An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...

I just love exposing the motherfuckers. I tremendously enjoy cornering them in their own turf. I relish shedding light on them...I thoroughly enjoy deconstructing them and skinning them and their arguments away....in the garbage bins , in the dustbins, into the rubbish that they are... Remind yourselves, you are dealing with rubbish people. With rubbish minds, and rubbish arguments and a rubbish rationale...Get to them. So easy and I will tell you how. Take for instance the subject matter " The Iraqi POLICE ". Lets take that one as an example, a detail... Prior to our " liberation", we were told that we were living in a police state, being policed by a monster state apparatus with its policed security called mukhabarat , We were also told that we were not allowed to utter a single thing because we were a policed people. living in a policed country, like a fucking fortress that no one could penetrate - and rightly so. For we have seen what your "penetration...

in a Lover's Lap...

I am no linguist, but as far as I can remember I have always held a strange fascination for Language. There are so many kinds of languages, so many forms, so many levels of understanding Language... Language is a world by itself...Hence it is no wonder that in the beginning was the Verb. The Verb is the Source from which all ensues...at least in Arabic, it is. From the Verb comes the noun and the adjective, the past, the present and the future. Take for instance the verb Kataba which means to write. From Kataba you have Kitab - a book or a written text. Then you have Maktab - an office or desk where things are written. You also have Kateb - a writer. And you have Maktoob - a letter or a pre-written, pre-ordained Destiny. This is just one example of the Verb branching out, in the Arabic language. So many branches from one Verb and so many Verbs... It is simply impossible to understand a people without at least a partial cognizance of their language. Language is the window and the ...

WARNING - This post may offend some of your "sensibilities." What a wonderful title, a classic from F.Fanon. I do not wish to get into a critique of the book right now, but the overall idea is still very valid and applicable today. I read that the Pentagon makes it a compulsory reading in order to understand Iraq better... But you see, I read Fanon from a different angle, from the other side of the fence. As a matter of fact, this title has been on my mind for the past days, popping in and out and sometimes nudging me with urgency. I am not quite sure what prompted it. Reviewing the past few days, I guess it must have been triggered by the sight of some English breed grazing around... Some of my readers have raised a valid question in the past, they asked " How come your posts don't specifically address the English ?" I recall one of my replies - "It is because I hate them so much." I am better acquainted with the English mind set than the American on...

Did you say Arab ? Did I hear you right ? Arab is my nationality, my identity and my language. A language that existed before you were born, before you were collectively conceived... When your ancestors were still discovering language, and when you were communicating in grunts and groans, with a pistol in one hand. Your great grand father was a slave trader and yours was an ex convict. As for you, you discovered the virtue of bathing thanks to your expeditions to the Orient. And as for you - your university still has its faculty of medicine following what your crusaders brought with them in knowledge from the East. And you - your industrial revolution was only made possible thanks to the Silk road and its pillaging. So who are you talking to ? You cave man. When addressing your true Masters, you need a little humility. And one of this blog's intent is to make you humble or very angry... In either case - I have achieved my purpose. So am an Arab, an Arab Woman. And what a wonderful ...

I don't have a sweet tooth, so candies are neither my weakness nor my vice... I am always delightfully amused when I observe kids eyeing the shelves of a sweet shop. You can tell from their eyes that they want it all - every single candy, chocolate bar, lollipop there is...I guess the palette of colors they are presented with, their wrappings, tickles something in them -- the taste of Sweetness. I remember when I was a kid, I had the same feelings when passing by a sweet shop or the local kiosk. My mom was adamant about not letting her girl suck on colored candies and lollipops. She would say -- You are not having any of that, it is all artificial. As a kid, I frankly did not care what was artificial and what was real. The colored candies/bonbons fitted my universe, they were an intrinsic part of it. And the minute she had her back turned, or whenever the occasion presented itself, I would take the little coins I had diligently saved and go and buy one of those bright pink bonbons/...

I want to tell you all about the Whore from Babylon ... She is unlike any other whore you have met before and am sure you have met a few...She is your creation. So look at her now. She is no streetwalker, no sex worker, no prostitute. She is the Whore from Babylon. I want to emphasize the word – because you relish it, you secretly relish it... A great erection engulfs you, and you feel powerful again. And your power is measured by your erections...your would–be erections, your pseudo-erections, your make-belief erections... Erections come in all forms. Fun and Exercise erections, Mental erections, Ideological erections, Political erections and even Religious erections. Battlefield erections, Military erections, Financial erections, Power erections, Conquest erections, Destruction erections, Annihilation erections... My, you are truly powerful. And your sexual erections are nothing but the tip of the iceberg. Do excuse the pun...and it is intended. Now, now, don't get me wrong. It i...

and the Geography of the Body...

Mahmoud Darwish, one of my favorite Arab (Palestinian) poets died today. A man whose poetry followed me everywhere... Another great loss for the Arabs. And we are left with the junk of American globalization, the unending crimes of a New World order and a continuous hemorrhaging Arab world following a forced biceps delivery... I leave you with one of his poems... I come from There, I come from there and I have memories Born as mortals are, I have a mother And a house with many windows, I have brothers, friends, And a prison cell with a cold window. Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls, I have my own view, And an extra blade of grass. Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words, And the bounty of birds, And the immortal olive tree. I walked this land before the swords Turned its living body into a laden table. I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother, When the sky weeps for her mother. And I weep to make myself known To a returning cloud. I learnt all the words worthy of...

I don't know about you, but whenever I get into a cab, I almost always fall on some driver who will go through a litany of woes. It is either an expose of his financial problems, his family problems due to lack, his fights with his nagging wife on money, his sister in hospital, his great grandmother suffering from some incurable disease, his rheumatoid arthritis and how difficult it is for him to continue driving, cost of living and not making ends meet, what horrible drivers others are and how he can't repair his own car - of course, he will invariably fail to include himself as one of the main contributors to reckless driving. I don't exactly look like Mother Teresa nor like Dr.Ruth nor like some diamond covered Gulf princessa, so I simply don't understand why these cab drivers feel the need to get close and personal. I suspect 9 times out of 10 there is a always a ploy to extract more money. In the past, I used to fall for it, but not anymore. I decided that I was no...