Blackouts.
It is late here, I want to fall asleep...
I switch off the small table lamp next to my bed. The obscurity is total. A thick black curtain envelops the room.
I close my eyes, the darkness gets even thicker, like a heavy thick veil...
I plunge my head into the pillow. I hear myself breathe. I feel my heartbeat. I hear the obscurity.
I am wide awake in the darkness.
My body says "am tired, let me go"...and my mind replays those images, waking my body up, every time it dozes off...
I get up, turn on the computer, my mind is very alert, my body drudging behind...
I want to chase the pictures away. But I can’t. They have followed me into the darkness of my room, tugging at my sleeve, shouting “Wake up, wake up, you can’t go to sleep.” And here I am.
A boy not older than 12, paralyzed and totally dependent on a breathing machine.
The machine has stopped. No electricity. A total blackout.
The whole family takes turns pumping air manually to keep him alive. A vigil of artificial air.
Hospitals in total darkness. Children, adults, the elderly, anyone relying on a life saving machine is right now, as am typing this, in his/her agonizing moments...
The place – Gaza.
The people – The Palestinians.
My mind takes me to other images.
Sudan - A gathering strongly condemning. “Where is your democracy?“ shouts one. “This is criminal” shouts the other...
Egypt – “Open the Rafah border now.” “We don’t need Bush’s democracy.” “Enough”...
Jordan – Many holding a candle vigil sitting on the cold grounds, in the heart of the night. A spontaneous gathering of protest. Several kids holding the Palestinian flag, and a picture of SADDAM HUSSEIN right next to it. They gathered from Baqa'a, Al-Wahdat, East Amman, West Amman, Zarqa... and carrying his picture? Why do you think this is so?
“Why are you here?” asks the TV anchorman.
“I want people to become aware and stop this carnage” replies a 10 year old.
“I am here because I support the children of Gaza” says another 12 years old.
It is very cold out there, it is well past midnight.
Compare those kids to yours – can you do that? There is no comparison.
A few politicians appear, they talk the usual nonsense. They say “the Arab governments have to intervene in this humanitarian crisis.”
Excuse me?
Did the Arab governments intervene when 500’000 Iraqi children died due to 13 years of the most brutal sanctions ever?
Did the Arab governments intervene when Iraq was bombed senseless and left with no electricity and no water for over 5 years now?
Did anyone apart from a few voices here and there, utter anything against the squeezing into death of the Iraqi population?
Until today, we get one hour max of electricity per day. If you have the means you buy fuel for a generator and you get 4 hours of electricity per day. And even that is considered too much by some. Like the asshole who wrote to me and said. "Well you have 3 to 4 hours, why are you complaining?"
We have been in a blackout for over 5 years...
I remember every time we could find candles to buy or those cheap kerosene lamps that suffocate you in the night, we felt we found a treasure.
Batteries for flashlights were like diamonds.
Did anyone ask after the thousands of Iraqis young and old dying in hospitals with no electricity?
Did anyone care about the kidney patient relying on dialysis, or the crippled relying on a breathing machine?
NO ONE gave a fuck.
And NO ONE gives a fuck today.
Because today was like yesterday and is like tomorrow.
17 years of genocide, a slow sure genocide and no Arab government gave a damn. No Muslim government gave a damn.
A population that went down from 25 million or so to 20 million, 5 million less and no one still gives a damn.
No, quite the contrary.
You found Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the rest... rushing to its further annihilation.
You found so-called Muslim countries like Iran and its thug proxies like the Hezbollahs of this world, not only keeping a total silence about it but worse, training more of them in the art of killing.
You found the international community shrouded into deafness.
And you found the so-called left snoozing away, resting their heads on tombs and dead bodies...into a deep sleep.
What happened to Iraq is happening to Gaza and to the whole of the Palestinian cause.
What happened to Iraq WILL happen again in Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia...
Enough of your slogans, vile people.
Enough of your theories and your analysis.
Enough of your buying into clichés, banners and false flags.
Wake up. Wake up!
Wake up just like am awake right now.
Wake up like those 10 years old, fully awake in Sudan, Egypt and Jordan...
Wake up from the blackout you have fallen into, like some drinker who can’t hold his drink. Wake up from your amnesia, your indifference, your apathy, your complacency...wake up!
How many more Palestinians and Iraqis will it take for you to nudge you out from your slumber?
How much more blood and wasted innocent lives will it take you before your alarm bell rings?
How many more Iraqs and Palestines do you need?
How much more inter-cleansing does it take ?
You run like sheep after more banners and more slogans...
Look at the REALITY you bastards.
Look, look, look...
Why do you think I am still up writing ?
I want to slap with you this REALITY.
But as usual, you prefer slogans...easy made slogans, handy solutions made of WORDS.
You carry them like a key around your neck, but you can't open the fucking door.
And the door stares at you. And you can’t. You are paralyzed in the obscurity.
The darkness of a blacked out DEAD BRAIN.
You still hope that someone else will deliver or save...
You still hope that Mubarak, Abdallah, Khaddafi, Assad, Nasrallah, Ahmadinajad, Abbas, Hanieh, and God knows who else will deliver...and save.
You are fucking dumb.
You are worse than fucking dumb. You are a lazy, treacherous lot.
Stay in the obscurity.
Rot there.
But the little ones carrying the flag and the picture know it better than all of you put together.
They are sitting in the darkness, in the heart of the night, but they see.
Whilst you are not only deaf, but also blind.
Gaza, Baghdad, are in darkness.
Yes they are blacked-out.
Blacked out from your minds and hearts
You only allude to them when convenient, when it pays off...
The Enemy , we know who he is, who they are...
But do you see the rest ?
Do you see You ?
Do you see how your mimicking like monkeys, got us to where we are at ?
Of course you don’t. And you hardly ever will.
Gaza, Baghdad are in darkness.
And you are in total obscurity.
Stay asleep. Do stay asleep.
Your presence is like your absence.
Nothing.
Black, pitch black.
A blackout.
Painting : Iraqi artist, Sina Atta.
I switch off the small table lamp next to my bed. The obscurity is total. A thick black curtain envelops the room.
I close my eyes, the darkness gets even thicker, like a heavy thick veil...
I plunge my head into the pillow. I hear myself breathe. I feel my heartbeat. I hear the obscurity.
I am wide awake in the darkness.
My body says "am tired, let me go"...and my mind replays those images, waking my body up, every time it dozes off...
I get up, turn on the computer, my mind is very alert, my body drudging behind...
I want to chase the pictures away. But I can’t. They have followed me into the darkness of my room, tugging at my sleeve, shouting “Wake up, wake up, you can’t go to sleep.” And here I am.
A boy not older than 12, paralyzed and totally dependent on a breathing machine.
The machine has stopped. No electricity. A total blackout.
The whole family takes turns pumping air manually to keep him alive. A vigil of artificial air.
Hospitals in total darkness. Children, adults, the elderly, anyone relying on a life saving machine is right now, as am typing this, in his/her agonizing moments...
The place – Gaza.
The people – The Palestinians.
My mind takes me to other images.
Sudan - A gathering strongly condemning. “Where is your democracy?“ shouts one. “This is criminal” shouts the other...
Egypt – “Open the Rafah border now.” “We don’t need Bush’s democracy.” “Enough”...
Jordan – Many holding a candle vigil sitting on the cold grounds, in the heart of the night. A spontaneous gathering of protest. Several kids holding the Palestinian flag, and a picture of SADDAM HUSSEIN right next to it. They gathered from Baqa'a, Al-Wahdat, East Amman, West Amman, Zarqa... and carrying his picture? Why do you think this is so?
“Why are you here?” asks the TV anchorman.
“I want people to become aware and stop this carnage” replies a 10 year old.
“I am here because I support the children of Gaza” says another 12 years old.
It is very cold out there, it is well past midnight.
Compare those kids to yours – can you do that? There is no comparison.
A few politicians appear, they talk the usual nonsense. They say “the Arab governments have to intervene in this humanitarian crisis.”
Excuse me?
Did the Arab governments intervene when 500’000 Iraqi children died due to 13 years of the most brutal sanctions ever?
Did the Arab governments intervene when Iraq was bombed senseless and left with no electricity and no water for over 5 years now?
Did anyone apart from a few voices here and there, utter anything against the squeezing into death of the Iraqi population?
Until today, we get one hour max of electricity per day. If you have the means you buy fuel for a generator and you get 4 hours of electricity per day. And even that is considered too much by some. Like the asshole who wrote to me and said. "Well you have 3 to 4 hours, why are you complaining?"
We have been in a blackout for over 5 years...
I remember every time we could find candles to buy or those cheap kerosene lamps that suffocate you in the night, we felt we found a treasure.
Batteries for flashlights were like diamonds.
Did anyone ask after the thousands of Iraqis young and old dying in hospitals with no electricity?
Did anyone care about the kidney patient relying on dialysis, or the crippled relying on a breathing machine?
NO ONE gave a fuck.
And NO ONE gives a fuck today.
Because today was like yesterday and is like tomorrow.
17 years of genocide, a slow sure genocide and no Arab government gave a damn. No Muslim government gave a damn.
A population that went down from 25 million or so to 20 million, 5 million less and no one still gives a damn.
No, quite the contrary.
You found Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the rest... rushing to its further annihilation.
You found so-called Muslim countries like Iran and its thug proxies like the Hezbollahs of this world, not only keeping a total silence about it but worse, training more of them in the art of killing.
You found the international community shrouded into deafness.
And you found the so-called left snoozing away, resting their heads on tombs and dead bodies...into a deep sleep.
What happened to Iraq is happening to Gaza and to the whole of the Palestinian cause.
What happened to Iraq WILL happen again in Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia...
Enough of your slogans, vile people.
Enough of your theories and your analysis.
Enough of your buying into clichés, banners and false flags.
Wake up. Wake up!
Wake up just like am awake right now.
Wake up like those 10 years old, fully awake in Sudan, Egypt and Jordan...
Wake up from the blackout you have fallen into, like some drinker who can’t hold his drink. Wake up from your amnesia, your indifference, your apathy, your complacency...wake up!
How many more Palestinians and Iraqis will it take for you to nudge you out from your slumber?
How much more blood and wasted innocent lives will it take you before your alarm bell rings?
How many more Iraqs and Palestines do you need?
How much more inter-cleansing does it take ?
You run like sheep after more banners and more slogans...
Look at the REALITY you bastards.
Look, look, look...
Why do you think I am still up writing ?
I want to slap with you this REALITY.
But as usual, you prefer slogans...easy made slogans, handy solutions made of WORDS.
You carry them like a key around your neck, but you can't open the fucking door.
And the door stares at you. And you can’t. You are paralyzed in the obscurity.
The darkness of a blacked out DEAD BRAIN.
You still hope that someone else will deliver or save...
You still hope that Mubarak, Abdallah, Khaddafi, Assad, Nasrallah, Ahmadinajad, Abbas, Hanieh, and God knows who else will deliver...and save.
You are fucking dumb.
You are worse than fucking dumb. You are a lazy, treacherous lot.
Stay in the obscurity.
Rot there.
But the little ones carrying the flag and the picture know it better than all of you put together.
They are sitting in the darkness, in the heart of the night, but they see.
Whilst you are not only deaf, but also blind.
Gaza, Baghdad, are in darkness.
Yes they are blacked-out.
Blacked out from your minds and hearts
You only allude to them when convenient, when it pays off...
The Enemy , we know who he is, who they are...
But do you see the rest ?
Do you see You ?
Do you see how your mimicking like monkeys, got us to where we are at ?
Of course you don’t. And you hardly ever will.
Gaza, Baghdad are in darkness.
And you are in total obscurity.
Stay asleep. Do stay asleep.
Your presence is like your absence.
Nothing.
Black, pitch black.
A blackout.
Painting : Iraqi artist, Sina Atta.
Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mvrUOBepVw
and who says Arab bitches aren't free?!
mmmmmwaaahhhhh bye honey bunny
Wow......what a concept huh?
As if you gave a fuck in the first place huh?
Spare me, us...go back to sleep will you!
scorched earth,
"Spare me, us...go back to sleep will you!"
Gee and I thought you wanted people to wake up.....Liar!
He or she said nothing to indicate she didn't care about Iraq. She just implied she didn't like your style! Are you so arrogant that you think they have to like you in order to care about Iraq? Yes I believe you do!!
Layla has front row seats! How the hell do you think you would feel, act and communicate if the tables were turned?
You're arrogant! You talk down to/at Layla because she shows a little human emotion.
Come on... admit it with me: We are forgetting what that feels like.
And people of all ages and character are paying the price.
and layla's right on target, no on egivies a fuck. humans, what specimens.....
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080120/NEWS0602/801200382/1006/NEWS01
She's a walking paradox; crying out for help and demanding it, yet does not want ANYBODY to help. Its like going from deep deep clinical depression to a mania.
There are hundreds of organizations that DO actually help Iraqi kids and Palestinian kids and there are so many located in America. A google search shows this. Yet, Layla .....ah forget Layla..the kids are whats important. She can remain sleepless in the Mideast for all I care.
Saddam's government killing Kurds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgUkbWah9-0
Are you a mother? sister? daughter?
Some of your more scathing remarks reference "You" Who are your referring to? Shia's?Americans?Israel, Iran? The West?
What is your philosphy around Canada and the United Nations on Peace Keeping duties? We try to help build infrastructure (schools, wells, villages) and our young men and women are killed by land mines, or killed by suicide bombers who don't seem to mind collateral damage? How can we extend a hand of compassion when the hand we extend it to is liable to strap a bomb on a child and blow them all up. What about Dafur, what about dying of starvation, children being taught to be soldiers....
I'm sick to death of what man does to man in the name of their God and Prophets. This isn't about who's God is right which prophet should be followed(which is an oxymoron as the Christian God, Jewish God and Muslim God are all the same being....)
I truly believe it will be up to women to get us out of the mess that the men have created. Mothers, daughters and sisters can we not agree to stop killing our children? I'm tired of going to funerals as I'm sure you are as well.
Can a dialogue not be struck? Can we not reach out to people without a helpful hand instead of killing them because they have something of ours they want?
Your comments would be interesting to me....my only other comment is that your language disintegrates into a crude diatribe sometimes, which distracts from the true message behind your words. You are obviously educated so I can't believe your vocabulary is so insufficient that you stoop to using obscenity to make your point
Curious in Canada....
You still hope that Mubarak, Abdallah, Khaddafi, Assad, Nasrallah, Ahmadinajad, Abbas, Hanieh, and God knows who else will deliver...and save.
You are fucking dumb.
You are worse than fucking dumb. You are a lazy, treacherous lot.
I really hate to say this, but I AGREE with Layla here. Nothing is more laughable than the so-called Arab or Muslim brotherhood.
One only needs to ask how much money the Americans gave to the Muslim Indonesians after the tsunami and compare that with how much the oil-rich "Muslim brothers" from the KSA and the Gulf Arabs gave.
*
Fortunately, that is not the case. She has stated that Arabs that move to "western" societies and America in particular at times, that they are the "worst of the lot".
In reality though, she has no idea of the details of just why people move from one place to another. In reality, she does not care. I know many Muslims here that send money to organiztios overseas that are specifically designed to help families and children from sufffering caused by tsunamis, earthquakes, poverty and war. Many christians do too. And card carrying atheists as well.
Would Layla like all this to stop. Would she be willing to write or write to these international organizations informing them that they should stop receiving 'donations' from "the West"?
I challenge Layla to do that; to write a detailed piece on how "the West" should stop sending money and other donations to international organizations located in Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere in the region AND how the organizations in those areas need to stop accepting these 'donations'.
Saddam crushed Trade Unions furing his presidency and set up his State Owned "unions".
Im America, and in its history, workers rights mean something and took alot of efforts to achieve.
But then again, Layla staes she "misses Saddam". Also note how the author of this link states that "resistance groups" are opportunists that are interested only in themselves.
interesting
Layla misses Saddam so apparently she agreed with Saddam that Union Workers should not be free to organize.
So I guess Layla agrees with the US here.
http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.com/2007/08/saddam-rides-again-as-sharistani.html
here a white cloth swaying, a sheet,
a heavy cloth stretched over a shadow
a corpse held up by the press of people.
here it is hot
here you feel it on the sole of the foot
here the palms of your hands sweat
there is a riot of voices
streaming through the mercilless light
crying out:
we remember a strong light
coiled in muscle
a child carried in to our mother
this light defining our grasp
the toil of the earth
the fruit of the water
the olives in the sheet
we gathered olives in this sheet
now here we show the mirrors of this world
where the shots came from...
among our bodies it passed to rest in his...
and does grief rise as smoke?
in this territory that history snared
our trees are thrown over and burnt...
our water drips from the fractured tank
our blood from this wound...
our light is spilt in the vessel of a child
the roots of our feelings
tremble in the ground
for they will never die
nor will the wind
nor will our enemy forget the DUst of the sand....jocelyn braddell©2002 www.thehandstand.org
good article layla......if this doesnt wake people up then i dont know what will
The guy Layla wants back and she says she "misses".
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2008/01/350000-gazans-stream-into-egypt.html
¡¡Fuerza, fuerza, fuerza para Palestina!!.
¡Amor para Palestina!, ¡rabia para Palestina!. El pueblo árabe muere miestras sus gobernantes abrillantan sus diamantes.
Ánimo. Os regalo todo mi calor, toda mi fuerza, toda mi esperanza. El pueblo arabe estais en mi corazón.
Un abrazo Layla. Un abrazo desde alguien que siente por vosotros desde el sur de España.