we are people who are divided into many factions, most importantly of which is the one of cowardice and the one of overlords, you are killed by the thousands in your areas, villages, streets, houses, in the middle of your families, you are slaughtered and you cannot even lift a finger in the face of your killers, what a bunch of losers, you see your brothers and sons killed and you scatter like mice trying to protect yourself and shouting slogans in the air, knowning fully well how much of a bullshit are you promoting and that your turn is next, that you will die not of honor, but of shame, when a tyrant comes to the throne you bow to him without a word, which is what you desrve. I am an "Iraqi" like you, I am not a Baathist, not an Islamist, not a Saffavid, not a Persian, not a Shiite, not a Sunni, I am a person who stands up and says it like it is, listen to the truth, you are people who have created new idols for themselves, idols not made of stones like the "Sadr Martyr" who a great deal of people worship now, let a person curse Allah in front of you and you will leave him be, but let him curse Sayyid al-Sadr and you will race for killing him and spilling his blood. Die, Suffer, Move, get kidnapped, burn in vain for you and all you who claim to be Iraqis.
As for the tyrants, who are people who understood how cowards are driven by the same fake wordplay and have adapted to leading them, he who says that Saddam is the tyrant i say to him that a great deal of Iraqis are potential tyrants.
I stand here believing these words until the final moment of my life and I will try to shed this ugly disgusting skin of Iraqism that you are proud of at public but privately shun and spit at until I become of the nothingness of this universe."
To be "hip" (lol) with the times, I will quote an 8th century speech by a famous Iraqi tyrant, al-Hajjaj bin Youssif al-Thaqafi, who is often compared with Saddam, in which he desrcibes Iraqis, the speech is famous and the line : "people of shikak and nifak" (land of division and hypocrisy) is an insult that is used until today, rightfully so - While this speech greatly insults the Great Iraqi People, I think today it applies to all Arabs in general, but particulalry Iraqis:
"O People of Iraq, I see that heads have bloomed and it is time to pick them, and I am their picker. By Allah, It is as if I am looking at the blood between the turbans and beards, By Allah, O People of Iraq, the Caliph Abdul-Malik has looked amongst his leaders, and found me the most bitter and the most severe, so he made me rule over you, O People of Iraq, O People of Shikak and Nifaq, and the worst of Akhlaaq (manners), You have long embroiled in division, and have fallen to the climate of the deception, By God I will smite u by hammers, and beat u like sheep. You are people who were safe and had a plenty of God's gifts, but you rejected the virutes of God, so he unleashed his promise that he promised for all cities upon you. Be moderate, do not lean, obey and cheer me."
"Allah does not change what has befallen people until they change what is in themselves"
- Holy Quran
But after a while I began to understand where these un-Iraqi sentiments came from, with bloodbaths performed by supposedly authentic Iraqis against their own kinsmen, the social fabric is being quickly ripped apart, people first started throwing the worn-out conspiracy theories about how all these are orchestrated by the 'occupation and the jews', but they know deep down inside that it is not so, the fabric is quickly uncovering the great hypocrisy of the Iraqi nationalism. And it is time to say it out loud to the world.
The sense of Iraq's unity is a paradoxical, dare I say nonexistent thing, I used to think of myself as someone who loves his country, but slowly I became to understand that this was an illusion, like the slogan "Raise your head, you're an Iraqi." Exactly what Iraq has done, from the day it was created to the day that I am writing this to you, that should make me proud? We are a generation who practiced hurling out terms like 'the victorous, proud, chivalrous Arab nation' while in reality we suffered major defeats, exactly like the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which was another disastorous loss where the descendandts of Monkey & Pigs, Jews (Arabic trademark phrase) almost captured age-old Isalmic capital Damascus. We heavily borrow from our ancestors glories to gild our miserable defeats, Iraqi Ba'ath propaganda was never absent from a direct reference to the invention of the wheel, the glories of Nebuchedanezzar, or the linking of the Iran-Iraq war to the 7-th century Qadissiya, etc). We as citizens, would greet our president with cheers and kisses and sworn allegiances, only to shed them the minute we are safe inside our homes. This practice has severely damaged all pride, we are a nation of cowards, tyrants, and morons.
Some people point out to people like us, who left Iraq, saying look at these cowards, we are not cowards, we are realists. The love of the 'country' is a hypcrisy formed by years of living under oppression and refusal to admit defeats. There is nothing that my country has done so far, and I am speaking too for all Arab states, that makes me proud of the fact that I am of its citizens. You can see how this is evident by how people are killing for the sake of sect, religion, their areas, their families, but never their country. Some people, mostly Baathists and their sympathesizers, continue their own bullshit about the 'patriotic Iraqi resistance' and how we are fighting for 'Iraq', shut up, you are fighting for the lost thrones you had. There is no such thing as an Iraqi resistance, and there never, ever was. It was al-Qaeda and Baathists all the way, I don't hate Mes'ood Barazani as much as I hate Saddam Hussein, because the first guy is a motherfucker who's at least frank about it, but the latter, Saddam ibn al kahba abu el gawad Hussein, is a hypocrite who can still make people follow him out of mere cowardice to admit how pathetic we all are, continuing an idiotic routine of hypocritic national identification.
There are some things that could hint of a national identification, for example, when you go outside Iraq and u feel like a total stranger, you try hard to find other Iraqis like you, forgetting how incredibly hateful they were back home. There are bonds that are evident in places like gameshows, soccer matches, but they are also incredibly hypocritical, they don't amount to anything more than that and precisely that, as long as the more effective political hypocrisy is in effect, all other identifications are merely so that we won't be "caught with our pants down" in the face of the world.
This is why many Arabs support Osama bin Laden, because he is a guy who doesn't bullshit around and actually does something, I think Bin Laden is a big criminal and a great danger on Islam because of that precise fact, he's a person who understands Arabs need to stop hypocrisy with action.
Wherever i go in Jordan, I look at phrases like "Jordan First", I watch Egyptian movies where the ultimate cause is "the country of Egypt", but Maybe countries like UAE have something to be proud of, but these are money-bought flourishes that are brittle fronts that will be demolished with a few hammerings here and there. Iraq is particularly a good example of Arab hypocrisy, becuase all its glories are lies while its people degenrated into morons, some people want Saddam back, you monkeys - at least psychologically, do u want to return to a stable, but paradoixcal state of glorifiying Saddam's farts and belches? Some people said this is because of Saddam, well he's gone now and look what have you done to the country? IT IS YOU. YOURSELVES. this is why we must stop the hypocrisy of identifiying with "Iraq" in its current meaning and be brave enough and say how much of a losers we all are. I do not hate my country, but I don't really care for it that much, I'd love to see it flourishing and stable, but I wouldn't die for it, so it's not enough - the difference is that I'm brave enough to say it. I only love my family, my friends, and recently my area (as a post-effect of the sectarain civil war), but I don't really love my country. In fact, I think it's a big shame that people are dying becuase of such a stupid, hypocritical lie. I would cut my arm and hand it to you on a plate if you can find me a single Iraqi who'd die for his own country. There's just no such thing. Islamism is real, Shiism is real, Iranianism is real, al-Qaeda is real, but al-Ba'ath party is the true example of Iraqi patriotism: fake identifications with a myth of glory that is based upon truer past achievements that we had nothing to do with.
I leave you with the words of an Iraqi writer on the Internet which has greatly moved me, I have added a few of my own here and there:
"I write these lines with big sadness and grief because I belong to this country of cowards and tyrants, this is the truth that many of you are trying to hide, how we are people who are divided into many factions, most importantly of which is the one of cowardice and the one of overlords, you are killed by the thousands in your areas, villages, streets, houses, in the middle of your families, you are slaughtered and you cannot even lift a finger in the face of your killers, what a bunch of losers, you see your brothers and sons killed and you scatter like mice trying to protect yourself and shouting slogans in the air, knowning fully well how much of a bullshit are you promoting and that your turn is next, that you will die not of honor, but of shame, when a tyrant comes to the throne you bow to him without a word, which is what you desrve. I am an "Iraqi" like you, I am not a Baathist, not an Islamist, not a Saffavid, not a Persian, not a Shiite, not a Sunni, I am a person who stands up and says it like it is, listen to the truth, you are people who have created new idols for themselves, idols not made of stones like the "Sadr Martyr" who a great deal of people worship now, let a person curse Allah in front of you and you will leave him be, but let him curse Sayyid al-Sadr and you will race for killing him and spilling his blood. Die, Suffer, Move, get kidnapped, burn in vain for you and all you who claim to be Iraqis.
As for the tyrants, who are people who understood how cowards are driven by the same fake wordplay and have adapted to leading them, he who says that Saddam is the tyrant i say to him that a great deal of Iraqis are potential tyrants.
I stand here believing these words until the final moment of my life and I will try to shed this ugly disgusting skin of Iraqism that you are proud of at public but privately shun and spit at until I become of the nothingness of this universe."
To be "hip" (lol) with the times, I will quote an 8th century speech by a famous Iraqi tyrant, al-Hajjaj bin Youssif al-Thaqafi, who is often compared with Saddam, in which he desrcibes Iraqis, the speech is famous and the line : "people of shikak and nifak" (land of division and hypocrisy) is an insult that is used until today, rightfully so - While this speech greatly insults the Great Iraqi People, I think today it applies to all Arabs in general, but particulalry Iraqis:
"O People of Iraq, I see that heads have bloomed and it is time to pick them, and I am their picker. By Allah, It is as if I am looking at the blood between the turbans and beards, By Allah, O People of Iraq, the Caliph Abdul-Malik has looked amongst his leaders, and found me the most bitter and the most severe, so he made me rule over you, O People of Iraq, O People of Shikak and Nifaq, and the worst of Akhlaaq (manners), You have long embroiled in division, and have fallen to the climate of the deception, By God I will smite u by hammers, and beat u like sheep. You are people who were safe and had a plenty of God's gifts, but you rejected the virutes of God, so he unleashed his promise that he promised for all cities upon you. Be moderate, do not lean, obey and cheer me."
"Allah does not change what has befallen people until they change what is in themselves"
- Holy Quran
Friday, December 01, 2006
Checkpoints
If Bush is a chimp, then al-Maliki is definitely an Orange-tang. Think about it. I don't believe in the theory of Evolution, but seeing Mr. Bush and al-Maliki tpgether was too strong a point that definitely made me reconsider.
I'm posting more often. I should stop doing this before it gets too much.
Ever since I left Iraq for Jordan, I was feeling a sense of guilt and remote detachment from what I was talking about, I was hoping that I won't be one of these people talking about things far removed from reality on the ground. It's nice to know that today the news came knocking at my doorstep.
Today, Abu al-Mahasin Abo Esraa Dawlat Prime minister Nori Juwad Kamel al-Maliki was about to meet up with George Bush. Hang on while I go get me a banana.
At 5 PM Wedesnday, my sister who was in college couldn't get inside our area, it was barricaded!!! She did manage to return 20 minutes later, but nostalgia almost made me stand up too quickly, what the? I left all checkpoints behind me in that hellhole....curious enough, I dug up a friend and arranged a hangout....
at 7 PM I was out and no sooner than a few streets away that I find a heavy entourage of police surrounding the Four Seasons hotel ; ever since the 2005 Amman explosions, the hotel has put up a 2-man checkpoint at its main entrance, today a memory-raiser Hummer (green, though) was lazily parked while about 10 men were stationed across nearby streets....all the cars parking at the nearby Arab Bank has been evacuated and they effectively cut off the hotel from the outside streets...they allowed traffic to come in at a regulated pace. As I was making my way through when a bus full of 20-policemen came into the hotel. What could be in there? doesn't King Abdullah II has a royal palace zoo for keeping these malicious simians? It could be the press, speculated mom before I left, but it's too much for that in my own opinion...could the Elephant Man Allawi be snoozing there? or maybe shit-grin Azuz? Sheeesh....The thought of al-Hakim being so near sent shivers to my spine.
Picking up my pal, we had to listen for the typical sermon of the valiant Arab hero, the Jordanian taxi-driver, after a nice exchange of the glorious Iraqis and the Arab nations, asked me where do I hail from, I replied 'Adhamiya' and he said after a moment of recognition, "yeah yeah those brave Sunni resistance" he then descended into the usual routine of calling Shi'ites as unbelievers that should be afraid of the 'Saffavids' and saying that how much we ADORE Saddam, we hate Uday because he raped women, etc etc....for the fuck of it, I told him that I was a Shi'ite. He was caught off guard for a minute and then I couldn't stand it and laughed out loud.
There was a rumor, launched by a subtite on hugely unreliable al-Zawraa TV, which has since Saddam's death sentence been following a very vocal pro-Baathist stance, going as far as broadcasting resistance videos, that Abu Der'a, the notorious Sadr City rambo, was killed. But I don't think so. and even so....what good did the death of Zarqawi do anyway?
The city in general was barren, and other hotels, such as the Days Inn, and the Radisson, which were actually attacked during 2005, did not have such security measures.
The great thing about that day though, was the movie...It's been a while since I last saw a movie that totally, totally blew me away. "The Departed" is a new entry into my picky all-time classics, it's already in my favorite gangster movie genre, reminding me a lot of Curtis's LA Confidential, another classic of mine....I never really appreciated Scorcese until now - the ending is one of the most original ever ; the unexpected, unexpected, unexpected climax generated all sorts of reactions from the crowd - the girl curled up next to me let out a gasp....I laughed out loud again! too loud this time though....but most were silent, awed.
Watch it.
Hey...looks like al-Maliki hit Bush with a pipe (Iraqi slang for dumped) for today's dinner date, I don't think it was because he wanted to shave though.
Nice going, Darwin!
I'm posting more often. I should stop doing this before it gets too much.
Ever since I left Iraq for Jordan, I was feeling a sense of guilt and remote detachment from what I was talking about, I was hoping that I won't be one of these people talking about things far removed from reality on the ground. It's nice to know that today the news came knocking at my doorstep.
Today, Abu al-Mahasin Abo Esraa Dawlat Prime minister Nori Juwad Kamel al-Maliki was about to meet up with George Bush. Hang on while I go get me a banana.
At 5 PM Wedesnday, my sister who was in college couldn't get inside our area, it was barricaded!!! She did manage to return 20 minutes later, but nostalgia almost made me stand up too quickly, what the? I left all checkpoints behind me in that hellhole....curious enough, I dug up a friend and arranged a hangout....
at 7 PM I was out and no sooner than a few streets away that I find a heavy entourage of police surrounding the Four Seasons hotel ; ever since the 2005 Amman explosions, the hotel has put up a 2-man checkpoint at its main entrance, today a memory-raiser Hummer (green, though) was lazily parked while about 10 men were stationed across nearby streets....all the cars parking at the nearby Arab Bank has been evacuated and they effectively cut off the hotel from the outside streets...they allowed traffic to come in at a regulated pace. As I was making my way through when a bus full of 20-policemen came into the hotel. What could be in there? doesn't King Abdullah II has a royal palace zoo for keeping these malicious simians? It could be the press, speculated mom before I left, but it's too much for that in my own opinion...could the Elephant Man Allawi be snoozing there? or maybe shit-grin Azuz? Sheeesh....The thought of al-Hakim being so near sent shivers to my spine.
Picking up my pal, we had to listen for the typical sermon of the valiant Arab hero, the Jordanian taxi-driver, after a nice exchange of the glorious Iraqis and the Arab nations, asked me where do I hail from, I replied 'Adhamiya' and he said after a moment of recognition, "yeah yeah those brave Sunni resistance" he then descended into the usual routine of calling Shi'ites as unbelievers that should be afraid of the 'Saffavids' and saying that how much we ADORE Saddam, we hate Uday because he raped women, etc etc....for the fuck of it, I told him that I was a Shi'ite. He was caught off guard for a minute and then I couldn't stand it and laughed out loud.
There was a rumor, launched by a subtite on hugely unreliable al-Zawraa TV, which has since Saddam's death sentence been following a very vocal pro-Baathist stance, going as far as broadcasting resistance videos, that Abu Der'a, the notorious Sadr City rambo, was killed. But I don't think so. and even so....what good did the death of Zarqawi do anyway?
The city in general was barren, and other hotels, such as the Days Inn, and the Radisson, which were actually attacked during 2005, did not have such security measures.
The great thing about that day though, was the movie...It's been a while since I last saw a movie that totally, totally blew me away. "The Departed" is a new entry into my picky all-time classics, it's already in my favorite gangster movie genre, reminding me a lot of Curtis's LA Confidential, another classic of mine....I never really appreciated Scorcese until now - the ending is one of the most original ever ; the unexpected, unexpected, unexpected climax generated all sorts of reactions from the crowd - the girl curled up next to me let out a gasp....I laughed out loud again! too loud this time though....but most were silent, awed.
Watch it.
Hey...looks like al-Maliki hit Bush with a pipe (Iraqi slang for dumped) for today's dinner date, I don't think it was because he wanted to shave though.
Nice going, Darwin!
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Solution #298 : Reanimation
Spring 2005, we stayed the night in a friend's house in Hay al-Jami'a. There were four of us, next day was Friday - For some reason, we decided to go to the Friday prayer, the big problem back then was that I was wearing a Metallica t-shirt, our host, despite being several sizes larger than yours truly, did manage to produce out a shirt from his 'early cum period', sheesh! I didn't have another choice. We went walking, listened to the sermon, and prayed. Not one of us has looked twice on the fact that one of us, Haidar, is Shi'ite. He prayed with his hands down like a good Shi'ite as the sole abnormality in the line of hand-over-hand Sunnis, we did pray at the back, but still.
Looking back...this memory is almost looney in the suggestions it implies, and what maddens me the most even more is that it only happened a year ago, not five or ten years! Today, even thinking of him going out with is out of the question.
A few days earlier, I contacted a Shiite friend of mine, Laith, who lives in Najaf via e-mail, after a few jokes, I winded him into a religious debate we've been having for several months - I have been keenly researching the Sunni-Shiite conflict and was interested to find out what he, the most religious Shiite friend of mine thinks. That day, I asked him whether it was okay for a Shi'ite to pray with Sunnis, he said: "Well, some Shi'ites drink wine." He equated praying with a Sunni with a highly punishable vice.
Today, people like my Laith (who, despite having a computer full of pro-Iran files and prays in quasi-Persian, is one of the people I truly love) is all over the place, and there is nobody doing anything to stop them ; Haidar is just as good a Shi'ite as Laith, in fact, Baathists once broke into Haidar's house and pulled his mother's hair, but he is a great moderate and I still see him as a great example of a model for a perfect co-existent Iraq. With the ghost of civil war materializing ever more, I was almost paralyzed when I remembered this little public praying-together.
When one looks at this chaotic condition of Iraq, it is hard to imagine how exactly had a single regime managed to effectively all this hocus-pocus under one banner. And out of desperation, sometimes one wonders about the idea of restoring that power.
There are many temptations. First, Saddam is perhaps the most psychologically effective weapon in Iraq in terms of stabilization. It is hard to argue against the fact that Saddam, despite his many crimes, has a formidable personality, his figure can inspire the "Patriotic National Resistance (lol)" beyond morale, and he is especially destructive to the psychosis of any good Shi'ite because of a two-fold reason that greatly applies to both the near-history and the far-history/psychology of the situation: Saddam's minions were monstrous when they quelled the 1991 uprising, and most importantly - Shia faith is built upon losing battles to tyrants, subscribed to intense victimization that is kept alive by a cinematic scope - a lot of modern Shiite leaders draw parrels between any unjust ruler to Hussein & Yazid's Karbala, how can you win against the pernnial 'tyrant' figure when even your holiest figures falied? I really think that in terms of at-hand stabilization, nobody can do it like Saddam, the running joke is that: "Saddam once said to prison ward, you know, if they'd let me get back at that chair for one hour I'd whip this country into shape."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. 55 minutes to wash up, shave and wear new clothes, and 5 minutes to appear on TV."
But this is impossible for a great number of reasons:
Saddam's resurrection will be only a temporary band-aid, knowning him, he will greatly entrench Sunnis and completely butcher Shiites beyond suffering, learning his lesson, he will be the USA biggest tool and will not bother them again. Iran, his sworn enemy, may step up to the challenge, but I have the feeling that it cannot really withstand a determined Saddam/USA alliance. The sectarain tensions has heated up considerably, and this will eventually lead to a regional war at some point.
Most importantly, USA will lose face to the entire world, and won't be ever respected again in the same manner.
It's just a quick temp job that won't do the trick and will only lead to negative escalation of the regional conflict. Of course, There is a way of resurrecting part of Saddam's psychological advantage, perhaps by killing him, to eliminate any chance of his return, then reconcilling the remaining Baathists with some promises and installing a regime with Baathist traces that will not abuse Shiites, but uses the same brute force against everyone, with loyalty to Americans alone. So what if we are loyal to America? It's better than being loyal to al-Qaeda, Saddam, or any given Ayatollah - I wanna do the funky dance and eat my junk food, man. an Allawi-led regime could work to this advantage, given that many Iraqis now ironically remember his brief era as the rosy part of the post-invasion period.
Looking back...this memory is almost looney in the suggestions it implies, and what maddens me the most even more is that it only happened a year ago, not five or ten years! Today, even thinking of him going out with is out of the question.
A few days earlier, I contacted a Shiite friend of mine, Laith, who lives in Najaf via e-mail, after a few jokes, I winded him into a religious debate we've been having for several months - I have been keenly researching the Sunni-Shiite conflict and was interested to find out what he, the most religious Shiite friend of mine thinks. That day, I asked him whether it was okay for a Shi'ite to pray with Sunnis, he said: "Well, some Shi'ites drink wine." He equated praying with a Sunni with a highly punishable vice.
Today, people like my Laith (who, despite having a computer full of pro-Iran files and prays in quasi-Persian, is one of the people I truly love) is all over the place, and there is nobody doing anything to stop them ; Haidar is just as good a Shi'ite as Laith, in fact, Baathists once broke into Haidar's house and pulled his mother's hair, but he is a great moderate and I still see him as a great example of a model for a perfect co-existent Iraq. With the ghost of civil war materializing ever more, I was almost paralyzed when I remembered this little public praying-together.
When one looks at this chaotic condition of Iraq, it is hard to imagine how exactly had a single regime managed to effectively all this hocus-pocus under one banner. And out of desperation, sometimes one wonders about the idea of restoring that power.
There are many temptations. First, Saddam is perhaps the most psychologically effective weapon in Iraq in terms of stabilization. It is hard to argue against the fact that Saddam, despite his many crimes, has a formidable personality, his figure can inspire the "Patriotic National Resistance (lol)" beyond morale, and he is especially destructive to the psychosis of any good Shi'ite because of a two-fold reason that greatly applies to both the near-history and the far-history/psychology of the situation: Saddam's minions were monstrous when they quelled the 1991 uprising, and most importantly - Shia faith is built upon losing battles to tyrants, subscribed to intense victimization that is kept alive by a cinematic scope - a lot of modern Shiite leaders draw parrels between any unjust ruler to Hussein & Yazid's Karbala, how can you win against the pernnial 'tyrant' figure when even your holiest figures falied? I really think that in terms of at-hand stabilization, nobody can do it like Saddam, the running joke is that: "Saddam once said to prison ward, you know, if they'd let me get back at that chair for one hour I'd whip this country into shape."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. 55 minutes to wash up, shave and wear new clothes, and 5 minutes to appear on TV."
But this is impossible for a great number of reasons:
Saddam's resurrection will be only a temporary band-aid, knowning him, he will greatly entrench Sunnis and completely butcher Shiites beyond suffering, learning his lesson, he will be the USA biggest tool and will not bother them again. Iran, his sworn enemy, may step up to the challenge, but I have the feeling that it cannot really withstand a determined Saddam/USA alliance. The sectarain tensions has heated up considerably, and this will eventually lead to a regional war at some point.
Most importantly, USA will lose face to the entire world, and won't be ever respected again in the same manner.
It's just a quick temp job that won't do the trick and will only lead to negative escalation of the regional conflict. Of course, There is a way of resurrecting part of Saddam's psychological advantage, perhaps by killing him, to eliminate any chance of his return, then reconcilling the remaining Baathists with some promises and installing a regime with Baathist traces that will not abuse Shiites, but uses the same brute force against everyone, with loyalty to Americans alone. So what if we are loyal to America? It's better than being loyal to al-Qaeda, Saddam, or any given Ayatollah - I wanna do the funky dance and eat my junk food, man. an Allawi-led regime could work to this advantage, given that many Iraqis now ironically remember his brief era as the rosy part of the post-invasion period.
Friday, November 17, 2006
The End Is Nigh
This is going to happen sooner than I expected.
Interior minister Jowad al-Boulani (slightly mischievous literal translation is Jowad The Pisser) came out on state-run television today and said that an arrest warrant has been placed on the head of Harith al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Association.
Wow. First off, al-Dhari represents the topmost 'Sunni' figure in Iraq's political scene, with credibility as powerful as SCIRI's Abdilaziz al-Hakim for Shi'ites. He represents the earlier Sunni stance of all-iraqi-rejects: no to occupation, no to elections, no to governmnets, fuck all - Falluja on your ass. He is incredibly hated by Shi'ites in general, and has been accused of being covertly allied with al-Qaeda, the Wikipedia entry for the Muslim Scholars Association describes it as the 'political face of al-Qaeda in Iraq.'
al-Dhari give his enemies the opportunity they've been dying to get a few days back on al-Arabiya television, he called the Anbar Rescue Council, the recently formed force fending off al-Qaeda in volatile Anbaar governorate a formation of 'weak tribes and bandits', he also said that al-Qaeda is 'a form of resistance, but we do not agree on them killing innocents'.
This is going to flame hell, as a Sunni, I used to love al-Dhari back in 2005 when Badr was running around killing people without anyone to step up to them, he looked strong, determined ; but after a while I got sick of all the sectarain bullshit and decided to hate them all, I must say however that my hatred for al-Dhari is rational, not emotional, this is how we are these days, I have to force myself to hate him, because no matter how hard I try there is a reminder deep down inside that we may lose to the other guys, and it scares me. Forget the "Sunnis and Shiites are united" This is Bullshit, the people who love Iraq as a country are a scared minority living outside the country and doing nothing.
Most Sunnis do love the Muslim Scholars, unlike Saddam, who's only credible with Baathists and opportunists who were livin' it back then, mainstream Sunnis may fall back on old Saddam sometimes because they feel so lonely stranded with Badr and Mahdi's big cahoonas.
What do I feel about al-Dhari's arrest warrant? I'm a minority, a guy who loves his country, not his sect. so my opinion does not entrail nothing, but here it is: Like so many people said about Saddam's execution. It could've felt much better, I would really be happy if they caught al-Dhari, but I would've felt happier if they managed to lay hands on al-Sadr, al-Hakim, Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, Solagh and all the other haters and murderers out there.
With Saddam, the Ba'athist figure, and al-Dhari, the Sunni Muslim figure being chased, the shitstorm prediction may be sooner than u think, hang on to your toilets.
I can really smell it, and to tell you something, I am relieved. Cut the teasing and just get it over with, we are getting sleepy.
Interior minister Jowad al-Boulani (slightly mischievous literal translation is Jowad The Pisser) came out on state-run television today and said that an arrest warrant has been placed on the head of Harith al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Association.
Wow. First off, al-Dhari represents the topmost 'Sunni' figure in Iraq's political scene, with credibility as powerful as SCIRI's Abdilaziz al-Hakim for Shi'ites. He represents the earlier Sunni stance of all-iraqi-rejects: no to occupation, no to elections, no to governmnets, fuck all - Falluja on your ass. He is incredibly hated by Shi'ites in general, and has been accused of being covertly allied with al-Qaeda, the Wikipedia entry for the Muslim Scholars Association describes it as the 'political face of al-Qaeda in Iraq.'
al-Dhari give his enemies the opportunity they've been dying to get a few days back on al-Arabiya television, he called the Anbar Rescue Council, the recently formed force fending off al-Qaeda in volatile Anbaar governorate a formation of 'weak tribes and bandits', he also said that al-Qaeda is 'a form of resistance, but we do not agree on them killing innocents'.
This is going to flame hell, as a Sunni, I used to love al-Dhari back in 2005 when Badr was running around killing people without anyone to step up to them, he looked strong, determined ; but after a while I got sick of all the sectarain bullshit and decided to hate them all, I must say however that my hatred for al-Dhari is rational, not emotional, this is how we are these days, I have to force myself to hate him, because no matter how hard I try there is a reminder deep down inside that we may lose to the other guys, and it scares me. Forget the "Sunnis and Shiites are united" This is Bullshit, the people who love Iraq as a country are a scared minority living outside the country and doing nothing.
Most Sunnis do love the Muslim Scholars, unlike Saddam, who's only credible with Baathists and opportunists who were livin' it back then, mainstream Sunnis may fall back on old Saddam sometimes because they feel so lonely stranded with Badr and Mahdi's big cahoonas.
What do I feel about al-Dhari's arrest warrant? I'm a minority, a guy who loves his country, not his sect. so my opinion does not entrail nothing, but here it is: Like so many people said about Saddam's execution. It could've felt much better, I would really be happy if they caught al-Dhari, but I would've felt happier if they managed to lay hands on al-Sadr, al-Hakim, Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, Solagh and all the other haters and murderers out there.
With Saddam, the Ba'athist figure, and al-Dhari, the Sunni Muslim figure being chased, the shitstorm prediction may be sooner than u think, hang on to your toilets.
I can really smell it, and to tell you something, I am relieved. Cut the teasing and just get it over with, we are getting sleepy.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Saddam's Sentence
Baghdad, Iraq - Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in the death of 184 Shiites in al-Dijail case today, ending a long courtroom session that witnessed the death of several people involved in the ordeal more than one year from the date the whole facade started.
Other sentences included two other deaths for notorious courtdroom drama bad boy Ibrahim Barazan al-Tikriti (Abu Uday's half-bro) and Awad al-Bandar, head of the Revolution's Court. A life sentence plus some other sentences to be carried out in death for Taha Yassin Ramadhan, and other prison sentences (7, 15) for three other nameless dudes, and one clearance.
ACTING:
Asked about his performance on the trial, Saddam Hussein said that he could've done a lot better and that his performance sounded robotic and uneven, no where near his accolade-earning performances in earlier seasons, while we all respect the great multiple-award winning figure for his fiery and inspirational performances earlier on, he felt like speaking monolgues on cue even while brandishing his Quran, he said that he will be studying performances of Jack Nicholsons in 'A Few Good Men' and Al Pacino's 'Scent of A Woman' and 'And Justice for All' for inspiration for his next performances, which is unlikely that there ever will be - supporting actors like Taha Yassin Ramadhan and Awad Fadhil al-Bandar trotted out usual fares in their comfortable propaganda characters, especially chuckleworthy was the brittle parting speech of Ramadhan, in which he proclaimed: "I know that this court cannot keep me alive nor will it terminates me, but it is only in the will of God and the Mujahideen." He himself looked bored by the drone of such familiar words, they did not even make sense on his tribal, criminal face. This is always bad for actors, and it is rumored that Ramadhan might lose his contract if he keeps up these muddy performances.
Co-star Barazan al-Tikiriti however remained as controversial as ever, ending his role in a surprise twist of calm deadpan delivery: 'Congratulations.', retaining his unpredictable flavor. He later said that this was an improvisation: "I had my lines memorized, but while the cameras were rolling I felt that a silent, brooding look added menace and intrigute to a character often plagued with neurosis, he chuckled in the make-up room.
SCRIPT
While the script was predictable to a great degree, the writers did an especially nice job by some neat touches here and there, there was an ingenious scene where Saddam Hussein, upon hearing his death sentence, shouted: "Allahu Akbar", and a watcher above also said the exact same words - except Saddam said it in protest of the court's injustice while the wather applauded that court's integrity....such an ironic and fascinating display. I also liked the bit where they kick out former US attorney Ramsey Clark in a show of the court's independence and Iraqi spirits. It's very cool to see a bald Kurd kick out a Ramsey Clark (played by Jon Voight).
DIRECTION
The director does an absoluetly brilliant job as always, the visuals are slick and Saddam's make-up is absolutely spot-on, every camera captures a sublte nuance and the special effects are downright spectacular. Brilliant.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of the Iraqis I've prodded felt oblivious to what could happen to Saddam's neck, a Sunni cousin of mine by the name of Omar in Ghazaliya said: 'To the hell', while another Sunni cousin of mine in Egypt said: 'To the heck." I for one, felt happy, and congratulated everyone I saw. While having justice done to the tyrant would have been so much better if it were not for the sad state of Iraq today, I only felt good today because this could actually achieve good effects on the ground - I think that the minute Saddam is executed many of the Baathists would stop and reconsider what they are fighting for, the Iraqi Baath party always will be a personality cult. Hell may break loose for the next couple of days but remember, we are already in hell, so bring it on.
Jordanians however looked upon the matter from the average benign way Arabs look upon Saddam, a brave valiant hero who stood up against America.
Other sentences included two other deaths for notorious courtdroom drama bad boy Ibrahim Barazan al-Tikriti (Abu Uday's half-bro) and Awad al-Bandar, head of the Revolution's Court. A life sentence plus some other sentences to be carried out in death for Taha Yassin Ramadhan, and other prison sentences (7, 15) for three other nameless dudes, and one clearance.
ACTING:
Asked about his performance on the trial, Saddam Hussein said that he could've done a lot better and that his performance sounded robotic and uneven, no where near his accolade-earning performances in earlier seasons, while we all respect the great multiple-award winning figure for his fiery and inspirational performances earlier on, he felt like speaking monolgues on cue even while brandishing his Quran, he said that he will be studying performances of Jack Nicholsons in 'A Few Good Men' and Al Pacino's 'Scent of A Woman' and 'And Justice for All' for inspiration for his next performances, which is unlikely that there ever will be - supporting actors like Taha Yassin Ramadhan and Awad Fadhil al-Bandar trotted out usual fares in their comfortable propaganda characters, especially chuckleworthy was the brittle parting speech of Ramadhan, in which he proclaimed: "I know that this court cannot keep me alive nor will it terminates me, but it is only in the will of God and the Mujahideen." He himself looked bored by the drone of such familiar words, they did not even make sense on his tribal, criminal face. This is always bad for actors, and it is rumored that Ramadhan might lose his contract if he keeps up these muddy performances.
Co-star Barazan al-Tikiriti however remained as controversial as ever, ending his role in a surprise twist of calm deadpan delivery: 'Congratulations.', retaining his unpredictable flavor. He later said that this was an improvisation: "I had my lines memorized, but while the cameras were rolling I felt that a silent, brooding look added menace and intrigute to a character often plagued with neurosis, he chuckled in the make-up room.
SCRIPT
While the script was predictable to a great degree, the writers did an especially nice job by some neat touches here and there, there was an ingenious scene where Saddam Hussein, upon hearing his death sentence, shouted: "Allahu Akbar", and a watcher above also said the exact same words - except Saddam said it in protest of the court's injustice while the wather applauded that court's integrity....such an ironic and fascinating display. I also liked the bit where they kick out former US attorney Ramsey Clark in a show of the court's independence and Iraqi spirits. It's very cool to see a bald Kurd kick out a Ramsey Clark (played by Jon Voight).
DIRECTION
The director does an absoluetly brilliant job as always, the visuals are slick and Saddam's make-up is absolutely spot-on, every camera captures a sublte nuance and the special effects are downright spectacular. Brilliant.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of the Iraqis I've prodded felt oblivious to what could happen to Saddam's neck, a Sunni cousin of mine by the name of Omar in Ghazaliya said: 'To the hell', while another Sunni cousin of mine in Egypt said: 'To the heck." I for one, felt happy, and congratulated everyone I saw. While having justice done to the tyrant would have been so much better if it were not for the sad state of Iraq today, I only felt good today because this could actually achieve good effects on the ground - I think that the minute Saddam is executed many of the Baathists would stop and reconsider what they are fighting for, the Iraqi Baath party always will be a personality cult. Hell may break loose for the next couple of days but remember, we are already in hell, so bring it on.
Jordanians however looked upon the matter from the average benign way Arabs look upon Saddam, a brave valiant hero who stood up against America.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Mecca Document? Iraqis choose Mahdi's Army
I watched the Mecca PR stunt yesterday, a dazzling feast that has plenty of action and romance, with dazzling special effects, I especially loved the way they made them all sit with the holy Kaaba visible from the window with people circling it, the fatwa is supposed to be the religious s be-all end-all viewpoint on the sect-fueled war that is going on between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, it was supported by all the big players - Read about it in details here, if you want
In the conference that was broadcast live, a table was shown, Ahmed Abdilghaffour al-Samarrie, the Sunni endowment head, in my opinion a nice harmless guy who's just about as clueless about this as any, and a SCIRI representative, approprietly frowny and white-bearded like a Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer fashion fan, sat together and told knock-knock jokes about Sunni-Shiite being as much friendly to each other as teddybears and that their faith is in the essence the same, brilliantly clad in symbolic black & white turbans as a cinematic afterthought, after the blah-blahs faded, they gave space for reporters to ask them questions, this was what they asked them, the actual exchange was much more graceful, but luckily I had my Bullshit Filter on:
REPORTER 1: Do you have any mechanism for implementing your edict on the ground? (actual question was more decorated than this)
KHOSH-WALAD SAMARRIE 1: blah-blah yaddad yadda peace and prosperity, but we hope that Iraqis are naturally good and this is the last night of Ramadhan.
REPORTER 2: Do you have any method by which you can apply your fatwa in Iraq?
FROWNY-JALAL TURBAN 2: wiggilie-wiggilie peace humpty dumpty love sumbul bulaybul dumbk dunaibuk understanding.
REPORTER 3: Excuse me, but on terms of a practical appreciation of your document, do you expect that it will be endorsed and applied (same question reworded)
THE COORDINATING GUY IN THE MIDDLE: All right buddy, you asked for it, this is the top religious clergy here, we tell you how in which direction to shit and how many papers you use to wipe your arse, we are here to say that blood is forbidden, it is up for the Iraqis, the natural loving and peaceful nation to endorse it, if they do not - we have made ourselves clear on the matter.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Shiites favor al-Mahdi's army Read it, it's very nice, and very honest.
Can you blame the Iraqi Shiites? I do not. They tell the truth, this is not a simple ideological struggle that can be waived aside by the whiff of a religious clergy's ruminations, even Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is waning, after being used by UIA as an advertising campaign to win the elections. Anyone who calls for peace is shut-up by the realities of life as it is, everybody is so afraid of each other, I remember when Zarqawi died and I went to the mosque to listen to the Friday speech in an Adhamiya mosque, the Imam was practically crying! Nobody wants militas or Zarqawi, but everybody is so afraid of the other now, there is no trust.
Unless the National Reconcillation gimmick targets those who you should really make up your peace with, the blood-soaked Baathists, the backbone of the insurgency, who had their homes and money but now lost it all and are giving Iraqis and Americans a hard time about it, it will be fruitless. al-Qaeda is worthless without their straetgic allies the Baathists, who adopted a more Islamic veil to fit in with the times and bring us all to this sectarain lollapalooza. Shiite militas atrocities are infintely more horrific, but you have no right to blame them when you are part of the blame, get real. In Sadr City, Abu Der'a is a national hero, to quote Abdilaziz al-Hakim's 12 year old son. These murderers will lose their support only when you negotiate with the Baathists.
Ayad Jamal al-Din, my only favorite politicain (aside from stand-up comedian parliament speaker Mahmood al-Mashhadani) says: "I support dialogue with those who killed Iraqis, you see, most of the insurgents attacks these days are 95% targeting Iraqis, and 5% targeting Americans, reminding them that we, the Baathists, were your loved ones before and we can stir shit up if u ignore us - these are not necessarily terrorists in the regime time but they had homes, positions, and gains and now these were all stripped and they were even persecuted, so it is only natural that they resort to violence. It is like a young stubborn child who's being kicked out by his mother and is starting to throw rocks at the house. Unless you convince them, there is no hope behind it all."
PEOPLE ARE AFRAID. and they resort to their sectarian identity because they ARE AFRAID, not because they are hateful beings.
--------------
KID (leaving the mosque's prayer with Habib, his neighbor): Man, that speech was one disgusting peace of crap!
HABIB: Come on man, now they can slaughter us like sheep! and we can't do anything about it! If they killed one, we could've killed a hundred! it's like Saddam, he was bad but when he left everyone missed him.
-----------------------------
"Be careful of the Wahhabis!" said the father in Sadr City to his departing 8-year-old son
"I just want him to know whom to hate."
-----------------------------
You may laugh and say look at these nomadic Arabs slicing each other's heads off like there's no tomorrow, but please try to understand...this is no joke...
We are dying? Do you understand....we are dying...
In the conference that was broadcast live, a table was shown, Ahmed Abdilghaffour al-Samarrie, the Sunni endowment head, in my opinion a nice harmless guy who's just about as clueless about this as any, and a SCIRI representative, approprietly frowny and white-bearded like a Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer fashion fan, sat together and told knock-knock jokes about Sunni-Shiite being as much friendly to each other as teddybears and that their faith is in the essence the same, brilliantly clad in symbolic black & white turbans as a cinematic afterthought, after the blah-blahs faded, they gave space for reporters to ask them questions, this was what they asked them, the actual exchange was much more graceful, but luckily I had my Bullshit Filter on:
REPORTER 1: Do you have any mechanism for implementing your edict on the ground? (actual question was more decorated than this)
KHOSH-WALAD SAMARRIE 1: blah-blah yaddad yadda peace and prosperity, but we hope that Iraqis are naturally good and this is the last night of Ramadhan.
REPORTER 2: Do you have any method by which you can apply your fatwa in Iraq?
FROWNY-JALAL TURBAN 2: wiggilie-wiggilie peace humpty dumpty love sumbul bulaybul dumbk dunaibuk understanding.
REPORTER 3: Excuse me, but on terms of a practical appreciation of your document, do you expect that it will be endorsed and applied (same question reworded)
THE COORDINATING GUY IN THE MIDDLE: All right buddy, you asked for it, this is the top religious clergy here, we tell you how in which direction to shit and how many papers you use to wipe your arse, we are here to say that blood is forbidden, it is up for the Iraqis, the natural loving and peaceful nation to endorse it, if they do not - we have made ourselves clear on the matter.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Shiites favor al-Mahdi's army Read it, it's very nice, and very honest.
Can you blame the Iraqi Shiites? I do not. They tell the truth, this is not a simple ideological struggle that can be waived aside by the whiff of a religious clergy's ruminations, even Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is waning, after being used by UIA as an advertising campaign to win the elections. Anyone who calls for peace is shut-up by the realities of life as it is, everybody is so afraid of each other, I remember when Zarqawi died and I went to the mosque to listen to the Friday speech in an Adhamiya mosque, the Imam was practically crying! Nobody wants militas or Zarqawi, but everybody is so afraid of the other now, there is no trust.
Unless the National Reconcillation gimmick targets those who you should really make up your peace with, the blood-soaked Baathists, the backbone of the insurgency, who had their homes and money but now lost it all and are giving Iraqis and Americans a hard time about it, it will be fruitless. al-Qaeda is worthless without their straetgic allies the Baathists, who adopted a more Islamic veil to fit in with the times and bring us all to this sectarain lollapalooza. Shiite militas atrocities are infintely more horrific, but you have no right to blame them when you are part of the blame, get real. In Sadr City, Abu Der'a is a national hero, to quote Abdilaziz al-Hakim's 12 year old son. These murderers will lose their support only when you negotiate with the Baathists.
Ayad Jamal al-Din, my only favorite politicain (aside from stand-up comedian parliament speaker Mahmood al-Mashhadani) says: "I support dialogue with those who killed Iraqis, you see, most of the insurgents attacks these days are 95% targeting Iraqis, and 5% targeting Americans, reminding them that we, the Baathists, were your loved ones before and we can stir shit up if u ignore us - these are not necessarily terrorists in the regime time but they had homes, positions, and gains and now these were all stripped and they were even persecuted, so it is only natural that they resort to violence. It is like a young stubborn child who's being kicked out by his mother and is starting to throw rocks at the house. Unless you convince them, there is no hope behind it all."
PEOPLE ARE AFRAID. and they resort to their sectarian identity because they ARE AFRAID, not because they are hateful beings.
--------------
KID (leaving the mosque's prayer with Habib, his neighbor): Man, that speech was one disgusting peace of crap!
HABIB: Come on man, now they can slaughter us like sheep! and we can't do anything about it! If they killed one, we could've killed a hundred! it's like Saddam, he was bad but when he left everyone missed him.
-----------------------------
"Be careful of the Wahhabis!" said the father in Sadr City to his departing 8-year-old son
"I just want him to know whom to hate."
-----------------------------
You may laugh and say look at these nomadic Arabs slicing each other's heads off like there's no tomorrow, but please try to understand...this is no joke...
We are dying? Do you understand....we are dying...
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Looks familiar?
The picture is hauntingly familiar to the one in the previous post, then again, what is more like death than death itself?
I chose not to say anything when Mahmood al-Hashimi died, as as most of you say I may be biased, and in terms of Iraqi politics a person's best course would be to curse everyone in office and get it over with, but now I feel an obligation.
Today's morning, Amir al-Hashimi, brother of [Sunni] vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi was killed by a dozen of gunmen posing as security officers who broke into his house and killed him after disposing of his bodyguards.
This is the 3rd close relative of Tariq al-Hashimi to be killed in the past year, with his brother and his sister being the 1 and the 2.
and now I would like to talk about my father.
father was just like me in his early days, he even got as far in the imitation as having a bad haircut and playing godless American rock anthems on acoustic guitars until one day he smashed the guitar into pieces and found religion, which is where I seem to be heading.
Haji Amir, his architect friend and the good-natured SAINT who built al-Anbiyaa mosque and who was killed by Badr back in July 2005, was his first close friend to die in the unfortunate series of executions that followed, I shed tears for him though little I have known him, but for his good soul that is so hard to find in these black days, Mahmood al-Hashimi was his 2nd close friend to die. Although I did not know the guy then, but from the responses I got from my grandmother when she heard the news I could feel that he was just as good as Haji Amir.
And now Amir al-Hashimi, who was also a friend of father but not as close as these two.
When my father returned from his work today and heard the news, he immediately went to the balcony and sat all by himself, saying nothing, looking at the sky, I was afraid to look at him, and I experienced a cold shudder of sadness and molten anger.
I do not know Tariq al-Hashimi personally or his family relatives, but I know my father, and I know the sort of people he hangs out with, in the place where I come from, a religious person meant a guy who knew his rights from his wrongs, a person you could trust, a person who could never lie or steal ; my father never scolded me for my guitarplaying or forced me to wear certain things ever, and he has the sign of praying (a patch of changed skin on the forehead that results of much praying when the forehead touches the ground) on his face. The people who he hung out with were good, honest people, people you could really love, people of virtue. NOT the extremist, life-hating, vengeful caricatures Muslims have been cornered into, nor are they the pro-Baathist dictator scum Sunnis in Iraq have often been shoe-horned as.
Whenever I would go into a mosque and sit down after prayer I would feel the peace engulfing me, a calamity and understanding that becalms one outside the cyclone of life outside, the constant searching for meaning and answers...the tough-guy posturing and the struggle for bread.
But now these people are exterminated, exploited and destoryed in this meaningless Wahabi vs Rafidhi war.
Man, this is turning into an obituary.
On a much lighter note, errr....
errr...
....
"The nights of toil have stolen the smile of the lips"
"And years are spent in despair and eagerness"
"Yet, there still is hope in my spirits, never smoldered"
"And I feel my soul, still enfolded, and awaiting"
- Bassim
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Lubnaan*
This post took some time to write, exactly why, because it is so confusing to be an Arab these days.
If something happens, you have to think very carefully what is your reaction to it.
Case in point: Hezbollah kidnaps 2 Israeli soldiers, Israelis cut the crap and whip they cracked.
and whip they cracked!
For three weeks now Israeli planes have wrecked havoc and destruction over the Lebanon, destroying many civillian buildings, killing women and children, moving about hundreds of families, havoc and destruction in all of it.
The Arabs(c) portrayed the usual crippled-man condemnation and aid funds, tricking themselves by listening to patriotic songs and the US entered gung-ho as usual with long-time fellow bedders and Nasralallah is pretty strident on the fight, with all his usual slurred 'r'.
Now, I wish I could say I am honestly touched, I wish I could say I feel your pain, my fellow brothers and sisters, but I would be a lying sonovabitch deep in the mud if I say that, of course, my heart occasionally contracts when a middle-aged blind man appears shocked and helpless, with his wife and kids while he half-sobs about how they were dragged out under the hells cracking above, or when I see real disturbing pictures that could drive your night ass-crazy when thinking about it
But then again, my remorse is little beyond the usual human sympathy for humans in distress, I am not genuinely touched and I know it - I have learned this from painful expereince: When three of the four dead friends were killed first, they were well-known and we had a big funeral march for them inside the college, it was terrible, with loud suffocaing shrieks and tears from many people, but when the fourth died a week later, nobody gave a shit, I particulalry remember a scene when Caesar of Pentra was in half-shock, crying, while a girl the deceased Saif (who was a fellow blogger, he managed to write two posts of the hapless variety before the unforunate incident) had the hots for walked by and laughed her mouth off.
So Lebanese people, long-known in the Arab world as masters of sexually liberated singers, you are on your own I am afraid. a Palestinian taxi-driver told me that he feels no sympathy for Lebanon because 'they get their money from being a collective whore's house'.
Stargazing Arabs at times like these like to talk about a story of al-Mu'tassim, an Abassid caliph, who changed the course of his army after a woman walked all the way from the city of Something to call for his help against the Crusades, he went back and liberated the city of Something.
I am not sad, but I wish I can, because if I am truly sad - then I would start to try and do something for my fellow people - this is a perennial problem with the Arab pattern of thinking, we have grown comfortable in our ostrich pillows of condemnation.
But this incident is different from the timeless one of Palestinians getting squached
,there is some extra math that must be done:
Given: Hezbollah is the brainchild of Iran in Lebanon.
Suggestion: Either Hezbollah strictly follows Iran's religious thinking or feels it helps to achieve a goal.
Now, Hezbollah is fighting Israel
Suggestion: We must support it.
But: Iran is perhaps the largest havoc-wrecker in Iraq.
Suggestion: Either we must not support Iran (e.g. not support Hezbollah, given that they are Iran's far-reaching finger), or Iran is not the Mulla-Frankenstein they be so mouthin about.
-----------------------------
See? it totally wrecks your system! you can't really make up a unified, universal law that applies to everyone and everything, we can do this all day with Hamas, Harith al-Dhari, al-Sistani....you name it.
While Nasrallah's rhetoric presents a more nationalistic, approchable take on the average Shi'ite Religious Leader, much better than al-Hakim's self-flagellating antiques or al-Sadr, who'd rather spend the day playing PS2, Hezbollah (nice name for a heavy metal band, btw) is a sidekick for Iran before all, who I am saddened to say follow a very members-only Shi'ite path to heaven, they will not all in all fit the Arabian Dream extravaganza.
Another way to go about it like some people did back in the Iraqi Invasion back in April 2003, they said : 'I ain't fighting for Saddam, I am fighting for Iraq', For the sake of all the women and children dead, and boy, don't these picture stir up the dangerous extremist shred in the hearts of Arabs? don't it tickle the Bin Laden in you?! Where is your pride? What happened to those who fought bravely before you and all that? O Mu'atiasim?!?
Of course, a good reaction is that we are now in the face of a common enemy, and by uniting in the face of it we will unite so help us God, however, it is wrong to cheer to someone just because he is attempting to achieve a common goal, this is just like how the Arabs, particulalry Palestinains, defend Saddam to death as an Arab hero - the moustached man knew how to manipulate them, throwing rockets at Israel with so sucky coordination that suggests he was training with marbles, so if Hezbollah fights Israel, my opinion is that we shuold not support them.
The problem first and foremost lies in us, The Arabs, don't blame the security council or the UN or all these World Policers, they only follow their own interests, wake up! They would only give a shit when you are THE shit. At the time being we do not have the ethical component neccessary to win, we do not have the driving inspiration of the nomadic Arabs who lived in the mainlands and who went about and ass-kicked two empires, the key solution first must be civil and domestic, we must regroup, restructure, we are weak and helpless, prefering to pursue worldly desires.
Forget sectarian differences, we should not support Hezbollah because, plain and simple, any violent struggle these days, will not solve or achieve anything.
Sayyed Qutb, the misunderstood Muslim Brotherhood Islamic thinker and writer who is often incorrectly described as the man behind the philosophy groundwork for fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda says: "After careful consideration, I come to conclude that any military efforts on the part of Islamic groups to create and Islamic society is fruitless and brings reverse results, the most correct approach is to attempt to reach out to the mainstream community, corrupted by Western (Jahililya) values and ideals, and attempt a civil and social reform."
Hezbollah deserves to be blamed for this war, their cause may be just and noble, but ultimately they have dragged a country and a nation that is not ready for this kind of confrontation, what has the resistance in Iraq achieved so far? did we gain anything from al-Falluja and ar-Ramadi? it only complicated matters.
The holy prophet (p) said : 'War is a trick', and Arabs must know how to trick, they must know who and when to fight, not just go mouthing off slogans they can't stand up to and pretending to be the all-conquering nation they once were.
*Lubnaan is the Arabic pronounciation of Lebanon.
If something happens, you have to think very carefully what is your reaction to it.
Case in point: Hezbollah kidnaps 2 Israeli soldiers, Israelis cut the crap and whip they cracked.
and whip they cracked!
For three weeks now Israeli planes have wrecked havoc and destruction over the Lebanon, destroying many civillian buildings, killing women and children, moving about hundreds of families, havoc and destruction in all of it.
The Arabs(c) portrayed the usual crippled-man condemnation and aid funds, tricking themselves by listening to patriotic songs and the US entered gung-ho as usual with long-time fellow bedders and Nasralallah is pretty strident on the fight, with all his usual slurred 'r'.
Now, I wish I could say I am honestly touched, I wish I could say I feel your pain, my fellow brothers and sisters, but I would be a lying sonovabitch deep in the mud if I say that, of course, my heart occasionally contracts when a middle-aged blind man appears shocked and helpless, with his wife and kids while he half-sobs about how they were dragged out under the hells cracking above, or when I see real disturbing pictures that could drive your night ass-crazy when thinking about it
But then again, my remorse is little beyond the usual human sympathy for humans in distress, I am not genuinely touched and I know it - I have learned this from painful expereince: When three of the four dead friends were killed first, they were well-known and we had a big funeral march for them inside the college, it was terrible, with loud suffocaing shrieks and tears from many people, but when the fourth died a week later, nobody gave a shit, I particulalry remember a scene when Caesar of Pentra was in half-shock, crying, while a girl the deceased Saif (who was a fellow blogger, he managed to write two posts of the hapless variety before the unforunate incident) had the hots for walked by and laughed her mouth off.
So Lebanese people, long-known in the Arab world as masters of sexually liberated singers, you are on your own I am afraid. a Palestinian taxi-driver told me that he feels no sympathy for Lebanon because 'they get their money from being a collective whore's house'.
Stargazing Arabs at times like these like to talk about a story of al-Mu'tassim, an Abassid caliph, who changed the course of his army after a woman walked all the way from the city of Something to call for his help against the Crusades, he went back and liberated the city of Something.
I am not sad, but I wish I can, because if I am truly sad - then I would start to try and do something for my fellow people - this is a perennial problem with the Arab pattern of thinking, we have grown comfortable in our ostrich pillows of condemnation.
But this incident is different from the timeless one of Palestinians getting squached
,there is some extra math that must be done:
Given: Hezbollah is the brainchild of Iran in Lebanon.
Suggestion: Either Hezbollah strictly follows Iran's religious thinking or feels it helps to achieve a goal.
Now, Hezbollah is fighting Israel
Suggestion: We must support it.
But: Iran is perhaps the largest havoc-wrecker in Iraq.
Suggestion: Either we must not support Iran (e.g. not support Hezbollah, given that they are Iran's far-reaching finger), or Iran is not the Mulla-Frankenstein they be so mouthin about.
-----------------------------
See? it totally wrecks your system! you can't really make up a unified, universal law that applies to everyone and everything, we can do this all day with Hamas, Harith al-Dhari, al-Sistani....you name it.
While Nasrallah's rhetoric presents a more nationalistic, approchable take on the average Shi'ite Religious Leader, much better than al-Hakim's self-flagellating antiques or al-Sadr, who'd rather spend the day playing PS2, Hezbollah (nice name for a heavy metal band, btw) is a sidekick for Iran before all, who I am saddened to say follow a very members-only Shi'ite path to heaven, they will not all in all fit the Arabian Dream extravaganza.
Another way to go about it like some people did back in the Iraqi Invasion back in April 2003, they said : 'I ain't fighting for Saddam, I am fighting for Iraq', For the sake of all the women and children dead, and boy, don't these picture stir up the dangerous extremist shred in the hearts of Arabs? don't it tickle the Bin Laden in you?! Where is your pride? What happened to those who fought bravely before you and all that? O Mu'atiasim?!?
Of course, a good reaction is that we are now in the face of a common enemy, and by uniting in the face of it we will unite so help us God, however, it is wrong to cheer to someone just because he is attempting to achieve a common goal, this is just like how the Arabs, particulalry Palestinains, defend Saddam to death as an Arab hero - the moustached man knew how to manipulate them, throwing rockets at Israel with so sucky coordination that suggests he was training with marbles, so if Hezbollah fights Israel, my opinion is that we shuold not support them.
The problem first and foremost lies in us, The Arabs, don't blame the security council or the UN or all these World Policers, they only follow their own interests, wake up! They would only give a shit when you are THE shit. At the time being we do not have the ethical component neccessary to win, we do not have the driving inspiration of the nomadic Arabs who lived in the mainlands and who went about and ass-kicked two empires, the key solution first must be civil and domestic, we must regroup, restructure, we are weak and helpless, prefering to pursue worldly desires.
Forget sectarian differences, we should not support Hezbollah because, plain and simple, any violent struggle these days, will not solve or achieve anything.
Sayyed Qutb, the misunderstood Muslim Brotherhood Islamic thinker and writer who is often incorrectly described as the man behind the philosophy groundwork for fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda says: "After careful consideration, I come to conclude that any military efforts on the part of Islamic groups to create and Islamic society is fruitless and brings reverse results, the most correct approach is to attempt to reach out to the mainstream community, corrupted by Western (Jahililya) values and ideals, and attempt a civil and social reform."
Hezbollah deserves to be blamed for this war, their cause may be just and noble, but ultimately they have dragged a country and a nation that is not ready for this kind of confrontation, what has the resistance in Iraq achieved so far? did we gain anything from al-Falluja and ar-Ramadi? it only complicated matters.
The holy prophet (p) said : 'War is a trick', and Arabs must know how to trick, they must know who and when to fight, not just go mouthing off slogans they can't stand up to and pretending to be the all-conquering nation they once were.
*Lubnaan is the Arabic pronounciation of Lebanon.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
frustrated
DAY 3.5
WARNING : I am pissed off, so I may say things I do not mean.
Things have quieted down noticably today, more promising subtitles
abound in all major TV stations...
i have a singlemost frustration which I couldn't keep until a
further post, many many people started beating their chests and
calling it a Civil War from day one, to all these people, and
some of them are some of my best friends, I have the following to
say :
Fuck you.
That's right, Fuck you Zeyad, Fuck you Anarki13, fuck you my
sectarain grandmother, fuck anyone who's done anything to wallow
in the misery of Iraq and incite more hatred, fear and death
amongst the masses, either intentionally or not.
Those blogger friends who have taken to recluse in digging up any
horrible stories and passing them off to anyone who can hear,
glorifiying any negative news they can find, please ignore these
sorry fools, they are just that way...they gravitate to the dark -
thinking it's cool, naturally, that's my stance by default
, but I find this highly inappropriate regarding the circumstance.
For example, Zeyad, a friend of mine and arguably the best Iraqi
blogger out there, has been continously adding oil to the pan by
translating to the world at large gloomy news from a decidedly
miserable website, that website almost specializies in Shiite acts
of massacre against Sunni and its neutrality and objectivity is
highly disputed, all the news Zeyad's been passing are all about
doom and gloom, stop glorifiying the death, Z!...true, shit
happens, but for all I care, all that happened is predicatble and
can be transcended easily. and you should do something about the
name of your blog 'Healing Iraq?', fast.
I'm not saying you should remain calm, but you have a tendency to
exaggerate greatly...
That website (Iraqirabita.org, amongst many others Sunni and
Shiite media) is provoking images of hatred and murder when it is
the last thing we need right now, can't you even spare us a single
act of positive news? I am not for being hypocritical, but
nobody's done anything to tell of the GOOD news happening, and
there are lots of them! At last, Muqtada Al-Sadr guys and the
Association Of Scholars issued a unified statement today, and you
can feel the impact of the deadly violence waning noticably today,
I know Iraq will pass through this, and it will actually be a good
thing in retrospect because people have got a taste of what it's
like of pitting brother against brother and it will bring the
people together.
As for 13, who immediately called it a Civil War and put his head
in the sand, well, dude, please, I know u hate Iraq and everything
but can't u at least have a little faith in yourself? Iraq is
filled with nice intellctual guys, yeah I've come out and dared to
say it. These people will not engage in this folly...
The only blogger I am proud of is 24 Steps To Liberty, his posts encourgaed me a
a great deal, thank you for being there, I will read you more in the future.
I love my country. Shit, I never knew I cared so much.
Sorry about all the fucks dude....don't mean it...just pissed off..
WARNING : I am pissed off, so I may say things I do not mean.
Things have quieted down noticably today, more promising subtitles
abound in all major TV stations...
i have a singlemost frustration which I couldn't keep until a
further post, many many people started beating their chests and
calling it a Civil War from day one, to all these people, and
some of them are some of my best friends, I have the following to
say :
Fuck you.
That's right, Fuck you Zeyad, Fuck you Anarki13, fuck you my
sectarain grandmother, fuck anyone who's done anything to wallow
in the misery of Iraq and incite more hatred, fear and death
amongst the masses, either intentionally or not.
Those blogger friends who have taken to recluse in digging up any
horrible stories and passing them off to anyone who can hear,
glorifiying any negative news they can find, please ignore these
sorry fools, they are just that way...they gravitate to the dark -
thinking it's cool, naturally, that's my stance by default
, but I find this highly inappropriate regarding the circumstance.
For example, Zeyad, a friend of mine and arguably the best Iraqi
blogger out there, has been continously adding oil to the pan by
translating to the world at large gloomy news from a decidedly
miserable website, that website almost specializies in Shiite acts
of massacre against Sunni and its neutrality and objectivity is
highly disputed, all the news Zeyad's been passing are all about
doom and gloom, stop glorifiying the death, Z!...true, shit
happens, but for all I care, all that happened is predicatble and
can be transcended easily. and you should do something about the
name of your blog 'Healing Iraq?', fast.
I'm not saying you should remain calm, but you have a tendency to
exaggerate greatly...
That website (Iraqirabita.org, amongst many others Sunni and
Shiite media) is provoking images of hatred and murder when it is
the last thing we need right now, can't you even spare us a single
act of positive news? I am not for being hypocritical, but
nobody's done anything to tell of the GOOD news happening, and
there are lots of them! At last, Muqtada Al-Sadr guys and the
Association Of Scholars issued a unified statement today, and you
can feel the impact of the deadly violence waning noticably today,
I know Iraq will pass through this, and it will actually be a good
thing in retrospect because people have got a taste of what it's
like of pitting brother against brother and it will bring the
people together.
As for 13, who immediately called it a Civil War and put his head
in the sand, well, dude, please, I know u hate Iraq and everything
but can't u at least have a little faith in yourself? Iraq is
filled with nice intellctual guys, yeah I've come out and dared to
say it. These people will not engage in this folly...
The only blogger I am proud of is 24 Steps To Liberty, his posts encourgaed me a
a great deal, thank you for being there, I will read you more in the future.
I love my country. Shit, I never knew I cared so much.
Sorry about all the fucks dude....don't mean it...just pissed off..
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Men In Black...with torn slippers...
For those of u still wanting to continue on the cartoon comments debate, i've posted there, so read. now...
Men In Black....wish Will Smith was here now.
Ahhh...where to start...
Not to look like everyone else, with the before/after askariya mosques, so here goes, i won't talk shit about what happened, so I assume u know the specifics, if not, go read pretty much everybody else, god I'm so sick :
DAY1
It was the normal kinda college day, I was walking with my friend Dobi, who is a shiite from Karbala, when suddenly another shiite from Najaf, Hamchi, comes all concernced, saying'They hit the Hadi shrine in Samaraa'
Depsite his Karbala descent, Hobi is practically an atheist, he shrugs and we walk on, this is also the first time I ever hear of the Hadi shrine...in Samarra? erm...excusez moi, but ce n'est pas sunni territory? what r u saying? Hamchi is deeply into religion and is part of the UIA-related organization in our college, much unlike the Badr horrific acts, Hamchi is probably one of the nicest guys I ever met....he walked away in hurried strides.
Anyway, things continued normally for the time being, I laughed so hard that day my belly still hurts. what a stupid fool.
Until it was time to leave college...
Considering that we live in the overly Sunni district Adhamiya, several of my friends decided to stay in college today, not risking going back, I chose to go back nevertheless, better today while I can...
I rode off in several mass transit lines, all the time hammered by calls from concerned parents and relatives, not all of them neccessarily in this country. My father was the worst, he looked deeply distressed as if cursing the day he let me stay in Iraq, his voice held a tone of introvert emotion....he asked me when will exams end and when could I come to Jordan...I calmed him down in a nonchalant voice, loving his concern for me but unable to react accordingly inside a suffocating Kia.
Things were quite normal outside, except for an extra checkpoint at Sunni Bayaa, but Mansoor, Bab El Ma'dham et all did not show me anything of the horrible confusion my parents/relatives were talking about. When I reached Adhamiya, the roads were blocked in a fashion similar to that of Ashoora's celebration day roadblocks, but everything was calm and orderly, the soldiers were not demeaning or threatening in any way, as a matter of fact, they were instructing people how to find differnet routes back home. I had to walk home, I picked up my dinner on the way back home. It was placid. thankfully...You only needed to watch the TV to see the horrible news unfolding from every direction, countless mosques burned and Imams killed, people dead on the streets...
the day progressed less than tolerably...
Past midnight, there were voices outside and sounds of footsteps, mistaking it for the long-sought thieves who steal the power wires of the local generators every other five days or so, I hurried to the window, only to find several plainclothes men with rifles and Klashinkov roaming the area, After a hazy confusion, I understood, those were neighbors out in the street to warn and defend the area should any Badr militia try to go through here.
I didn't go outside anyplace today, I feel gutted and tired the same way I got out of bed. My hair is getting long too.
So far, nothing has really happened in our area, wait a minute...just now....I can hear intense gunshots to the south, there seems to be two sides, one near me, the other distant, as if replying...the sounds have subsided after a full minute.
phone call....a family friend, asking me if everything's okay....i okayed him, feeling the general tension and very much not liking it.
well, that's pretty much all that's going on. General tension awaiting for things to resolve, gunshots every now and then, and horrible news on TV and the Internet, 111 dead!So far, nothing has happened in our area, but everybody's on their toes.
DAY 2
Today was a Friday, but guessing by the curfew I expected little to no sermons today, official hoopla was to 'deny preachers the right to inflame things up and to prevent gatherigs' I don't dig the government, but that was cool. I stayed home, supposedly reading for an indefinite exam, but actually watching tragedy after tragedy on TV. 47 bodies were found in Nahrawan, laying side by side like their babies. big bearded dirty blood-soaked babies.The curfew was supposed to end till 4, but it got extended till next day.
Events have culminated in the emergence of the 'men in black with torn slippers driving pickups', who are purpotedly Mahdi's army, but Moqtada Sadr denied their allegiance, the Men in Black have took numerous mosques around the capital, anyway, district-wise, these dudes tried to enter our district through Al-Noman's hospital, and were warded off, they also tried to take over the two nearby mosques, Sideeq and Assaaf, but about 30 something neighbors received them in their underwear with a heavy dose of AK-47 spray bulleting...I got a call in the middle of the night, It was Habeeb, a neighbor friend.
'Hey kiddo'
'Hey Habeeb, something happened?'
'Naw, just bored, standing outside here with my Noss Akhmaas [AK-47], wondered if you could come and join us?'
I never fired anything in my life, nor do I intend to
'I've got nothing but my dick in my hands...plus, I gotta read, ward off the bogeymen for me'
'Thought so'
'Can't believe u carrying it, shoot a bullet for me'
'Shut the fuck up'
I looked outside to take a peek, basically, all the assorted kids of the neighborhood, after The nighttime prayer, the lights are intentionely turned low, and the warzone officialy assimilates its shape. Five roof snipers, about 10 people on the streets, all the while smoking and laughing, probably watching porn on mobile phones too... Where are we headed? I don't know, but I'm hoping Habeeb stays with two legs this evening.
To quote the old Iraqi moral, I pissed and went to bed.
DAY 3
I couldn't stand staying in home much longer, things were realtively calmer today on TV. everyone with a turban agreed on national unity, but there was an explosion in a Karbala market...what the hell. My hair was very long, I went to Habeeb, who insisted that we go to the nearby mosque to pray before we head to the barbershop.The small mosque was crowded at the low-traffic prayer of Noon, amazing! but one needs little to wonder, often in times of struggle people turn to religion.
We headed out to the barbershop, the streets were ghastly and serene, by the time we reached the shop, it was closed, 75% of the market was closed, save for a few shops whose owners live nearby.
I returned, we spent the daytime on the street, the street was narrowed down with palm tree logs that would force any car to slow down...we sat on the log and traded war stories...
'15 Badr people have infilitrated Adhamiya''People in red Opel stopped and started firing yesterday, that's the mess u heard late at night'etc etc...
So far, the only people happy with the situation are the little kids, facing empty streets, they set up small soccer fields and kicked the living out of each other, they were all happy like chipmunks.
I looked at their happiness and felt the pristine carelessness of it, savoring the moment and wishing I could live forever as a kid who don't give a shit. It's a shame, It's a real shame what's going on, but I think things can be contained after all, as long as we keep the faith, in ourselves.
Curfew's been extended too, so no college tomorrow, Yay...on second note...Yay?
Hey....Right now, Sadr dudes and Sunni dudes are gathering in Abu Haneefa, working out a unified statement. hope it's not the usual condemnation gibberish.
Yesterday, I was sick and afraid, but today things have got quieter and I got thinking, although people have died, and mosques were torn, the situation has been boiling up for two years and it had to come to a point like this..despite the many extremists and stupid folks in this coutnry, the majority, Sunni and Shiite, know what's good for them and they won't shut up. Mahdi's army or not, these people will be vanquished....Sunni and Shiite people have come together and rebuilt Qibaa mosque and prayed noon together, always be optimistic, not stupidly so, but keep the faith in yourself and your people. Some media are scaring the shit out of me, but I will ignore them.
I can't wait for these days to finish, and they will finish, because afterwards Sunni/Shiite will be closer...
Kid
Monday, February 20, 2006
Comment On Past Post
This was a normal unimportant comment but it got too long, i thought i'd put it here...
GRANDPA DAILY QUOTE :
'Dog son of a dog' -About Rumsfeld.
Gee folks...that's like the largest comment sections i ever got...
Anonymous...I wholeheartedly disagree with you, listen, your line of thinking can be followed, but I think it's somewhat incorrect because you assume that religion is treated similarly by all the folks involved, the key is not the comparison of reaction towards religious offence, but comparing reactions towards SENSITIVE topics. Difference between insults towards Mohammed and other religions is that Mohammed guys tend to take their religion much more seriously than Jesus and Moses guys, cuz that's just the way they are! Other things, such as the holocaust, face similar, if not proposterous, reactions from the Western world...I can only stare in wonder at the 3-year prison sentence given out to British historian Irving for simply DENYING the holocaust...very simple example of western double-standards, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
The evolution of violence in the demonstrations is very natural, unfortunate, true, but is a complete rational offspring of the political backdrop - I am against the violence itself, but I like the enthusiasm.
Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing, Dayez, and in a perfect world, I totally agree with you 100%, but there are subtle levels in the matter, for example :
This guy in our neighborhood, we don't like him a lot, matter of fact,one of his cousins had outright problems with one of us and nearly killed the sucker, so one day we're standing in front of his house in our regular corner when all of a sudden his hot mom comes out to water the garden, and voila, quite accidentally we see her things that should not be seen, now, considering that we kinda hate the dude, and considering that his mom is so fucking hot, so we spread the word around, calling his mom an intentional whore-under-the-blanket...
Now if the dude would react like u want, he would either ignore us, or try to talk reason with us, yes my mom wears short skirts, yes, folks, please, don't make a big thing, it's her thing, everybody has a thing, sil vous plait, oui, fuck me in the ass? yes?!?? Dude, i can't even complete that line of thought!
All this happens while we still draw naked pictures of her on the walls, and talk about how she begs for it everyday by exposing exclusive parts from the balcony...Put yourself in the dude's place, how many days would say would the guy wait before he dishes out the AK-47 for target practice? See what I mean...
some things are sensitive, very very sensitive, if these things are not sensitive to you, you should consider their sensitivity to other folks - Religion is not much of a topic in the West, except in the catholic circles, and maybe because of the ultra-violent things done in the name of the church, or maybe because of the Da Vinci Code...but It is serious here, DEAD serious.
CHALLENGE OF THE DAY (IRAQIS only):
In Da Vinci Code, Jacques Saunere writes out a complex code to his granddaughter before he dies, the code involves the reverred Fibonacci sequenece (pronounced Phi-bo-na-chi), to understand what this sequence really is about, close the door, make sure no one is around, and read the following word out loud :
Fibonaccni
L8erz
Ever Wisecracking Kiddo
GRANDPA DAILY QUOTE :
'Dog son of a dog' -About Rumsfeld.
Gee folks...that's like the largest comment sections i ever got...
Anonymous...I wholeheartedly disagree with you, listen, your line of thinking can be followed, but I think it's somewhat incorrect because you assume that religion is treated similarly by all the folks involved, the key is not the comparison of reaction towards religious offence, but comparing reactions towards SENSITIVE topics. Difference between insults towards Mohammed and other religions is that Mohammed guys tend to take their religion much more seriously than Jesus and Moses guys, cuz that's just the way they are! Other things, such as the holocaust, face similar, if not proposterous, reactions from the Western world...I can only stare in wonder at the 3-year prison sentence given out to British historian Irving for simply DENYING the holocaust...very simple example of western double-standards, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
The evolution of violence in the demonstrations is very natural, unfortunate, true, but is a complete rational offspring of the political backdrop - I am against the violence itself, but I like the enthusiasm.
Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing, Dayez, and in a perfect world, I totally agree with you 100%, but there are subtle levels in the matter, for example :
This guy in our neighborhood, we don't like him a lot, matter of fact,one of his cousins had outright problems with one of us and nearly killed the sucker, so one day we're standing in front of his house in our regular corner when all of a sudden his hot mom comes out to water the garden, and voila, quite accidentally we see her things that should not be seen, now, considering that we kinda hate the dude, and considering that his mom is so fucking hot, so we spread the word around, calling his mom an intentional whore-under-the-blanket...
Now if the dude would react like u want, he would either ignore us, or try to talk reason with us, yes my mom wears short skirts, yes, folks, please, don't make a big thing, it's her thing, everybody has a thing, sil vous plait, oui, fuck me in the ass? yes?!?? Dude, i can't even complete that line of thought!
All this happens while we still draw naked pictures of her on the walls, and talk about how she begs for it everyday by exposing exclusive parts from the balcony...Put yourself in the dude's place, how many days would say would the guy wait before he dishes out the AK-47 for target practice? See what I mean...
some things are sensitive, very very sensitive, if these things are not sensitive to you, you should consider their sensitivity to other folks - Religion is not much of a topic in the West, except in the catholic circles, and maybe because of the ultra-violent things done in the name of the church, or maybe because of the Da Vinci Code...but It is serious here, DEAD serious.
CHALLENGE OF THE DAY (IRAQIS only):
In Da Vinci Code, Jacques Saunere writes out a complex code to his granddaughter before he dies, the code involves the reverred Fibonacci sequenece (pronounced Phi-bo-na-chi), to understand what this sequence really is about, close the door, make sure no one is around, and read the following word out loud :
Fibonaccni
L8erz
Ever Wisecracking Kiddo
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