Surges of a Heart

Mirrored

2010-08-23T04:18:00.000+03:00

I believe that nothing happens in vain. There is no such thing as coincidence.

Everything is exactly where it was supposed to be, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes our lacking human minds cannot grasp the possibilities, or imagine the ends.

I look at you as you stand there

And it takes me years back

I sit down and you stand up

So we can level

And your eyes are like two full moons

Full of explanation and defense

And I think to myself as I look at you,

Where were you 7 years ago?

Could I ever have foreseen this day?

I stare at your oval face as you tell me your story

Your arms fly out in the air

Pointing and waving

Your voice chokes over pretended self pity

Your lips arch as you hold back tears

And I can’t hear a single word you’re saying

I can only see a little girl

Oval grimacing face, wide tearful eyes, and arms kept tight to my sides

I’d be standing, but so would he

We never leveled eyes

And suddenly everything falls in place

That beauty mark on your right wrest

Those lines that embrace your smile

And the way you tell a story when you’re guilty

Life has reason

Life has aim

Who cares who played ball in the kitchen?

You’re my son

And I love you

23/8/2010

Just Friends..?

2010-04-28T21:15:00.003+03:00

Can a man and a woman really become friends, and sustain such a relationship?

uman existence is based on the attraction between the opposite sexes. It cannot be negated. When discussing the matter in general, aside from individual properties, that is the core to the answer whether they can or cannot become friends, because if that attraction is not kept at rein, then the relationship takes a turn into something totally different. And that is the first and heaviest burden to carry when a prospect of friendship between opposite sexes is in the air.

In our society, friendship between opposite sexes is always looked at with reservation, if not suspicion. It’s almost always expected to mean the beginning, or existence, of a more serious relationship. And “serious” here does not have to mean the prospect of marriage, which is what stirs conservation and controversy against it. But why isn’t it assumed that a man and a woman can actually enjoy each other’s acquaintance, and share thought and experience? What would it take for that to happen, and hold?

As far as I know, in our religion, both man and woman are bidden to restrain their feelings, lower their gaze, dress decently as required not to stir desire, and not meet in secret. I don’t know if there are other commandments, but I see nothing in these that forbids sharing of thought, which is the essence of friendship.

In history there are a few immortal such friendships to remember, among which are Tchaikovsky and lady Von Meck, as well as Mai Ziadeh and Khalil Jobran. Both couples kept their friendships going for years via post only, and never actually met, which would imply the impossibility of any change as to the nature of their relationship.

Tchaikovsky was very dependent on his lady’s moral support, and was nearly devastated when she stopped writing. The latter couple were separated by continents. Their correspondences across seas and land went on for twenty three years. I have read a few of their letters, which are considered precious literary heritage. They shared views on life, war, art, poetry and almost everything else contemporary to their time. There were hardly any words of love, and neither of them tried to be flirtatious, calling each other “friend” and no other endearment. But in the end, years after, Mai succumbed, and admitted her love to Khalil.

I would suggest that the basis for such a prolonged friendship would be for both of people to find understanding and leveling of minds. But to maintain the good of that friendship they have to try and de- genderize the other in their mind. For a friendship between a man and a woman to exist and maintain its nature, they have to keep enough distance not to feel towards each other instinctively; i.e. not to really know the other is opposite sex, and hence share thought without regard to the provocation of instinct. But even that would not stop the occasional flutter of the heart, or the yearning of the mind, just to share a smart joke, or the narration of an exhilarating experience. Sustaining such a friendship can pose a difficult challenge.

Envy...

2010-04-18T07:23:00.006+03:00

If I were her,

I would kneel

At every sign of sadness I see
Sealing your beautiful lips,
And never rise

Until you smile again.

If I were her,

I would swear by the hot blood we share

These nails will never carve another man’s shoulders

And these eyes will never thirst
For another man’s magnificence,

Just as they never have before.

If I were her,

I would beseech God

To mold me into a rib again

And put me back in your chest.

Oh.. please God, put me back in his chest!

So I can shield his warm heart,

Like I once did, ages ago.

I would never let a pathway

Lead you away from me,

My mornings would shy away from rising,

If they knew you would turn away from me that day,

My hours would weigh heavy on my life,
If you went away.

The mountain of patience that is my history would crumble

And the fertile land that is my womanhood would be forever barren

I would learn how to forgive, for you

How to embrace submission with hungry arms,

And how to tame the volcanic pride in me, for you.

You would be oblivious to my battles…this I know

But to draw a playful smile across your heavenly face,

Or capture the scent of your breath in my hair every morning,

I would battle all that I am, with the rest of what I am.

If only I were her.

April 18^th, 2010

This is about violence and anger-management.

2010-04-13T18:05:00.003+03:00

man killed both his wife and her sister, another husband hammered his wife’s head open, a youth stabbed his college mate to death, and another shot a man in vengeance…the misery goes on. In less than a week our press has reported more acts of murder than can be unrelated, yet all that could be found in common between these crimes is that they were unjustifiable and avoidable with a little self-restraint. But it seems that self-restraint is a characteristic we still have to create in our society.

f you ask anyone what they thought were the reasons behind such violence inherent in our behavior, which I actually did over social media, you would see the extent of how they accept this to be a social norm! Some would say it is sometimes explicable for anger to get out of reign and for one to lose control. But the thing is, we are more prone not to try the “control” trick in the first place. When Saleh Al Dweikat - the student who lost an eye getting beaten by a rampaged teacher - asked for a drink of water, he wasn’t set out to try anybody’s patience, nor was his behavior provocative in any way to justify getting beaten. But what really happens to people who lose control is that they don’t even begin to talk. Whatever the matter, whatever the cause of anger, they don’t stop to think of the choices at hand. They resort to what they were taught at sometime in their lives to be the shortest, most effective and impressive of reactions; violence, leaving the possible consequences to be dealt with later.

e, as a nation, are in dire need for some anger-management culturing. Our educational input, as well as our upbringing, totally ignores teachings of dialogue and debate. We are not taught to contemplate or accept the notion that we could be wrong, nor that we should accept the other’s opinion even if we disagree, nor that communicating thoughts is the first step out of dilemmas. This is when other cultures are incorporating the art of debate in their schooling systems and holding nation-wide pageants for it. On the other hand, our paternalistic society hails violence to be an act of manhood, pushing the limits of male-aggression even farther. The violence on our campuses is nothing but proof that all it needs for two youths to start stabbing each other is a look of defiance. There and then, without a word spoken, they would start hitting each other, just to prove to the spectators “who’s the man”. That causes the loss of dear lives, and in the least harmful of cases, loss of future prospects.

o change the mindset of accepting violence as a choice, we have to integrate the art of dialogue and verbal expression into our education at very early ages, and work up to the ages where it is most effective. Even if that takes the next generation to show results, the profound change in our society that will save lives and ensure security will be worth the while.

The Voice

2010-04-01T10:21:00.003+03:00

I have constantly wondered about the voice, but I never actually got to asking anyone about it. One friend volunteered once that he never had any voices in his head. And I wonder, what does he hear when all is silent?

The thing is, she’s been with me for as long as I can remember. With me ..in me..?I don’t know. But I do know that for the life that has been my adulthood, never has she lied to me. She is more honest and truthful than I myself can be with myself. And all the times that I have defied her in disbelief, I have lost the battles.

I call her “she” because of her motherly inclination to protect me, so like I would protect my children. All she has ever whispered in my quick were premonitions about people. And she has a particular way of making herself loud and clear. She only whispers when all are dead silent. Between wakefulness and sleep, just that second when consciousness starts washing away my slumber in the early morning, or even in my sleep sometimes, I would hear her. She would warn or foretell, and I would be taken over by awe for a few minutes.

As we grew up together, our connection has evolved, she and I. It has gone through all stages of denial, disbelief, and defiance. And finally, I have succumbed to the conviction that yes…she might just know better.

When she called last, I had hardly started to hear the early tweets. And before my eyes embraced light, she told me to run.

My conviction of her has grown in control, to a point where I don’t even look for omens of her truthfulness. As if in complete and utter surrender to my faith, I respond. I sat up in bed with an urge to sprint and run. But how do you run from a name?

She told me of a name that will cause me pain and much regret. And that the only way to safety is to run. I wished, not for the first time, that she would lie, that all I could hear inside my head every morning was the bustle of reminders of chores to be done and errands to be run, like regular housewives. But no…I had to hear premonitions about names in my life, and live with the consequences of being gifted for it. My gift is my curse.

And then I have to face up to the real world, and answer questions about being a weird personality, who was just so friendly yesterday, but all of a sudden she shuns and runs. I can only imagine his sneer, if he ever hears of it: my voice told me to!

When will she herald love? When will she whisper to me to run to, not from? If she were a woman, this omniscient of mine, I would straighten this out with her. With all the obedience she owes me, she ought to look up something good to foretell, just for once. She would know that, for all the running I’ve done in my life, I owe it to myself, as she to me, to be rewarded someday, with the fruit I’ve been forbidden.

And I wonder if that day is ever coming.

A reflection about love

2010-03-28T02:42:00.003+03:00

I just read the truest sentences about love in a post on Paulo Coelho’s blog. It’s not that I admire him, nor that I’m prejudiced. But that, coming from a man with a wisdom I expect to seek deeper into things, makes it even a deeper conviction for me.

Paulo says, that the pursuit of happiness should not be confused for the pursuit of love. As a matter of fact, one that I found I shared with him, it is the exact opposite. Love, if such an illusion exists at all, is nothing but anguish itself.

It’s a misconception. Love brings anxiety, anguish about whether we are deserving, adequate, or too trusting. I’ve known people who lived their lives searching for it, and I marvel at them. Somewhere along their search they must have found out that it is not the end they deserve, that “love” is but the road to disappointment; a mirage.

But what really is marvelous, is that they keep looking. They make themselves believe that they can’t live without it, when actually, while they’re looking, they are constantly without it and doing well.

But it is the illusion of happiness. The illusion that once we are there, all will change. But reality tells us, that once we are there, all will end. And the change that will force itself, is a very disappointing one.

28^th March

Because I'm a mother now...

2010-03-04T09:34:00.006+03:00

This which beats in my chest

I found

Is not a mere pump

It is not a mere organ

I have learned twelve years ago

Twelve of your pretty springs -

And many more to come Inshallah-

That the world should have safer playgrounds

To echo your early laughter

And all the beauties of the world

Should be your friends

The stars should be plucked out

To make wreaths and glitters

For every lovely smile

On your lovely face.

Your precious coming to the world

Taught me much more

Than all the books I read

And all the diplomas I sought

Before you, my ignorance could not

Lead me to why mighty men wept at wars

Or why proud women would become

Prostitutes for a meal a day

To bring home to their own

Or why beseech… or fight… or even conspire

For peace in a lost cause

If any of it could give one more child a safer day

Or why mother earth quakes every time

A mother buries her own

Not the other way around,

For she too is a mother.

Before you I did not understand

What it meant

When my dad, mighty in his majestic pride,

Turned around and walked away

When told there was no cure for me.

That was the time

When all the misery

Transmitted out in the air

Could not move a muscle in my stern face

That was a time when ignorance and rigidity

Coated my pump,

And pump was all it was good for.

The world conspires to make me believe

That I brought you to life,

That I brought you up

And taught you life

With my care and my love

And for that I am celebrated.

I marvel at that now.

Was I ever alive before you, sweet pumpkin?

The nights we shared your first laughter

Witnessed the first sparks of my true being

Making you laugh for longer

Seemed like the reason for my existence

Living to protect you from sheer air and light

Seemed sensible for the rest of my life.

And the nights when I would arch around you

Like a willow tree

Thinking the more I curl

The more I’ll take the pain away

From your feeble body

As colic brought your tears and soft cries

And my helplessness brought mine

This which beats in my chest

I found

Is not a mere pump

It can produce oceans of love

Oceans of love that to - my amazement –

Can reach out to the sides of the earth

And engulf people I don’t know

And children I never bore.

You have come into this world

And I have changed forever.

You… gave me life.

You… brought me up.

March 4^th, 2010-03-04

Exasperation

2009-12-16T02:44:00.008+03:00

I'm sick and tired of my adulthood..

I'm sick and tired of everybody's adulthood.

When is reincarnation coming?

I choose to believe..

I will be a mare again

And run with mustangs

Ever so wild and free

Never shoed..never broken

I will be a blue butterfly

Madly in love with the sun

I will shed off my cocoon

And in his mighty thrown

He will see me coming

I'm sick and tired of my smother face

Of the self-grown fences surrounding my heart

Of building fortresses to hide behind

Of twisting words and stifling smiles

I'm sick and tired of tapping to time's tunes

I want to play by my own ear

And dance to my own tunes

Dec 5th, 2009

Revelations that don't stop coming

2009-12-16T02:08:00.007+03:00

..so the boy grows with a dream
that just won't stand still

one day he wants to rule the world
and invade the sea...
with a wooden sword and a bed sheet tied around his neck
he battles his mother's scarecrow,
ten feet away from the hedge
so the girl next-door can see

next day he wakes up to a revelation...
a girl's heart to conquer
is a prize of honey and gold
he could not resist...
and he learns the sweet talk
and he learns to lure
and he lives the hunter's dream
oblivious that he is the prey

he feels himself grow and grow
he thinks life is too narrow
the tightness binds him when he should be free
and all of a sudden his dream becomes a horse
glorious, wild and free
and for years, he wakes and sleeps to his dream
he wants to be glorious, wild and free

and I never knew
what to make of the dark boy's dream
seeing him all big and grown.
I couldn't see his dream
the one that just won't stand still
but when he spoke of running to the sunset
and never coming back, I laughed.
and he ran to the sunset
and never came back
and the revelation came to me
that a boy grows and his world tightens
but he'll always be
just a boy grown grey

with a dream that just won't stand still

Dec.14 2009 2:08 AM

Now that I left

2009-11-01T07:37:00.005+03:00

The poplar tree just outside my bedroom window

We grew up together, she and I.

Her leaves flirted my senses into womanhood

I saw her green and naked

She saw me child and grown

Chestnuts popping off my mother’s stove

Where a century-old log

Of a Jerashi olive tree burned,

Musky incense sweeping away the scorched nuts’ aroma

The pain left in my soles

From tiptoeing barefoot on Lot-old pebbles

As I stared west at the falling sun

On the bank of the salty lake

My father’s grave every Friday morning

Just thirty paces behind the millennium-old tree

In the cemetery where wind had a magic flute

The scented breath of every newborn dawn

As I sneak to the porch wrapped in my mother’s shawl

Trying to return the greetings of the early birds,

And waiting for the next line of my word weave

All the roads I paved with my girlish trots on my way here

All the apricot trees uprooted for cement implants

All the souls hovering in the air

How long does it take for a girl to call a place home?

Our academics…and the brain drain

2009-07-09T21:13:00.004+03:00

Our university professors and lecturers are on the move, studies tell us. The Higher Council for Science and Technology found through a study that 776 university lecturers are migrating from our universities, leaving behind a gap that is hard to fill in a short period of time. I have to admit that one more must be added to that number. And since I expect that my colleagues share some of my reasons for leaving, I will state them here.

First and foremost, there are malpractices committed by the presidencies of our universities. The most harmful and offensive to the mind of these malpractices is favoritism. Ours is a community known for its nepotism, which could be in favor of those who have achieved less in there lives. But for those who have worked tooth and nail all their lives to achieve success and status, it is very demeaning to watch as someone beneath their qualifications snatches away a PhD. scholarship or a promotion, just because he happens to be remotely related to the president or the dean. The concept of “equal opportunity” in our universities shrinks to fit the minds of unjust decision makers. In order to find the equal opportunity that would reward the hard-working of us, we search for it in a community where our last names have no significance whatsoever.

The second most important reason behind the brain-drain, is the benefits vs. income injustice. In order for a college lecturer to become entitled to the benefits of long term employment, i.e. social security, health insurance, future university seats for their children, they have to be employed on a full time basis, which translates to a demure pay and a commitment not to work part-time for other universities. But if one were to forfeit those benefits for a better income, she would have to work part-time in several universities simultaneously. No single university will hire a part-timer for more than 6 credit hours a semester, not unless he’s related to someone important, of course. What makes the strife to make a decent living under such circumstances even harder is that part-timers are paid at the end of every semester, not monthly, not bimonthly. These are family people. They have dues and commitments to meet. How are they supposed to support their families if they take home money every four or so months? As if the delay in payment is the only collateral a university could hold against a part-timer to finish her course and submit her students’ performance! Any lawyer can put down a form of commitment to be signed by both parties: university and lecturer, to ensure each party’s rights. That would help elevate some of the academics’ hardships as to the terms of payment. But then again, there are the injustices brought on part-timers in every walk of life, because they are not protected by the Law of Labor. Which makes them liable for sudden dispense, and replacement by cheaper labor. One university president went to the extent of lowering the wages by %20, just two weeks before the end of the semester, without even a written notification! And because no contract binds either party, the injustice went unpunished.

To think that all this goes on among the elite of our community’s educated; the favoritism, the exploitation, the injustice, and the lack of incentive, all make the picture grim. And then comes along someone who blames our professors for lack of innovation and creativity. They are blamed for the low standards of research and empirical studies. Well, what can one expect from a PhD who is constantly trying to find a second income for his family to live on? Work is the enemy of thought, is it not? When will they have the peace of mind that leads to creativity and leaves time enough for research?

So what is it that we’re looking for abroad?

Appreciation, for one thing, maybe it’s because Jordanians are one of the most educated people, and because we have a high percentage of Doctorate holders, that we don’t appreciate the educated anymore; equal opportunity that justifies all the years of hard work; and of course, every body is looking for better income. A Jordanian lecturer is paid up to 8 times as much in the GCC as she makes at home, plus benefits.

It is every Jordanian’s dream to be able to serve at home, among our kin and for them. But if the higher education system does not do us justice, then it is expected that we’ll seek other opportunities abroad. We hope that the coming generations won’t have to make the same choice.

The unsaid about empowering women

2009-06-29T13:00:00.003+03:00

Every now and then the controversy arises about reasons why women aren’t empowered in our country. The long way that Jordanian women have come seems very short if constantly compared to that covered by western women. The heart of the matter is that women are expected and encouraged to contribute more to the building of the economy. Their contribution is measured by the percentage of women to aggregate workforce, the Gross Domestic Production from female workers, and employment among educated women. The empowerment of women is being juxtaposed to a more developed economy, and a more competitive country profile. But if we focus a home-made lens on the matter, we will see aspects of it that are hardly considered in the controversy.

For one thing, for a woman to be empowered she has to be in control of the way she lives her life. A lot of socio-governmental activities are going on now to enlighten women as to their law-given choices in life. But under our traditions and customs, some of these rights are being used against women rather than for them.

For example, a woman has a constitutional right to an education and work, through which she can acquire financial independence. But reality tells us that most women who work hand their wages at the end of every month either to a husband or a brother. They are deprived of the right to spend their own money. Is there a law against this abuse? No. The most that these women can do is object verbally, or ask for an allowance to be cut aside for her from her own pay. And because ours is a paternalistic society, she cannot live alone if a maiden, or sue her husband for making her share her income.

Everybody knows that a working girl has better chances of marriage than a non-working girl, even if both are equally educated. It is naturally assumed that a wife will give her income to her husband, or at least pay bills. Although in Islam, a woman has the right to keep her income to herself, and to spend it as she sees fit, because supporting the family is the man’s job. But economic hardships and the way that people’s mindset has changed over the past two decades, have took the shame out of a man accepting money from his wife.

Hence, the constitutional rights of education and work are not leading to women’s financial independence, but rather to their being exploited. Under such circumstances, if a woman reaches the top of an organizational ladder, would she be called powerful or empowered? If she has to ask her husband, or father, for an allowance to be cut from an income she makes herself, then how is she empowered at all?

On the other hand, the excessive pressure on educated women to take part in achieving economic development, as well as in supporting their families, is depriving them of God-given rights and duties. It is every woman’s right to have children, just as it is every mother’s duty to take care of her own and bring them up to become sound, healthy, and productive adults. Women are either not expected to be or not treated as “the gentle sex” anymore. An educated woman who defies the pressure and gives up her right to be a part of the work force, is looked down on. The term “housewife” has somehow become a form of degradation, even if the lady can prove education, talent, and intelligence. Even if she’s a member of several socially active clubs or groups, she’d still be look down on.

The fact that housewifery is not a choice anymore has little to do with a woman not achieving self-esteem, but rather with not achieving social status. That in itself is a problem. Moreover, because women are being pushed to their limits in the name of establishing gender-equality, and empowering the female workforce, women have ended up juggling through the triangle of motherhood,housekeeping,and full-time jobs, to the point where continuity becomes a hazard to their health. In female circles, a woman who defiantly opts for housewifery (if her household can afford it) is silently envied. Needless to say, the new Social Security bill that aims at prolonging the total duration of service under coverage for early retirement does not take the hazards of juggling a few more years into consideration!

Women have come a long way in Jordan, just as the social mindset on the matter of their empowerment has. But the feminist movements that call for enhancing the public and economic roles of women are ignoring the conflicts raised in the average woman’s life, between what is lawfully her right and the outcome of claiming those rights.

Star Monday 29 June, 2009

ASE…Opportunities of a recession

2009-06-29T08:00:00.004+03:00

For those of you who have held on to their equity in the stock market, it’s been a pressing matter for quite a while now: to sell, or not to sell,. If you ask your middle people for advice, their answer will be anything but objective, since brokers and investment-fund managers worry about - as well as benefit from - the spread of their word of mouth. None will tell you, for that matter, when is it time to run, and when to stand still to watch. But more than one will be generous with advice to leap and reap. A broker never tells you to bear-out, because if the bearish attitude becomes viral his job will be on the line. But then again, the equity holder would have to be bat-blind not to see that the whole world has been bearish for some nine months now, which makes holding on more challenging.

The question of whether to sell-out your stocks and wait until better investment opportunities lurk really depends on how proportionate your stock-exchange income is to your total expenditures. In plain English, it depends on whether you live off speculation. Those who hold equity for long terms; (i.e. for purposes of gaining dividends, not speculation) probably do more analytical research prior to obtaining any equity, so as to invest in the profitability of these companies and their expected yields. And if such, they will know whether these companies’ profitability is at stake because of the global-recession, or whether they maintain their worthiness and will rise again as soon as the tide subsides. Such decisions are built on sound analysis, but they try your perseverance. For an investor to be able to stand still and watch for as long as the current recession has been going on means that he does not depend on his investments for current living expenses, and that he does not care if the stock prices drop sharply as long as the companies in question maintain profitability.

So where do opportunities lie in a situation like this?

For a sound investor to see any opportunity in a recession takes two conditions: first he has to follow a minimum-liquidity percentage policy, and second he must do due diligence in order to identify strong potential stocks despite the dropping prices.

Stocks like PRES (Jordanian Press Foundation), for example, is one of the most lucrative stock investments in the bourse. For two consecutive years they have been the only company to pay out dividends of %100 of their share’s nominal price; the highest ratio in the market. And to see this as an opportunity you have to relate it to the now-low price of JD 13+, given that the company retains its operational and financial strength.Stocks like JOPH (Jordanian Phosphate Mines), APOT (Arab Potash Company), and JTEL (Jordan Telecommunications Company), could prove to be very lucrative long term investments. And to see them as opportunities, you have to relate their current market prices, to the fact that they have retained their operational and financial strength despite the recession.

If we apply this rationale to all the strong companies whose profitability has been only mildly affected by the recession, we will find that they are selling at very low prices, which makes them quite good catches for the future. A bright look towards the future might just be the flex-back that the ASE needs, especially now that brokerage firms are more eager to lend money for investors to take chances on the current situation.

No matter how long a recession goes on, the economy is bound to bounce back again. The fall of stock prices to their current bottoms is an opportunity for those of us who believe in the coming future. The bourse holds some of the country’s strongest investments, some of which have stood firmly strong, and retained their potentiality against the current recession.

Violence on our campuses

2009-06-28T15:28:00.010+03:00

The appalling recurrent incidents of violence on the campuses of our universities should be studied carefully and dealt with wisely. They are not only displays of our youths’ poor judgment leading to excessive reactions, but also reflections of a trait spread nation-wide: unnecessary aggression. The most recent of these incidents was in Al Yarmouk University, where 21 students were expelled. Eight of them were graduate candidates.

Since one can’t find out how ever do these incidents start, and how they develop into violence, unless she witnesses one herself, I posted the subject up for discussion with my students on a group board on Facebook, encouraging those with firsthand experiences to take part. I asked them a few questions regarding what actually happens the minute a fight erupts on campus. What they expressed fell into two categories as to the reasons why a fight starts; girl-reasons and sheer male aggression. But there’s another reason that helps spread a fight among passive viewers, namely tribalism.

The girl- reasons could be understood, since fighting over (or for) girls is nothing new among young men. But the other reasons they stated were a bit odd. According to these students fights would start out of the sheer exchange of looks between them. Without a word spoken, two guys would lock eyes for a second, and instantly it would be translated into defiance to prove manhood. How like animals in the wilderness, I thought. A look of the eye, a few grunts, and two males start pounding each other to prove dominance. Needless to say, the coinciding presence of females flares up the fight. And I stated the simile to them blatantly, only to realize that they don’t find the comparison insulting at all. They told me that if a guy is subject to a “dirty look”, and lets it pass without proving strength to respond, he will be “marked”; as in named a sissy. Thereafter he will be targeted by bullies. And the proof of strength expands into tribalism when the fighters call for their kin on the campus, who –ironically- engage in a fight without asking who, what or why!

Unfortunately some of these flared-for-no-reason fights have cost students their whole study-tracks, beside the fact that they jeopardize their lives. When a college student engages in a fight, premeditated or on impulse, he most probably knows that he could be expelled for it, but in the heat of the moment, that thought is kept locked away in the back of his mind. And if it does pass his mind, it is totally ignored. The hardships of acceptance into a university, the high tuitions paid every semester, the study efforts of college years, all are jeopardized in a few minutes of unjustified aggression.

The measures taken by university presidencies did not prove effective as deterring measures. And the fact that rules bend for the powerfully connected make these measures less respected or feared by students. Here the need arises for new methods of dealing with the phenomenon.

The fact is that campus fights are reflections of a trait that takes people over irrationally. Our youth, on campuses or otherwise, are easily agitated. Many are the incidents where aggressive over-responses have been causes for street violence, which sometimes grows into tribal disputes. We have to admit that our generations were not brought up to “talk things over”. This could mean the need for public awareness that establishes for the culture of solving problems through open-minded debate. The coming generations won’t benefit from higher education if they keep the inherited attitude of shoving before pushing.

A Day in the Life of a Gazan Child

2009-06-11T21:03:00.004+03:00

As a child who grew up in the refugee camps of the fifties, he never thought it was possible that other children around the world could be living under different conditions. So when young Rashid Al Mashharawi was asked by his teacher to compose a letter to an American boy his age, he asked in his letter: “How are you coping with the Jews over there? How many of you have gone down today?”

The now-prize-winner Palestinian producer said in an interview that living through his childhood in a refugee camp he went through the years of early recognition thinking that the atrocities and hardships of his everyday life were the norm of every other child’s life. He probably grew up thinking that every six-year old around the world has to peak twice outside his doorstep to see if the coast was clear of soldiers and tanks before he went out to the narrow-littered streets to play with sock-balls his mother made. The fact that the fifties did not provide means of media for secluded children growing up in refugee camps to compare with meant that the awkward realization came at a later stage in that generation’s early youth, which in turn means that the children of that generation had a vague idea of a normal child’s needs and rights, and nothing to compare to. But that does not hold today.

The atrocities witnessed by the children of Gaza left canyons of misery in their souls. As if the deprivation they’ve been living in for all of their lives was not enough to make them feel like the misfortunate of the world’s children. They need to be nurtured and protected; they need to develop a sense of security in order to grow up into whole, sensible adults. The heart-breaking cries by Gazan children broadcasted on news channels took drastic changes after Israel started using banned weapons. During the endless siege, the children’s cries were all about wanting to be like other children around the world. Amazingly expressive for pre-school age, they would tell you about their right to go to play grounds and schools; about their fear from visiting the beach or going on other outings with their families, because they just might end up with no one for no reason, like Huda Ghalia did. A little girl posted on Youtube.com was no older than five, and as she sat in the rubbles of what used to be her home, she lectured the whole world in a high-pitched voiced about what it is like to live as a child in Gaza. She defied the viewers to look around her and say if they would even let their children visit a place like this, let alone dwell in it. She answered her own defiance saying: “Of course not! You would fear from the lack of hygiene”. Too old for her words, she forced the comparison between herself and her peers.

The drastic change in Gazan children’s cries was after they lived through the atrocities of the holocaust. Suddenly there was silence. All the interviews with children posted and broadcasted now tell only of their losses, but not of their hopes; of what they had, not what they want. It’s as if when you have so little but dream of what’s your right, and suddenly that little is taken from you, you dream no more. It’s a very sad thought that Gazan children are deprived not only from food and remedy for their bodily needs, but also for their souls. They have nothing by way of dream material. The canyons of misery curved in their souls separate what they know should be and what is. And nowhere in sight can be seen a way to bridge the cleft.

Developing communities, or unveiling them

2008-09-15T21:57:00.000+03:00

In a larger picture, the whole world seems to think that a veiled woman signifies a community where the will of women is being constrained, which in turn stands for primitive cultures. I vividly remember that Laura Bush said after 9/11 that it’s time for Afghan women to take their Burqas off and go to school.

I’m not all for veiling women in tent-like cloths like Talibans do, but I can’t understand why is it that the picture of a veiled woman is constantly being juxtaposed to a retarded culture. Why couldn’t the state of Tunisia, Afghanistan, or otherwise concentrate on educating women and developing their choices in life, regardless of the way they dress, or whether or not they choose to cover their bodies?

The underlying hypothesis that a woman chooses to cover her body only as a result of male-dominance and dictation is instigated by the Saudi community, but is also wrongfully generalized to all Muslim communities, where women choose Alhijab out of free will. The stereotype does wrong not only to the concept from which Alhijab stems, but also to the minds and intellects of the women who choose it freely. Since girls are brought up to think of beauty as their point of strength and preference, a woman who gives up the enjoyment of showing off her beauty for a higher more soul-fulfilling need must be a woman of deeper intellect. And she can only opt for what she thinks is the fulfillment of her needs under a free system that gives her the right to choose without degradation or contempt. In this perspective, I can only see the Saudi communal methodology as one end of a spectrum where at the other end lies the Tunisian methodology. Those who deprive women of their right to choose impose their ways, but those who claim to free women are also imposing their ways. And in both cases, a non-existent relationship has been created and established through the media between the percentage of veiled women and a community’s cultural development.

If we take modern Amman for an example, that I think would be in the middle of the spectrum, we will see that the growing number of veiled women can only be explained by two reasons; first: the high number of educated women in the community which develops their intellects and life choices, and second: the degree of freedom given to Jordanian women. This proves that educating women and their social freedom are not negative functions of their veiling. But if international media seem keen on emphasizing the relationship, then their must be other ends in the minds of those who put it forward in the first place.

Doctors’ code of silence, is there a red line?

2008-09-05T21:21:00.000+03:00

In 1998 I had an operation in my abdomen. And in 2004, a doctor saved my life from excruciating abdominal pain that he said was caused by overstress! And since I’m a firm believer in the strong bond between soul and body, I naively believed him. But later, I learned from the anesthetist that what almost killed me was an old rubber ring found in my abdomen. My near-death had nothing to do with overstress, but the good doctor did make use of his knowledge of the stressful life I lead at the time, to find a comprehendible explanation to my case. He didn’t tell me the truth about the first doctor’s misconduct, and what made it puzzling is that he didn’t know the doctor that operated in 1998.

Medical circles are full of stories about people who are suffering the consequences of medical errors. One of the most shocking is of an obstetrician who boasts among his colleagues that he always tells the expectant mothers two weeks before their due-date that the umbilical cord looks coiled around the baby’s neck. Why? So that the mother would be easily convinced of a c-section on her due date, out of fear for her baby’s life of course. And what’s in it for the doctor? Well, for one thing a c-section delivery triples the doctor’s fees. And second, it takes much less time to cut, fetch, then sew shut again, than it does to wait by the mother for hours of labor. And it’s obviously less tedious, since the time he has to spend by the soon-to-be mom is taken from his time at the clinic, where he could be cunning more moms into paying him what he thinks justifies his efforts.

It goes without saying that the source of this particular information refused to name the doctor for me, since she too is in the medical field. And when I asked her if she warns his patients against his ill-ways, she said “no”!

The irony of the “code of silence” in the medical circles is that it boils down to what medics believe to be “the ethics of the practice”. When simpletons like me think that medical ethics stem from upholding the human life as the most precious of gifts, doctors seemingly believe it unethical to squeal about the wrong doing of another that could impair or even take the lives of innocent people, regardless of their personal judgment about whether the wrong done was mere human error, an act of negligence, or premeditated misconduct. They will not blow the whistle, not even if by doing so they could stop more wrong from being done to innocent, unknowing victims. They just keep their heads down and say nothing. And if it happens that you consult with a doctor after being victimized by another, he will never give you a straight-forward answer as to whether it could’ve been prevented, not even if you ask him “will you have done the same?” He’ll probably say something like: “I’m sure your doctor acted to the best of his knowledge”!

So what’s at stake if a doctor blows that whistle?

We all know that a squealer ends-up the outcast. But the actual harm of being cast out of some medical circle does not justify that a doctor deprive a patient of his/her right to sue, (given of course that the medical responsibility bill will be passed in the Parliament, fingers crossed).. Since the judicial system works, the questioning will not necessarily mean smearing of the doctor’s reputation unless he/she is found guilty of negligence or intentional misconduct, which in effect will uphold human life as a great gift.

Doctors should know that what goes around comes around, and the good of questioning their conduct will only mean better health care for their own as well as the whole community.

This is not a personal issue. It is a profession-wide conspiracy to allow the wrong-doers to go unpunished. It is true that error is human, but silence against this unintentional erring gradually makes it a habit not to pay due diligence in the medical practice. Medicine is the profession of making human life safer and better, but the code of silence helps undo what the practice aims to do.

Developing communities, or unveiling them?

2008-09-04T21:04:00.002+03:00

I spent a few weeks in Tunisia where I was introduced to the three pillars around which the modern state of Tunisia was built; independence, education, and the freedom of women. I was told that veiled women are looked down on, because they are thought of as signs of primitiveness. So as a step towards civilization and development, Alhijab is constantly being fought in the Tunisian community.

In a larger picture, the whole world seems to think that a veiled woman signifies a community where the will of women is being constrained, which in turn stands for primitive cultures. I vividly remember that Laura Bush said after 9/11 that it’s time for Afghan women to take their Burqas off and go to school.

I’m not all for veiling women in tent-like cloths like Talibans do, but I can’t understand why is it that the picture of a veiled woman is constantly being juxtaposed to a retarded culture. Why couldn’t the state of Tunisia, Afghanistan, or otherwise concentrate on educating women and developing their choices in life, regardless of the way they dress, or whether or not they choose to cover their bodies?

The underlying hypothesis that a woman chooses to cover her body only as a result of male-dominance and dictation is instigated by the Saudi community, but is also wrongfully generalized to all Muslim communities, where women choose Alhijab out of free will. The stereotype does wrong not only to the concept from which Alhijab stems, but also to the minds and intellects of the women who choose it freely. Since girls are brought up to think of beauty as their point of strength and preference, a woman who gives up the enjoyment of showing off her beauty for a higher more soul-fulfilling need must be a woman of deeper intellect. And she can only opt for what she thinks is the fulfillment of her needs under a free system that gives her the right to choose without degradation or contempt. In this perspective, I can only see the Saudi communal methodology as one end of a spectrum where at the other end lies the Tunisian methodology. Those who deprive women of their right to choose impose their ways, but those who claim to free women are also imposing their ways. And in both cases, a non-existent relationship has been created and established through the media between the percentage of veiled women and a community’s cultural development.

If we take modern Amman for an example, that I think would be in the middle of the spectrum, we will see that the growing number of veiled women can only be explained by two reasons; first: the high number of educated women in the community which develops their intellects and life choices, and second: the degree of freedom given to Jordanian women. This proves that educating women and their social freedom are not negative functions of their veiling. But if international media seem keen on emphasizing the relationship, then their must be other ends in the minds of those who put it forward in the first place.

Death at Play

2008-05-19T23:37:00.002+03:00

Death: take one

Are we withered and gray yet?

No… I didn’t think so.

I took a few steps into the reel

Lips stretched to the sides

Head up high

Shoulders square

Took it like the tigress I pretended to be

No one should see

No one saw

But the reel was real.

Gatherings and questions

Mastering the pretence

Virgin to death,

I did not know,

When it takes

It doesn’t give back.

Death: take two

Let’s play you and I

Transcend a little!

Sport keeps a heart young

I thought I’d outsmart the old ogre

Dance around his flames

Poke him in the eye

Then get away with it

Just to keep mine a young heart

He knew I would venture

He knew of my ailing heart

I yet had to learn

Villain outsmarts vane…

And you don’t play with death

Death: take all

The deeper the wounds

The higher the walls

A fortress of pride and injured dignity

Whatever the yearnings of this soul

It will venture no more.

The Naked Truth About The Man Who Spoke His Mind

2008-05-12T01:43:00.003+03:00

“Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
…

And art made tongue-tied by authority…”

William Shakespeare, sonnet 66.

***

His bruised hands buried in the warmth of his pockets

Staggering over pebbles

Weighed down with shackled thoughts

He limps his way home

No white horse to carry this knight around.

Fighting back tears brought by the humiliating memory

He begs the voices in his head to shut up

He picks up a pebble

Turns it around and around painfully.

“Shut up!!” he yells,

They yell back at him.

He stops at a wall

He writes “poverty”

He writes “prejudice”

“theft … injustice … treason

people want … people should have”

Throws the pebble away

Shivers to the bone as he digs in his pockets again

Sneaking glances to his sides

Then limps on.

Miles of paper

But not enough space

For a decent man

To speak his mind.

Prejudiced

2008-05-09T21:31:00.002+03:00

The blood I carry in my veins

Is taken against me.

I am to blame for my ancestry.

I am to blame for what I am.

They say I don’t love this land as much,

And so I don’t belong.

Oh, if only they’d ask her, and she will tell all.

I belong to her like the roots of every olive tree,

Like the waters of the Sacred River she nestles,

Like the corpses of our martyrs.

They say I can’t be here,

I won’t go far,

I shouldn’t dream on.

They say my children can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t either.

I wake up with the sun with an eager heart,

I cover the earth with gay steps,

Merry as a butterfly in Eden,

My breath a continuous chant of her name,

So in love.

Then someone tells me again:

I can’t… won’t… and shouldn’t.

And I breathe the words in,

Like swallowing red embers.

I will not be dragged off her lap

I will cling and clinch

Like a nursing baby to her mother’s breast.

She is mine too.

No blood I carry

Says I can’t love her.

No history of my making

Says I don’t belong.

I breathe her

And she feeds my soul.

Those prejudiced should know

Blood and soul are separated only by death.

The Time I Was a Fig Tree

2008-04-26T02:21:00.004+03:00

I had a piece of land all to myself,

About two arms length in every direction.

The land was moist in the spring,

It was the color of cinnamon sticks all year long.

There I grew up, on the hill top.

The sun would rise to children rushing to school,

And set to peasants gathered around small fires and pots of tea.

A green-eyed boy used to take care of me.

He’d water me every day at dawn, just after prayers.

He’d sit under my branches with a book in the day time,

And at night, he’d tell long stories to the moon;

Stories about a nearby land that’s been raped.

His tears would glisten in the dark. Life had meaning.

Sometimes my friend would come to me with his shirt whipped open,

He would curl to a heap and weep himself to sleep.

He never noticed, but I would curl and weep too.

I was two-meters tall, when he brought a doe-eyed girl to my land.

He was celebrating his youth, or mine.

It was dusk, and her milky skin glowed against the cinnamon soil.

They made my figs seep with passionate honey. Life was beautiful.

He’d still water me, when three green-eyed children played house in my shade.

But then at night, when the children went away, he’d come with friends.

He would stand, they would sit. And they would whisper all night through.

And the moon would sneak closer to eavesdrop on them,

Pretending she’s shedding her light so they could see.

But all I could see was the anger on my friend’s face.

They once came without my friend and dug a deep, deep hole in my land.

They buried rifles and guns. And I never saw my green-eyed friend again.

Sixty springs have come and gone. They are no longer moist.

My land is the color of cumin now.

I still shed my leaves at the memory of my green-eyed friend.

The green-eyeds have been moving away, day by day.

No more stories, and no more whispers at night.

My roots have entwined with the treasure.

And all those to remember are I and the moon.

Why are we crippled?

Insomniac Reflections

2008-03-25T02:44:00.005+03:00

I had to dust you

Off the stone of my soul

So its glitter could shine

through

For all to see.

My wings will grow

And harden

I will feed on faith

And someday

This mock-love cocoon will be too weak

To hold-in my will to fly

And when the day comes

I’ll spread my wings

And break through you

And the sun will see me coming

Colorful, proud, and free.

Don’t ask a mother poet

Why she cries when writing.

Insomniac mothers see better

With their eyes wide shut,

And hear their insight through the silence.

In a state of utter loneliness

The world is suddenly full of voices

Living voices

Dead voices

And in the dark

Is where she knows what colors do

To a soul once lead astray

And a heart once shattered and still.

What good is this heart,

If all it does is pump?

What good is this life,

If all it gives is disappointment?

What good are my coming years,

If they don’t promise love?

What good are memories,

If I cannot forgive?

What good is running away,

If my soul hangs over here?

And what good is dwelling on all this,

If I have no answers?

24^th March 2008

A Drive Downtown

2008-03-19T11:47:00.005+03:00

I drove downtown this Sunday

I had to see one more time

The old shops that made the history of Amman

The famous AbuAli book booth

And the same weary faces striving to make it through life

I saw him as I had expected to

The old man who always seemed to be walking aimlessly

As always he was wearing the same old coat

The same coat he wore through the whole year

Not to keep warm, but probably to hide his torn clothes

Or his nudity

He’d be carrying a trash bag full of something

Carrying it on his back, holding it with one hand across his shoulder

And with the other he would be counting fingers

Just like a first grader would.

How has he been today?

At the first traffic light stood the young albino

Sunglasses too big for his young face

Holding newspapers in mittened hands

For years now I’ve seen him

And never knew his name

How has he been today?

At the second was the bulky beggar

The one who had no hands

He was wearing the same army jacket with the big wide pocket

He has his sleeves rolled up so you could see

He’d wait for the red light, and then walk by the drivers

You either drop something in the wide-open pocket

Or just look the other way, and he’d walk on by to the next.

How has he been today?

Now that I’m leaving

I wonder why, all through the years

I never stopped to ask

What’s in the trash bag?

Do albinos need to cover their hands as well?

And how does the handless beggar eat enough to get so bulky?

Now that I’m leaving

I’ll never know.

Justified Ignorance

2008-03-09T21:11:00.002+03:00

I, an Arab mother awaiting a bright future for the next generation, hereby declare that I will not hold any of today’s youth inferior to our generation just because they refuse to know, nor will I look down on a youth of any Arab identity just because they live their lives for the day, filling their days with trivialities, and willfully refusing to meditate on what their nations’ future is going to be like. I swear I will never again look down on anyone who does not want to know what goes on around the world, and I will not call them ignorant.

My generation grew up in the eighties. We were taught by our elders that hope exists as long as our nations still bear people like Nasser. There was still hope that we will have a dignified future among nations. That hope probably stemmed for the Arab stance regarding peace with Israel, at the time. As we grew up, our hope of defying whatever conspiracies were tied for us was renewed when Saddam defied Israel and the Americans, although we didn’t understand the whole picture, but what we knew of it at the time we were proud of, and satisfied with.

As the youth of that generation, we were eager to know everything. Ignorance was not only a disgrace no one wanted to be smeared with, but it also meant passiveness. We were acutely aware of our responsibility in the making of the nation’s future, to the point where we willingly refused to be passive. We had to know, analyze and understand. Although the natural ending to that cycle would be ‘to act’, and we hardly had any actual role, but our refusal of passiveness was generated by that hope; the hope we used to see in our elders’ stares to T.V. sets and papers, or heard it in their prayers, The same hope that could be magnified into spontaneous demonstrations and pan Arab uprisings every time massacres were committed, or even at the declaration of biased UN resolutions.

Will I ever be able to generate such hope in my children’s vision of their future?

Nobody demonstrates anymore. There is absolute passiveness in the Arab street. Nobody wants to know any further than their surroundings. No more can people see any light at the end of this dark tunnel.

This month Israel vowed to burn the Palestinian people, as it has been busy turning Gazan children into minced meat the passed couple of months. The high and mighty Security Council turns a deaf ear to the pleas of human rights organizations. But the same day the attack in West Jerusalem took place, the Council scurries to condemn the attack, because the lives lost were of civilians. As if Palestinian lives lost in the siege and random bombardment over months of attack aren’t worth meeting over. The whole world is starting to show itself as a big parade of organized, legitimized terrorism.

We had one occupied Arab country, now we have two. Israel is doubling settlement sizes on ill-gotten lands. The Palestinian people are living in the world’s largest prison, in conditions hardly fit for mice. The number of Iraqi souls lost in the five-year American occupation has surpassed the death toll in the Algerian rebellion for freedom over a whole century of French occupation. Beautiful Lebanon is falling apart, and fingers are pointing in crossed directions. And it gets uglier everyday.

So why do we blame our youth for their chosen ignorance, when ignorant is all we can afford to be? Nothing seems to have changed to the better, demonstrations, anger, or otherwise.

A few years ago I would’ve thought that painting such a grim picture would be only pessimistic. Talks of peace filled our heads, not with dreams of justice, we’ve come too far across so many road maps and void agreements to be so dreamy, but with hope of a dignified life for Palestinians. Now, our hope has evaporated with the world’s deafening silence in favor of all the oppressors.

Who needs to know anymore?

An Anaphora for the Forgotten

2008-03-03T05:44:00.004+03:00

When will the world remember me
It is me, the child the lens 1 won’t see
When will the world remember me
I live with death, and death with me
When will the world remember me
I see the sneer the barrel 2 can’t hide
When will the world remember me
But lenses hide behind the sneer 3

When will the world remember me
Stench and fumes have filled my soul
When will the world remember me
The soul that’s grown too old for me
When will the world remember me
My toys are bombs, my joys are dreams
When will the world remember me
My dreams are meant to stay unseen
When will the world remember me
A home, a roof to shelter me
When will the world remember me
A school, a park, and family
When will the world remember me
To live a child, as life should be
When will the world remember me
I’m six, I’m eight, I’m seventeen
When will the world remember me
I count the years of agony
When will the world remember me
And pray, someday the world will see

1 The lens of a camera: referring to the media.
2 The barrel of a gun.
3 Meaning that the media hides behind the vicious intentions of the Zionist forces.

Shades of Blue

2008-02-19T04:23:00.004+03:00

Deep

Buried jewels don’t sparkle

They don’t add beauty to life

They don’t shine on us

They don’t make you glow

You can’t cherish them

You can’t tell friends about them.

Precious…

But worthless

Show me your love..!

******

Dark

No distance is wider

Than a valley

Separating two mountains

They can’t meet

And they can’t part

Incapable of budging

Each stands erect

As time drags endlessly,

Feeling the other across the valley

Hating the distance

But thankful for it.

Why couldn’t we budge..?

******

Celestial

Now that you’re gone

All is meaningless

Your jewels were already buried

A wider distance came through

A budge wasn’t all that hard

After all.

18^th Feb, 2008

When Will The American People Try Their President?

2007-12-27T15:11:00.000+03:00

They claim to be the most intelligent people on earth and the most developed politically and democratically, but nonetheless, and despite the fact that they don’t buy their administration’s lies anymore, they’re doing nothing about the actions of their military machine.

First, there was the occupation of Afghanistan to claim the head of Bin Laden. Although a good number of their own political analysts could not exclude a conspiracy theory about the indictment of Al Qaeda, especially after investigations regarding the 9/11 attacks on the pentagon were amputated, but still no one objected to the occupation plan, and no one does now after years of killing innocent Afghanis without bringing home the claimed scapegoat. And even though six years have passed, the Senate has not questioned their president about their troops’ conduct in that country, with all the soldiers’ lives and billions of dollars that it’s costing them without achieving the alleged goal.

Then there were the fabricated NIEs about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, and about a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda that was the knitting of American politicians’ imagination. All of which were proved by the past four years to be sheer lies. And even though they’re still committing atrocities and torturing people there in a way that videos can never capture better than human memories where it’s beyond erasure, with all the thousands of lives and billions of dollars it’s costing the American people, the Americans did not object when their president announced the plan to remain in Iraq indefinitely under the so proposed “long-term relationship” agreement!

Lately, the American administration proved to itself, not to the world, that it’s facing a huge problem. And it’s not credibility, as one might think, because its credibility has long disintegrated and can no longer form a problem. Rather, it is the problem of finding reasons for its behavior, or shall we say justifications. There seems to be a hidden agenda that only the American military planners of the Middle East section are aware of, and it needs to be justified. After the American intelligence proved that it can be independent of the White House, and issued the latest NIE regarding Iran’s nuclear agenda, with all it held of contradictions to the president’s claims- contradictions that are backed up by the International Atomic Energy Agency reports- the president still worked for international support to force sanctions on Iran. But for what crime? No one has questioned him about that. He even denied knowing about the report at first.

We evidently remember how the American people questioned Bill Clinton, and voted for an impeachment, because he lied to them about his affair with Lewinsky. Now why didn’t all of Bush’s lies have the same effect on them?

In a relevant context, I remember that Michael Moore, the documentary film director, interviewed a British MP in his last film. The latter said that: in order to prevent people from voting – even under a democratic regime and a free speech environment – you have to do two things: keep them scared and demoralize them.

We may not understand the fears of the American people, nor any low morals they could be suffering from, given the relatively high quality standards of living they enjoy, and some of us might not care to even share with them the simplest human empathy under the current organized terror their administration is practicing on us. But what really should concern both sides, us and them, is that their prolonged silence despite a democratic-free- speech umbrella that protects them is going to leave a canyon of apartheid between east and west in the coming generations, and all the free trade agreements and cultural festivals in the future won’t be able to bring the two sides together. The bitterness welling up inside people’s hearts could create an uglier monster than that of 9/11.

To Cindy Sheehan

2007-12-24T00:35:00.000+03:00

Be sure that we feel for you…

For your loss…

For all the American mothers’ losses…

But do you feel for us?

‘Bring ‘em on’

Said the hawk to its siblings

‘We will chew them raw

Then spit them out,

The world will witness

And honor us hawks ’

The agonized memories

Of demising minorities

Still bear remnants

Of times when ‘honor’

Meant ‘might for right’.

Chivalry rests in peace.

Mountains might move,

A granule at a time.

Rivers could run dry,

Drop by helpless drop.

But a loss struck womb

Never forgets its fruit.

Clouds are guilt-heavy,

Bearing restless souls

Hanging over in patience,

Waiting for the time

For all to see reason

And heaven to begin.

The sacrificed siblings

And spit-out raw doves

Will eternally question time

About chances they lost;

Chances to unite in play,

Chances to pluck their own fruit.

Youth Interrupted…

2007-11-13T13:38:00.000+03:00

To the young Rola Al Amr…
I wish you patience, faith, and a happier end.

Questions that loom in the dark…
Hang in the air…
Never ending
Never answered
My quest for reason keeps me alive…
Should it?
I wonder...

Sweet Ammani breeze
Outside my window
Just three steps away
Three light-year steps away

Ah...A visitor at last…
Did you mistake me for a corpse, dear?
Oh but the likes of you know

Months ago you would’ve been despicable
A mere crawling insect

But come now!
A changed perspective might bring pleasure
To both of us

You will feast tonight
And I will find reason at last

I will drink your poison
A potion for restored and lasting youth

Come now, new friend!
Do not be mean to me
Throne me queen of pain
As your sister long did Cleopatra
Crown me a wreath of thorns
If it is the way to Jesus’ end

I shall be patient, new friend
Patience is an art I master now
But ...
Forgive my stillness
My ill hospitality
Forgive the scent of my fear
The drumming of my pulse
The humming in my throat
I tremble in anticipation
As would a maiden bride

Come, friend
Crawl a little faster
I fear intrusions
Before we exchange saps
A stranger in my bed
Will not be forgiven

How I wished for my love
To be as near as you are now
Yes… to smooth his fingers on my collarbone
And drink in my perfume
But only the likes of you, dear
Would near a breathing corpse

You brought back dreams I shun
They would bring only sour reality
Reality of no reason, or hope

But I have you now
A lover for a purpose
Yes … dear friend
Feed my thirst for life again
Fly me free on the wings of death.

Rola Al Amr is one of the victims of 9/11 of Amman. Once a nurse in the Royal Jordanian Medical Services, she found herself totally paralyzed, and suffering from various other injuries from shrapnel. As she lay in a hospital bed one night, a scorpion crawled on her. Because she was injured in her throat, and was paralyzed, she could not call for help. The scorpion stung her in the neck. Rola survived that night, but she still has to survive the rest of her life, totally dependent on others, confined to her bed or chair. And all she did was attend a wedding party.

In memorial of our 9/11

2007-11-09T01:11:00.000+03:00

Two years ago, on November 9th, 2005, suicide bombers wrecked the peacefulness of the Jordanian capital Amman. Three explosions shook hotels around the city leaving 68 dead and many more injured for life. 57 of those who died had come to attend a wedding party in one of the attacked hotels.

May their souls rest in peace.

When walls start raining blood
And grooms bury their dead,
Pretty brides blush no more
Their gowns are stained by flesh,
Too white for a black day.

When roses mix with glass
Shattered by storms of fear,
When hails and cheers give way
To wails and screams of pain,
Proud men weep like babies.

How dare they steal our peace!
How dare they kill our dreams!
Forge our faith and claim our souls
Then walk away without remorse
And still call us brethren.

They claim to have reason
They claim to share our faith.
Can they tell sweet Dina (*)
Why she could not be nine?
No, they have no answers.

Tell her “boogie man said so”!
“You’re better off dead” even!
Not far from the truth, either.
Those who live to remember
Live in boogie man’s back yard.

Some have lost their dearest.
Others kept souvenirs,
Shrapnel under their ribs,
Splinters inside their skulls,
And dark, haunting memories.

(*) Dina was the youngest of the victims of that night. She died at eight.

Schizo…

2007-10-22T18:55:00.000+03:00

- If I’m not who I think I am, then who the hell am I?

- Oh God! Not again…

- I mean really… think about it… I’ve been living like this for the past… what? … thirty years or so?... and I don’t even know who I am.

- Pleeeease! Let’s not do this again…

- You know something? I bet my thirty years that if it weren’t for you holding me back, I’d have all the answers by now. But nooo! You just don’t want to go there!

- For God’s sake! Why are you so addicted to tormenting yourself? Why can’t you just be?

- Because you won’t let me be, you manipulating monster!

- Manipulating!?

- Yes! You think they’d let us go on with this ugly game you play?

- Ugly game!? Now wait a second… just because you ask a few questions every now and then you think that renders you innocent of all that we’ve gone through together?

- Well I didn’t …

- Or because you ask me to begin that it’s not you who finishes…

- I’m not always…

- Oh no you don’t… you know you can’t play THAT game on me. You remember everything, and we both know it.

- I … I …

- So what is it you wanted to know? Ask me one more time…

Failure of Time

2007-10-22T00:41:00.000+03:00

Strange how the sun still rises every morning
With good intentions of light for the world to see,
Intentions of wisdom for all, and love for all.
Strange how he gives meaning to every day,
After it was buried in the tomb of night,
Meaningless, and without value,
Just like gold, hidden in the womb of earth.

But still, I can’t forgive you.

Strange how moths still burn themselves,
And become feasts to insatiable flames…
How turtle hatches still follow street lights,
And lose their way to the sea…
How whales still die on ruthless shores
Not knowing how they got there…
How I mourn for them all

But still, I can’t forgive you.

Strange how wars start but never end,
How man kills man without regret,
Little children fear to play,
Rivers turn pink with blood,
And palms grow arched with sadness.
How everyday hundreds die
Of war, hunger, and misery

But still, I cannot forgive you.

August 23rd, 2007

The Book of Pride

2007-10-06T22:34:00.000+03:00

I

All the years of palisading
At every corner of life,
All the commandments she was taught,
Ploughed deep into her soul,
Were meant for an honorable life.

Our world is pillared
Around a burden she carries
But cannot see,

She lives her life condemned
Without trial or judgment,
Or even proof of a crime done.

***

II

The book of pride says:

Do not sail in murky seas.
Keep your heart anchored safe
Until all is near and clear.

Your love is a chest of treasures
Do not release its glow.

And should your eyes
Become your map,
Then take them out
Lest they give you away.

The book of pride says :

Love, but no more than you can hate.
Give, but no more than you can take.
Trust, but no more than you trust fate.

Forgiveness is for the weak
Who forsake their dignity
For illusions of reason.

Remorse is a life-long leech,
So be ware of where you tread
And be wise before you reach.

***

III

The lands of the desert
Are barren for a woman’s love.
As young as a child,
She is taught to be a wild mare
Not to be ridden by passers by.
And Arabian mares are dear.

The book of pride
Tells all mares
How to remain free
Wild, and proud.

But it does not teach of happiness.
It does not mention any cure
For yearning or loneliness.

IV

She was a free soul
Wild and pure as a water lily.
As she unfurled
The lily was soon to discover
How beautiful she was,
Alluring and sweet scented.

She could not resist
The thrills of luring.

But then again,
There was the book of pride.

She would remember,
The fear of shame and dishonor.
Year after year
She lived proud and free.
Unashamed, always honored .

But the yearning to be loved,
To be cherished,
Or even to suffer in love,
Withered that free soul,
Into a weak and fragile spirit.

***
V

The book of pride
Leads to a life of dignity.
And she remains to live
Burdened by a weight
That she cannot see.

July 16th, 2007

To The Little Boy on T.V.

2007-10-01T02:57:00.000+03:00

If a woman’s tears can shake a few hearts
A man’s tears should shake heaven and earth.
***
Anonymous they were
No names, no surname
Both lost in the maze of refuge.

Refuge... from the ugliness life could become
Refuge... from stares of barren pity
Refuge…from any and all that is yet to come.

***
The father spoke to the camera
Swallowing pride he thought long dead.
Camps and sackcloth tents and shelters
Leave behind a weak memory of pride.

He spoke of dire needs,
He tried not to beg, or cry.
But he cried red tears.
Black deep eyes, bushy mustache,
Deep sad lines,
They all cried together.

Beside him sat his son.
The age of memories’ birth.
Was he dark? Or was he fair?
One could not tell.

Father said child needed help
Help to become a child
Help to live a child
Help to think, feel and smile as a child

Child was mutilated
A blind bomb melted his skin,
Face and body.
His eyelids needed to be separated
So he could see.
His left elbow pointed to the back
Melted stuck to his torso.
His face was like the mummy of Pharaoh
No features of livelihood
No features at all.
No school would have him
No child would play with him.
***
How mad will this world become?
Who was made happy with this?

The war tycoons?
Could they be happy?
Toasting drinks of bloody oil?
Here’s to the maimed children
Here’s to the earth that gives oil
And swallows our crimes.

Long live bloody-mocracy!
Shoved down our thoughts
Maiming our young
Slaying our youth
And wasting the dear lives
Of our beloved.

3rd August, 2007

To the anonymous Iraqi child in the Syrian camps.

In The Forest of My Dreams

2007-09-23T03:02:00.000+03:00

Seeds and weeds have grown
In the forest of my dreams,

Lonely hearts need shade
On a scorching wakeful day.

I’d drift on a raft
Without sails and without oars,

Swim celestial seas
And pick shells on golden shores.
***
Met pink eyed stars once
On a ride on Sinbad’s rug,

They spoke of loved ones,
Harsh Bedouins… heart invaders,

Steamy dark seas, their eyes,
Waves and waves of warm passion.

Warm passion is rain
To the forest of my dreams.

They enslaved my soul
In a sheer white-chiffon tent,

And pink eyed stars glowed
As my soul was set ablaze.

***
I surfed desert dunes once
Where I met a lost mermaid,

As sad as Echo,
As tearless as Narcissus.

She’d come after love,
Sensing her way to passion,

But found only time,
Long enough to dry her tears.

The compass of love
Takes mermaids to the desert.

****
I saw heaven once
On a sunny afternoon,

Gates of golden palms
Parted for my eyes too see

Honey Euphrates
And Tigris of pure white milk

Banks of peaceful green
Meadows of brotherly love

Young men proud again
Children happy with their limbs.

For every tear shed
A pink carnation blossomed

For every blood drop
A spray of musk filled the air

All seemed close at hand
All but a death sleep away
****
My forest of dreams
My hideout from wakeful days

What’s a poet’s soul
If not a lost drifting raft?

Sicko

2007-09-16T02:04:00.000+03:00

Everybody should watch Michael Moore’s latest documentary: “Sicko”.

To me it’s not about the lacking health insurance system in America, nor about the way insurance companies conspire systematically to cause the deaths of those who count on them. It’s really about two sentences in the middle of the documentary film, where a British Member of Parliament is asked “Why, do you think, do all American administrations refuse universal health care?”

Although it might seem a bit irrelevant, but I found that what the MP said was really very revealing as to why the American people remain silent about the wrong doing of their administration around the globe. The MP’s answer was that: “In order to keep people from voting, and hence keep the decision making process under firm control, you have to do two things: keep people scared, and demoralize them”!

The practices of spreading fear among the American people might be debatable, but demoralized they are.

You have to watch the film before deciding whether or not you agree with my conclusion.

A Call to the Vengeful

2007-09-12T20:47:00.000+03:00

God Almighty I call Thee
Knowing you will answer me

I believe in your mercy
God Almighty make me see

You have made us, bits of clay
Then you bade us live your way

Those of evil shall be burned
Your mercy is dearly earned

As your slave I have to say:
I believe and shall obey

But my Lord I wish to know
For my faith will only grow

If you help me understand
How this world has gone so mad

In your name, wars are fought
Blood is spilt, crimes are wrought

Homes are wrecked, lives destroyed
Dreams of happiness are void

Who are they and who are we
If we both believe in Thee?

Are they right and are we wrong
Since you let them go along?

You have made me not so wise
Help me, then, make sense and rise

Will this world be sane again
For my children to live in?

God, I know that you are just
In your justice I so trust

I call you, and fall enthralled:
The Vengeful, as You are called

Oct 12th, 2006

Happy Ramadan

2007-09-12T20:06:00.001+03:00

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow marks the first day of Ramadan.
Please allow me to wish you all a month full of mercy, forgiveness, and the-ever-prayed-for peace on earth.

What’s Become of Real Poetry?

2007-09-10T02:21:00.000+03:00

A few months ago, I read an article in an Australian pop culture magazine about some trends of modern poetry. It said something about silent poetry, displayed as blank sheets of paper, leaving to the imagination of the reader to see whatever they thought they could see. And another example was about poetry readings in barns- or something like that- where the poems were written on cows! The cows would be brought into the exhibition area for all to read the poetry! The article was very sarcastic; I admit I had difficulty seeing through it in the first reading.

I kept a mental note to go back and write a comment, but I lost the link to the article, and I know what I have to say would be too long a comment.

What poetry has seen in the English speaking world is being mirrored in Arabic poetry. Being an editor in an Arabic literary web magazine that publishes works of all genres by writers from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Gulf, I have seen almost everything. Blank poetry, as mentioned in the Australian magazine, has just made its first appearance this year, and I wonder if it’s just blind imitation or a sincere attempt at creativity. What really appalls me is that every once in a while I’d publish one of these mock-poems just to feel the pulse of the readers, and amazingly some people would really respond positively to them. One reader commented on a blank poem saying that it is the most expressive peace of literature he ever read! He either has an amazing taste or he never reads at all!

It is one thing to post an empty page for a poem, but it is another to write unrelated words and phrases that are grouped into incomprehensible lines, and call it poetry too. This really overwhelming current in modern poetry is the Adonisian poetry style. I also call it “mix and stir” poetry. Named after the Syrian poet Adonis, this style claims that every text should reflect the feelings and thoughts of the reader, not the poet. Hence it is not restricted by thought or meaning.

But if the reader should find his own reflection in such poems, then why do these poets bother write them? I mean, each and every reader can write his own feelings best, and nobody needs a poet to tell them what they feel. Right?

I think the question of good poetry has been affected by the reason why writers write poetry.

All through the history of literature; English, Arabic or otherwise, poets have written to express, to convey their spiritual content, to be felt rather than to be read.

But nowadays, everybody wants to publish and become famous, and the measure of potency or depth of one’s work is left to the publishing houses’ editors. If you can get a book to have your name on it, you’re a poet. That also means that just about anything can be called poetry. So much for creativity!

Lava

2007-09-05T03:34:00.000+03:00

Khalil Jibran once wrote:
“Where are you, my beloved? Oh, how great is Love! And how little am I!”

She asked me if I agree…
If I believed I was merely a rib
Taken from his chest.

Well then…
May the flames of love
That burn in mine
Melt me
Into simmering lava
Scented with my soul,
My womanhood,
My pride and devotion,
Scented with all that I am.

Then …
Mold me into a rib
And, for love’s sake,
Put me back
Where I belong.

Blessed be your soul, Jibran.

Home, Sweet Jordan

2007-09-05T03:05:00.000+03:00

Dig me a hole,
As deep as my soul,
For here is my home,
Sweet soil of Jordan.

Root my veins deep,
For my land shall reap.
This deep love will yield,
Sweet plains of Jordan.

Make me a dove,
As pure as my love,
Then fly me above
Green hills of Jordan.

Fill both of my hands
With desert warm sands
My treasure and gold,
Warm dunes of Jordan.

God bless our Jordan

I Wish …

2007-08-31T22:22:00.000+03:00

I wish I were an olive tree
On the east bank of the River Jordan

I would stretch my roots west
And visit a sister grape vine

We might sip a little of the river water
Have an afternoon chat
Remember all the olives and vine trees
Derooted and thrown away forever.

I wish I were an olive tree
On the east bank of the River Jordan

I would stretch my roots east
And entwine with a proud old palm
She would give me a glass of Euphrates
I would listen to her age-old songs
Then we would weep together
Yes… we would weep together.

I wish I were an olive tree
On the east bank of the River Jordan

I would stretch my roots north
And hug the roots of a great big cedar.
High on her mountain top
She could see more clearly
What lies ahead for us,
After all, cedars have seen all.

I wish I were an olive tree
With a soul that doesn’t stir.

The Bride Named Petra

2007-08-30T23:37:00.000+03:00

On July 7th, 2007 , the ancient rose - red city of Petra – Jordan was named one of the seven wonders of the world in second place after the great wall of China, it symbolizes great engineering and protection architecture.
Petra is a Nabataean city miraculously carved in rocky mountains, and is said to be half as old as time itself.

The Bride Named Petra

She defeated time
Patiently without struggle

She denied it right
To her Bedouin rosy cheeks

She can bring to life
All that falls under her spell

The wind starts to sing
When he swirls around her feet

And stones come to life
When she casts her light in glow

Be ware well wishers!
For she casts a strong spell

The memory of her
Ageless rosy face aglow

Will bind you to her
As once did your mother’s cord

You’ll come back again
Missing that oneness with her

The reeling you’ll feel
Under her immortal soul

Will surge through your heart
So like an act of pure love

June 9th, 2007

How it all began...

2007-08-24T01:06:00.000+03:00

I believe it was 1987, some time during the second year in Al Jbaiha Secondary for Girls.

I was only 15 back then. I hardly knew what poetry in English meant. But I had definitely shown the passion for learning the second language by then. I realize now that it's not much of a gift, compared to what others are gifted for, but I think I enjoy it and do with it much more than others do.

It was in a boring chemistry class. And I hated chemistry. The poor teacher had no control over the class whatsoever, it was like a market place at noon. I wasn't making noises like the others, but there was no use trying to listen to her. So I'd just sit and try to do something in the endless hour.

I had smuggled an earphone Walkman into my bag once, and as the class started I'd turn it on and hide the earphone in the layers of my scarf. Not bad ha!
I loved all the songs of the eighties, and I still do. They don't make music like that anymore.

But it was inevitable that I'd get caught one day. Thanks to a snitch, my Walkman was confiscated.
So I had to come up with another way to escape the boredom of that hour, three times a week.

And I started writing.
The first lines I wrote were lines that would fill blanks in my memory of song lyrics that I loved. I'd finish the song with words of my own, that rhymed with the lyrics and were in the same rhythm.
The rhyming was easy, but to keep in rhythm I used to knock on the desk as I composed. I had no idea then that there was such a thing as metre or rhyme scheme. We had studied Shakespearean sonnets such as "Shall I compare thee to a summer day", and others, but the teacher did not speak to us about poetic features or techniques. I did notice the scheme though.

I remember that 3 years later, in the college of arts, the drama instructor asked if anyone knew what a Shakespearean rhyme scheme was. And I answered what I'd noticed years ago, but never really knew to be correct. I said : 1212, 3434, 5656, 77. The students laughed as they thought I was making little of the instructor's question. But he didn't laugh. He just put down his book and asked me where I'd read that. And I said:" Nowhere, I noticed the scheme in the school books". He said that it was right, but in letters not in numbers. I should have said : abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

In the chemistry classes I started writing my own lyrics. They would usually be in stanzas of four lines, and couplets. Not that I knew what a couplet or a stanza was, but as a child would start singing long before she learned about music, I started trying things I never learned; like rhyme schemes of my own, and rhythmic but non-rhyming verse. The outcome used to surprise my friends. Suddenly the poor chemistry teacher could hear her own voice again, but that doesn't mean anybody learned any chemistry at all.

My colleagues would snatch the papers I wrote from the top of my desk the minute I leaned back. And oohs and aahs would sound around the classroom. Being a teenager, I wrote about love of course. And somehow the rhyming and clear rhythm made it very heart touching.

Strange what a few words of encouragement can do to a person's gift. My friends' encouragement kept me writing for two years in school. Although I knew they were no literary critics, nor was I ever sure that what I wrote was poetry at all, but I kept writing and experimenting. Until one day I wrote a rather sad poem, and showed it to my father.
Like all fathers he wished the best for me, and probably had nothing but good intentions in mind when he told me to stop wasting my time, and start caring more for my studies. He said that poetry was for introverts who did not want to take active roles in their communities.

I stopped writing in freshman year at college. And for a long long time tried to prove that I can be an active agent in my community.

Somewhere I had heard it before, that "work is the enemy of thought". I tend to believe this is true.

First post ever

2007-08-24T00:50:00.000+03:00

Hi

This is my first post ever. And since I'm new to the blogging world I'm open for suggestions about the way my pages look. If you have any ideas how I can make my blog look more attractive please don't hesitate to share.

I hope I hear from you soon, please come back again.