Arab Nationalism & The Changing Face of Arab Identity

It has a point… But I truly doubt that nationalism Is an answer… At least a nationalism based in the union of hindreds of millions of people who share somehow historical cultural and religious links. The best proof of it is my beloved Europe… We are all westerns, white and mostly christians,… We have been sharing thus continent with even more contact than arabs. For centuries there was only one christian church and the cult language was latin for all. But we soon found our ways to set differences. Same happens with arabs and with everyone else. Finally, individualism finds its way… And a whole culture flourishes with it!. Main excuse to unite arabs was religion… But it was only an excuse to justify the eternal real ways to keep a group lf identities together: Force.

That, and anything else, was always the key factor to unite peoples everywhere. A strong linking army. If the one who rules is a king, an imam or a warrior, ends up being indifferent to history. The results are the same everywhere. And arabs are no exception to being humans as everyone else.

Saudi Ridiculousness 2.0

… what to say… Kaboom!

😉

it’s your first last moment … or your last first moment… live it!

I love this woman… I love her and so many other people in her area. Wish she could feel it. From me… and from all of you, people outside Syria. Wish she could smile because of it. She and so many of those living like her… Or even worst. Don’t hesitate to show ur support for the people… They need it more than any idea or political speech. Hugs from Spain, Levantine.

Levant woman

This evening I wanted to write

I typed and typed

Nothing sounds as painful as the truth

I delete and delete

My friend who lost a beloved friend of her last week came to visit me today

she told me that the most painful thing in losing someone so close that we don’t usually think of their existence in our life, it’s for granted that it feels so natural and normal so we leave many words unsaid and many feelings unrevealed. And suddenly we find out that we wasted many moments not appreciating the friendship or the love we have, and then every second sounds like a wasted treasure…

chasing pavements – photo by me

how come we don’t appreciate having a family every second! How come you can let your mom die without letting her know how much you love her.

Why do I have to survive a mortar shell…

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Gideon Levy, on zionism and the joyful return to “Ghettoicity”.

Israel is returning to the ghetto, building its own neo-ghetto with its own two hands. Welcome to the Israel Ghetto; it built the walls and fences that surround it long ago, and the mental and cultural walls are on the way. What was done to the Jews for generations, the Jews are now doing to themselves: judging people by their ancestors and withdrawing into a ghetto-state whose nature will be determined by its degree of purity.

This time it’s not the goyim’s fault, it’s Israel that yearns to live in a ghetto. It’s an old-new obsession, and history laughs its bitter laugh. The new Jews, the Israelis, embrace the methods and the standards of the Nazis, may their name and memory be erased. The Israelis check their bloodlines and then put them in a ghetto.

The only thing missing is the yellow star; maybe it will come back, too. After all, how will we know who’s Jewish in the Jewish state? There has to be a way to identify who is (and more importantly, who isn’t) a Jew. The most obvious identifier is the bad old yellow Star of David sewn on your clothes.

Yes, it’s a new yellow time in which the Jews are withdrawing back into the ghetto. Israel is doing its best not to be accepted into its neighborhood – the “villa in the jungle” as Ehud Barak called it – and the effort goes beyond security and politics.

It’s “no entry” to Middle Eastern culture, to Arab art and history, to African asylum seekers, to anyone who isn’t a Jew.

via Israel’s nation-state talk means the return of the yellow star

Haaretz

Gideon Levy surprisingly shares my own thoughts and ideas. it’s been a while since I had the same perception. Jews have lived for such a long time in ghettoes, apart from everyone else, doing their own stuff without mixing with others except for business that they have incorporated that isolationism to their own identity as a people. 

It’s like if all the iconography was again alive. The walls of the ghetto, the racial and bloodline purity, the collective identity of being apart, of avoiding mix and contamination. 

Racial purity. Family lineage. National ethnicity. Exclusion of those “out of our group”. Walls and laws to avoid contamination… yeah,… those who say that Adolf Hitler was, in fact, a resentful descendant of jews, must be smiling. History has this kind of sad jokes, sometimes.

And yes. We must wait for yellow stars to come out again as a symbol to wear proudly over clothes. But this time to mark those who are racist and intolerant. Those who are everything except democrats.

Iconography still has to reach the levels achieved by the old enemies of judaism … and democracy. 

The risk of keeping the “laissez faire, laissez passer”, …in Saudi Arabia.

In schools, teachers should also be alert. Focus and energy should be directed to sports, literary clubs, music and the theater.

For a long time our schools have not provided the extracurricular activities that can put to good use the energy of our young – both boys and girls.

More important we have to listen to and communicate with our youngsters. By and large we are a patriarchal society where communication flows from up to down. Thus we hear neither the views nor the pleas of our young people.

In our quest to amass more material benefits, we ignore the young until it is too late.

via We must save our children from the preachers of evil

 Al Arabiya News.

This is the NONSENSE western version  of radical islamist preaching in our society. The same nonsense and crappy discourse. And the main reason why radicalism must be stopped, because more and more this is becoming THE ONLY WAY westerns see muslims. Now muslims must ask themselves if it’s only western’s fault, if they never did anything against Radical Imams?

Oh my… I WANT TO HEAR MORE OF THESE… MORE! …

Because if we hear not, it will be damn too late before other extremisms grow in other places, cultures, religions… and injustice multiplies like flies over a rotten corpse!…. globally.

When they say “islam is a religion of peace” or “radicals are not true muslims”, most of times I answered “And why no one stops the preaching and teaching of hate in mosques and quranic madrasas? … to what they answered “what can we do there?… we are no one, to face the imams, the only we can do is at our homes, but you cannot challenge the imams or the way a whole society thinks. Just be sure we are not like your media portraits us”.

OK… thanks to Mr. Al-Maeena (I think I love that family) I see that the discourse is changing openly… and I see someone trying to speak out loud and step forward. It’s still a long road, to reach every quranic school lost in the mountains and hills of lost areas of half of the globe, to stop the funding and the economical support of a network of irrational killers and supremacists who orgasm mentally, considering how easily they send people to kill and die for nothing, believing that God needs their blood, same as pagans did. Our God does not need our blood.

(He wants our prayers. And our good actions. And nothing else).

So that’s true.

And  it’s another step forward.

But still…I want more.

Because more and more I see racism and extremism and supremacism expanding in UK, in France, in Netherlands, in Russia, in Germany, in USA, … and if muslims don’t stop radical islamism and the discourse of hate and global domination, every one else will feel safer behind a wall and ready to “fight back”. Stupidity is contagious, sirs.

By now… THANKS A LOT FOR THIS, SEÑOR…. AND KEEP IT ON!

Eyes don’t see it…. heart does not feel it!

I’m shocked and supprised. I thought we were in a relatively safe place, where one could express one’s self. We wanted to raise questions about visual culture, between obedience and resistance. I had interesting talks with my students about silencing others, about deep misunderstandings about the concept of democracy, and how dangerous it can be to endanger it.

via Out of sight, out of mind:

Right-wing students tear down Activestills photo exhibit

+972 Magazine.

A new proof that Israelis are mastering the Ostridge Strategy. Even when they are faced with reality, if they can’t hide it, they try to cover it up. 

It’s like if they were holding a terrible moral fart, in the middle of an important meeting with all the nations. They can exit maybe once or twice to liberate in the WC, or blame the neighbouring seats again a couple of times, if eventually someone notices what’s going on.

But some day they will have no chance to hold it… and everything that has been retained for so long will flow out freely, making everyone around turn ther faces disgusted.

Eventually they may be invited to abandon the meeting room. 

… but that time didn’t arrive yet.  

In the meanwhile, they will try to keep being creative with excuses.

Until now it worked really nicely.

Good Night, world!