Fish Tank

Fish Tank is a story through the eyes of Mia (Katie Jarvis), a 15 year old girl from the slums of Essex. Mia is living with her mother and her sister in a neighborhood infested with poverty. Her mother is jobless and an almost hopeless individual. However, her mother manages to find herself a decent and gentle boyfriend, Connor. In a way, he’s all that anyone could ever hope for. He treats the girls gently and their mother with respect.

Mia is aware of how trapped she is. She sees herself in all the animals bound by chains. On one occasion she tries to free a horse that’s bound inside private property. When she gets caught, the result is one of the most frightening scenarios imaginable. She is seized by two of the owners with an imminent threat of rape. They let her go after what seemed like ages of agony both to Mia and the viewers.

The film brilliantly portrays the complex relationship between Mia and Connor. For a great portion of the film it is unclear whether their relationship is paternal or erotic. The sexual tension is palpable in all of their scenes together, but since we see things through Mia’s eyes, we are unable to determine if his actions are sexual or if he is a fatherly character. That dynamic is a result of great performances and very well timed shots from director Andrea Arnold.

Michael Fassbender (300, Inglorious Basterds) plays Connor who maintains a fishy sort of goodness. His calmness and easiness is out of place in a stress ridden family and yet it seems to provide a much sought after tranquility. His confident presence in the family gives them a sense of serenity and comfort, yet Connor is too unhinged, too level-headed for a family whose members erupt to full blast at the slightest opportunity. His life seems mysterious but less so as Mia tries to invade it.

Perhaps one of the most reflective scenes of the dynamic between Connor and Mia’s family is when he takes them to a pond. With patience and gentleness catches a fish with his bare hands. As the fish is dying, gasping for air, he inserts a stick into its mouth through its body as this is the more humane thing to do.

The movie is captivating in showing a profoundly dire situation of poverty and a set of dysfunctional relationships that have formed in such a place. Mia seems to have a knack for severing good ties she has. Part of her doesn’t want to believe in any goodness that might be presented to her. She’s right to suspect everything, for in her world nothing can go right. Oddly enough after the harrowing threat of rape, she fearlessly returns to the scene to look for the bag she left behind.

The movie never ceases to show us the world through Mia’s eyes, taking its time to do so. There is something bleak about the outlook with which we are provided with for 122 minutes. We slowly uncover the reality of her world at her own pace. In the end we have a riveting story and we see is what it’s like to be a fish inside a tank.

Fish Tank won 18 awards including the BAFTA award for Outstanding British Film in 2010 and was nominated to win 15 more awards including the Golden Palm in Cannes.

The Duality of Egyptian Police

Policemen are human beings. It’s true, even though it might be hard to believe. It is one of the most overlooked facts in Egypt. Perhaps the reason as to why cops cannot be viewed as humans is because of their excessive and unnecessary violence. Our mental image of them today is close to the traditional view of criminals in the past. It is a view that rarely looked upon a criminal with sympathy. A criminal or mobster sets out to inflict harm on society to some other person’s benefit.

But despite these current notions, many will attest to having had experience where policemen have acted in a humane fashion and with a sense of justice and mercy. After all, one of the most compelling reasons to become a policeman is to be the good guy and seek justice.

The police show a blind unprovoked brutality during protests. Most non-fabricated news about protests is about police brutality. Yet within these clashes are unreported traces of humanity. Many protesters have encountered humane police personnel when they let their guard down and spoke their mind. This sometimes took the form of a personal conversation was during times when soldiers and officers were not given orders to beat and arrest.

In one of the encounters, some of the protesters asked a cop why he was doing this, i.e. shouting and screaming at us and hurling us with insults. We inquired as to why was he so rude about moving us and why was his attitude so hostile filled with serious threats to hurt us. His tone was changed by our sincerity in wanting to find an answer. He said: “Everyone says ‘yes sir’, who am I to say no?” He reasoned that everyone must say yes in order to survive. He then proceeded to say, “Deal?” as he made a thumbs up sign, “or no deal?” as he continued and rotated his hand so that his thumb was pointing down. As he walked further from where the rest of the protest was being held his tone changed and his face smiled. It was difficult to envision that he was the same person we started the journey with.

These sorts of anecdotes are consistent. Sarah Carr, a journalist and blogger, relays her experience with one of the soldiers in black during a Khaled Saied protest:
“[He] enjoys using the Internet, has Yahoo email, downloads songs but doesn’t look at news sites. The soldier seemed unusually willing to talk, and said that if he hadn’t been conscripted into the riot police he would be standing where we were standing.
- Why do you obey orders if you know we’re in the right? We asked.
- Because disobeying orders means 10 days in prison, he said.”


Also in the Khaled Said protests that took place in June 2010, Gehad bears this testimony, “A woman said to the policeman, ‘I hope the same happens to your son’. He was enraged and offended. I was surprised at his reaction.”
Gehad was surprised that policemen understood injustice. They too feel powerless in the face of tyranny, their own tyranny. In a religious place like Egypt, the cops are wary of God. In the same protests, amidst all the violence and arrests, one of the officers gathered people around him and after retelling the falsified statement released by the ministry of interior he said, “I only do what my conscience tells me, because God is watching.”

The police truly turn into demons not when they don't follow orders, it's when they actually do. When they are left to their own power lust, they can do horrible things, but it gets worse when they're ordered to do it. Most of the commands they’re ordered to do are illegal and unconstitutional. Yet orders override any sense of right.
This can best be exemplified by the women’s rights protest that took place late 2006. “The police were being very nice to us. They were being protective of us as well.”

Heba Habib confirms this report having been at the same protest. It appears that in this protests there were no orders for the protest to get ugly.
If the police can be so nice, what is it then that causes so much brutality?

The goodness of an Egyptian policeman is derived from personal morals rather from a general sense of institutionalized goodness. It is important to remember that just like the ministry of Interior sometimes hires criminals to do the job of policemen, they also hire good men to do the job of criminals. When asked to act according to the strategy put forth by the ministry, the police end up being sinister bullies. When left to their own discretion, it’s fifty-fifty. Some have values and act on them protecting and serving people, others have none at all and abuse their power in order to gain more out of people. One thing remains certain, they are not held accountable by the system.

A lot of policemen are good men doing bad things. But what constitutes being good? Is it enough for goodness to be in the heart? Is it really goodness not to object to injustice?

Policemen, much like other people, are motivated by fear; Fear of punishment, fear of failure and fear of everything but God. The duality of the nature of the police as both oppressed people and the oppressor might be vital in changing their attitude. The police are highly underpaid and that makes them vulnerable. For such a sensitive position, the government has chosen to have the policemen driven by necessity rather than by a sense of duty. It feels as though we should organize a protest on behalf of the police asking they be paid better wages. The most terrifying aspect of a protest like this if it were to take place is that the police would probably turn violent and disperse the crowd anyway.

The news doesn’t report that in one instant a cop laughed at a joke he overheard and the next he was ordered to crush the joker. Humans are driven by fear but are motivated by love. One question remains: when the police that are sworn to protect us end up hurting us, and good policemen are controlled by bad ones, who do we call on to protect us?

The words of Edmund Burke cannot but come to mind:

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

With Sadness

With much sadness I look upon the beautiful places I encounter all over the world. I look upon them with sadness when I remember Egypt and how ugly it has become. There is no comfort even in finding an inner beauty beneath this ugliness. It may have been present in times before, but now it has gone because the ugliness has penetrated us to the core.

I wish that weren't so, and perhaps that is why there is so much sadness. We could have retained some beauty, we could have been better. Now I think it's a little too late.

Truce

I need a truce with myself. It feels like a constant battle. Am I who I think I am, or am I someone different. It's always the same old thing, continuously reassessing who I am. Am I right? Am I wrong? It takes a lot less time with so many things, but it takes a lot more time with some things that I thought needed no questioning.

I wish I were trying to question to simulate a certain depth, but there's no depth at all to the nature of who I am. There's nothing particularly pleasant about someone who iterates over the questions over and over again, each time tweaking an answer a minuscule little bit. There's no need for that much accuracy for questions that don't have any real answers and yet I seek them. I seek them personally not universally. I mean not for everyone, but at the same time globally enough to suit everything I apply them to.

It sounds to me like every time I start to write I ask more than I answer, like my sentences are all the same written in different forms. I myself will skip over these few sentences. So why do I write?

Everyone knows why we write these personal things that don't matter to anyone but us. I need a break from all the things that want me to be something I'm not. I suppose all this is just a deep breath, a truce, so that I can have a short break and then face the world again.

A Troubled Road

I walk a troubled road,
the joys of life seem dim,
and like a distant star
that now shines from afar
which exists no more today,
I too have gone.
You only see me now
because of some delay.

Something True

In a moment of desperation, I wanted to search for something that's true in the world of lies. I decided to type in 'something true' in google and in the few milliseconds it takes between pressing the search button and getting a result, I realized how futile it was. Things that are true won't show up on google, they are things that must be searched for. If it were that simple, everyone would know what they were.

The truth is disguised by a thousand lies, and it's not that it isn't there, it's just that it's so hard to reach. It's a quest. I think I would distort the truth by adding in numerous lies.

I realize that if I'm searching for something true, I have to look inside me. There's no google engine for what's inside me though.

The Lost Pieces of Me

Lately I haven’t been myself. But whenever I lose the bits of me that I once was, I cannot but wonder if they’re ever coming back. My greatest fear is that they have left me forever. I try and find them when they’re lost but to no avail. They are drifting in an ocean I cannot swim. It is they that have always managed to find me after my search for them has been abandoned.

That is why today as I observe the missing pieces of myself, I search hopelessly and I know I will soon give up my quest. I search for things that cannot be found. I resign myself to hoping that these pieces will come looking for me. They’re lost in an ocean that only they can navigated. When these pieces are with me, I too can navigate this ocean.

But because all things must be lost at some point, I’m not sure when these pieces will forsake me forever. I’m not sure if they will come knocking on my door once more. Without them I have nothing to offer, so why would they return.

Do they visit another soul while they are away? Or are they standing at bay? If they visit another, how horrible it must be when they leave him; As horrible as it is for me. But I cannot have more sympathy for him than I have for myself. No, I want those pieces back, they’re mine.

If they are at bay, I fear it is me who fends them off so that they are unable to return. They must see me as a madman tilting at windmills and cannot approach me as I lunge at nothingness in full swing. I’m a blind warrior waving his sword at nothingness.

I must calm down and stop battling. I will let myself float and allow my life guard to save me. I must rest in order to allow the pieces of me to find me. It takes more energy to stay still sometimes. It’s just a different kind of energy. Am I fighting to become myself or am I fighting myself? I’m not sure anymore these days. It’s because I haven’t been myself lately though.

An Unanswered Question

A Chance at Social Innovation

We write, we read, we preach, we search for social change. So many people say the same things, have new ideas and claim that they would do something different if they had the chance. I've met many people who said that they would change this and that if they ruled the country. What they mean is that if they had the resources, they would be able to find innovative means of changing the way we do things.

So many of the ideas are unrealistic, the real test for them is when we try and do them. I think the advertised grant below is a good opportunity for some people who want to bring about some sort of change with an idea. If you can't start with small ideas, how would you think of big ones when you rule Egypt?

Now that there's a real opportunity, with realistic constraints (such as making money), I suppose it's much more difficult for the bloggers, the writers, the activists to put it in words and actually make something happen. I think it's always easier to have ideas when there is no chance of implementing them. But now's a time for someone to give it some serious thought.

We’re looking for Egypt’s Next Great Social Innovator

Yahoo! Maktoob and Nahdet El Mahrousa (a registered Egyptian non-governmental organization) yesterday launched a social entrepreneurship program and competition hoping to inspire young Egyptians to think about social entrepreneurship, and socially responsible business ideas, that are innovative and sustainable and can have a positive impact on Egypt.

Visit the website and get inspired from the stories of nine successful, young Egyptian entrepreneurs and vote for the one who inspires you the most. Then submit your idea for a social enterprise and enter the competition for a chance to win monetary support for your project as well as project incubation under Nahdet El Mahrousa’s Incubator of Innovative Social Enterprises.

Visit the program website at: eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.net

FaceBook Group: Click here.

Mesh

I'm a bit complex sometimes. I don't understand myself. It's as though I don't know what I really want in a material form. I might identify it in an abstract form. Silently, steadily I think a myriad of thoughts. They all gush in and that's why I become a bit complex, because they've all been jumbled up in a mesh.

Sanitarium

I never saw how protests could work to bring about change. I never thought they were an effective way of getting what you wanted. I always did, however, believe in protesting. In an effort to practice my beliefs I went to protest the brutal killing of Khaled Said on the hands of Egyptian police informers. I went there with the aim of expressing something I believed in and came out finding out something expressed to me by the bullies in control. I realized how frustrating it was to be in a protest.

The reasons for which I thought protests were not of much use was because I thought chanting won’t help fix things and no one wanted to listen anyway. This remains true to a great extent but there’s something deeper to it.

I was always hesitant to go to protests. A great part of it was because I didn’t believe in much of what they said and most of what was taking place in them. They were full of aggression for my taste, but if I am to be honest there’s something else that held me back. It was a fear, hidden deep, always known and never confronted. I say this now having rid myself of it, yet many still unknowingly hold it. It is the major fear that takes hold of clever, educated and well paid adults which impedes them from going to protests.

To clear something up, the reason I decided to go was because I thought the cold blooded murder of a young man by those sworn to protect us was well worth objecting to. It was something that outweighed any fear, ideas or opinions that I held. It was a cause worth fighting for even if expression will prove to yourself what you believe rather than bring about change. It was something worth more than posting a link on facebook. It was action. I expected a weak apology and a lousy investigation at the very least. Instead, I was faced with the hurtful arms and words of bullies claiming to be the police.

When I told my highly paid educated friends about protesting for the reasons that supersede all others they felt that this too was futile. What I realize now is that this refusal to object to reality was an escape from it. We want a sense of false security telling us that we’re different, that we’re human. We already had that sense of self worth going into our fancy office buildings and talking about huge amounts of money and about cutting edge technology.

People who are in good positions feel important, respected and human. All this was just an illusion. It was a part for them to play given by authorities because if they came down to protest, all that self worth will be knocked off the pedestal. If they were to object to what the bullies said or did, they would cease to have that importance, they would be no more than the servant or doorman they look down upon. They would be demoted to filth that is dusted off a police animal’s shoe.

*Welcome to where time stands still

No one leaves and no one will

Moon is full, never seems to change

Just labeled mentally deranged

In a protest they would not be able to talk to bullies as men or women of certain standing in society. Imagine a person stopping police abuse by saying, ‘Stop, I’m a doctor’, or ‘Stop, I’m an engineer,’ or a marketing director, or an architect or a manager or a CEO. These bullies don’t care. You’re worth nothing if you’re not important to their superiors. “Go back to your illusions,” they’d say, “or we’ll pull you into reality.”

Dream the same thing every night

I see our freedom in my sight

No locked doors, no windows barred

No things to make my brain seem scarred

This is the true threat lurking about people’s sub consciousness. That is the true fear that people have these days: to wake up from their dream, their illusion of power and control. So many take the government’s side in an attempt to maintain that self worth, and many pretend to fear the beatings and the arrests, but what they really fear is coming face to face with their worth.

Build my fear of what's out there

Cannot breathe the open air

Whisper things into my brain

Assuring me that I'm insane

They think our heads are in their hands

But violent use brings violent plans

Keep him tied, it makes him well

He's getting better, can't you tell?

If you’re reading this you’re one of us; either someone who has come to terms with reality or someone who has not. You’re one of us. You may have great education, you may be a lawyer, you may be a marketer or an engineer, a doctor, a journalist, an artist, a student or a good policeman following orders. You might be someone who makes a lot of money or has a lot of money.

Either way, if you haven’t faced the music then you’re filled with this fear. No need to feel ashamed, it’s a legitimate fear. I too am sedated by my travel to various countries and my work on ‘important’ projects. It’s easy to escape when things can seem to look good for you.

No more can they keep us in

Listen, damn it, we will win

They see it right, they see it well

But they think this saves us from our hell

In a truer form of reality we’re worth more than the bullies want us to think, but they have the keys to our chains. We’re in a sanitarium inside a giant prison. They keep us locked in, living out our delusions while they guard the gate. If we try to escape the sanitarium and our delusions, they show us the real prison. The sanitarium is a much happier place; it’s a much easier place. I guess the fear we have is to wake up and realize that we’re captured prisoners.

*Italicized lyrics from Metallica’s Sanitarium

Khaled Said - 13th June Protest in Lazoghly

I went to protest to the cold blooded murder of Khaled Said by the Egyptian police in Alexandria and here is my eyewitness report with regards to the protest itself that took place on the 13th June of 2010 in Lazoghly square, Cairo:

(Photo by Sarah Carr)

I saw around 7-10 people getting arrested (they say around 20 overall were arrested), around five of the arrests that I saw were brutal. The people inside the police cordon were relatively unharmed except for a time when they took when they pressed against them forcefully so they couldn't breathe. There was a time when the police loosened the perimeter in order to grab three or four of the protesters from inside the cordon they secured. It was accompanied by wailing from many women and violent punches from plain clothed policemen as they were dragging some of the protestors to the police truck. The protestors and journalists within the perimeter were kept against their will in the perimeter till around 9 pm, from the approximate start time of the protest which was 5.00 pm.

I arrived a little late and was outside the police perimeter set up around various people. The police were in a hurry to disperse the crowd that was chanting and all the onlookers. They were rude and violent and all over the place including many plain clothes informers/policemen. Upon my arrival I was pulled by the shirt and threatened to be arrested and was about to be if the policemen weren't busy dragging two other guys to the police truck, but that's an insignificant event in the scheme of things. I have to make it clear that I hadn’t uttered a word when I had first arrived and that I was addressed with the most impolite names and a very disrespectful manner. I was threatened that I would be ‘taken’, anyone that was in the area would be ‘taken’, the policeman said before starting to drag me.

The two that were dragged upon my arrival happened to be in the area outside the perimeter. The police routinely confiscated cameras, and deleted all videos and images. To the best of my knowledge some cameras were given back and I cannot bear witness to the fate of the cameras. The policemen were all over the buildings and whenever chants would start, they'd give them a few minutes and then charge them.

A few people were injured, one of our friends was taken to a hospital, another person fleeing a charge from the police fell on his head and his face was covered in blood. They put him in a cab with what looked like a security person but I don’t know where he was taken.

There was fear in the air, fear of expressing any opinion in the protest, those officially surrounded had their view blocked by the men in black (amn markazy). For the police themselves it was business as usual, they didn’t care what was chanted, or who they were abusing.

I will post my analysis of the events surrounding this protest shortly.

Incensed at Injustice

I just realized something. I'm incensed by injustice. I know what it sounds like. I just think that there's a difference between thinking something and realizing it. I realized that I'm not just pretending to be incensed by injustice to seem modern and philanthropic. I really am. There was a time when I used to pretend and I thought I really felt incensed. That was some time back. But now I realize that I cannot stop being angry and full of rage at injustice.

I think the reason behind this fury of mine is that I know what it's like not to be able to get what's rightfully yours. I know what it's like to be surrounded by evil from all sides. I know what it's like to live in an immoral world that offers no true justice. I know what it's like to be lied to and for places of power to hide behind slogans. I know how it is to be afraid to fight a bully. It's not enough to be right, you have to have enough power to enforce it. I know what it's like to pretend that you are angered by injustice to seem moral, liberal and democratic.

To sum it up, the reason I'm incensed is because I know what it's like.

I've never been a true advocate for the Palestinian cause, nor have I been a true adversary of the Egyptian government. I have never been the most arduous activist streamlined with what I call 'slogany' things. I haven't been any of that. Of late, I'm forced to take sides I never wished to take. I've learned to judge quick based on history, I've learned to understand where lies lie and where truths try to appear.

It's not that justice in the worldly sense is satisfying. Executing someone who has killed an innocent never brings an innocent back. You can't even kill someone a thousand times over if they've killed a thousand people. But you know what? It's the next best thing. Worldly justice is the next best thing and it's not even great. So to take that away, to think of life as offering so much less is infuriating.

This is an angry post and it says nothing. Maybe some time I'll express exactly why I feel that bullies getting on a ship and killing civilians is infuriating. Maybe I'll explain why it's annoying that the whole world is just good at talking and won't do shit to stop atrocities and injustice. Maybe I'll explain why I feel that condemnation is broken record that doesn't change a thing. The laws of the world are like the laws of the jungle, only slightly refined. Humans are equal, but some humans are more equal than others. That's the way of the world, no matter what Obama says. That's the way of the world, no matter how civilized you pretend to be.

Once in a while a Ghandi comes or a Martin Luther King Jr. and they prove to the world that this is not the way the world works, but how possible is it to wait on one of those?

Traffic Apology

The other day a traffic cop bullied his way into getting 40 LE out of me. In return I lingered and talked his ear off about how messed up it was for him to be working for the government. I told him that there's so much injustice. Take for example how horrible the planning for streets are, and we have to pay for the government's delinquency and dereliction. He asked with some irony, is this the sum of all your grievances?

He said, "Everyone here is facing injustice."

I said, "Well maybe that's why you should inflict injustice upon others. But I think that a truly good man would not."

We chatted for several minutes in the afternoon. We talked about football, about writing and about the streets. He apologized for giving me the ticket. He said that if he'd known I didn't have that much money on me, then he'd have given me my license (after threatening he'd take it). We're all sorry, aren't we, for all the shit that's going on around us. I'm sure he really was, and I really am. He did exactly what I'm doing now, he said he was sorry but did nothing else.

We're all sorry and we're not doing anything about it. I'm not saying we should, it is far too annoying, much like the voting ads full of bullshit the government wants to sell us. Those ads are too annoying, too deluding and too saddening, so I won't sound like them. I'll just do what we all do best and say that I'm sorry I don't have any bright ideas. I'm sorry that bullying is the Egyptian way now, and I'm sorry I won't agree with any delusions.

The funny thing is that this man may have been a good man in another country. I may have been a good man in a better country. We may have even been friends.