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

The Eye of Greed, or the I of Greed, there is no difference. It is business as usual. So many justifications, the business kind...if I don't go for it, someone else will...after all am helping the Iraqis...it's a clean business, no death involved...etc, etc...excuses and more excuses, lame ones...the bottom line is you're there for the profit...short term or long term does not matter...it's profit. That means anyone who does business in Iraq, is a fucking profiteer. A profiteer of the Occupation, a profiteer of our mass graves, of our exile and our displacement. I don't give a fuck how you look at it... Any, ANY company, that does business in Iraq today is giving legitimacy to the invasion and occupation. Because it means that you are dealing with the present status quo, and the present status quo is built on DEATH. It is built on thousands of bodies, on the biggest war known since the 2nd World War, on silence, on indifference, on apathy, on lies...LIES a...

Watched some advertisement on al Sharqiya Iraqi TV the other day. Some publicity for Iraq. This is not a post to endorse the Sharqiya which is the only palatable Iraqi TV I can watch and only for a limited period of time. But that advertisement stayed with me for several days now. It is ONE OF THE BEST I have seen so far in my life. And if I say it is one of the best, I usually know what am talking about. I can always tell the best from the rest...the best -- a terrible rarity these days. The camera zooms in on a bride dressed in white, holding a mirror, making herself beautiful for that special occasion and then sitting on a well cushioned engraved chair, holding a bouquet of flowers in her hands, resting on her lap and the bouquet covers her belly. She says: How I wish my parents to be present today, this is the most important day of my life. Why are my parents not here, why is my family absent ? Then the camera zooms on the chair next to her's where her groom is suppo...

This coming Friday, the 25th of February will supposedly be a day of massive protests throughout Iraq against corruption and lack of services. From my readings and listening to various sources, it is clear to me, that the Iraqis who will engage in this day of protest are NOT asking for regime change, but are demanding better services, less corruption, jobs and the rest. But this is not the main point of this post. My main point is a friendly warning to all those inside of Iraq who will participate in these demonstrations : Both the government of Al-Maliki, members of his Dawa party as well as the official spokesman of the armed police forces Kassem Atta, are already warning of "terrorists infiltrating the crowds and blowing themselves up" and that Iraq can revert back to square 1 if people do not respect the "law". My understanding of this warning is as follows : - this is being used as a deterrent to scare people from joining. - this fascist sectarian S...

Many have tried to silence me...different methods used. Some tried to silence me out of their own personal paranoia. A paranoid believes everything alludes to him or her. They, in their grotesque self grandiosity, actually believe every single post I write, is about them. They are delusional and live life through projections of their own pitiful selves. I guess, I always touch raw spots in people, be it political or otherwise, if you take it personally you have a huge problem and I suggest you seek urgent and intensive psychiatric care now. Other people use veiled threats, in the beginning they come across as "nice" and "concerned", and I as a writer, keep writing on the spur of the moment, when am inspired by a thought, an idea, a feeling or a situation...again this category of people believe this is an affront on their "persona" and start using the old stratagem of veiled and indirect threats and intimidation. Yet another category of people, will r...

Oh so now the Iraqis are protesting...protesting against what ? Protesting against corruption, the 2nd most corrupt country in the world. Protesting for bread, for water and for electricity when 50% of the population is unemployed especially SUNNI ARABS. FACT. Protest my ass. Where were you when the tanks rolled in ? where were you when the sectarian Shiites and their turbaned mullahs swayed you with a couple of hundred dollars for a finger dipped in purple ink for a "democratic" vote... Where were you when we escaped in droves, living the lives of dogs in exile...where were you when the militias you praised and danced for decimated us all? Where the fuck were you? Where were you when you let another sectarian whore from Iran take power again, for a second tenure and you sat and talked of national reconciliation and ballot boxes ?! Where were you when the Iraqi Resistance was struggling against the invader ALONE ? That same son of a bitch who put in place the most...

A beautiful song by Kazem El-Saher - The Impossible Love song. I will give a rough translation that does not do full justice to the lyrics. The non Arabic speaker may not appreciate the depth of the words, but then you may...depending on how open your heart is... And maybe this is also an attempt on my part to remind myself and indirectly others that the land of Uruk is also the land of Love, a self-less Love. I love you so very much knowing the road to you is impossibly long I know that you're the Woman for whom there is no replacement I also know that the age of tenderness has ended and that of beautiful words has died. I love you so very much and I know I live in an exile and you in an exile and between us storms, ligthning, thunder, snow and fire I know, arriving to you is an illusion I know arriving to you is suicide And I rejoice to tear myself into pieces for your sake, my precious and if I am to chose I would try your love a second time, aga...

Been thinking about Egypt a lot. This is a country I fell in love with in the past. I called it then "la magie des lieux" - the magic of places. For me, Egypt represented many things. It represented history, civilization, culture, simplicity, and a certain wisdom... The flip side was poverty, despair, struggle and human misery. Some things in the Egyptian character (if one may call it that) I always appreciated...and other things I tremendously disliked. I suppose no love affair is perfect. I can't claim to know Egypt very well, but I can safely say that I know it quite well. In any case, better than your (below)average Westerner who spends 99% of his/her time in Zamalek, working for an NGO and who will sit for hours pontificating about what is best for it. Landing with a blue print, a booklet and eating a couple of sandwiches of Falafel do not make you an expert. And even though I am keeping a close eye on the latest events in Egypt, which I deem to be of great...