Lineage

My friend Tarek and I managed to retrace our ancestries.

It took us a liter of strong beer each -- followed by a few minutes of staring into each others' faces -- to make our discovery: Tarek's ancestors are Crusaders, while I descend from Mongol conquerors. Tareq's green eyes and blond hair, and my Asian eyes and round face left no doubt concerning our findings. We verified these further by contrasting his relatively longer attention span with mine; it all agreed but too well with the characteristics of our presumed ancestors. While Crusaders came to this part of the world to stay for nearly three centuries, my forefathers only swept through these lands without leaving a single trace. 

After celebrating our breakthrough in genealogy, we got up and decided to revive our ancestors' heritage. We walked down Hamra street, giving these bastards of lowly local stock what they deserved. While Tarek despised the locals' heresy -- them being either Muslims or Christians of a faith tainted with Oriental blasphemy-- I looked down on their meager build and ignorance of horsemanship. Tarek decided to re-enact a battle about which he had read, and where chroniclers had witnessed cases of cannibalism. So he grabbed two seven-year old boys, crushed their miniscule skulls with a strike of his sword then feasted on their char-coaled meat. I hurried to the AUB library and started emptying the contents of its shelves into the sea. I was hoping to turn its water black, as  my ancestors had done to the Tigris after they had filled it with books from the libraries of Baghdad. I noticed, however, that the sea water was already soiled with sewage, and any dissolved ink would surely not be visible. I soon lost interest and  stopped.

Then, I called upon Tarek to stop building his castle and we sat down  to draft a plan for our  future in Lebanon. Our plan would commemorate our ancestors, and preserve our own rights as well as those of our fellow descendents from Crusaders and Mongols. 

Hence, we shall soon address the new government, asking for two new religious holidays, as well as two parliamentary seats reserved for the new sects: Crusaders and Mongols. 

photo credits: "A Separate State of Mind" http://stateofmind13.wordpress.com

قصة قصيرة من بيروت

 في مساء أحد أيام شهر تموز الحارة، توجه الفتى البرجوازي الصغير إلى كورنيش المنارة في بيروت. شرب الفتى و صديقه البيرة حتى ثملا. 

 في الوقت نفسه، كان  المعاون حسن أيوب يحقق مع موقوف في مخفر حبيش، فيضربه  لكي يعترف أن الحشيشة التي بحوزته للتجارة و ليست للتعاطي.

و في الوقت نفسه، طلبت البنت المتشردة من الفتى البرجوازي الصغيرأن  يأتيها بالفوط الصحية من الصيدلية. 

و في الوقت نفسه أيضاً، كان علي حمود يوجه مسدس أخيه نحو فمه. 

و ما إن وصل الفتى البرجوازي الصغيرإلى المنارة عائداً من الصيدلية، حتى هبت نسمة باردة، تكسر حر تموز.

فتوقفت الفتاة المتشردة و قالت: "ما أجمل هذه النسمة، فإنها تكسر حر تموز."

ثم توقف الفتى البرجوازي الصغير و قال: "ما أجمل هذه النسمة، فإنها تكسر حر تموز."

ثم توقف صديق الفتى البرجوازي  الصغير و قال: "ما أجمل هذه النسمة، فإنها تكسر حر تموز."

ثم توقف المعاون حسن أيوب عن ضرب الموقوف و قال:" ما أجمل هذه النسمة، فإنها تكسر حر تموز."

ثم توقف الموقوف عن الصراخ و قال:" ما أجمل هذه النسمة، فإنها تكسر حر تموز."

ثم توقف علي حمود للحظة، و قال:" ما أجمل هذه النسمة، فإنها تكسر حر تموز."

ثم  أطلق علي حمود النار داخل فمه.
                                                                                 
                                                                         النهايت

                                                                               

On pity, sympathy and the tall girl who types very fast

I was sitting in a cafe in Beirut today -- a pseudo-Starbucks, yet equally elegant and serving more tea and coffee varieties than I count. I had my laptop open while sipping my tea -- decaff tea !! Decaff tea had a special  property: I could remember its name two seconds after the waiter had finished listing the twenty or so varieties which were available from the original menu. Who on earth  drinks decaff tea?! 


Anyways, I was having decaff tea. I would be looking at my  hand-written notes, then looking at my laptop screen to decide where a sentence would fit, and then put it there. It sounds easy, but it's not. At least the tall girl with freckles sitting opposite in the corner made it seem much more difficult.


My natural curiosity, added to my  inclination -- as an Arab -- to shamelessly stare at strangers, along with my attention span of a five- year old with ADHD, made the girl something less challenging to look at  than my notes or my laptop screen. It was an envious look rather than a coveting one.


She wasn't even looking at any notes. She would quince at her screen for a few seconds, and then set on a typing sprint for a whole minute or two. Sure! Rub it in Miss I Can Type So Fast I Could Make You Hate Yourself. So you think you're so cool because you get eight hours of sleep? You're square, let me tell you that! Organised people are losers! (I think ?)


 Anyways. The scene gets a bit more complicated. A man in his mid-thirties appeared on the other side of the glass wall. He said something, or  at least tried to. I didn't understand what he's trying to say. Then he pointed to the door, asking me to meet him outside, so I did.
- ' I'm from the area of [....], I came looking for a job and I'm out money'
 - 'Which village do you come from?'
 - 'I'm from [...]'




It was time to reach for my resort of everything I learned about beggars. OK, let's see. So when we were kids, my parents  always warned us about being naive and giving money to beggars. People had to work for their money , especially if they could! Couldn't he sell tissues or chewing gum at the traffic light? Then he shouldn't be begging. Had he been selling chewing gum or tissues, then it would have been my moral and social obligation to buy whatever he sold -- even if I didn't need it -- in order to encourage his  participation as a productive member of society.


And I do hate pity. It's such a condescending feeling. I prefer sympathy. I mean, even if he was swindling me, shouldn't he receive my compassion because he had to do it in the first place? I said compassion! Is compassion closer to sympathy, or pity?


However, the guy soon pushed to quit my hesitation . Having seen that I was staring sternly at his face, he decided that he should make more of an effort to earn my money. He started crying! That was the most pathetic feigned crying I had ever seen! It was pathetic, and I hate pity! I just needed him to stop embarrassing himself. I usually hate seeing embarrassed people, or people embarrassing themselves, more than I hate the feeling of embarrassment itself (OK, I probably hate them equally).


Anyways, I reached for my wallet and took out a 5000 pound note . (LOOK UP THE EXCHANGE RATE YOURSELF! ) I rationilised my final decision: I would prefer to be swindled rather than burden my conscience with  denying help to someone who potentially needed it -- out of sympathy of course ! The fact that I felt self-sympathy because of the tall  girl who could type very fast must have contributed to my final decision.In any case, it was the price of a beer or another cup of decaff tea with tips. What if the guy was a heroine junky and he couldn't afford his next shot? It was unfair that I could afford my fix of beer or decaff tea while he couldn't afford his!
- ' Whether you're telling the truth or not ....'
- 'God shall be the arbiter! ...but I need to see you again to pay you back the money'
- 'Just go!'


I went back in. The tall girl was still typing very fast. A few minutes later, she packed her stuff and walked out with a smirk on her face. I was still sitting playing Tetris with my notes.

The missing link regarding the events in Syria

Other facts and events about Syria might seem more urgent, but  these paintings remain very interesting and relevant nonetheless. Besides crediting itself for providing 'economic security' for the  lower classes of the Syrian population, the regime in Syria has primarily used the open -- and mostly latent --   struggle with Israel to claim legitimacy. The October 1973 War was the only event which has brought Syria into real confrontation with Israel since President Hafez al-Assad led the Corrective Movement, a political manoeuvre which  established the latter's rule in 1970. However, the War  has nurtured a long and  imagined narrative which was used to legitimise a one-party system.
The socialist realist style  in these paintings is really striking. They are displayed in  the October (1973) War Panorama, and they depict the late Syrian president Hafez al Assad.  According to the lonely planet guide on Syria, the memorial was built with North Korean assistant. This artistic inspiration may explain a great deal of what is going on at the moment!

Belfast: A Short Story - Part II

Learning about the ‘Troubles’ and ‘keeping my eyes open’ 

After leaving my backpack at the hostel, I headed for the Ulster Museum in the South of the city. Among the different sections about Irish history and the history of the city in particular, there was a slide show and wall-sized photos of the ‘Troubles’. The exhibition described in details the key events in the sectarian violence which erupted in the late 1960's, as a reaction to catholic-nationalist activism. I found this very brave and worthy of respect, especially considering how we describe the civil war in Lebanon as the 'war of others on our soil'.

          After the touring the museum, I went back to the city centre and walked into an old pub. I fed myself with a delicious meal of roasted ham, chump (mash potatoes with butter and caramelised onions) and boiled cabbage -- I'm a big proponent of British and Irish food! And to improve digestion, I watered them down with two pints of Carlsberg, by default of locally produced farm cider or ale. I finished my beer and food while reading a few pages of Geronimo's biography, while everyone else was engaged in either an after-work conversation, or watching the horse race on television to make sure their money was safe. I walked out to find the waiter on a cigarette break -- a jovial man in his early thirties. He asked me from where I come from and why I was visiting, after modestly agreeing that their pub food was good, ‘Yeah, it's alright’. Then he agreed of my perception of the city centre. I said: ‘All of this has been made up to look touristy, right?’ He nodded his head, and then added: ‘Take a taxi or a bus and head west. I'm from the West. Go on a pub tour. You'll get a different feeling; it’ll keep your eyes open’.

I did take the bus, but to head south again to locate a Unionist mural which I had spotted on my way to the Museum. I walked around for ages, but couldn't find it. I found a mural outside a pub in which a man in his seventies was playing the violin. Upon a closer look, there was another interesting painting in the background, made to look like a painting on the wall behind the old violinist: The portrait of a sad old man with an Arabic koufiah on his head and an immense number of tents behind him. The writing said: 'Palestine, 60 years of occupation'. I remembered a photo of a mural that dates back from the 1980’s, which depicted an IRA fighter holding hands in the air with a PLO fighter, with a slogan saying that the two organisations were joined in the same fight.

To the right of the mural, there were inscriptions in many languages, including Arabic and Farsi, which said 'Welcome'. The inscriptions were a copy of the ones I had seen saw at the reception of the Ulster Museum. However, the Arabic ahlan wa sahlan lacked the letter alef at the end. Anyways, it was the 'new' and 'friendly' Belfast they wanted to advertise. Let it be then! I took on the extra challenge of finding traces of the conflict. 

            By then it was too late, and I was too tired. I headed back to the hostel. It is a strange feeling which one gets by sleeping surrounded by people one didn't know, or whose faces couldn't see in the dark. I was so wary that I hid my 'valuables' in my shoe -- I tried hard to erase that memory from my mind the next day, but kept being reminded of it every time I had to reach for my phone or my wallet.  The stink of the place certainly didn't make it more welcoming, but I reminded myself that it was only 6.50 pounds a night and I was too tired not to fall asleep quickly. But before going to bed, I  had planned my tour for the next day, and finding political murals was a top priority.

Belfast: A Short Story - Part I

The (unfortunate) task of planning a cheap trip




Counting both, the number of days in the UK, and how much money I had left, I decided I could only afford one 'big' trip outside of Exeter. I didn't hesitate to choose my destination: Belfast!


More than one reason converged to make a curiosity of the place: I grew up learning about Northern Ireland from the news, and it was hard not to associate the sectarian strife that in there with the civil war in Lebanon. It was also interesting to examine a 'primordial' conflict in Western Europe, the part of the world which credited itself with propagating ‘modernity’ and ‘rationality’.


The preparations for the trip were not particularly difficult : A bus ticket from Exeter to Stansted Airport in London, a cheap flight to Belfast International Airport ( which cost half as much as the bus ticket did !), and a booking for dormitory bed for 6.50 pounds, in a old linen factory turned into a hostel.


However, there was only one problem: I had no camera. It was one of these things which cost I always thought could finance far more useful commodities -- beer is not the least of them. I tried to get a cheap bargain on eBay, but the seller turned out to be a fraud, and I never received the camera. I bought another one online, but they could not deliver it on time for my flight. I had to contend with using the tiny 2.0 megapixel-camera in my phone, for which I still do not have the right software or cable to transfer the photos to my computer.


Chairs are more than pieces of furniture!


Once in the city, I stepped off the airport shuttle some 300 metres away from the City Hall, which rose to block Royal Avenue. The Avenue is the commercial district of the city centre where shopping malls, superstores and American fast food venues make Belfast look no different than Paris, London, Rome or even the posh parts of Beirut.


I strolled down the Avenue and then into the City Hall. I was just in time for a free tour whose audience was mainly a group of Canadian senior citizens. Ireland seems to be favourite destination for North Americans and Australians, many of whom make it their purpose to visit the Public Record Office to retrace their Irish lineage.


The City Hall was a majestic shrine to honour British tradition. The gallery features the charter by Queen Victoria, written in 1888 to elevate the status of Belfast from 'town' to 'city', and hence came the building of the City Hall which was completed in 1906.The chamber where the council convenes has almost the exact same layout as the British House of Commons. Every item was preserved and displayed to commemorate the tradition held at the City Council. The guide was pointing at each piece of furniture to tell us when and where it was built and the names of royalties who sat on it upon visiting Belfast. I left the City Hall feeling even more attached to the royal family (!).

The Spring Politique

Cheerful young girls with short skirts ...sometimes flowery, more often not.Lying in the sun, sitting in the sun, and after wearing dark boots for long months, wiggling their happy toes in the sun...walking proudly, snuffing at those who are too scared to abandon their dark coats.
Somewhere else, the sun is not the same...she is not as humble.. a smile and the willingness to let her touch your bare skin is not enough ....
She asks for blood , and more blood she is getting indeed, while she gives  no promise as to when will she  show her face...