I Harbor a Fear

I mean it’s not such an imminent fear, but it’s a thought that made its way to my reckoning after the statement Al-Qaida made that it will not sit idle while Israel continues to kill people in Lebanon. It’s obvious things are going relatively well for Hizbollah against Israel and I think Al-Qaida wants to support a winning battle. So long as Hizbollah stands its ground, there is room for some sort of victory.

Let me emphasize something, I’m not a political analyst and for all I know these expectations may not even be feasible but my politically mediocre reasoning has opened my eyes to certain possibilities. There may be a remote chance that the many resistance forces will join together, united by their hate to Israel even more than they are separated from each other by major ideological conflicts. This may even result in their gradual sovereignty over various strips of the region. This of course means that they will have acquired a victory over Israel and hence the USA. But the question is, what will they do with victory? We have seen Israel acting ruthless, even within boundaries of international law, fighting on many fronts, politically and militarily, but how will those resistance forces act?

Let us not forget that they will not be answering to international law, they will not be under constraints of doing what is acceptable, they have been under occupation, humiliation, attack and repression for more than they can remember, what will they do when they get power? The fight might later on be between Hizbollah, Fath, Hamas and Al-Qaida for dominance but what if that’s all worked out and they have power?

This is my fear, that such a situation happens. Perhaps the only thing worse than Israel winning this fight against the resistance, is losing heavily. When you’ve been cruelly treated for years on end, all that will differ is the power changing hand, but by that time the world might see even more cruelty than it has ever seen, perhaps even a second holocaust. If power goes to the wrong hands, the whole world might end up living in terror. If Hizbollah chooses to defend itself in the same way that Israel chose, then there will be attacks on innocent Israelis for what their government did, attacks on innocent Americans for what their government did and attacks on the innocent for what the guilty did. The excuse can be as absurd as Israel’s and America’s, the right to defend oneself.

You see the problem is that when a tyrant battles a tyrant, the world cannot take sides, it can only wait to see who wins. The problem is that the USA as a super power has wasted its chance of gaining support from anyone by becoming a tyrant, for now it is the strong tyrant but if it’s defeated, it becomes a strong tyrant that does not have support. What I mean to say is that the USA does not have the option of doing the right thing anymore because it has proven that it cannot. So when the time comes and if extreme cruelty is displayed by Hizbollah upon victory, the USA cannot act as the world leader or a savior. It wasted its chance to play that role by tarnishing its history.

The problem is that no one will come to the aid of Israel who has bullied the international community for so long. No one that has been picked on will help a bully up. Israel has bought its support rather than earned it, but once the purchasing power ceases there will be no more support, so far Israel is counting on the USA for all of its support, and that’s putting all your eggs in one basket if you ask me. So if Israel faces a defeat and the USA cannot pull it out of the hole, then there’s no one else who will.

How will life be with chaos and with people doing all they want to do? We already know that no one cares about the Lebanese people, but who else is on the list of expendables?

When good fights evil, good will win eventually. When evil fights evil, evil will have to win. No one will support a tyrant when he loses. So I guess that’s the sad thing about being evil, that when you lose, no one will be there for you, so if you’re evil you’d better win.

Lebanon

I don't have anything new to say, but then again this is my blog and luckily not many people will waste their time reading the same old crap. I never cared for politics, not in a very detailed manner anyway, but I've always been interested in the social implications of politics, you know the kind of thing that affects people in their daily life. The kind of long term feelings they get when they go through certain ordeals.

The rise of bitter nations, that is inevitable. The same thing that terrorist are doing today are USA and Israel's philosophy. Let's examine this. Going over to the other's land and killing innocent people for something others have done. Twin Towers, Lebanon, Gazza.. it makes no difference, it's the same act performed by a different terrorist each time, and each terrorist has an excuse, protecting my people, protecting my interests, doing God's will, revenge.. it's all the same really. It's bad enough that we have terrorist individuals, we now have terrorist governments.

America continues to blatantly support the killing of innocent people for crimes that might have originated from places surrounding them. Now does that make any sense? Of course it says Israel has a right to defend itself, but how is killing innocent people defending itself? Israel says that it has military targets.. yeah right!! It has military targets alright, targets to be acheived rather than targets to be destroyed.

Let's apply some more of the absurd principles going on. An American kills my livestock, I go invade America and punish all Americans. A Syrian calls me a bad name, I go around breaking the legs of every friend he knows. An organization hurts me, I go attack the country of its origin. I'm not a politician, but to a normal human being that just doesn't make sense.

The excuses are no longer working anymore, the foul smell of bullshit is becoming more intense as time goes by, but the worst thing is that this will have great impacts on the USA itself. With the passing of time more and more people will hate the USA and in times of its weakness no one will have mercy, and believe you me, there always comes a time of weakness.

There is hate inside people's hearts and hate leads to desperate measures. If America expects to support attack on innocent people for crimes they did not commit they should expect the same to happen to their own people. But then again it did happen to their people and that's why they're taking revenge on innocent people, unable to capture the real culprits.

Now I know Israel is the culprit and all that, but America is the stronger nation, the one with more power, and rather than be a peacemaker, it chose to bully everyone around. I actually feel sorry for America, because by all calculations it loses. It loses its people's respect and it loses other people's respect. It loses its chance to do something great as the world leader and will go down in history as a tyrant. It already wasted its chance to be the fighter of terror by being a true terrorist. It terrorizes all other countries.

Fight terror with terror, is that the way it will be from now on? Is that what it's all about? I think that with all this fear, no one will be able to live. Despite idealists who say that USA doesn't have the right to abuse its power, I say that anyone with power has the right to use it in whatever way they want, but the consequences are what they must bear. The consequences of the misuse of power are evident in Iraq. When Saddam was gone, people were relieved and all that remained after he was gone was chaos. Is America the world's Saddam? I'm sure it's just that way for the Arabs, the rest of the world see America as sharp but minor pain.

Liars, tyrants and terrorists.. a government can be all these things.. and I think judging by Lebanon, two of them have.

How about Hizbullah.. it doesn't give a shit about Lebanese people, neither does Israel, they're a small price to pay for the targets that Hizbullah and Israel have, but to be honest, no body really gives a shit about Lebanese people. Hizbullah doesn't care about the muslims that are dying for no reason. The western world doesn't care about the Christians who have adopted a western culture. It's simple.. no body gives a damn. Casualties of war.. the care is left to those humanitarians who care about people's rights but are always internationally given no real power to make a difference. They're just given a bone to chew on while the wars continue. They're asked to make the rules and advise, they're no more than a leaf standing up to a storm.

No body gives a shit.. When true interests are at stake, no body cares..

To a Country that Betrayed Me

Watching tele today I was watching the patriotic and sometimes patronizing “Raafat El Hagaan”. For those who don’t know, this is a spy series that was made somewhere around the mid eighties and it retells the true story of an Egyptian spy that was staying in Israel from somewhere in the fifties till the sometime in the seventies.

The real Raafat El Haggan

I say it’s sometimes patronizing because it isolates the viewers from some of the very negative aspects of life during these days. Yet the shock is that the details that it does portray are very accurate and not only that, but they are also guilty of being inspiring and uplifting. Some of the negative things were also portrayed accurately, but of course never enough to show what kind of torture the people living at that time endured.

I’m not writing this now to talk about the inaccuracies of the negatives, but about the inspiration of the positives. In one episode there was an account of how 28 Egyptian armed with light weaponry defeated a fully armored team of Israeli troops right after we were miserably defeated in ‘67. As I heard this on the show I gave a very sarcastic look and whimpered yeah right, do they expect us to believe that. I was surprised by my father’s response to my smirk. My father who was much more skeptical than I am that good things that may have happened or that might happen responded by authenticating this account. I said, “Did that actually happen?”, he said yes, it did happen. So I asked, “How’s that even possible?”. He replied, “I don’t know, but we didn’t really fight in 1967”. So the patriotic account wasn’t so patronizing I could see.

Then there was a scene describing how people were optimistic that we will fight again and attain a victory that will regain some of our demolished pride. Another “Yeah Right” was in order, but this time I chose to ask, “Could people who have been defeated so cruelly have had the will to believe in another fight?”. Yes. I wasn’t conned again, I’m telling you some of these things have a tendency to be true. I heard the words on that series with different ears, I heard of how hopeful people got and I remembered how dopeful others became. I heard how enthusiastic people got and I remembered how disappointed others became.

I’m not in a position to judge what happened back then, how people wanted to do something for their country, while others forsook their country. I’m not in a position to judge how well people handled the challenges, while others ran away. What I do know is that more and more people today have fled and betrayed the country. I know that many more are running away and many more are corrupting the country from within.

So let me not preach and invite all saying, “Let’s work together for each other”. I will not adopt a patriotic and patronizing tone. I will only say that sometimes people do great heroic things when motivated.

This isn’t a cry out to come together and be something. This isn’t a slogan I’m holding up for others to see. This is what has become, and this is what I have against a country that has betrayed its people. Most people in this country are oppressed, and when that changes it becomes a choice between oppressing and being oppressed; unfortunately most people choose oppressing . The people of this country have betrayed the people of this country. The elected have betrayed the electors. The country betrayed its countrymen.

Deprived of the right to live and the right to know, deprived of a right to choose and right to speak, deprived.. that’s all there is to it. We have been deprived of our freedom a long time ago and when we were given a chance to be free, we chose to give up that right.

Deprived, that’s how I can sum it all up. Those who can give never want to, and those who want to never can. But the worst part about all of this is that those who deprive us of our rights lose theirs as well. They are criminals that are always looking over their own shoulders, silencing their conscience every day, content with their devious behavior excusing it with the years of oppression they have faced. In seeking their own interest and neglecting others, they have neglected themselves too. They have deprived their own children or grand children of a better life to live in. We have deprived our children and grand children of a country that can take care of them.

We not only betrayed each other but we betrayed ourselves.

I do not play football to be head-butted or insulted.

Yes I play football, and I enjoy the game but lately the game has turned into something else. At first it was about kicking the ball with your legs from place to place, in the old games you can feel a sense of caution with the players, the main object in the game was the ball. Then came more contact, the object became the opponent rather than the ball, skills valued less, fouls much more and the threshold for a foul was raised to very high standards such that a foul was given only if a player was assaulted, not just pushed or pulled. A foul meant the player had to fall face first to the ground. And then came psychological warfare, the game was a competition not only of skills but of nerves as well. Words were perfect for this psychological aspect of the game because you can say as much as you want to any other player and get away with it, of course this didn’t apply to the all so powerful referee. Then came violence without the presence of a ball, which was just plainly absurd but was allowed as long as you can get away with it.

The game has changed. The fact is that the game developed more than its guiding rules. With such weak rules to guide the game, the idea is now to get away with what you can. There’s chaos on the pitch and with only one referee to enforce an already flimsy set of rules, the whole game becomes a street fight, and the loser is the one who gets caught.

Let’s remember that it’s just a game, and professional or not I think I have rights while playing the game, but the real question is what are those rights and who will enforce them? I have the right not to be insulted during a game, I mean after all words can be very hurtful. I recall there things said by a man regarding the holocaust that sent him to jail. Words are very powerful, but what you say and when determines their power. I also have a right not to be pinched, punched or head butted. I mean this is a right of any human being.

I think that any sport should have these rules enforced really, I mean who said it’s more sportsmanly to insult players and less to head-butt them. In the case of football, I think the FIFA protects my right not to be head-butted, but it does not protect my right not to be insulted. Furthermore, the chances are you’ll be head-butted once during a game, but insulted all through-out. I don’t deny of course that you can be pinched, pushed and punched all throughout the game, given that no one sees it being done to you, but it’s all a matter of whether or not you’re caught.

Some say that words shouldn’t matter and that insults shouldn’t be taken seriously, but I’ve always thought that sports was about clean competition, ethics and fair play. It doesn’t really matter if some people think that insults and assaults are okay to bear because sports by tradition should be against this. I don’t think that I should suffer the assault of a head-butt or an insult during a game. But the funny thing is that some sports are violent, allowing for punches and kicks. I’ve yet to hear of a sport that endorses insults.

I don’t think anything warrants a head-butt, because after all, it’s just a game, but I don’t think that anything warrants an insult either, because after all, it’s just a game.

Empty Spaces

My mom asked me if my sister was in her room still sleeping or if she had gone out. I went into the dark room, staring strongly into the darkness and trying to use what little light coming from behind the curtains to determine if my sister was sleeping on her bed. For a moment I got confused, I didn't know if the form I saw before me was a human or was just a blanket crampled up and taking the shape that gave the impression of someone being there. As I looked onto the space, I found that it was infact my sister sleeping there.


I realized that it's very strange to look at empty spaces that can be filled with the mass of material that belongs to people we love. Staring at an empty bed is very different from staring at a bed that has its empty space filled by the presence of someone.

It is very strange that this small piece of matter of a human body that can easily be overlooked can make so much of a difference in your life, can generate great energy, can generate negative energy can make you cry, can make you laugh. Sometimes in life you may wake up to find that those empty spaces that were usually filled by people we love will never be filled by them again. The empty spaces that we stare upon will reflect an empty feeling in our hearts.

It's amazing how full an empty space can feel when there's someone there, and although an object like some pillows and a cover can give a similar effect or fill the same volume, it cannot affect us in the same way a person does. If we take the point of view of physics, it's just another volume of matter filled, from an emotional point of view the volume filled in our hearts can vary between zero and infinite, and I don't think physics can explain it.

Some spaces that we look upon, no matter how full can be so empty.

A Situation

I'm more curious than anything to know what guys have to say about this situation, and what girls might say about it. It's a situation where you can often find yourself and somehow there's no right thing to do, because it really depends on who you are and who you're with.

You're a male, and for the purpose of making it fun, let's say you're not a big guy, not one of these body builders or tall athletic boxer types, just an average Joe really, but you're walking down the street of an Arab country like let's say Egypt or something. And yet more you're walking with a beautiful girl or some beautiful girls. Okay the plot thickens, you don't know these girls well enough, or better to say they don't know you well enough, but you know each other well enough to have some sort of mutual trust and respect.

Now that this part of the situation is clear, what would you do? What would you do if you found some guys hissing, teasing, following, staring at those girls that are left in your charge as you show them around the city, or take them out somewhere fun? What would you do if some guys on the street wouldn't stop mental harassment and wouldn't stop the pitiful sleezy comments, perhaps even ignoring your presence altogether? Would you ignore and act like you can't even see or hear? Would you you stop and make a point and talk to the guys? Would you talk nicely ? Would you talk roughly? Would you pick a fight? Would you act like you can hear them well and ignore it? How would you feel?

I don't have all the options written down, I'm open to original ideas of what a man should do if he's in these shoes. I know it differs from person to person, and it differs from girl to girl what she wants out of a guy she's walking with. How about the girls what would you want?

You see the point that makes it interesting is that who you're with are not total strangers for whome you have no concern, and they're not people who know you well enough to know what kind of person you are no matter how you handle it. It's a situation that gives you a chance to say in action what kind of person you are, or at least I think so..

It's just another random thought that ran through my head, and though the thought is worth contemplation in itself, I think this is one occassion where I'd like to listen more than tell.