In our darkest hour

It is in our darkest hour that we need to stay strong. It is in our darkest hour that we must not lose faith.

This notion is very powerful and appealing. I find myself, as I’m watching a movie, during its darkest hour, during the climax of the plot, I find myself beseeching the protagonist not to sway from the course, to keep the faith and to stay strong in the darkest hour. But that’s just in the movies where you know that a story has a beginning, middle and an end. It’s just in the movies that you know that this is truly the darkest hour. It’s only in the movies where heroes stay strong and every thing turns out okay. It’s only in a story where the writer can choose how it ends and can give the characters strength and faith. Only in a story can we be so demanding but only because we’re well aware how stories are.

But what of real life? Do we even recognize our darkest hour when it arrives? Do we know that things will turn out okay? Do we know that our convictions are correct enough to hold on to? Do we even know how long our hour will last?

When it comes to real life, I probably won’t be as motivated as the characters in a story. I’ll probably lose faith, and probably things won’t turn out alright.

The truth is that we’re blinded in our darkest hour and we’re usually so alone and it doesn’t feel like someone is watching us beseeching us to stay strong. We’re all alone and it doesn’t seem that everything will turn out okay. We’re all alone and we don’t know if this is the middle or if it’s the end.

Yet with all the discrepancies between stories and real life, I still think that it’s worth something to hang on in your darkest hour. It’s worth something to have faith and believe that this too shall pass. It’s worth something to be a hero even if just to yourself.

It’s worth something to endure and believe that in great heat, gold sublimes. I think that those who endure during their darkest hour are the better metals and that their endurance purifies them.

I know it’s easy to preach, just spurt out those words. I also know that they mean too little to someone in his darkest hour because they’re just words, and words cannot know the details of that hour and words don’t know its future. I know how hard it is to ask people to keep the faith during their darkest hour, I know it’s hard to ask people to find strength in their darkest hour and I know it’s hard to convince people that someone cares about their darkest hour.

But I have to say, for what it’s worth, that it’s always appealing to see someone stay the course. It’s inspirational to see it in the stories but powerfully moving to see it in real life. It’s worth something… It has to be.

So I send this out to those who feel that this could be their darkest hour, but most of all I send this out to me for when I’m discouraged while in my darkest hour…

Amnesty Report

I just saw this Amnesty Report about torture in Egypt. I was very moved by how oppressed we are. Once you're in power, everyone else is powerless to stop you. Unfortunately most people choose to abuse any given power. I have much to say, but for now what this report should suffice...

Egypt is a country I love and hate.

Parking Problems

I don't know what to call them really, car keepers is the closest word, basically cause I saw someone with a badge spelt 'CAR KEEBR' down by the pyramids.. In Arabic it's sayes, which then went on to become just menaady, it’s very interesting how they’ve evolved actually.

You see I have a real problem with those car keepers, I really do. My problem is that basically they demand money for nothing. Even when I was a student in college with little money to spare they would provoke car drivers in the most absurd manner. Back then they made more money than I do, and even now, I stop to wonder if they still do. It's not that I don't pay them for a service I need, I do.. but I only pay when the car is filthy or I want them to keep an eye out or for just any service that I actually require and that they actually do.

In the old days they used to wipe your car window even if it was clean, and they would offer the service in a very enthusiastic manner.. as time went by, the cloth got dirtier and dirtier, and they got more complacent. They dirtied your car and expected to get paid for it. The real problem is that if you don't pay they give you a condescending look, like it’s their absolute right to take money that belongs to you. Some of them would throw money in your face if they didn't like what you gave them.. they're elite I tell ya.. It has become their implicit right to take money off you for something you don't want and don't need and which they don't offer.

On one occasion a complete stranger demanded that he take my car keys just because he claimed he was a sayes. That’s a lot of power for someone off the street really. On another occasion one of those sayes people got very angry cause I pulled the handbrakes while I was parked correctly!!! I mean he got really upset, like the street was his.

You see, it turns out that streets are rented for a price, they give some street bully money and that street becomes theirs. No wonder they’re so demanding, someone sold them thin air and for that they need to extract your money. It’s vicious I tell ya.

They got lazier and lazier and more demanding than ever lately, and that's when they changed names from sayes, to menaady. It's cause they don't even bother with that filthy cloth anymore, the elite sayes now only calls out to help you in and out of a parking space which you would have already found on your own. You see this would all make sense if I didn't have a license, but if he's there to tell me how to drive (with bad instructions if I might add) then why do I even carry the license?

Okay so it's not so bad, they sometimes do help.. but then again so do I.. when I see someone trying to park in a tight spot, I give them instructions.. sometimes I would park their car for them, but do I ask for anything? No!! Do I give them a condescending look if they don’t give me money? No!! I just offer my friendly human services expecting no reward except perhaps a thank you!
Eureka!! that's it.. I found out that I needn't pay them money for their kind words. It's fair that I repay them this kindness with kindness of my own. These days I'm at peace with Car Keepers, for their vocal services I reward them with vocal gratitude. I really smile at them genuinely and thank them for getting out of their way to give me instructions, after all, if they were driving, I would have done the same.

So the last time I was with R he saw me smiling to the menaady and after we had gone off he asked me, did you give him something? He wasn't even there when we parked. I told him no, I didn't give him anything. Knowing my history and my attitude towards car keepers, he said, okay, cause for a moment there I was surprised and thought you'd changed your attitude towards them, I know how you feel about them. So I told him that I'm no longer angry at them, I'm thankful for their selfless services and that’s why I smile at them.. all I did was adjust my attitude a bit but the results are still the same.

Old lyrics in modern times

دا عاوز يكوش عالعالم بحاله

دا عاوز يهوش يعمل ما بدالو

da 3awez yekawesh 3al 3aalam be7aaloh

we da 3awez yehawesh ye3mel ma badaaloh

I wouldn't normally post arabic, but I heard these lyrics by Ahmad Mouneeb that reminded me of two certain entities in today's modern world .. perfectly.. these lyrics were in the seventies or eighties I guess but it's strange how they describe accurately some entities that still exist to this day..

Anonymous

My friend R told his friend I that we can let H in on the plan but not M. We were interupted by S who was telling N that she can't go out with K because of the relationship he had with T. But just to let you in on a secret S herself saw something in K because K was E's best friend and she knew that she would be able to get to E if R and K came to an agreement. So I told H that K would meet with R if S would let J take G to a play..


Welcome to blog world..

Welcome to the very anonymous, mysterious and yet revealing blog world...

W.

Male Discrimination

Well I'm sick. I'm not sick of discrimination or anything of that sort, I'm just sick. I have a kind of cold that won't leave me alone, but then again I don't give it a chance to slip away. I keep running errands despite my running nose, and the more I run the more it runs. I don't want to be visual here but that's just the way a cold gets.. very disturbing and without rest, you're under its hold.

So despite being sick I still had to go and say goodbye to a friend R, (and I won't write the name not because I want to keep it anonymous but because it would be disastrous in the blog world if any real names were used) who was leaving to S - I mean Saudi Arabia.. (totally forgot it was okay to use real country names but it would be more interesting if I don't next time and just limit things to the initials) So I travelled all the way to Nasr City which was such a hassle cause it's so crowded, and I discovered that sickness impairs my driving abilities.. I just lack some of the common sense I have with driving when I'm sick.

So anyway, what I really want to say without the amusing paragraphs of how I got there is that I was in Nasr city on a normal 'male only' coffee shop.. (Ahwa) and we decided to go on to a cafe. Of course the difference being that you get better lighting, interior design and uniformed waiters (but hardly anyting much better on the menu I guess, just better packaging perhaps) ..oh and let's not forget, the other half of the community (chicks) .. but you need to pay almost ten times as much for each item in order to get these kinds of privileges.

So in that privileged, well lighted place by the name of Armando, located off Merghany street I guess, we found ourselves a nice high table and sat ourselves there. Well it took them around 10 minutes to get us a menu. That was the last we got of them, and after almost 30 minutes of sitting there we left... having enjoyed the beautiful scenery and company. It would make sense if the place was overpacked to not serve, but it wasn't... and waiters were lingering about and deciding that mopping tables was more important than taking our orders.

As soon as we left the waiters were prompt to remove the menus they'd supplied us and mopping the table. What very diligent waiters that efficiently mop tables. After we'd left, R said, they probably didn't like us, I had to disagree, cause I managed to trigger a few smiles in there.. but by the looks of it my friend R was claiming that we were discriminated against because we were just a bunch of young males. Now, I had been to Armando some time earlier with my friend D, and while she was around they were very prompt to serve..

That place's service has either gotten really bad or it discriminates against males without their female companions. The level of service in Egypt is apalling and most places don't have a clue as to what customer satisfaction means.. but if it's not the service, could it be that males are discriminated against? To tell you the truth, I really don't know which is worse, that it's very bad service or just discrimination..

Well in a lot of places, only couples are allowed, very counter culture though cause it encourages the coupling of male and female entities which is exactly what tradition fights against (if the connection is not formal), and oddly enough I was denied entry to Hard Rock with that same friend R. I mean women are today's tickets, each man must get one.. at least to go to places he wants. Of course R is now married and he can go anywhere he wants, and while with female companions I can go places I want to, but perhaps this is payback for us men dominating some Ahwas and of course other fields in life.

So anyway, the world is now telling us the value of women, not that I don't already know, and I certainly agree.. but next time I'm with a female companion I won't go to that place again... or maybe I will and just experiment a bit.. but I sure know that my friend R won't take his wife there..

4am thoughts

I'm tired, it's late and I've nothing to say. Nothing to say that would be of use to anyone, and nothing to say that would be of use to me. I'm just tired and it's late and that seems like enough to say for this moment. Sometimes I say 'I'm tired' and it just means that I'm tired, and at other times it's just an expression of some feeling that goes beyond. Tired of the things I have to deal with and tired of things around me. Tired of being surrounded by all sides by things that tell me what to do and who to be. Tired of being trapped in a system, where I'm just a controlled variable necessary for life's experiment... Tired of having to fight too many battles to get my rights...

My rights.. well that's a really broad phrase, I sometimes wonder if it ceases to become my right if I have to fight for it so hard, I mean I may as well fight for something that isn't mine in the first place... Does it make a difference that things are yours? I mean you'd think that just because you have a right would mean that you would get it easily, the meaning of simplicity is implied I guess, but I must be mistaken. Lately I've noticed how everyone fights for their right. I mean shouldn't it be that people automatically get their rights and fight for privileges? It's a strange world I'm living in where rights are wrong.

I've been reading too many gloomy blogs, of ordinary people feeling ordinary things. When I was younger I used to write to my journal the strangest thoughts and I felt so odd amidst my friends, but somehow I felt I wasn't alone out there. I had nothing to substantiate this feeling but certainly I'm not the only one feeling gloomy. I've always felt like such an alien because I could not indulge in the common things people do with enthusiasm... but I wonder how many people kept a journal like mine? How many people went back home and cried out to a piece of paper that sort of told them that everything would be okay.. you've got me to share all this with.

Anyway, not to sound too pathetic or alone, I would like to note that as a person you'd never think I'd fall into these morbid moods, I simply couldn't be bothered or so I appeared. There's a feeling of strength that is harvested only when appearing strong. When people see you as a strong person you're empowered, you have the ability to be as strong as you choose. For me it's been that way, I'd be a shapeless piece of matter if it weren't for decisions of what shape I am to take. I mean to be a liar would have been easy, I just needed to decide, to have been a jerk would have been easier, I just needed to decide. I decided the harder things, but I guess it wouldn't have made a difference one way or the other which I had decided, I was able to stick to my decision.

I'm not saying that I'm not a liar or a jerk, it would be a real disaster if I wasn't a bit of both, but at least I'm not decidedly so ... I mean, it gives me great pleasure when some people see me as something I'm not.. why? I'm not sure.. something about misdirection. I've always been interested in things that are not what they appear to be, layers, depth... People would be very boring if they were what they appeared to be, and that's why I don't trust people that seem too trustworthy. It's more interesting to meet someone with bad qualities and some good in them.. it's more interesting to dig out the good. Good people burry their bad qualities and never show them, but they will appear some day. Bad people burry their good qualities and try not to show them, but it's very interesting when they appear some day.

Listen to me, now I sound like some ancient monk from Tibet.. why do I say ancient? more wisdom ? I don't know, just sounds right.. but I'm not into the whole cookie fortune wisdom thing.. not the whole "I'll tell you what you need in life".. I mean stuff like "honesty is the best policy" .. yeah right.. whoever said honesty was the best policy wasn't being very honest..

And more ramblings and more ramblings, like the ramblings I would write during my sad winter days, but then again a blog can be my new found journal.. but I mean who cares really.. we read to know we're not alone, I'm sure many people have stranger thoughts.. stranger lives.. and stranger blogs ..

Satellite Guy

Isn’t it strange the people we meet, some of them surprise you and some of them disappoint you. It strikes me as odd, the things you hear from people reflecting how they think. An example of a very strange encounter I had with someone was when we were installing our satellite receiver.

We struck up a conversations about a variety of things, I listened to him talk about his philosophies in life. Though seemingly a simple person some of the things he said were interesting and had a fair amount of truth to them. Other things didn’t make much sense. I’ll recount things he said:

Two rumors spread through the whole of Egypt just before the elections. The first being that the current president has stolen enough out of the country, his pouch is full, he won’t be stealing much more, so why elect someone who will start to rob the country all over again. Well I tell you now, this applies to a petty thief, but not to a gang leader, you see the problem with this theory is that it assumes the president is stealing small amounts that he’s just a common thief, but in fact he’s a gang leader and those around him steal as much. He’s like a thief that knows where the safe is, if someone new were elected, he wouldn’t know where the safe is, that would give time for us to enjoy the country at least for a while.

The second rumor that was circulated is that there is no one better to rule. Now there are probably people who are better and can do well in this country with a population of seventy million people. But good people can never rise to places where they can be of use. In the first place being president is a big responsibility and it seems foolish to step up. Consider those who nominated themselves for presidency, Ayman Nour and Nomaan Gomma, they’re both in prison.

America wants Mubarak. They’ve told Mubarak he can win as long as he enforces democracy. Now Mubarak did enforce democracy, and what happened when he did? A lot of members of parliament were from the Ikhwan Muslimeen, a radical party, at which America told Mubarak to halt the democracy and get back to how things were before. I guess America only wants democracy that will serve its purpose.

When asked about a former prime minister who was kicked out, he said Bees can’t live anywhere but hives, and no other creature can live in a hive. You have to belong to be able to make it somewhere, if you don’t belong you’re kicked out. The government is too corrupt to accept men of integrity.

Egyptians are doing so well elsewhere, but when it comes to Egypt, no one with the right talent is in the right place. I agreed with this and told him we have many jackasses in our midst. He said, the problem isn’t with someone who’s a jackass, the problem is with someone who insists on being a jackass. In a famous movie by the name of “Ramadan foa el Borkan”, featuring Adel Immam, he plays the part of a crook who calculates that it’s better to steal and do the time than it is to work. He goes out of prison and starts a con company and then one of his friends from prison comes to work with him. So Adel asks the guy, do you know how to read or write? The guy answers no. Do you know how to answer telephones? No. Do you know how to do anything at all? No. Do you understand anything about anything? The man replies no. Adel then says, “In that case, hire him as a member in the board of directors”. This is the kind of people we have.

What happened to the world we asked, why are things so different. The satellite man asked if thirty years ago one could catch a cat. Those who could answer the questions answered no. Cats used to run away, no way you can catch it. Then he asked, back in the time, how were the dogs? Those who could answer said that dogs were more vicious. So the satellite man said, these days cats stick like glue, you shoo them off and they keep coming back. Dogs are afraid these days, kids have tamed and scared them. There’s a change in the environment around us, the times are changing and things aren’t what they used to be.

By that time we were nearing the end of the tuning of the channels. He said that women would usually watch whatever channel they see, and men would just keep flipping the channel. Women weren’t as curious as men, and men didn’t want to see the channels for their content, just more of an exploration. He commented that there were many porn channels stored. There’s no problem with the channels themselves, he has a kid who he tells that it’s okay to be curious, but becoming addicted is the real danger.

We asked him if he enjoyed his job. He replied, I always do what pleases me and what I like that’s what counts in the world really. But the beauty of the world is in its obstacles. If you want something for 4 days and buy it on the fifth, you’ll enjoy the five days more than you enjoy the time after you get it.

This is a very brief account of the conversations that went on between us. We talked of how people abroad respected the human being, and that it’s always better and how life was smooth. He said it was always better to live outside Egypt because of how smooth people have it. This is almost the only place I made a statement. I told him, but I thought you said life without obstacles is not livable, Egypt here has all the obstacles we need for a good enjoyable life.

It’s strange the people you meet and the opinions you hear. Not all conversations are memorable and not all parts of a memorable conversation are new, but perhaps sometimes you hear things out of people that you don’t expect. It’s all a matter of opinions and expectations I guess.

The 45 in one shampoo

Isn’t it amazing how there are products today that say two in one and three in one. Shampoo and Conditioner. Shampoo, Conditioner and Anti Dandruff. But what I also find amazing is how specialized products are becoming. The once popular soap for the hair has evolved into shampoo, and if that’s not enough there’s conditioner and if that isn’t enough there’s shampoo for each kind of hair, and then there’s a shampoo for all kinds of hair. There’s a soap for your hands, soap for your legs, soap for your ..ahem.. special parts, soap for the dishes and soap for the laundry. So many different kinds of soaps have evolved and for a human to function with a bare minimum, you have to have at least 6 kinds of soaps. Even cream; there’s hand cream, there’s face cream, there’s anti-aging cream there’s body cream, there’s lubricant cream. The diversity is just amazing. Perhaps that’s why two in one and three in one items have in turn evolved. There’s a need to simplify the products, to eliminate all the diversities found in the multitude of soap. There’s a need to re-instate the items that could be bought for general use.

Now as we continue to evolve, more and more subsections of products will appear, and yet that in itself will allow for more and more generalizations to make their way to our hands. So today we have the two in one and three in one, in ten years we’ll have the nine in one and ten in one, in 2 decades we would have reached the thirty in one and perhaps by the time I’m ready to leave this world I would have witnessed the forty five in one hair shampoo, which is effectively the equivalent of the first shampoo when it first came out.

A Death Perspective

Death is not what we see in the movies. I know I’m stating an obvious truth, but the thing is that it struck me when I realized what death in real life is all about. In the movies we see people dying, bombs exploding, bodies flying and blood splatter. It’s horrific, it really is. It’s heartbreaking and it’s very intense. Sometimes we see the agony of people dying slowly and their loved ones surrounding them, and it’s also agonizing to watch. But the thing is, except if you’re in a war battle seeing all these things or walking in on someone who has fallen ill all of a sudden, death is not as direct as all that. Death is a piece of news and that is all. The most gruesome part of this piece of news is that you’re not provided with pictures and vision, you’re just given a piece of information. You are told that you will not see the person you love alive again and that sometime while you were doing something, this person’s life ended. The piece of news leaves you so void, void of knowing what happened exactly, void of imagination and the things that go on in your head are ghastly since they are left to your imagination. This piece of news left you void because you could not see it coming, it just happens and you cannot rewind and pay attention to the last time you spoke that person. You cannot rewind and do things differently; you cannot rewind and appreciate things differently.

Death in the end is a piece of news, that’s what it really is. It doesn’t go like the movies where you see what happens and hope for things not to take a worse turn. You’re provided with the end first, that the person is dead, and all you can do is flashback to what might have happened because you cannot change a thing that has passed.

I would change the famous saying by John Lennon to, “Death is what happens to you while making other plans.” It is just so invasive and so unreal. Sometimes you can just hear a piece of news and not want to believe it, and yet it is so real in our hearts. How can words without any sort of vision cause such great sorrow? Death as we experience it is just words, just news, and yet when it’s a loved one, it strikes us more powerfully than any other vision could.

Cultural Demands

Some of our views about culture have been skewed. Culture isn't always a good thing, not old culture anyway, it is only a reflection of times that certain communities lived in. So if we're talking about promoting our culture and all that then we have to be very clear on what we're promoting and why we're promoting it.

The skewed view of culture is that we have to promote it and adhere to it and find ourselves in it. We have to fight the world we're living in that will take away our culture from us, but that's not true. I simply disagree with getting out of our way to live inside a dying culture. Remember it... certainly, but fight change and live it? That doesn't sound right. The problem is globalisation and we're not okay with mean beastly western countries infiltrating our lives, but I guess they already have, and they have integrated their new cultures with ours. You see it's new for them as well, but they're the ones that have created it and spread it, our resentment comes from the fact that we are unable to spread our culture in a manner that everyone adheres to.

So you say, that's the whole point, spreading our culture, and I'll repeat my definition, culture is but a reflection, and we have not had a great enough effect on the world for culture to reflect our contributions. We're like people who have had good memories in a certain place and revisit it to relive it. It fails because times are changing, and reality is what it is. We cannot reincarnate the mood we felt in a certain cafe down a certain street if that mood has changed, we can only remember it, describe it and love it.

We must remember that we are creating a culture that is shaped by our reactions to the world we live in. I don’t think that the world of today can live by yesterday’s culture, and whether we choose to admit it or not, our culture has changed, because our world has changed.

Now language is a very good example, and you cannot blame parents for wanting to give their children a real edge in this world rather than patriotically holding on to ways of old. I mean I don’t mind people knowing Arabic very well, but if you think about the world these days, more information is accessible via the English language. More people who contribute to the world use English as a means of communicating their contributions.

The primary aim of a language is communication with the other, right? Well it has several other functions, but what I mean to say is that sometimes better communication is desirable. We can see many English and foreign words making their way to Arabic, and the opposite is true, foreign words in English and Arabic words in English. Like the word “Malesh”, added as oxford's word of the day, it’s expressive.

I know that this may seem like an over simplification, but it’s not, it’s just a different perspective. Some people think of language as an identity. Well there are those who have not been raised in Egypt and speak Arabic as their second language. Is their identity lost due to their weak Arabic? I personally believe that searching for your identity within a set of predefined moulds is highly over-rated. People search for an identity for a whole lifetime and they try to find it in language, country or culture, and while all these are factors involved in an identity, they are all involved but they’re not defining, they all must revolve around one major element that harnesses their power… values.

An English speaking Egyptian with an Egyptian sense of humor, does it change his identity? That’s who he is. You define who you are, your circumstances, your values, your choices; I think that people way often search for what their identity should be like rather than find out what it is.

To make a long story longer, it’s good to be proud of our heritage, it’s good to be proud of our language, but let’s not lie about the influence of things in our life. Our culture is a reflection of how we handle things in today’s world, how we balance out our values. So when a child speaks in English, it’s not debasing our culture, he’s just responding to a cultural demand, if we really want our culture to be spread, it must be necessary and if we want it to be necessary we need to contribute more to the world.

Who's Bigger

Once upon a time John Lennon said, "We're more popular than Jesus now."

Well these days everything's bigger than Jesus. I mean John Lennon could have meant it in more ways than one, but it seems to remain true in one form or the other. It's not that anything will outlast religion or God really, it's just that in the simple choices we have to make in our everyday life, many things will outweigh God. Religion is big in most ways, but perhaps for most people it fails the size test in the most critical application, the application of religion for choice.

Jesus taught people to love their enemies, forgive those who harm them, love their neighbors as they love themselves, to be humble, to be concerned with the salvation of their soul rather than their body.. and so on ... and so on.. But I won’t discuss all what Jesus taught. I will support my case (and Lennon’s too) by showing how many things are bigger than Jesus.

When you have an enemy, do you love them or is hate bigger? When you’ve been wronged do you forgive or is revenge bigger? When someone needs something, do you give or is your self bigger? When you can gain something do you take the straightest path or is your need bigger? When you have a choice between charity and a Beatles concert, do you donate the money or are the Beatles bigger?

Yes for most of the people living these days the Beatles are bigger. It’s good to know about God and all that but when you’re running a country, politics is bigger. It’s good to sympathize with the other and love them as yourself, but when it’s about laws and politics.. need I say more?

A few decades ago John Lennon stirred the whole world but today could anyone stir it in the same way with such a comment? (Well of course it is possible and a lively example would be Moses these days rather than Jesus, cause it will be claimed anti-Semitic) My point is simple, most of the world kicks religion out of their schools, it’s okay to believe but just don’t have it mixed up with the things that matter. Jesus is big, but don’t compare him to anything in the practical world.

So where do love, forgiveness, charity, selflessness, humility and patience go? They disappear in the practical realm. Sometimes it’s just natural to put all good things aside when bad things happen. When we see Lebanese children dying, how can we love an enemy? Hate is bigger. When we see tyranny how can we have patience and faith? Vengeance is bigger. When we can hurt our enemies how can we have mercy? Justice is bigger. Yes ladies and gentlemen, it’s sad and it hurts, but in the practical realm the Beatles are bigger.

Tony Blair was criticized for saying that he believes in God and that he prayed, why? Because God has become smaller in the eyes of the world. But things seem small from a distance, don’t they?

W.

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..