I Hate Poor People

I hate poor people. Does that make me classist and politically incorrect? Maybe, but I really don't care. I hate poor people for what they've become on account of poverty. I hate how people can be so stupid when they've lacked education. I hate how you have to deal with certain people possessing fixed dogmatic ideas that make no sense. I hate how poor people can lack humanitarian values because their search for survival is more impending. I hate how I can't blame them for how they've become.

I hate that poor people are in my life and that I have to deal with them. I hate how there's so many of them and it's inconceivable to instill in these masses better ideas and more understanding. I hate how they corrupt their young children with extreme ideas and misinformation. I hate how they ruin the chances of these young children of breaking away. I hate how they throw their children out into the street because they won't afford to feed themselves if they don't.

I hate how poverty has driven people out to the gulf oil-rich countries. I hate how their constant need for livelihood and their country's impotency has often times stripped them of their dignity. I hate how the country's greed sacrifices the lives of its poor and allows others to kill them, jail them, whip them and degrade them. I hate how the working poor in their weakness were forced to adopt the closed minded Wahabi ideologies from an ignorant people that know nothing of civilization. I hate how the gulf gave them a wealth of money and instilled within them a poverty of thought.

I hate how the poverty in knowledge of others has lead to xenophobia and rejection of others. I hate how superficial people have become. I hate how those poor people comment on women, judging them and treating them as a sex doll they want to purchase with a few crude words. I hate how judgmental they've become about everything. I hate how poverty leads them to frustration, and frustration leads them to think of nothing but a woman's body and what it means. I hate how their innermost desire that comes from frustration has mutated into a fake religious piousness concerned with what a woman wears and how she appears. I hate how a man would opt to destroy a woman if he can't have her. I hate how I have to suffer in everyday life when having to deal with some poor bastard who became a cop and feels the need to go on a power trip; or another who's at a government desk delaying the mandatory bullshit you need to go through in order to get anything done in this forsaken country just because he’s underpaid, needs a tip or doesn’t feel like working.

I'm not certain that I personally hate every poor person but what I am certain of is that I hate what poverty does to people's minds. I would probably hate a poor person, not for what they are, but for what they've become.

It's funny that the powerful and tyrannical rich don't give a damn about the poor and yet they have the audacity to hate their own creation. They didn't think, did they; that taking so much from others would deprive them of a better life in their own country. Because they take away everything, the country they live in has deteriorated. They use their expensive cars over poor and crooked streets, their poor gardeners and servants need much more work to give off that wonderful image they hope to reflect. They have to deal with so much more stupidity whenever they interact with the public, more than they would have if their fellow countrymen were more educated. Their liberated daughters are judged by the ignorant dogmatic views of the poor, and there's nothing that can be done. How many can you arrest or hurt? How many wicked glances and foul words could you stop after all has plummeted to the abyss?

I hate the rich and powerful too; those in a position to make things better for poor people thereby making things better for me but choosing to amass more wealth. Is it not clear that everyone's lives are affected? The poor are part of the community, an ugly part that's getting uglier. You can't really blame the poor for being the way they are, perhaps you can even love them for their flaws, for the injustices they've suffered. But you can really hate those greedy rich for making a mess of things and loathing the Frankenstein monster they created.

I would like to destroy the poor man by giving him wealth. Poverty in terms of money means very little, it's the poverty of heart, compassion, mercy and most of all understanding that I truly despise.

Moments of Travel

Moments of travel are the most nostalgic, like you haven't done enough where you were at. They make you feel as though one needed more time or perhaps desired more events to have taken place before you were to leave where you were at. It's mostly a feeling that you are parting with someone or something you've come to know; something you've experienced firsthand, something you've examined up close. No matter where you're heading, that feeling of some sort of slightly palpable but deep sorrow generates a cloud around you much like invisible vapor droplets that occasionally stimulate your skin with a sense of touch. It's this parting that I dread and which weighs on me heavily even when the destination is desirable.

Yes, even when the destination holds brilliant promises of great times and unforgettable experiences, I can feel that weight, for even with the splendor of a promise it remains lacking in one aspect when compared to reality, in that it remains unfulfilled. The smallest bit of reality can conquer the greatest promise by exploiting that weakness which all promises are fated with. It is this contrast that causes the dilemma predominantly for a materialist. For reality manifests itself through everything that can be seen, touched, heard or smelled but promises manifest themselves in the realm of imagination drawing their images from fragments of memories combined with many thoughts and mixed by brain churns that place them in their proper place inside that jigsaw puzzle offered by promises. The reality of parting is ever so present at moments of departure when you can see all you left behind and can only imagine what's ahead.

But despite the weakness that each promise possesses, it can offer something beyond reality. It can create a better version of something experienced, perhaps even a version that cannot be imagined. Certain promises rely only on faith; faith in something beyond creative imagination; faith in the limitations of human abilities; faith in experiences and words of others. Even when reality is at its best, promises combined with faith can overturn it, can change all of its sweetness and take away its bitterness. But even then how can you overcome the feeling of parting?

I guess that's the way it is with journeys, even death the journey of the greatest distance in perhaps the least amount of time. Parting is almost insurmountable and even the best of promises cannot change that. The promise of an afterlife can only rely on faith and fragmented memories of the happiest times magnified to trigger the imagination. While the imagination can take you far away places, it can fail to reflect what’s to come, offering far better alternatives to reality. Yet to wait a lifetime for a promise is a little too much, and some will choose this moment over a promise that might not be fulfilled.

Once you’ve made the journey, things start to change, when you're en route or in the air you can only attempt to focus on what's to come. You look to fulfill the yet unfulfilled promises relying on faith to turn these promises into reality. But once these promises are fulfilled, they disappear and the faith that brought them life dissipates.

Note: Written BR (Before Riyadh)

Failure

It just hit me now that it's better to fail than to succeed. It's even better not to try your hardest to succeed in everything new that you encounter. It's best to accept that your trials will lead you to failure.

It's nothing groundbreaking to say that failure can lead you to success, but the way in which it hit me was rather interesting. I thought about when I tried playing games on the computer, and I really am not that good at games, but whenever I start playing them, I try my absolute best not to deviate from what I perceive is the best way not to lose. In my first efforts I manage to do better than most, but as time progresses, I don't improve much. Sometimes it's because even though I've perfected what I aim to do, it's not the best way to do things.

There are others who don't care so much to do things right the first time round, they try different things and fail in so many ways, but what they end up doing is having more experience and really grasping how to work through a situation where they failed. In the end they end up succeeding in exploring more details of wins and losses than I encountered. They will probably be much more skilled than I am at playing the game.

When we aim to succeed we don't see that our perceptions are the boundaries of our success. When we don't explore the things that could have worked better than our perception. We base our vision of success on the past, that's the only way we plan for the future, but what if the future isn't a lot like the past? Logic cannot replace experience completely since there will always be something new to experience. Experience is what can give you better logic in the future. Failing is what gives people experience. Any professional at any job is one who understands what to do in difficult situations either because he tried and failed or tried and succeeded.

Honestly I was only thinking about playing computer games, about how skill is built based on failures and tough situations. But with games you get many spare lives I suppose, when you're doing something in real life, you don't have that many lives to spare. Still, there's something appealing about failure, for personal experiences it outlives success.

Blogging Ain't What It Used To Be

I used to post things whenever I felt like it, banal thoughts don't come as easy as they used to. I mean they do, but maybe there's pressure not to think about them anymore, or at least wait till they formulate into something bigger before sharing them. Pressure, expectations and some sort of desire to conform seem to inhibit forms of expression. The worst thing about it is that these inhibitions is that they're self imposed. I hate to admit it but I must; each blog has a sort of style, where most posts follow the same theme. It's like the design of a site, too many variations in color and you may get visual pollution (this blog has been accused of it).

Is that what happens to us when we grow up? The child feels the pressure to conform even if it doesn't come from outside? Do we sometimes stop things we enjoy doing just because they're childish rather than them ceasing to be enjoyable?

Must I make a metaphor out of everything? I write this now from Riyadh, one of the most uninspiring places in the world. It's not that it's boring like it's reputed to be, it's just that it has no potential promise of fun. There's a big difference.

That's the thing, I feel there's so much I think about that I need to write, but they're all disconnected thoughts. Part of me wants to wait until they crystalize into something meaningful, but I don't think that will ever happen; Riyadh is meaningless.

I find my thoughts scattered in words across emails... I find myself describing time in Riyadh :

The days don't pass with ease despite the virtual comforts of cars and air conditioning. It's not that they're difficult days, but it's as though time doesn't want to move forward because it has nothing to look forward to. It's not the same as time passing slowly in wait of great things ahead. Time is a little tired, with nothing to do, no rush and no patience.

There are a thousand little things like that and had I just started writing I imagine I would have took note of them. I think there are so many different things that go through my mind...

Too much freedom or too little freedom can deprive you of control. I think that we need a little bit of constraints to understand what we really want, not like the ones here in Riyadh, but something to get you to understand what you don't want at least.

They don't really matter, but I should write them anyway.

To Confer Status

He found it painful to reflect that in our day intellect and sensibility, thought and art, had been made to confer status and to generate snobbery.

Lionel Trilling - The Middle of the Journey

The Best Vengeance

Wherever you go, everyone wants to control you and belittle you even or rather especially when they are half as competent as you are at doing anything. They anger you, boss you around, tell you off and explain mundane illogical things as though they are the rulers of the earth as if they were gods and you were born into their small and petty world. They want to infuriate you, make you feel helpless, make you feel small, they play a dirty game of withholding that which they could give you because it's that which you desire. They feel they are better people for degrading better people, and they smile at your frustration and your agony.

There is a way to take revenge other than blowing up the places they work at, or ridiculing them (although both ideas sound great). The most effective way is not to let them get to you and not to let them frustrate you or annoy you and even if you want to fight them, fight them with peace, fight them with an understanding of their sick and cruel nature. Fight them as you fight a disease within a person, with abhorrence to the disease rather than the person, with knowledge that sometimes they are victims and that's why they cause these casualties. Fight them with the knowledge that if they do not get to you, it makes you better, and disables the disease.

If you can control yourself and smile upon their cruelty rather than have it get to you, and be immune to their mindless game plays even if it costs you time, even if it costs you something, then even if you've lost, they've lost as well which means you've won something at least.

One thing remains, and it is perhaps the most difficult to accept even for me, as I have been targeted by these kinds of people numerous times. Whenever you're in a position of power over people, do not be the same way they were with you, even if they themselves make way into your world and you have power over them. You must treat them with fairness and kindness and be a just god in your world unlike they've been. It is the only fair way to take revenge even if they do not understand it and even if you yourself do not understand it. By logic, it would take thousands upon thousands of words to express why this would be a victory, and even then it might not seem convincing, but there's a feeling I have within me, that words do not describe well, that tells me that this is the way to win if it were a competition, this is a way to repay their evil.

A feeling like this can be ridiculed, debated, rejected or even neglected, but the one thing going for it is that it can be felt. It can be felt by someone who doesn't understand how it all adds up, who can see a victory in retaining goodness when all others have failed to and cannot recognize it anymore. It's a feeling that's so deep that not even the greatest can reach it, not even the most evil can beat it, it's their ultimate enemy, and all their actions are determined to reach that core and tear it down, but just like the good man cannot explain it or reach it by any logical means except by feeling, so also the evil ones cannot destroy it by actions if we do not let those actions get to us.

The Right Car

The other day I was asked by a recently engaged friend coming from Dubai to hang out with him and a few friends in a place called Katameya Heights Club. I took one wrong turn somewhere and ended up going in circles to find the proper entrance.

After visiting a few incorrect entrances and being told to go around in other kinds of circles, I imagined I found the right one. I parked my car outside the entrance next to a few others and made my way to the gate in order to make sure.

I approached the security guy and asked him, "Is this the gate to the club?"

He answered,"Be7'soos aih?" (What's this about?)

I said, "My friends are in there and I was making sure."

He said, "You need booking in order to get in."

"Sure," I said, "my friend has already booked."

He hesitated for a while, and I wondered what was going on with him, I suspected it, but it was a little far fetched.

"Where is the club exactly?" I asked.

"It's right there," he said, pointing to a place that seemed like a minute's walk.

He then asked, "Did you come by car?"

"Yes," I answered, expecting him to tell me instructions on how to park there or something of that sort. But then he said the improbable.

"What kind of car is it?" he asked.

"What kind of car?" I asked in disbelief, "I don't see how it's any of your business."

I'm not one to get annoyed too quickly, otherwise I would have really burst at him, but I was actually marveling at the question.

"You want to know if I'm of the right class, right?"

"No," he said, "you look like you're of the right class, but I think you should just take your car and drive inside, there's a parking in there."


It was almost unbelievable really. By then I had decided not to take the car. As I walked towards the club, it appeared he was still having doubts and asked me to call my friend before going in. He wasn't worth my breath apparently and I told him he can take his comments and shove them somewhere.

Have we come to that, a car brand being part of entry criteria? The place wasn't even crowded, it was silent, and the last order was at 10 pm, and the service was abysmal and yet they care about the type of car?

Egypt is falling victim to an ever growing divide, and the irony is that the gatekeeper is of the kind that he won't personally allow to get in. Later on in the evening, we were discussing that Egypt is more than just one country, it's countries within a country, at least Cairo seems to be that way.

In the words of Batman, “It’s the car, chicks love the car.”

Death of a King - Michael Jackson

There are very few who would not appreciate nor understand the indescribable feeling of loss concerning the death of arguably the greatest musician of our time. No matter what you might think of him, there is no way that anyone who understands a thing or two about music or dancing cannot but admire Michael Jackson’s talent.

Michael Jackson caused a great deal of commotion because he was different and didn't belong anywhere. Ever since his youth, it seemed as if everyone loved him for his talent and uniqueness but rejected him for the same reasons. There is a lot of contrast between MJ and Peter Pan, effectively they're both kids who never grew up and they have their own Neverland. Jackson would visit his Neverland and bring us back the most unique, beautiful and amusing ideas, songs and dance moves. It seemed he had a bag of ideas like Sport Billy's out of which he would dig in and bring out something marvelous. Could it be that MJ will find immortality like that of Peter Pan through his music?

But what am I really trying to say? I think that many were afraid because Michael Jackson was so different. The trouble with the human race is that we want to belong and not just that, we want others to belong. Michael belonged to childhood, and the adult world could not accept that. He belonged to Neverland, but that was so inconceivable. It was as if everyone was fighting, and needing him to belong. The black people wanted him black and got angry when his skin color underwent changes. Didn't all our ideals in this modern age revolve around the insignificance of skin color?

"Dont tell me you agree with me,
When I saw you kicking dirt in my eye"

~Black or White.

When his skin color changed, he actually did prove that skin color doesn't matter, but the world would not accept what it had preached. They did not accept that it didn't matter what the skin color really was because there was the same human underneath.

"Im not going to spend
My life being a color"

Even MJ as a white man wasn't welcomed. He was much too different, he was from a different world, and quickly the controversy of child molestation started taking form. There had to be something wrong with him. I know and confess he was indeed different, his whole body structure, his face, and everything in him, but did we really have to reject him for it?

He was different, he had to be something we understood, otherwise we could not accept him. He had to fall into a mould otherwise we wouldn't know what to do with him. His creativity was marked as eccentricity, and he was ridiculed and mocked in an age that advocates freedom and equality, yet when it comes to something different, how quickly we return to being conformists. We want freedom boxed by a set of boundaries we understand.

"You talk about equality and the truth either you're wrong or you're right."

If Michael Jackson taught us anything, he taught us that we can sometimes be the biggest hypocrites, advocating one thing and doing another. He taught us that there is great music that can be created, new ideas and he taught us that people differ.

Michael Jackson was an alien, but while our tolerance might have not been enough to accept him for all that he is, our emotions were enough to love him and admire his work.

This is a tribute to the man who brought me Billie Jean, Black or White, Liberian Girl, Smooth Criminal, Little Susie and so many more; someone whose musical genius moved mountains, forced people to respect him; someone who’s dance moves inspired millions; someone who suffered the scrutiny of a world that did not want to leave him alone in peace; someone who has been grabbed by fans, harassed by reporters, crucified by the media and disdained by people. This is a tribute to a legend who despite how different he was, despite how confused he might have been and made us feel, earned our love and compassion and our best salutation.

“Neglection can kill, like a knife in the soul”

I’m sad and sorry that he’s gone, but I pray that the King of Pop receives in death the kind of peace he was never able to attain in life.

Fair Game

It's fair. It's absolutely fair that we should lose to the USA by three and that the USA should qualify. It's not just fair, but right because of the great many differences between not just the two teams, but the two countries.

How can you expect a country to do something right when everything goes wrong? I mean with Africa, it's okay, because most of the African countries are as messed up as we are or even more, and the mentality is similar, so there's no difference between one underdog and another. But when we're playing against the USA we have to understand that it’s not the American team but the American attitude that’s difficult to defeat.

America is mostly despised but perhaps also loved for the same reasons it is despised, not the least of which is its winning attitude that is so fervidly despised in Europe. But to be honest, America is a comeback junkie, with a great thirst for winning and most of its citizen think they're in a Rocky movie, expecting a comeback at any minute. They believe anything is possible till the last minute, and while they might be wrong sometimes, this attitude enables them to do all that is possible for them to do. In the end they go down fighting. Despite their sometimes annoying positivism, I'd always want an American on my team because the general attitude is not to quit.

In Egypt however, the loss is symptomatic of a country where good things are accidents. Like all accidents that happen in Egypt, even the good ones are plentiful. Did we really think that things were doing things so right so as to actually make it to the second round? No, we’re just a first round kind of people. It's just not right that we should do something contrary to our nature, and unlike matters within the country where doing things the wrong way gives you the greatest rewards, the world does not recognize nor accept this way of life, and for this reason we lose when we don't do things right, as it should be within Egypt.

I'm not one to change my point of view overnight like most people who will suddenly see Egypt's team as having no potential; on the contrary, we played great previously, beating Italy and giving Brazil a run for their money. We have some world class players occasionally and I don’t mean that we have a good player once in a while, but rather a player that does well once in a while. The point I mean to make is that we're consistent in our inconsistency. We're too mercurial (as is evident from FIFA stats) and it’s in our nature to let go once we imagine success. Our standards are so low that we don’t care to keep giving it our best shot. Doing well is not a way of life; it's an activity that we practice once in a while albeit a very long while.

In this game the nature of the countries collided with one another and if there’s one thing we ought to know, it’s that our nature can’t win. A country with talent and history was defeated by a country with less talent and less history but so much more will and enthusiasm. A mentality of losers was aptly beaten by a mentality of winners. A country that lost its ability to resist was beaten by a country that never quits. In short an enslaved country was beaten by a free country.

Is that too much philosophy for a football game? It might be, but I think we don't have enough philosophy to win as much as a football game. If we talk about the concrete reasons, they'll be something as boring as our league is horrible and undisciplined, our players don't train properly, our education is crap and it affects our mentality, our values are screwed up and we value pleasure more than hard work that gives so much more pleasure in the long run, etc.. etc.. The concrete reasons are there, but the problem is that our hopeless philosophies in life are what lead us to these concrete reasons in every field and on every field.

I've said it before and I say it again, it's not that Egypt is so damn hopeless, it's those moments of hope that really make you realize how we could have been. We caught a glimpse, but it all faded away… In the end it appears that this is all we can ever get.

Egypt's FIFA Ranking

Are we the most consistent team or what?!!

Victorious Defeat

Once in a while something happens that takes you by surprise and tells you that you can expect something unexpected from the world. Like the other night when I only had one and a quarter pounds and wanted to take a cab. I asked the cab driver,"How far can this take me?" and he said, "Get in."

He wasn't even the talkative kind, but when I said thanks, he said that he knows I would have done the same, people are there to help one another and he didn't want to take any money; and it wasn't a bad line out of a bad Arabic movie either. I was surprised by this unexpected act of kindness that taught me a bit about a closed mind.

Something happens that takes you by surprise, like Egypt playing a great match against Brazil and leveling the score 3-3 for the greater portion of the second half. But it's not the score that surprised me. It's not that we lost 4-3 only at the very end due to a penalty, but how well Egypt played against Brazil. I really thought that Egypt was playing like the legendary Brazil and Brazil was playing like the historical unremarkable Egypt.

Something happens that catches you off guard, like Abu Treka playing like Kaka, and Kaka struggling to pose a threat against an already lousy Egyptian defense.

Something happens that changes everything, like a referree that changes his decision from a corner to a penalty and brings you back to earth after an unbelievable match.

Part of the beauty of this world is unpredictability. The loss that Egypt incurred tastes very much like victory to all Egyptians, except for the extremely cynical I guess. How would one imagine such a great game from Egypt who lost 3-1 to Algiers last week? That's part of what's great about life, it defies expert opinion. Egyptian football is like drama, always attempting to keep you in suspense. It would be okay if we never won, but it's these intermittent triumphs that I really struggle with, you can never totally give up hope and you're always hanging in a constant state of desparation.

This is how we do it I guess, as with most other aspects of our lives.

Bad Bike

Egypt is like a bad bike, no matter how much more you pedal you end up struggling to sustain your balance. You don't usually go much faster. It's best to take it easy and pedal slowly, there's no point wearing yourself down over an inefficient bicycle.

The Visit

I wish Obama would have stayed longer. I wish Obama would have visted more places in Egypt. The result would have been magnificent. For starters there would have been more trees and greenery in the streets and they would have been in many more places. There would have been more roads fixed all around the broken down Cairo. If he would have gone by my street those old gray buildings would have been painted. If he would have travelled to the south, those old broken down death highways would have been fixed. If he would have visited hospitals they would have been equipped with the basics that hospitals should have.

The list goes on and on, but it would have been great if Obama visited every inch of this country, and I don't mind not going to work and being under house arrest for a few hours every day, it'll be worth it at the end. Only that after he leaves, the trees will be taken away, plants will be removed like they were the next day from Cairo University. The roads will be destroyed, the garbage will be re-installed to its previous location and the people who were in charge of making these temporary arrangements would become so much richer.

It amazes me that we can do everything right if we choose to, I really respect this country's potential. Why aren't we doing this more often? Do we need to tell Obama to come here and live for a while so that Egyptians can do things right? Do we need to give Obama the citizenship here? Do we need to ask Obama to take on some sort of part time responsibilities in Egypt? Or do we need to do more?

One of these days I'd like to see the world through Mubarak's eyes. I'm guessing I'll be seeing lots of pink.

Shootlock

It's unbelievable what the traffic was like this wednesday night as I rode my bike through Cairo's streets. A friend of mine told me she was held up at the intersection of the shooting club and mohy el deen street, but as I rode towards the shooting club, the streets were so clear. I imagined that the traffic was held up by someone because of the Obama visit or something. Then as I approached the intersection I realized that there was no traffic police presence whatsoever. The drivers left to their own demise got themselves into one deadlock after another.

Civilians started playing the role of traffic police, applying some common sense to the senseless drivers. The streets were chaotic even though the traffic flow didn't seem to be that much. How incredulous is it that on the night just before Obama's visit, a big junction would be left like this unadministered. Did the traffic cops leave because no one cared? or had headquarters ordered them somewhere else?

In any case, I want to report that the traffic was horrendous, I had never thought that the traffic seargent was of that much importance. But then again I had never thought that the traffic police would leave their posts.

I really wonder what other ills this Obama visit will bring us. It seems that when something bad happens, we the people have to suffer, and when something good happens, well, some key persons might benefit, but we the people have to suffer also.

I don't think people are as worried about what Obama's going to say, as much as they are about avoiding the hell and torture they might endure if they make a wrong move tomorrow.