Surfing

I've been out of it... Blogging that is, among other things.

Work surrounded me, trapped me in and overwhelmed me by its utter persistence and futility. I was fed up with the whole work ethic crap. We were naturally built to have fun, you know, like eat, sleep, make love then eat and sleep some more. Some bastards came along the way, maniacally obsessed with control and psychotically enticed by the prospect of turning everybody's life around them into a miserable and grim existence and... and they managed to fuck it up for the rest of us. Feasting till we drop on our backs was deemed inappropriate behavior. Climbing trees to find a solid branch for an early afternoon nap became a waste of time. Spotting a sonsie female while drinking from a spring and jumping her turned into "a thou-shalt-not". Chains were conceived and forged, taboo, religion, labor, military, slavery and ultimately capitalism took over, brutalized our ingrained indulgence and sodomized our innate wantonness. With the rise of civilization came the demise of man. And woman of course.

So I decided to take a vacation.

Media

My exposure to Print Journalism has been confined to my private bathroom. In the 1970's and 1980's the market was evenly split between Lebanese and Egyptian (Arabic) magazines. Whether the subject matter was political, social or celebrity gossip no one did it better than the venerated publishing houses of Beirut. Until one day, petro-money was channeled into something else besides soliciting the coveted services of prostitutes. The Lebanese print media degenerated into sectarian partiality, lost their credibility and died of absurdity while the Egyptians continue to publish verbose magazines that look and feel as if they've been printed on toilet paper.Khaliji tycoons dumped their cash in Dubai and flooded the Arabic speaking world with glossy, colorful and extremely well produced gibberish and, along with the onslaught of hundreds of television satellite channels, became the trend setters of the Middle East, North Africa and, alas, the Levant.

Like their audiovisual counterparts, Khaliji magazines walk a tight rope. The vast majority of them, on the surface, targets women. However, they are also "watched" by men. They seek to convey an image of self-righteousness and abashed modernity to their female readership while simultaneously providing mild masturbatory material for the libidinous males. It's in Al-Sada magazine that my bodily constipation was cured with a dose of a diarrheal critique of a TV show called "Hadith Al-Balad" hosted by Mona Abu Hamze. First I need to point out an obvious fact of life. Mona is one of the most gorgeous creatures to ever walk the face of the earth. I've only seen glimpses of her show while jumping sports channels. The woman is arrestingly beautiful. My finger stops clicking the remote control button when I see her. I have no idea what her entertainment program is about as I'm really not into talk shows. It takes will and determination to escape her spell and return to the saga of the 22 men fighting over a ball.

The critic wrote and I quote: "Mona's latest blunder toward her "Arab" audience, she who is being watched in every single home of our "Arab" society including the conservative ones, was a public invitation to her Italian guest Savina to drink Arak in some Lebanese town. The worst is yet to come. Her invitation was echoed by the Lebanese Minister of Culture who was her other guest. Within seconds the conversation turned from art to wine making, which the minister confirmed that he is very good at."

How hard is it to understand that Arak, among other wonderful delights of life is part of our cultural heritage in the Levant. Lebanon, in its splendor and glory cannot be better appreciated than with a dainty table of Mezza and a dewy Kass of Arak. So it is in our dazzling Syrian coast, where a mouthful of Baladi Burghul topped with a piece of country chicken melts in the mouth and mingles with the homemade moonshine made of golden grapes and aniseed. Once they leave their scorched desert, the bastards drink Scotch from the red pumps of whores yet they deem it inappropriate for Mona's sweet lips to sip the lucky Arak and to make it more divine for the rest of us.

From the thirsty sands of the Persian Gulf to a conference hall in CNN headquarters in Atlanta where the decision to fire Octavia Nasr, Senior Editor of Middle East Affairs, was reached. Octavia tweeted: "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot.." CNN, being a mere toy in the hands of AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, succumbed to a phone call. In the USA one can get away with almost anything politically as long as he doesn't piss off the pro-Israeli lobby. But who is this Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah and why has the British Ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy's blog posting about his death been deleted by the British Foreign Service? I'll answer the easy second part first, Israel was angered and when Israel is angry, as it often is, the UK government wets its pants. Ms. Guy wrote: “The world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints. May he rest in peace.”

Two prominent Western women, a world-renowned journalist lost her job and a diplomat in the service of her Majesty the Queen was shut up because they wrote the truth about one of the most tolerant, open-minded and intellectual clerics in the world. Claiming that the Sayyed was not a most admirable human being because he considered Israel as his mortal enemy is as bigoted as insisting that Einstein could not be a genius because he was a Jew. In a time when most religious figures are ignorant idiots, child molesters and hate mongrels, Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah was an enlightening man, a champion of women's rights and a fierce defender of his country against Israeli aggression and occupation. I wonder what scares the "free" democratic western governments more, a tolerant and moderate Islam that appeals to the mind and conscience or hordes of shapeless women in Burkas? Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah was the better face of Islam and this is exactly what Israel cannot allow the rest of the world to see.

I read with fascination and disgust the Western hate literature against Islam. I'm also puzzled and offended by the Islamists' literal interpretation of the Quran and the way they've degraded it by insisting that it is a rigid book, immune to discussion and human questioning. I live in an age where true temperance is not tolerated because the pervasiveness of moderation could shake the foundations of the remaining apartheid countries in the world after the demise of racist South Africa.  The Saudis pump oil and money to remain while the Israelis threaten to sneak in a Monica Lewinski anywhere, anytime and bring anyone down to their knees.

Creme Al-Tayeh

I delve in a well of memories, back to a time when a die-hard and venerable gentleman never stepped outside his home without a tarboosh on his head. The clear image of one distinguished octogenarian coalesces in my mind. He originally came from Lattakia and settled in El-Khrab, beyond the southern "Bab-el-Hara" of old Tartous. I've never seen him except in a three-piece suit (mostly white) and a polished smile on his face. He opened shop in the 1940's in the narrow Souk and became a fixed feature among the array of butcher shops, Msabbha and Fool joints, rope sellers, tailors, vegetable merchants, pickle peddlers, hardware stores and  blacksmiths. His shop was unique though, a refined bookstore in an agrestic neighborhood. His name was Mustafa Al-Tayeh (1897-1984)  مصطفى الطايع and he didn't only sell books but was also an Attar, the only perfume maker in Tartous.

Mr. Al-Tayeh was fascinated with roses and dedicated his life to extracting their essence and capturing their fragrance. In 1950 he created what eventually immortalized him, a certain balm made from garnered rose butter and aptly called it Creme Al-Tayeh كريم الطايع. Within a few years, it became a genuine Tartoussi household name. Its inventor held that his secret formula possessed extraordinary medicinal properties and that it was a cure for virtually any dermatological ailment. Sixty years later, we still don't dispute his claim in Tartous, Creme Al-Tayeh is a magical balm and anyone lucky enough to have tried it would attest to that.

As a teenager, my first line of defense against pimples was a dab of the buttery balm. That's all it took, a dab or two, once or twice and my skin was clear again. From lip sores to hemorrhoids, burns, bruises, lacerations, eczema, black spots, hair loss, hair growth, bumps, ulcers, irritation and skin rash, Creme Al-Tayeh cured them all. It came in two forms, pink and white, prepared from either red or white rose petals. It was only a matter of preference to choose one color or another but most often everyone ended up buying both. Now as far as I'm concerned the most bewildering quality of the small jar was that it never seemed to run out of balm. During the extensive research in preparing this post (you can tell, can't you?) I asked a random sample of family and friends if they ever bought a jar and used it completely. They all confirmed my initial doubt, it's more likely to have it misplaced, to move out of the house and lose it during the packing and unpacking or to immigrate to another country than to actually consume it all.

 Heyam Younis

Then as luck would have it I ran into a retired ambulance driver who transported patients to larger hospitals in Damascus. I remembered a previous conversation we've had in which he told me that he always ferried cartons full of Creme Al-Tayeh to one store in the Kassaa area of Damascus in his ambulance. There was a huge demand on the Creme and he ran a lucrative business on the side. Then he conspiratorially confided that among the Kassaa store very special clients and regular users of Creme Al-Tayeh were the Lebanese Younis Sisters, Heyam and Nezha. Now I really wonder how many readers actually know who Heyam and Nezha Younis are. Is there a statistically significant correlation between those readers who've heard of both Creme Al-Tayeh and of the Younis Sisters? I suppose this fascinating possibility deserves further investigation. Yet I can't let you (Ignorant Readers) get away with your callowness. To recognize Haifa Wehbe as a Lebanese superstar and not embrace Heyam's beautiful voice (and eyes) is sacrilegious. And what about you, Arabic movies' buffs who've never heard, or daydreamed of Nezha Younis? You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Nezha Younis

The eldest of Mustafa Al-Tayeh's four daughters inherited the formula and continued in the footsteps of her father. She too had passed away but was able to transfer the secret to her sisters. They still prepare the balm, fill the jars and sell them at home in Tartous. Creme Al-Tayeh is also available in a few selected stores in the city and outside. I have 2 jars in my bathroom and I use them mostly for shaving cuts since, alas, I'm way past getting pimples on my face. If you tried it all but still can't get that perfect Tartoussi skin now you know our little secret. Nature and savvy conspired into making us the beautiful people we really are. Well these and a kindly gentleman from Lattakia...
who once upon a time made the clever choice and moved to the right place.

Trash

To profess to be doing God's will is a form of megalomania. -Joseph Prescott, aphorist (1913-2001)

A dear friend of mine, an artist, a humanist and a self-professed atheist with an absolute and egalitarian renunciation of all religions wrote me a letter. She received information by email, too bad to be true, she thought, about Islam. "I cannot believe that all of what is written here is true, so I'm asking you to write something about this in your blog. I want you to respond to this trash."

Now considering that I've been recently called "Evil" for my secular views by one of the more assiduous Islamist bloggers, personally slandered by an obnoxious and vindictive shaver for my pro-Western disposition and an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist by a Zionist/Crusader mummy I don't find myself well-suited for the task of defending Islam or any other religion for that matter. I am a secular humanist and I have taken a clear position on the matter. I value human thought above all and am ready to challenge any notion claiming to be of divine origin.

But I stop abruptly before I differentiate between the merits and the fallacies of each monotheist religion against the other(s) for the simple and only reason that they are basically similar. They share the same strengths and weaknesses. Where they vary is with their interpretation of divinity and their degree of obsession with rituals. To reply to the venomous anti-Islamic propaganda of Nonie Darwish, founder of Arabs for Israel, is self-defeating. To bring myself to her level of ignorance and idiocy is not an option. She seems to be focused on discrediting Islam, Arabism and Palestine in one sweeping attack. She irrevocably mixes fabrications from the worst nightmarish interpretations of the Koran, archaic pre-Islamic tribal traditions of the desert and the outright lies of Zionist evangelism into an in-cohesive body of thought. And, she fails terribly in convincing anyone who is not already more imbecilic than her.

Every human being reacts to the idea/truth of God within the wide spectrum of one of four different ways. The first is for a person to be a believer of one religion only. The second is to be an atheist. The third is to believe in "God(s)" outside the bounds of religion. The fourth and rarest of all is to ascertain that all religions hold some element of truth in them and could not be mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, the mass majority of men and women falls in the first group and it is from this immense array of humanity that extremists and bigots in all of their known forms, including Taliban, Crusaders and Zionists arise. This is the cradle of Islamist terrorism against the West, Christian genocide against Jews and Muslims and the Israeli holocaust against the Palestinians and humanity.

When a Christian converts to Islam and elaborates on her new-found bliss (according to her) without denigrating her old faith she is adhering to what is basically "good" and benevolent in both Christianity and Islam. However, when Nonie Darwish ascertains that she abandoned Islam because it is a terrible religion and deserted Egypt because it is a disgusting country; that she became a Christian and later founded Arabs for Israel she is only being herself, a fake humanitarian usurper and hate mongrel. A Christian, one who comprehends the message of Jesus, is incapable of writing something so despicably vile about another faith. An Arab for Israel, however, is the perfect hayena to do just that.

Nonie, I'm not calling you infidel. You're nothing more than a hate perpetuating bitch.

Al-Mina Street

I often write about a Tartous that is no more, about a time that treads on the fringe of anamnesis. I might be a nostalgic old dude but I am neither bitter nor grumpy. I simply miss a past that is far too beautiful to be laid to rest then forgotten.

Until the 1980's Al-Mina street was the crown jewel of my city. I was born right there, where I planted the red arrow on this photo dating back to the early 1960's. It was taken from the roof of the Awkaf building looking north. I remember every single building in that photo, a few of which still stand after almost five decades.

The Roman port, which was later obliterated, is visible right across the street from my home by the sea. So is the open field we called Al-Bayader with a tin roof cafe that was the compelling gathering place for all the Tartoussi men in the evening. During the day it served as playground for us kids. We played ball, rode our bicycles and made up games of unimaginable simplicity. Women with their children strolled down the long street as ice cream vendors carried their big thermoses on their backs and roasted corncob outcriers pushed their colorful carts with blazing fires.

There was a short-haired pointer dog in almost every house down the street. Men and boys hunted year round. Game birds were abundant and lunch invariably included quails, thrush, shukkar partridges or doves. Anyone who did not own a felucca had a fishing rod. A small piece of dough was all the bait needed to catch the most magnificent specimens of Buri fish. Sure they sold lamb at the butcher shop but red meat was something reserved for special occasions and shunned at in our everyday Mediterranean diet.

Less than a handful of cars cruised the sleepy town. The mayor had an automobile of course and so did the doctor. There were three or four taxis people shared to go to Tripoli on a jaunt or to travel to Damascus for an overwhelming need. However, the streets of Tartous were teaming with Vespas, Lambrettas and bicycles. Oh, and we had quite a few tumbors (wooden carts pulled by donkeys or mules) which adequately fulfilled the roles of delivery trucks and utility vehicles. As a kid I never found a compelling reason to venture beyond Al-Mina. Inland Tartoussis, those who did not live on the front row facing the sea, came to us instead. Everybody knew everybody else. Everyone had a nickname and it was used to call him by. The houses of the rich had more rooms than those of the less fortunate but there were no significant visual clues setting people apart. A wealthy person who took himself seriously stood to lose most. Nobody liked him and all the money in the world could not buy him an ounce of respect.

During summer break and unless a kid was sick he rarely stayed at home. Our parents had no reason to worry about us. We were always to be found somewhere by the sea. Most of us learned how to swim before we could take our first steps. We were obviously as safe outdoors as we were inside our own homes but it was much more fun. The visible thin line in the background of the picture is the foundation for the northern breakwater of what later became the Port of Tartous. We went there, searched for and found Batlouness (mussels) on the submerged rocks. We would spread them on a piece of discarded tin, collect splinters of wood from ill-fated boats and cook them on the spot. They provided more lunch than any raucous kid needed to keep him going for the rest of the long day and they were tastier than the fanciest restaurant in the world could ever dream of presenting.

I grew up there, on that stretch of road. I wore high rubber boots in the winter and an orange parka over my  uniform. A ten-minute walk due east put me in school but I never followed a straight course. From a distance, I shadowed the girl next door to her school, just in case some backland lad was fool enough to cross her path. I also gazed at her cute little butt in the tight Foutouweh Khaki pants every single step along the way. I had my first kiss on the roof of one of these buildings. Her cheeks turned red when we kissed and her lips tasted of strawberries. We both trembled as I gathered my courage and cupped her breast. It was smaller and firmer than a crunchy apple and infinitely more scrumptious.

In a trance, I stare at the frozen moment captured in this old photograph. Phantasms from my past flicker on a screen in my mind. The laughter of the dead echos against the walls, memories of those who sailed West shimmer on the facades and the twinkle in the eyes of my remaining companions reassures me that it was all real, that I am neither bitter nor grumpy. We had all known better times... on Al-Mina Street.

Quadrennial Anniversary - a disgruntled tartoussi

A few readers have expressed their discontent over my predisposed beautification of Syria and the untainted image I strive to paint in my writing. On the occasion of this blog's fourth anniversary I admit that they are partially right. Although I am not in a perpetual state of bliss and satisfaction I tend to not elaborate on my dislikes. I am simply stingy when it comes to the expenditure of mental energy on my aversions. I would rather talk, write and cerebrate about life's pleasures rather than its unavoidable maladies.

That we cannot freely and entirely express ourselves here is a well-known fact of life. However, when mushrooming zealots seek to stifle freedom of expression and rowdily promote a fake carbon copy of a traditional and devoutly pious Syria, one which had never existed, it is high time I lash back. On the popular level, their extraneous brand of petro-Islam was sanctioned by an innate feeling of resentment and bitterness toward the dark years of the Bush administration and the whorish demeanor of Israel. Our religiously driven addicts took advantage of the prevailing frustration and sense of helplessness and earnestly pursued their social and political assumptions and ambitions, which incidentally nestle perfectly within the neo-cons' and the Zionist overall master plan for this region and the rest of the world. The writings were all over the wall and if left unchecked they would stop at nothing short of transforming Syria into a mutated Saudi mongrel.

There are over twenty-two millions of us Syrians as per latest available statistics, thanks to a government that continuously looks the other way, if not encourages us to breed like rabbits, and to an ecclesiastical gang-raping of native Levantine culture. In 1977, when I took my Bakaloria exam, the population of Syria was around eight millions. We have increased by a whopping 275% in 32 years, we have reduced green and forested areas to a third and we have decimated the chances of younger generations to find and pursue a better future. Being alienated from a West that treats them with suspicion and lured by a well-funded canonical machine our youth have but a limited number of options to choose from. Slowly but surely a bony temperament, buried in an alien and dusty past, beckons as a viable lifestyle.

My daughter is in 9th grade. This is a very significant point in the lives of fifteen-year-old Syrian students as they have to take a national exam (Brevet) which affects their academic fate. Excellence is measured by how much they remember word by word of the archaic curriculum. They are discouraged from making decisions or voicing opinions. Our educational system emphasizes total subservience and uniformity and represses creativity and divergence. Among the various subjects they have to memorize by rote, two in particular stand out for not only negating one another thus making them a total waste of time, but for being absolutely absurd as instruments to measure scholastic attainment. Teenagers, the age of budding roses, carry the dual burden of "learning" National Socialist Education and Religious Education (Muslim or Christian). "Scientific thought defeats ignorance and outdated traditions, frees us from all forms of awkwardness: Economic, social and cultural and rids us of illogical and indisputable bigotry.” Quite a brilliant quote from the National Socialist Education book, isn't it? Then how about these gems taken from the introduction of the Islamic Education textbook about the purpose of the course: “The presentation of scientific material in a simple manner and detailed explanation in order for students to memorize it... Relying on scientific sources in order to prove the selected scientific material.” Our children are being taught the value of the scientific method by failed national socialists and science by a moronic clergy.

Nonsense and idiocy are riddling our daily existence and I have never been blind to them. Every once in a while when I feel overwhelmed by the obnoxiousness of the emerging literate crowd I strike back. This is the voice of a secular humanist from Tartous, a simple man walking the once enlightened and bustling street, turned silent and bereft in these times of parasitic noise and groveling babble. This blog is about my Syria, the way it was and the way I want it to be. I will continue to write about the good life and the delicious food of the Levant, the rich history and the swaying butts of our gorgeous women, the music, the mountains and the sea of a Syria that is far too modest to flaunt her beauty for the rest of the world to see. A princess once told me (Yes, there is a princess among my readers) that if it were not for me she would have never heard of Tartous. If that is all I have done in four years, I am satisfied that I have done enough. There still is plenty to come from this old tartoussi troubadour in the times ahead. Just stay tuned, Your Highness... and the rest of you.

The Zeitouns: From Jableh to Post-deluvian New Orleans

(This article is co-written by Abu Kareem of Levantine Dreamhouse and Abufares and posted simultaneously on both blogs)

By Abufares

There's a tomb at the far end of the Corniche in Jableh, Syria. It is the resting place of 23 year old Mohamad Zeitoun (1941-1964), by far the most accomplished Syrian athlete of all times. Mohamad died in a car accident while on his way to the Suez Canal in Egypt to participate in the International Canal Swimming Race.

The Zeitoun family came from Arwad, a small island off the coast of Tartous and the only inhabited one in Syria. The father, Haj Ahmad, was a master sailboat builder. He had witnessed family and friends perish in the treacherous waves of the unforgiving sea and wanted to offer his offspring an alternative life. Accordingly he moved to Jableh where he worked hard as a mason and brought up his sons into the business. The main concern of this simple man was to keep his family safe and away from the sea but fate, as it is often inclined to, had other ideas up its sleeve.

Mohamad Zeitoun, Syrian long distance swimmer, went on to become an international legend as 3 times World Champion (1960, 1961 and 1964). In 1959 his winning of the 40 km Nile Race in Egypt was nothing short of historic as he completed the final 10 km using one arm only due to injury. His 1961 world record in the Capri-Napoli International Swimming Marathon remained unbroken for many years as he swam the 38 km in 8 hours and 45 minutes, one full hour ahead of his nearest competitor. He crossed the 50 km Suez Canal Race in 12 hours and 3 minutes in 1963. Mohamad, who never had a coach, went on to win every single international event he participated in during his short-lived career. His brother Abdulwahab, a retired general, recalls how his father sent Mohamad to work as an apprentice blacksmith at 16. His boss had to make a custom 15 kg sledgehammer for him with a steel handle because he invariably kept breaking those made of wood. He was a powerful man who ultimately defied his father's will and couldn't keep away from the water. All of Jableh, including the father, gathered around the radio when Mohamad was racing and waited for the good news. A huge celebration would erupt upon the announcement of the expected result and the proud father would delightfully cry: Abaday, Allah Ywaf'o in his provincial Arwadi accent.

In 2005, 41 years later and halfway across the world, Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, Louisiana. Another son of Haj Ahmad Zeitoun makes the headlines and becomes an American Legend. Heroism runs in the family evidently but why not continue reading about this fascinating story through the words of my friend Abu Kareem of Levantine Dreamhouse.

By Abu Kareem

Few books published in the United States since 9/11 have sought to understand those on the receiving end of the war on terror. Always on prominent display at bookstores are books with sensational titles written by self appointed Middle East "experts" with ulterior motives or an axe to grind. Such books fed the national paranoia and along with the popular media provided cover for the Bush-Cheney years.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers shatters that mold.  The book is a biography of a Syrian immigrant, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, living in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina devastated the city.  Abdulrahman, a native of Arwad and Jableh, steps onto dry land in Houston after a ten-year wanderlust sailing the seven seas on commercial ships.  He makes his way to New Orleans where he settles down, marries an American woman and establishes a thriving business as a painting contractor.  A couple of days before Katrina strikes New Orleans, Abdulrahman sends his family away to safety and stays behind to look after his properties and his business. After Katrina's passage over New Orleans, the levies break and Abdulrahman's neighborhood is flooded. He retreats to the second floor of his house and retrieves an old canoe from the garage. Setting out by canoe intending to check on his business and properties, he instead finds himself rescuing elderly people trapped in their houses and feeding dogs abandoned by their owners. His wife's pleas to leave the city go unheeded as he feels duty bound to stay behind to help out. As Abdulrahman's American story unfolds, Eggers weaves in anecdotes from his past in Arwad and Jableh.  We learn much about his family of seafarers, his childhood in Arwad, the moonless nights he spent sardine fishing off the coast of Jableh and his attachment to his older, now deceased, brother, a world champion swimmer.  These anecdotes help the reader understand Abdulrahman's character, his inner strength and resolve bordering on stubbornness, his gentle piety, his devotion to his family, his dreams and ambitions and his deep sense of fairness. One cannot help but like this man.

The first half of the book recounting Abdulrahman's history is hopeful and heartwarming: an honest and hardworking immigrant thriving in his adoptive land.  Even in the midst of New Orleans' apocalyptic floods, our spirits are lifted by Abdulrahman's good deeds.  Soon, however, this American dream turns into a nightmare.

Instead of mounting a campaign to rescue the stranded citizens of New Orleans, the Bush administration, in true war-on-terror style, sets up a military siege of the city.  Thousands of heavily armed soldiers and private security guards -mercenaries in effect- are sent in.  As hundreds of citizens perish, the soldiers' first priority was to build a makeshift prison at the city's train station. Abdulrahman and three companions, two Americans and a Syrian, all of whom stayed behind hoping to ride out the storm, are arrested on suspicion of looting by overzealous soldiers armed to the teeth.  The Syrians are singled out as possible terrorists and all are detained in conditions that are a cross between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.  Claustrophobic and nightmarish, the second half of the book is a powerful indictment of the Bush administration and the militaristic attitude that permeated everything it did and where national security paranoia trumped even the most basic civil rights of its own citizens. Perhaps what is most shocking about Zeitoun is how the horrific treatment of detainees in post-Katrina New Orleans went completely unreported by the national media at the time.

Eggers is a compelling storyteller and a careful journalist.  He researched and cross checked all the facts of the events described in the book.  He even traveled to Syria several times to meet the Zeitoun clan and learn about the coastal towns of Syria.  As a good journalist should, he avoids sentimentality, though his admiration for Abdulrahman, his wife Kathy and the whole Zeitoun clan is hard to hide. Abdulrahman comes across as an admirable human being, fair and idealistic, almost to a fault.  Even after his arrest and mistreatment, he stubbornly refuses to think ill of his fellow human beings, assuming that it is all a misunderstanding that will soon be resolved.  It is perhaps this quality that also made him so liked among his neighbors and why so many New Orleanians were ready to come to his defense.

Even after Bush's departure, the perception of a "clash of civilizations" lingers and ignorance and suspicion of Arabs and Muslims remains an issue in the United States. I therefore take it as a hopeful sign that Zeitoun, a book with a fairly narrow focus, made it to the New York Times best seller list last year.

References:

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (English)
Lecture Abdulwahab Zeitoun 2008 (Arabic)
The Guardian: The Amazing True Story of Zeitoun 2010 (English)
Nass MBC Net 2010 (Arabic)

Atargatis

Perhaps I should start this article by explaining the term Levant(1) since it might not be familiar to all the readers of this blog. The word comes from Middle French and means the Orient. From a geographical perspective, the Levant is that region of West Asia comprising the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. It is bordered to the north by the Taurus mountains of Turkey. It reaches the Zagros mountain range which forms the border between Iraq and Iran to the east and extends southward to the Arabian desert. The Island of Cyprus was historically, and until very recent times culturally, a part of Greater Syria, as the Levant is known to the more fervent Syrian Social Nationalists in Lebanon and Syria. Additionally, Jordan, Palestine, the Sinai Desert and parts of Iraq belong to this region as well. If you are wondering whether I accidentally omitted Israel or not, wonder no more. A sixty-two year old “country” with an acute identity crisis as to claim that it invented Hummus and Falafel, both documented to have been served in popular eating houses in Tartous in the latter part of the 19th century, does not belong here. The apartheid walls they built will mostly keep them, the Israelis, prisoners of their own guilt, further isolating them from a magical place of immense ethnic diversity.

Well now that I have passed my political message across I can focus on the more meaningful aspects of life. Among my most persistent interests in the field of Levantine history is the pursuit of Syrian deities. I find it myopic that the West traces its roots to Greek culture and mythology then stops. The Greeks were outstanding in their own right and they indeed were the catalyst behind the rise of Western civilization. But history predated them and started a little further east, not too far from where I am sitting right now behind my American branded laptop. German Archeologist, Markus Gschwind remarked that “beneath every footstep in Syria is an ancient civilization(2).” Rightly so, as merely a stone throw away from my window Phoenician ships once sailed across the Mediterranean carrying dyes and silk in their holds and the Alphabet and Gods in the language of their sailors. My story today is about one Syrian Goddess by the name of Atargatis(3).

Today Atargatis might not be a household Syrian name as other “local” deities but that does not make her any less significant. In fact, she is perhaps the most important pre-monotheist divinity of the Levant. Early evidence of her cult dates back to 1,000 BC but what fascinates me most about her is that she was in fact the first mermaid(4). Atargatis, whose followers eventually spread to Greece and Rome was the half-human / half-fish Goddess of Earth, Fertility and Water. Early on both the dove and the fish were used as symbols of her. The dove as an emblem of love and the fish representing bounty and fertility. She was also, to the faithful, responsible for motivation and inventiveness and her reign extended beyond the realm of land and sea to encompass the heavens. Zeus (The Greeks called Her Derketo, Goddess of Syria) splashed an image of a fish in the sky for her sake by creating the Pisces constellation.

Phoenician sailors brought her to Sicily. From there her  followers spread northward reaching Rome, where she was known as Dea Syria, the Syrian Goddess. She was admitted into the Roman pantheon side by side with Jupiter (Syrian Haddad :-) and worshiped as reverently. Her faith continued to grow and spread throughout the Roman Empire and the Gaul (Western Europe) and toward the end of this era she reached the status of the Great Mother Goddess of the Empire.
 
Atargatis is a Semitic word. She was called Athtart by the Phoenicians and perhaps that explains why she is often confused with Astarte. Strong evidence suggests that they were two different deities as their cults were very distinct from one another initially. Several other goddesses, Syrian, Greek and Roman were later identified with Atargatis, perhaps all better known than her: Ishtar, Venus Urania, Hera, Rhea, Cybele, Aphrodite and Artemis Azzanathcona. Even most Syrians today are more familiar with Atargatis' daughter Semiramis, the famous Assyrian queen who built the hanging gardens.

Early Syrian religions did not provide impetus for the rise of monotheist Judaism, Christianity and Islam only but formed the mythological bedrock of paganism in Europe. The statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen(5) sculpted by Edvard Erichsen in 1913 is said to symbolize a fairy tale. Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen wrote about a mermaid who fell in love with a prince living on land and who came to shore everyday to see him. Is it a Viking figment of imagination or simply a Syrian story of old neglected by the sons and daughters of Atargatis?

(1)Levant: also known as Al-Mashriq and Bilad Al-Sham

(2)Thaindian News
(3)The Obscure Goddess Online Dictionary
(4)Wikepedia
(5)The Little Mermaid

2009 according to a tartoussi

2009 is almost over. It started brutally enough with the massacre of 1,400 Palestinians by Israel and it is going to end with the decision makers of the free world still looking the other way. Not a single "democratic" country dares accuse Israel of being as atrocious as Nazi Germany. Statesmen and stateswomen disagree on everything: health care, welfare, the environment, military spending, prayer in school, immigration, same sex marriage, China and global warming but not about Israel. What a bunch of wussies! Ha! This is as far as I am willing to talk dirty politics in a bar or to write on my blog.

Personally, 2009 has been a great year as I have finally came out of my intellectual closet. I had my doubts about religion for as long as I can remember. I have chosen to keep my skepticism under the lid purposely so I do not upset others, many of whom I really care about. But then one day, I stopped being comfortable. I can accept being whatever to anyone but not a hypocrite to myself. To actually believe that we are lucky, chosen, blessed and special because we were born to a certain religion is the biggest lie we can teach our children. I put an end to that once and for all. Whatever I was by virtue of birth I am a secular humanist by virtue of choice.

I also took sides on several issues this year, at least on my blog. Syria, cradle of civilizations and birthplace of human folly and genius, is as colorful as a rainbow. It has always been a land of multiplicity where people of different faiths and cultures coexisted in peace and harmony. It is inimitable in its unique social fabric. The streets of Damascus and every other city contain a human assortment of opposites not to be found anywhere else. From the modestly clad to the sensually provoking, men and women of divergent cultural backgrounds walk side by side. Ours is a secular and pluralistic country where people have historically kept their religious beliefs to the confines of their homes. Generations taught subsequent ones to imitate them, to carry on their values and mores but to accept others for who they are. The new wave of religiosity is as alien to our Levant as the state of Israel is. Over the many centuries of conflict and struggle for political and social control no singular doctrine held power but ephemerally over this land and her people. Any attempt to restrict our diversity and garb us with desert gowns of ignorance, austerity and sameness will fail. I will side with anyone or any group, whether I agree with them or not, in their quest for freedom of choice and expression as long as they do not intend to curb mine. I am equally against men and women wearing burqas in airplanes as I am against them going inside houses of worship naked. The sexual preferences of others are their business and their business alone. Any self righteous hypocrite who denies them this basic right whether by terrorizing them with divine text or through imposing his or her twisted sense of morality cannot be trusted as a potential partner in the democratic process. They are the usurpers to watch. They are as bad, if not worse, than the prevailing variety of psychopaths ruling most totalitarian countries in the world.

 

I am comfortable with people and happy in my solitude. In 2009 I sought my lonely moments of privacy with unbound relish. Before being a hardworking man, a good neighbor and a law abiding citizen, even before being a husband and a father... I am me. “I came to this world alone and alone I shall leave.” If I do not enjoy the silent sounds of my thoughts or laugh at my own jokes, if I do not smile for her eyes only, if I cannot maintain that space that is utterly mine, how can I ever bring meaning to my life? What kind of person will I be to all the others if I am not myself to me? When I write “out loud” I do not intend to impress. I write mostly to a soul mate who is beyond the grasp of your imagination or my gift for words. For as long as I can remember I considered happiness as a vague and unreachable concept. Only idiots and non-sentient mammals could ever claim such state, I thought. This year has proved me wrong. The moment I realized that happiness is not an end by itself I became happy. No time is more important than today. Nostalgia adds a second dimension to the linear flow of time as memories bring solace and sweet compassion to our burdened minds. But only hope makes our lives worth living and dynamically happy. It is this third dimension that most people are missing and it is exactly what I have found in 2009.

I will continue to write out loud. I appreciate every single reader of this blog, whether she agrees with my choices or not. I am thankful for those who comment and criticize as long as they maintain common courtesy. I am honored by the many friends I have made over the last few years through blogging and who have been nothing less than inspirational. I still have no message to give. I do not blog to change others but to remain me, despite all. 

On Minarets and Spires

That I agree or disagree with the Swiss' vote to stop the building of minarets in their country is beyond the point of this article. My opinion, pure and simple, is that it is their business and their business alone. Had I been living in a democratic country where referenda of such nature are held I would probably vote against the construction of many architecturally and functionally out of place structures, including but not limited to bars and brothels near houses of worship, for instance, and vice versa. I see no point in crying foul play when the logic behind the reasoning of those who disagree relies on another form of intolerance. When a fellow Muslim openly condemns Saudi Arabia for banning the construction of churches on her scourged piece of desert he or she might possess the minimum legitimacy to discuss and criticize the Swiss vote. Until then, however, they should keep looking the other way as they have been doing all along.

It is indeed ironic that an increasing number of Syrians consider the emergence of the new religious and conservative propensity in our society as a resurrection of old and cherished values while we deny the Swiss their right to be xenophobic. Monotheist religions in Syria are certainly part of her recent history but do not constitute founding elements of her ancient civilizations or her varied cultures. How can we, Syrians, trace our heritage, values and history to 1,400 years past and arbitrarily stop. Archeological evidence suggests that Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, predates Judaism by some 7,000 years, Christianity by 9,000 years and Islam by roughly 9,600 years. How can we selectively choose to obliterate 87% of our known past and reduce our identity to one usurping trend within a singular faith? The first fermented beverages were discovered in this land, the earliest beer and the primeval wines. We hatched passionate gods, literary epics and love stories while most of humanity was barely afloat in a sea of ignorance. We invented the Alphabet. The 4,250 years old literature of Ebla predates Genesis and subsequent accounts of creation by long centuries. Unlike early claims by “Christian” scientists that the cuneiform tablets found there uphold the authenticity of biblical history, the people of Ebla “authored” almost all of the stories thought to be of divine origin. In one of the rarest occasions of modern times the authorities of Judaism, Christianity and Islam agreed on one common goal, that of stifling the findings of Ebla. They collectively marginalized the significance then obstructed making it common knowledge that the Story of Adam and Eve as it exactly reappeared more than 1,500 years later, was written by an Eblaite playwright, no more no less.

That the Swiss singled out minarets and did not include church spires in their ban is an indication of their deep rooted  intolerance perhaps. That some oppose secularism in Syria, earthly cradle of civilizations, is a manifestation of their shallow bigotry.

Hymens For Sale

It might come as a surprise to many but hymens are not unique to the human species. Due to similar biological evolution many female mammals, including chimpanzees, elephants and whales retained theirs as well. And no, there is no embedded wisdom or ultimate truth behind the existence of hymens more than their functional role of preventing infections in young females from external sources. There is as much intended purpose behind a hymen as there is in the persistent presence of the appendix in humans in general and nipples in men in particular. That dealt with and out of the way let us address this very interesting and hot topic (might be wet and messy as well).

I first read about artificial virginity on my favorite blog Suffonsifisms written by Isobel . Global Voices' own Hisham also linked to the same subject written in French by the Moroccan Blogger Mounir. In her post titled Artificial Virginity then in Furthermore…as if it wasn’t bad enough, Isobel addressed the subject matter with understandable dismay. She realizes of course that in many paternal societies the dominant males have conspired, due to their own mental impotency, against women and degraded this fold of mucus membrane to the same low level as their fecal honor. She is much nicer than me though and more restrained. The hymen per say is a worthless remnant of less hygienic times. It's a dirty little bugger at best but certainly cleaner than the minds of men who obsessed over the right of women to have an active premarital sexual life. In false pretense they will argue that men too should abstain from having sex outside wedlock. However, since they have impenetrable hymens covering their brains they truly believe that there is a divine message here. Accordingly, a man's sin might go unnoticed and forgivable eventually but not that of a woman. “شرف البنت زي عود الكبريت ما يولعش الا مرة واحدة” A girl's honor is like a matchstick. It can only burn once. When a girl ruptures her hymen she becomes fair game for the chimps in her family or tribe. Executing her to preserve their honor still goes on in many parts of the Middle East (and elsewhere) in what is miserably known as Honor Killing.

I am neither advocating nor opposing premarital sex. It is simply nobody's goddamn business. What a man or woman chooses to do with his or her own body is entirely up to them. Screw traditions, morals and customs on a collective basis. They matter to you, very well instill them in your own children. When they become adults they have the right to choose whether they want to remain chaste and pure till they get married or not. Your moral role as parent, father be it or mother, ends when your children reach adulthood. More importantly, you and I have no right to condemn the sexual behavior of others. We see something we do not like, we can shut up and mind our own boxers or undies.

A man's honor deserves better than to hide inside the underwear of women. As to this clever new $15 Chinese device and which is primarily used to emulate virginity so that an idiot of a man never finds out whether "his" woman had her “cherry popped” or not before him I only have this to say: such archaic cultural apes deserve nothing more, nothing less, than an artificial hymen to make them feel like real men. I am glad to add that it is already on sale in Syria.

Xie Xie Zhong Guo, “Thank You China”. I cannot wait for your next invention, an artificial brain in the shape of a dildo. Perhaps this leading Egyptian scholar can stick it up where the sun never shines and dies of an orgasmic fit.

Different Minds, Different Soups

We should wash our hands, but most importantly our hearts, before we sit around the table together. The holy month is nearing its end and a post about my two favorite Ramadan soups is in order. As varied as we are in Syria, as different as we are as bloggers, there are so many soups to enjoy none of which is right or wrong. We're a passionate crowd, us Levantines, and we are known to pick fights with our own shadows when we can't find someone to disagree with.

Yet the disparity of opinions should never degrade to a personal conflict. In the free future most of us aspire to no one should set rules for the others to follow. We might as well stay as we are if we don't have it in us to embrace all the colors of the rainbow. Neither I nor whoever disagrees with me have the correct answer. My proven science and their divine text mean so much to each of us respectively but might signify nothing to a third person. It's not a matter of numbers or of a majority and minorities. If we truly aspire to be free we have to defend the freedom of those at odds with us first.

I leave you with the double-recipe for Lentil and Red Soups. Over the last month I've rarely strayed from either one or the other on the Iftar table. They are prepared differently, they look different, they taste different, but both are authentic Syrian cuisine and come with plenty of meat:-)

Ah and on a final note... I wish you all a Happy Eid Fitr. I wish I could've enjoyed it here at home but it so happens that I'm traveling over the holidays to a new land. Hopefully, I'll come back with a story.

Lentil Soup

Lentils 2 cups (cleaned and rinsed in cold water)
Short grain rice ½ cup (cleaned and rinsed in cold water)
Ground beef or minced lamb 200g rolled into small balls ½ “ in diameter
1 small onion (diced)
Chicken broth 1 small cube
Butter 1 tablespoon
Salt 1 tablespoon (or per taste)
Cumin ½ teaspoon
Black pepper ½ teaspoon



-Bring salted lentils and rice to boil in 4 cups of water – Keep uncovered over medium-high for 30 minutes.
-Pour into manual food masher (with the water) and mash them so they come out the bottom, well... well-mashed.
-Separately fry the diced onion in some butter until light brown.
-Separately fry the meat balls in the rest of the butter until brown.
Add the well-mashed lentils and rice mix to the fried onion and meat balls, top them with 2 cups of hot water.
Sprinkle with cumin and black pepper and a (cut into small pieces) cube of chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and keep for 30 minutes.

Serve and enjoy Ummmm


Red Soup

Ground beef or minced lamb 200g rolled into small balls ½ “ in diameter
Vermicelli 1 cup
Tomato paste 2 tablespoons
Chicken broth 1 cube
Salt 1 tablespoon (or per taste)
Black pepper ½ teaspoon




-Fry the balls of meat in butter until golden brown. Remove replace with vermicelli and heat until red.
-Separately bring 5 cups of water to boil then add meat balls, vermicelli, chicken broth, tomato paste. Stir for a while then leave over medium-low heat for 30 minutes.
*Be very careful not to add cold water to the vermicelli because it will go crazy and turn Afro.

Sahha wa Hana

Blogging Week Against Anal Orifices أسبوع التدوين ضد البخاويش

A few of us Anglophone Syrian bloggers decided at long last to catch up with our Arabophone brethren and start a week of blogging against something. Except that we couldn't agree on what we collectively hate. You see we are neither organized nor do we have an agenda for days to come. We're just a bunch of casual and unceremonious guys and gals (almost all of us but not quite, looool) who couldn't jointly come up with one idea for our week. The best we could muster is for each to declare his or her own war against their own demons.

I chose to attack Chauvinistic Vainglorious Hypocrite Puritan Prudes (AKA Assholes)



1.There are men who think they are inherently better than women by virtue of their sex. I don't like them.

2.There are men who walk a step ahead of women believing it's only normal due to their twisted sense of morality or their sick understanding of modesty. I don't like them.

3.There are men who discuss the attire of women. How they should or shouldn't dress. What they ought to cover and what they are allowed to reveal. I don't like them.

4.There are men who boss women around and who strongly believe its their god given right to do so. I don't like them.

5.There are men who hide the names of their mothers, sisters and wives as if it's shameful and dishonorable for the names of “their” women to be revealed. I don't like them.

6.There are men ashamed of their own bodies and who consider the body of “their” women as their own property. I don't like them.

7.There are men who want to change us all to fit their own idea of right and wrong. I don't like them.

8.There are men who see in black and white, in shades of gray at best. I don't like them.

9.There are men who are convinced they are always right, no matter what. I don't like them.

10.There are women who agree with these assholes. I really hate them.


Participating Blogs:

• Ana Sourie Blogging Week Against the Consumption of all Beans 

اسبوع التدوين ضد استهلاك الحمص والفول

• Levantine Dreamhouse Blogging Against Fossilized Thinking 

التدوين ضد التفكير المتحجر

• Dubai Jazz A Week of Blogging Against Tribalism

اسبوع التدوين السوري ضد القبلية

• Tajreed Blogging Week Against Hypocrisy

• Ral Blogging Against Narcissistic Personality Disorder 

التدوين ضد اضطراب الشخصية النرجسية

• On Olive and Sake Blogging Week for Moral decay

اسبوع التدوين للإنحلال الأخلاقي

• Syrian to the Bone Blogging Week Against Assholes

• Suffonsifisms Blogging Against the Production, Release and Circulation of Hot Air

• My Chaos Blogging Week Against the Inferior Looks to Stray Cats

اسبوع التدوين ضد النظرات الدونية للقطط الشاردة

Spanking the monkey and Beating the Beaver

Earlier this Ramadan I promised myself and my Habibati Readers to stick to recipes till the end of the lunar month. Until yesterday I was well on my track to keeping my word. Oh OK, I sneaked in “When I Need You” last week but it was a spur of the moment thing. I just felt like dancing that's all. If you find it in yourselves to forgive me keep reading. Otherwise, you might as well stop and doodle your noodle or air your orchid instead. This post, for all practical purposes, was supposed to be a soup double header. I intended to describe and explain the recipes for two of my favorite bowls, Lentil and Red Soups. However, extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures. After conferring with Abu Kareem we decided that I'd better address the pressing matter of masturbation in Syria first.



Apparently our Syrian youth is obsessed with playing with itself. If we are to believe what an authority on the matter wrote a few days ago on his Arabic blog (boy are we lucky that the new enlightened herd is sticking to Arabic) jerking off has reached unprecedented levels in the country. Boys are unable to concentrate on their studies and are looking very pale before prematurely ejaculating and losing consciousness in schools. Their balls are blue and sore as hell and when they sneeze or cough they are allegedly pissing in their pants. They are falling on their backs after bleeding to death from their weenies. Those who don't die on the spot and once they get married are preferring to take matters in their own hands instead of in between their partners' legs.  And, yes brothers and sisters, girls, Lord Have Mercy on us all, are doing this despicable, blinding and atrocious act secretly without the written consent of their male pimp, sorry chimp. They, someone hold me please before I pass out, are losing their virginity to their fingers out of wedlock.



Local doctors are at a total loss. They have classified the masturbation frenzy as epidemic, endemic and pandemic (all at once). According to one informed source who has confided in me after recently returning from a trip to Syria (the new enlightened herd very much likes using this phrase or something similar) the bathroom is the most likely crime scene for these psychotically sick and abnormal boys and girls. While unsuspecting parents are watching Bab El Hara, the boys are spanking their monkeys and the girls are beating their beavers.

Now that you have a better idea about some of the content of the enlightened herd's agenda why don't you join me in promoting a Week of Blogging Against...

Let's all use the comment section to reach a consensus. We, the bad guys and gals (the Ze3ran) of the Syrian Blogsphere and our regular guests need to initiate our own Week Against Something. All ideas are welcome and the stupider the better. This is activism at its best. How about a few days of lobbying before we start our valiant attempt at draining this septic pool of stink and shit. Let's move ahead, forge our destiny and join forces together in beating our meats or around the bushes to reach an unprecedented Syrian Orgasm against absurdity, hypocrisy and sanctimony. I leave it literally in your hands ya Mala3een.

When I Need You

In the summer of 1977 shortly after my National Bacalaureat exam I attended my first dancing party in Tartous. These were extremely rare events in my little town by the sea back then. Boys and girls went to single-sex schools like the rest of Syria with the exception of a handful of private ones in Damascus and Aleppo perhaps. Not many years later that had come to change and by the early 80's of the 20th century Tartous implemented co-ed in all of its public schools and remains today the only Governorate in the country without any single-sex learning institution. We've sure moved way ahead of the pack and we're proud of our mindset here on the coast. In fact, despite the relentless waves of marauding Wahabi Islamists pouring over our shores, we Tartoussis, in our majority, stand in defiance to the dull and lifeless coveys desaturating the kaleidoscopic social fabric of Syria not through confrontation but rather by clinging to our traditional Mediterranean way of life. We still master the art of taking it easy and the rest certainement à la tizi.

That night, I asked the prettiest girl in the party to dance with me to what is perhaps one of the greatest love songs ever, When I Need You by Leo Sayer. The song went on that year to top the charts on both sides of the Atlantic (the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100).

Last night, thirty two years after that dance, a breeze blew from the west cooling down the lingering heat of the day. There were folks walking by, young lovers holding hands and this tartoussi  riding his bicycle on the corniche late in the evening. I was enjoying the silence and engrossed in my private thoughts when I decided to listen to some music. I picked a List I call “Soft” on my iPhone and drifted with the tantalizing flow of easy listening songs. The mood was ripe for a daydream (eveningdream is more like it) and right in the middle of it, When I Need You came along.

To lovers all over, this one for you. To the woman who's more me than myself... May I have this dance my Princess?



When I need you
I just close my eyes and I'm with you
And all that I so want to give you
It's only a heartbeat away

When I need love
I hold out my hands and I touch love
I never knew there was so much love
Keeping me warm night and day

Miles and miles of empty space in between us
The telephone can't take the place of your smile
But you know I wont be traveling forever
It's cold out, but hold out, and do I like I do
When I need you
I just close my eyes and I'm with you
And all that I so wanna give you babe
Its only a heartbeat away

Its not easy when the road is your driver
Honey that's a heavy load that we bear
But you know I won't be traveling a lifetime
It's cold out but hold out and do like I do
Oh, I need you

When I need love
I hold out my hands and I touch love
I never knew there was so much love
Keeping me warm night and day

When I need you
I just close my eyes
And you're right here by my side
Keeping me warm night and day

I just hold out my hands
I just hold out my hand
And I'm with you darling
Yes, I'm with you darling
All I wanna give you
It's only a heartbeat away
Oh I need you darling

Writers: Albert Hammond & Carol Bayer Sager

Changes

We grow and change. Only the dead-inside and morons don't modify their paths on a journey we had never chosen to take. I am amazed by how much I've altered my perception of my environment and myself since I started sharing my trivial and significant thoughts through writing on an open blog. The last three years have been more pivotal, from an intellectual point of view, than the concerted outcome of almost three decades of adulthood. I have come to terms with the sentient being within and finally accepted matters and issues I struggled to resolve for the greatest part of my past. I was shy, timid and scared to release myself from the claws of indoctrinated teachings, imprinted mores and unchallenged truths. My liberation at last has been my most memorable and satisfying achievement.

In February of this year I came to the realization that I've been consuming my life for the wrong reasons. Consuming, not living, since that's what I think I've been doing for the most part. You know how it is when people decide to stop or start doing something on the occasion of their birthday or the new year. Well, I'm not that kind of man. I never made any resolution and accordingly the positive changes that have permeated my existence since were not planned at all. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought I could do better with my body. I'm eating healthier and putting my muscles to use in a manner that is enjoyable to me. For four months I would start my morning by a forty minute bicycle ride by the sea. My meaningful immersion in music died in the 1980's and I changed that too. I plugged my iPhone and reintroduced myself to old and new tunes. My morning ride became my favorite part of the day. With the advent of July, however, riding a bicycle in Tartous becomes more of an ordeal and less of a pleasure. I'm very uncomfortable in the heat but the positive effects of daily exercise were too apparent to ignore. I put the treadmill that has been laying there like a piece of furniture to good use too. I have to admit that I don't enjoy exercising indoors per say but I've found a way to cheat my brain into accepting this temporary inconvenience. Every day I follow an episode of my all-time favorite TV Series M*A*S*H* on DVD while sweating my butt off. I'm sleeping much better. I'm drinking my beer when I feel like it and enjoying it a whole lot more. I'm looking good (well that's a debatable point) and I've lost 11 kg in the process. I was a chubby 88 kg on my birthday at the end of February and I'm an attractive 77 kg now (again that point is open to contention). In a way I'm a late bloomer. I've just come of age, thirty years too late perhaps, but at least I've shed my inherited shell. I am free.



There's always a downfall though, a catch of a sort. Taking off the ragged robes of social conformity and mental subservience will eventually bring a confrontation with others. By and large I've always been the type who avoids direct hostilities with those I disagree with. But at the same time I can't go along anymore with certain “established” practices. It hurts to keep quiet when bigots and fanatics preach and gesticulate. Whether I want to or not, I'm being drawn into retaliation at least in the form of the written word. Almudawen (Syrian Blogs Community) has just announced the First Annual Competition of Almudawen for the Best Syrian Blogs. This is a commendable effort on their part if it's indeed intended to honor outstanding Syrian blogs, encourage and support a blogging culture and expose the role of blogs in the making and shaping of a civil society in Syria. However, if you read the 5th and last condition for blogs to be accepted in the competition, this is what you'll find (translated word by word): the contents of which [the submitted blog] must not dissent from the accepted mores and morals (i.e. sex through videos or photos, hostility to religions, cussing, swearing and bad taste). Do I take it that it is acceptable for a blog to attack trans-dressers but not Sheikhs and priests? Or, for the sake of argument, is a photo of a random cloud in the sky in the shape of an eye and a comment underneath that this is the eye of God acceptable but not another photo of a woman's perfect behind with the apt remark that this butt is an elegant example of the splendor of creation (if we're so inclined to believe)? I know and very much like two out of the five honorable judges and I'm surprised that they have accepted this sanctimonious condition. In fact I'm certain that they did not. Who in the hell then decided that bloggers/people who are interested in sex, hostile to religion and use the word FUCK casually cannot contribute to the making and shaping of a civil society in Syria? What kind of change are we to expect from an infant blogging movement already enslaved by bigotry and intolerance?



I hope it doesn't take this younger generation as long as it took mine to realize that religious tyranny is as bad, if not worse than political dictatorship. Civil society, my ass.

Immediately after I published this post yesterday, Yazan commented then deleted his own comment. He had no prior knowledge about the 5th and final condition of the competition, he wrote to me privately. However, he wanted to resolve the matter with the guys at Almudawen. He wrote earlier today and informed met that Almudawen has removed this shameful clause and came to their senses (under pressure from Yazan no doubt). I'm glad to hear that he will post about the whole matter on his blog later today as well.

Thank you abu fares for bringing up the issue in such a gracious way, as always!
I've posted, something of a clarification, and a response, here:
http://yazanbadran.com/blog/2009/08/in-good-faith/

Realm of the Damned

On a late summer afternoon in a hotel lobby in Athens, I sat waiting for the heat of the day to abate before I stroll alongside the marina. I've been going there late in the day to hear the harmonious sounds of a sail catching wind and the gush of bleeding froth from the scarred face of the sea. Relaxing in a corner, I was watching people go by. Eager fresh bodies coming to Greece to bask in the sun and laze on her sandy beaches. Tired long faces burdened with the insipidity of personal lives or the stink of business deals gone rotten. The banal display of emotions and the happiness and misery of total strangers filled me with a foreboding loneliness. I have learned a long time ago that I am most lonely when I am in the middle of a crowd. However, I have come not only to accept but to embrace my solitude as a trusty friend and entertaining companion. My eyes were deciphering the flickering images and sending them to my brain, saturating it like a sponge with forming notions. I was ripe to write. A seemingly innocuous apparition can trigger an avalanche of words. A sexy and rotund butt for instance would toss me in bed after midnight. I would strew the words into an improbable script, wrap it around my nakedness and scribble it in between the folds of the white sheets. Yet wickedness has its own iniquitous way of stirring me as well, of shaking me up considerably and forcing me to venture into the realm of the damned. And, this is the turn my mind took in Athens.





The sliding doors split open admitting a whiff of suffocating and sticky air into the cool lobby. In walked a man of the cloth, a thirty something years old Greek Orthodox priest, dressed in mourning black from head to toe, beard uncouth, eyebrows hawkish and ugly features wreaking of oppression and hoariness. He eyed the patrons haughtily half expecting them perhaps to kneel in reverence and servitude. I was, I suspected, the only one who took notice of his presence and in no uncertain way he was aware of that too. He stood in the middle of the vast hall waiting for something to happen.





Does he have an appointment with God, I wondered. Well, there was a bunch of cute North American chicks with supple white legs and full swaying breasts gathered in one corner. Take a look Hideous Father, may be something would stir under that sooty robe of yours. Or what about the middle aged couple there, huddled so close and holding hands, afraid of wasting a single moment away from each other. Perhaps they can teach you a thing or two about the love you never knew. Nah, my day was destined to be ruined completely when an older bowed priest followed in. The wear and tear of years have turned his hair and beard into one giant white broom. The miserable sexagenarian hurried without vacillation toward the repulsive younger cleric then.... then for God's Sake bent down and kissed his hand.





God's obsession with robes and uniforms and his distaste for nudity and permissiveness are fascinating and intriguing divine aspects to my humble mind. What went wrong after he created us nude and sexy and made him change his conviction? Why does he want women to dress like sacks of potatoes and men like idiots? What about his fetish with hair? Why does he insist that women should cover their heads?





What if a woman shave her hair? Does she still have to hide her scalp? Is the top of her head too erotic for innocuous men not to get wild and ejaculate in the middle of the street? But most importantly is the question about the differences and the common ground between all the major religions. Why do they vary so much in the definition of the divine being to the point of being fully contradictory to each other while they, by and large, agree about oppressing women, limiting sex, rationing pleasure and forbidding certain practices? Was it an inherent design fault that slipped the mind of God? Didn't he consider that a woman's butt might prove too attractive to a horny man? Was woman in her present glory and allure an unfortunate accident? Did he intend her to be a utilitarian reproduction machine, a closed Dodge Van of a sort, but instead ended up with a Red Hot Ferrari?





These questions and many more were never in fact directed to God by me. They are, however, intended for the dimwits who have been meddling with our ethos over at least the last two millennia. As I disgustingly observed an older man bowing and kissing the hand of a younger one I couldn't help but reminisce that the Greek Orthodox are not the only ones promoting hierarchy and advocating the inherent favoritism of God. The Catholic Church is notoriously imbecilic in its public and secret practices. Jewish Rabbis and Muslim Sheikhs (and now as if we didn't have enough tomfools the new wave of Muslim Sheikhas: Priestesses even if they vehemently deny being so) are as guilty as their Christian colleagues in their thirst and quest for earthly power on account of their special ties with “upstairs”.



A gentle westerly wind stirred the leaves in the trees of Athens as I walked by the marina. It was still quite hot and muggy but the young men and women knew how to undress properly for the weather. They gingerly exposed their suntanned bodies for the seagulls, the boats and for me to see. Some of which were pretty hot babes but amazingly I didn't jump anyone. I stood at the edge of the breakwater watching the sun disappears behind the masts. It took the Greeks a little longer than their European neighbors to give their religious establishment the finger. How many years before the raucous wave crashes on our shores, I wondered. Not too long I know, for the winds of change are steadfastly blowing.

The Story of Abeer

The following is a letter I received from a girl I named Abeer. She wrote to me in Arabic and asked for my help. After her permission, we agreed that I should translate her words into English and post her letter on my blog for every single reader to have an open discussion. Whatever you might think, please feel free to join in through your comments. I might at any point butt in but I'd rather keep my peace for as long as I can.
Abeer, thank you for trusting me with your story. I wish you the best.


Dear Abufares

I hesitated before I chose how to address you “Azizi: Dear” or “Ammo: Uncle” but then decided that you are so young at heart, I'd better drop the “Ammo” least I make you upset.

You see you are about my father's age and I'm young enough to be your daughter. I'm a 21 years old girl from Damascus. I can write in English but prefer to express myself in Arabic, especially now. I have been reading your blog for almost a year. My boyfriend, and let's call him Jad, introduced me to your writing. I think I have read everything you wrote but I particularly like your posts about love, women and life in general.

The reason I'm writing this private email to you is because I'm seeking your advice. You might find it ridiculous that a total stranger asks for your help. But you wrote that you are a fool with a lantern and I so hope that the light you are shedding can show me the way.

I come from a good family. I am a very pretty girl and I'm not saying that out of vanity. My beauty, however, doesn't bear directly on my “tragedy”. I grew up with Jad, our neighbors' son. We played and studied together. There was no beginning to our love story. We were in love ever since I can remember. We kissed on the stairs and the balcony. We made promises to each other and kept them. Our lives evolved around each other. He never made me sad. He never said a harsh word to me. In turn, I never gave another boy a second look.

My father is a very wealthy man. He is highly educated and had lived a good part of his life abroad. My mother too (was) a very open minded woman and studied at the university of Damascus. We moved to the suburbs a few years ago and live in a very nice villa. Through the years my parents always knew about Jad and me. They never openly talked about him but his father was a good friend of mine. That is until my father became too important (in his own opinion) and too busy with making more money and their friendship withered with time. My mother was a normal intelligent, attractive, educated and entertaining Damascene woman until she turned into a self-righteous one who attends religious lessons and hosts them in the villa once a week. Her “friends”, I think, brainwashed her and made her such a boring and meaningless woman. Suddenly, the most important part of her life became her Hijab. Shopping and acquiring weird “Islamic” fashion became her obsession. The whole universe, suddenly, became centered around her hair. She has regular hair like everybody else but it has become such a precious asset it needed to be hidden from everyone because that is what Allah wants.

She removed her wedding pictures from the salon and living room. Her photo holding me and my brother on the beach in Lattakia was the centerpiece of the entire wall. It disappeared. Beautiful memories wiped out because her hair showed. My brother, one year younger than me also became what I like to describe as a Muslim Crusader. Life is defined around his going back and forth to the mosque for prayers. My father apparently didn't change that much, or so I thought at first.

Slowly, I became the focal point of my mother's and brother's attention. Who am I talking to over the phone? Where was I? No, I can't spend time with my friends in Damascus. Yes, I should wear the Hijab. Certainly I must pray five times a day. How did my mother change from being a compassionate woman to a ruthless robotic idiot is something I will never understand. I succumbed to their whims for about one year and wore the Hijab. I just kept thinking how stupid I was. How stupid my mom is. Didn't she grow up in a regular family? How I dress, whether I have nail polish, the perfume I wear became the nightly dinner conversation. My father was updated on my situation and he constantly frowned and expressed his disbelief at my unacceptable behavior.

Only Jad kept me sane with these crazy people. He told me to take it easy and that my parents only want the best for me. But deep inside, I knew him better than that. He is a very smart and sensitive guy. He has crossed the line of being a puppet to the ingrained traditional and religious mores of our society. His father is a wonderful man, intelligent and well read. I remember when I was a little girl how much both my parents enjoyed his enlightening company.

I am in my third year in the university (Economics) and 2 months ago over lunch, very casually my mother announced with pride and satisfaction that a certain young man, the son of a certain old man has asked for my hand in marriage. His mother, a friend of one my mother's inner circle of religious women was the matchmaker. I couldn't believe the ensuing discussion between my father, my mother and my brother about me, about my future, about the need to wear the Hijab again because it is not open to discussion with the suitor's family. My father. My own father, the one who taught me how to ride a bicycle and how to swim on his back, the one who bought me all these little dainty miniskirts from his travels, the intellectual who sat by my bed and explained the importance of education and work when I get older and the same man who held my hand and looked straight in my eyes one day and said that I should not live to need to be married has been transformed into a mere shadow. A hypocrite parrot bargaining and debating my future with my mindless mother and my fanatic brother.

I told them that when I decide to get married I will never consider anyone but Jad. Since then, my life has turned into a living hell. I'm no longer allowed out of the house. My family has taken away my liberties and my humanity and turned me into a 21 years old slave. They are going ahead with their planning and scheming and the engagement/Kitab/marriage ceremony is looming inevitably closer. Did I mention that the idiot who wants to marry me already made several remarks about what he likes and doesn't like about me, what I should keep and change in my character and personality. He came over for several visits with his family. Although I would probably spit in his face if he asks to be alone with me he has shown no interest at all in talking to me in private so far.

It's becoming harder and harder to sneak a talk with Jad who would be leaving to Canada by the end of the summer. He has asked me to go with him and there is more than one way I can do that. I already have an open visa and he is a Canadian citizen. I'm certain that I don't want to waste my life with someone I cannot even look at. I'm also convinced that I will never love anyone but Jad. At 21, I'm forced to make the decision of leaving Syria never to return.

What do you think Abufares?

Abeer