Posts Tagged ‘Martin Luther King’
Originally published in Tikkun Daily
Growing up outside of Atlanta, I learned to crawl with Bob Dylan’s “Only A Pawn In Their Game” as my soundtrack, anti-war posters hanging on the walls, beckoning me and my raw knees forward.
I was weaned with the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. reverberating down the narrow halls of my parents’ apartment, formed my first words as though delivering a soliloquy on equality.
In first grade, I asked the teacher if the ‘Indians’ still celebrated Thanksgiving. When she asked why I wanted to know, I responded, “Because the people they ate with took their land,” something I’d learned from an honest mother.
During a Little League game, my father intervened when coaches tried to initiate a prayer circle, wanting us to give thanks in Jesus’ name. He fiercely believed in the separation of church and, well, everything.
As an American Jew, I was mostly instilled with progressive values as a child. Rather, I was instilled with progressive, American values – particularly those which aligned with liberal, Jewish ones.
A love of social justice, human rights, equality. A disdain for racism, fundamentalism, colonialism. Sure, I attended Hebrew school, but my scripture was more the Bill of Rights than the Torah, and my anthems came from hip-hop and rock, not the Book of Psalms (תהילים).
Despite this, my early love for progressivism was accompanied by a love for the State of Israel.
As a short, Jewish kid who wanted to be an NBA star, I was naturally inclined to root for the underdog. And at synagogue, we were taught that Jews were the ultimate underdogs, miraculously surviving the Holocaust and a history of oppression to create a contemporary “light unto the nations” which fought with dogged determination against evil and had a cool flag.
And I was taught that I was vulnerable, that there were people who wanted me dead, and that Israel was a safe haven, a beacon, a garden to which I could always escape.
Palestinians, accordingly, were portrayed as just one in a series of people who have risen up throughout history to destroy us, being painted as a caricature of evil. As a boy, I nodded and understood. Israel was not just good, it was necessary.
One Sunday morning, my parents dropped me off at our local, liberal synagogue for what was billed as the youth group’s pancake breakfast. Once inside, we were surprisingly herded into a multi-purpose room and sharply ordered to sit against the walls by masked men carrying plastic assault rifles.
Stale bread was thrown on the linoleum floor toward me and my friends, perplexed and unsure what the hell this was all about, but smart enough to know it was not actually a dangerous situation. Younger children started crying.
This is what the enemy is like, some teachers told us when it was over.
I nodded. We were the good ones.
As an adult, I’ve moved away from such naiveté while holding on to both my Zionist and progressive leanings, despite the growing struggle for coexistence between the two. And it’s not as though I’m mildly informed about the region or mildly invested in Israel and my Jewishness. The opposite, in fact, is the case.
I’m a Jewish studies teacher at a day school, yeshiva-educated with a master’s degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I’ve authored a memoir about my experience with terror and reconciliation, and write extensively about the region, often critiquing Israel from a progressive perspective while maintaining my desire for a two-state solution to the conflict.
As an adult, I’ve learned about the cleansing of Arab villages which took place from 1947-1949 to make way for the Jewish state. I’ve learned about the ongoing settlement enterprise, the appropriation and bifurcation of Palestinian lands. I’ve learned the horrors of Israel’s decades-old occupation of the West Bank, about the suppression of basic human rights and the atrocities committed.
I’ve studied Israel’s use of indefinite detentions, home demolitions, restrictions on goods and movement, and the violence visited upon those being occupied.
I’ve learned that – and this is just one example of many – a Palestinian child has tragically been killed every 3 days for the past 14 years. That bears repeating, since such deaths are rarely, if ever, given any attention in America: Palestinian parents have had to bury a child every three days for the past 14 years.
Knowing all this, I’ve still held fast to my ‘progressive Zionism,’ hoping Israel could become that beacon of liberalism I was presented as a child, a beacon which never truly existed in the first place, despite the country’s socialist roots. Why have I done so? For two reasons: 1) deep down, I still believe in the promise of Israel, and 2) I can’t shake the notion that a Jewish state is absolutely necessary for our security.
Over the last decade, I’ve formed alliances with progressive Americans and the Israeli left, working in my own, small ways to try and move Israel away from those illegal, geopolitical policies causing so much suffering for Palestinians and undermining Israel’s ability to not just thrive, but survive.
All the while, I’ve watched the anti-war movement in Israel weaken, watched racism flourish and religious fundamentalism grow, watched Israel’s government build settlements at a record pace and make clear it has little interest in peace.
These realities have forced me to consider the incongruity between my American-borne progressivism and my Zionism. They have forced me to admit, like Peter Beinart, that in order to continue supporting Israel as a Jewish state, with everything it continues to do, I must compromise my progressivism.
However, the mind-numbingly horrific events of the past week have forced me, for the first time, to wonder whether such compromising can be sustained.
What has happened?
This: on June 12, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank by Palestinians belonging to a rogue branch of Hamas. I, along with friends and loved ones, worried they would become three more Jewish victims (added to the 1,100 killed since 2001) in an unending conflict, and watched closely as the Israeli military began combing the West Bank for them.
Only, it soon became clear that soldiers weren’t looking for them so much as collectively punishing Palestinians for the crime of a few people. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu falsely blamed the kidnapping on Hamas – a move likely aimed at derailing the PA-Hamas unity government – and vowed they would “pay a heavy price.” But it was Palestinian civilians who paid a heavy price as for weeks soldiers raided over 1,600 sites in the West Bank, indefinitely detained hundreds, and killed five Palestinians.
Israel placed a gag order on details surrounding the teens’ abduction, and reports surfaced that Israeli officials knew the boys were dead, but wanted to justify ongoing military operations under the hope of bringing the boys back. (Alas, it seems such reports may have been accurate.)
And then, on June 30, the tragic news suddenly came: the three teens had been found dead. And just as suddenly, calls for blood and vengeance echoed from Israel, starting with Netanyahu, who turned a Chaim Bialik poem on its head by using it to call for blood:
Vengeance for the blood of a small child, Satan has not yet created. Neither has vengeance for the blood of 3 pure youths who were on their>
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) June 30, 2014
way home to their parents who will not see them anymore. Hamas is responsible and Hamas will pay. May the memories of the 3 boys be blessed.
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) June 30, 2014
In turn, calls for blood and revenge began echoing throughout Israel and on social media, with a Facebook page dedicated to such calls quickly receiving 35,000 likes. It featured soldiers posing with weapons, asking for permission to kill, along with countless Israelis calling for revenge:
On the left, Israelis hold a sign that reads,“Hating Arabs isn’t racism, it’s values! #IsraelDemandsRevenge,” while on the right, a soldier post a picture with the caption, “Let us simply spray [them with bullets].” <?center>
After the funeral for the three slain Israeli teens on July 1, angry mobs of hundreds began roaming the streets of Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs,” attacking Palestinians and promising blood by nightfall.
Mob on Jaffa Road, Jerusalem chanting “death to the Arabs.” Man tells me, “after sundown we will attack them.” pic.twitter.com/ehx7E3BCyS
— benwedeman (@bencnn) July 1, 2014
Chemi Shalev of Haaretz, witnessing the genocidal chants from Israelis and reading reports of Israeli police saving Palestinian citizens from the mobs, wrote the following:
Make no mistake: the gangs of Jewish ruffians man-hunting for Arabs are no aberration. Theirs was not a one-time outpouring of uncontrollable rage following the discovery of the bodies of the three kidnapped students. Their inflamed hatred does not exist in a vacuum: it is an ongoing presence, growing by the day, encompassing ever larger segments of Israeli society, nurtured in a public environment of resentment, insularity and victimhood, fostered and fed by politicians and pundits.
By nightfall, with the ink of Shalev’s pen barely dried, horrific news came that a Palestinian teen from East Jerusalem had been abducted and killed by Israeli settlers in an act of revenge, with reports revealing the unspeakable: he was likely burned alive.
Since that night on July 1, parts of Israel have been burning, and clashes between Palestinians and police in Shuafat, the East Jerusalem neighborhood where the killed teenager lived, have been particularly intense. The police have been unrelenting, raining rubber bullets and tear gas down upon a grieving neighborhood. And the scenes have been difficult to watch.
Perhaps the scene that has put me over the edge is one that should hit close to home: an American teenager from Tampa visiting Israel, who happens to be a cousin of the slain Palestinian teen, was almost beaten to death by police, ostensibly for throwing rocks, and remains in Israeli detention. [Video of the incident.]
Mother of the American teen beaten tells ABC, “He wasn’t recognizable.”
I have no words.–§–There are parts of me right now that feel defeated. Yes, there have been calls for peace and the denouncing of extremism in Israel, but such calls feel as though they have been drowned out by those still craving revenge. And as Shalev notes, this isn’t an isolated incident – this is the result of a real shift in Israeli society concurrent with the ongoing occupation.
The past week’s events have shaken me to my core, and have forced me to look long and hard at my personal politics. For if this were any country but Israel, my progressive values would not allow me to support, much less love, such an enterprise. Yet the reality is this: I do.
I’m not ready to abandon the dream of a Jewish state that lives up to its democratic promises, and continue to hold tenuously onto the idea of two states for two peoples. However, I have begun, for the first time, to consider what a single, bi-national state might look like, to consider that it might finally end this madness.
And here’s the irony: Israel’s extreme-right leaders, embracing various one-state solutions, have forced me to do so. Hell, Israel just elected as its President a one-state proponent. How can I not consider what that might look like?
As it happens, during all of this, I’ve just finished Ali Abunimah’s The Battle for Justice in Palestine, which makes an impassioned case for a democratic, bi-national state as the only way to end this conflict.
The progressive American in me agreed with much of his arguments. The Zionist in me was scared by its premise.
The humanist in me just wants all of this to end. Wants all of the suffering and pain on both sides to end.
If not now, when?
–§–
David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, recently published by Oneworld Publications.
Moral Courage? And what other kinds of courage? Edward Snowden, Hugh Thompson, whistle-blowers…
Posted on: March 5, 2014
Moral Courage? And what other kinds of courage? Edward Snowden, Hugh Thompson, whistle-blowers…
Last Thursday Chris Hedges opened a team debate at the Oxford Union at Oxford University with this speech arguing in favor of the proposition “This house would call Edward Snowden a hero.”
The others on the Hedges team, which won the debate by an audience vote of 212 to 171, were William E. Binney, a former National Security Agency official and a whistle-blower; Chris Huhne, a former member of the British Parliament; and Annie Machon, a former intelligence officer for the United Kingdom.
The opposing team was made up of Philip J. Crowley, a former U.S. State Department officer; Stewart A. Baker, a former chief counsel for the National Security Agency; Jeffrey Toobin, an American television and print commentator; and Oxford student Charles Vaughn.
Edward Snowden’s Moral Courage
I have been to war. I have seen physical courage.
But this kind of courage is not moral courage. Very few of even the bravest warriors have moral courage.
For moral courage means to defy the crowd, to stand up as a solitary individual, to shun the intoxicating embrace of comradeship, to be disobedient to authority, even at the risk of your life, for a higher principle. And with moral courage comes persecution.
The American Army pilot Hugh Thompson had moral courage. He landed his helicopter between a platoon of U.S. soldiers and 10 terrified Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre.
Thompson ordered his gunner to fire his M60 machine gun on the advancing U.S. soldiers if they began to shoot the villagers. And for this act of moral courage, Thompson, like Snowden, was hounded and reviled.
Moral courage always looks like this.
It is always defined by the state as treason—the Army attempted to cover up the massacre and court-martial Thompson. It is the courage to act and to speak the truth. Thompson had it.
Daniel Ellsberg had it. Martin Luther King had it. What those in authority once said about them they say today about Snowden.
In this still image from video footage released by WikiLeaks on Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden speaks in Moscow during a presentation ceremony for the Sam Adams Award. (AP photo)
“My country, right or wrong” is the moral equivalent of “my mother, drunk or sober,” G.K. Chesterton reminded us.
So let me speak to you about those drunk with the power to sweep up all your email correspondence, your tweets, your Web searches, your phone records, your file transfers, your live chats, your financial data, your medical data, your criminal and civil court records and your movements, those who are awash in billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars, those who have banks of sophisticated computer systems, along with biosensors, scanners, face recognition technologies and miniature drones, those who have obliterated your anonymity, your privacy and, yes, your liberty.
There is no free press without the ability of the reporters to protect the confidentiality of those who have the moral courage to make public the abuse of power.
Those few individuals inside government who dared to speak out about the system of mass surveillance have been charged as spies or hounded into exile.
An omnipresent surveillance state—and I covered the East German Stasi state—creates a climate of paranoia and fear. It makes democratic dissent impossible.
Any state that has the ability to inflict full-spectrum dominance on its citizens is not a free state.
It does not matter if it does not use this capacity today; it will use it, history has shown, should it feel threatened or seek greater control.
The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Hannah Arendt wrote, is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.”
The relationship between those who are constantly watched and tracked and those who watch and track them is the relationship between masters and slaves.
Those who wield this unchecked power become delusional.
Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, hired a Hollywood set designer to turn his command center at Fort Meade into a replica of the bridge of the starship Enterprise so he could sit in the captain’s chair and pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard.
James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, had the audacity to lie under oath to Congress. This spectacle was a rare glimpse into the absurdist theater that now characterizes American political life.
A congressional oversight committee holds public hearings. It is lied to.
It knows it is being lied to. The person who lies knows the committee members know he is lying. And the committee, to protect their security clearances, says and does nothing.
Race relations in light of Trayvon Martin case and Obama’s call to action?
Posted on: August 3, 2013
Race relations in light of Martin case and Obama’s call to action?
Rose Krebs posted on July 28, 2013 in phillyBurbs.com “Willingboro teens talk race relations in light of Martin case, Obama’s call to action”
“They say they are trying to do what the world tells them is right.
They try their best at school, are active in their community, take responsibilities seriously, try to be polite to others, and work hard in the hopes that they can make something good of their lives.
But no matter what they do, how they behave, what character they have inside, they know some will always judge them by the color of their skin.
And they say that hurts. T
hey say it is dehumanizing and heartbreaking. And it happens frequently, as it has throughout their young lives. They say they are almost “numb” to the prejudice and racism they experience.
Willingboro Class of 2013 graduate Chela Humber
“We have to discuss the way we feel, and how to better the future and make America safer and an all-around friendlier environment,” — Willingboro Class of 2013 graduate Chela Humber
Avery Covington, Ty Scott, Candita John and Chela Humber are recent graduates of Willingboro High School and are now college-bound. They were active in their school community, served as leaders, and represented their school the best they could. Corrine Walker, also a student leader with many achievements, will be starting her senior year.
In light of the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, the nation’s reaction to it, and President Barack Obama’s call for a national discourse on race, the teens recently agreed to be interviewed to discuss their experiences with race issues, how prejudice and racism impact them, and what their hope for the future is.
Obama’s call for discourse
“I think it’s going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. There has been a lot of talk about should we convene a conversation on race,” Obama said from the White House briefing room on July 19.
“I haven’t seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stifled and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.
“On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there’s the possibility that people are a little more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.”
Many have seen this as an important moment, the first black president using his own experiences with discrimination in an attempt to steer the country toward action after a controversial legal verdict set off a firestorm of feelings about race relations.
Obama called on the nation to take nonviolent measures to try to address problems with the legal system, some laws and in everyday life.
The president’s words hit home for the teens. They know the importance of Obama offering his personal experiences to remind the nation that there is more work to be done.
Impact of prejudice and racism
Covington, who was president of the student council in 2012-13, recounted a story about attending a Model Congress event and getting a shocked reaction from another student when he talked at length about politics and history. The student could not believe the depth of knowledge he showed on the subject.
He also recalled his senior class trip to Virginia Beach, when a friend said hello to a white girl, and the police showed up to question the group about someone “harassing” her.
“It just became real that quick,” Covington said. “It was crazy.”
Humber remembered all too well the times she has been told she looks too “ethnic” in a work situation.
Scott noticed it when someone accepted a donation from him at a grocery store, and then the next person to give money got a handshake that he didn’t.
Walker knows what is likely inferred by a comment registering surprise that she is “well-spoken.”
“As if I cannot be intelligent,” she said.
John has been followed in stores with suspicious eyes.
“They have a perception of my character, and they don’t even know me,” John said. “They perceive me a certain way. It is unfair.”
Covington recalled a husband who grabbed his wife and her purse when standing next to him at a grocery store.
“I am peace, love and harmony, and he felt threatened,” he said. “I have a heart just like you, I have skin like you, I bleed the same way you do. Please don’t look at my skin and judge me. I’m a really nice guy if you just get to know me.”
The teens said such moments are hurtful.
“If somebody does something to you and it hurts and you feel it, it’s a feeling that you can’t explain,” Scott said. “I would make that comparison like you are losing a family member, because it’s a feeling you can’t explain. It’s so deep, it happens so hard, it hits so hard.”
Covington said he feels “dehumanized” and “dumbfounded” when experiencing prejudice.
“You can’t see I’m just like you, except a different skin color?” he said. “You can’t see that not everybody is the same? Can you realize that I’m not a monster here? … Why are you coming against me because of the color of my skin? I don’t understand.”
Walker, who is the daughter of Chris Walker, a former school board member and Democratic nominee for the Township Council, said she knows race is a factor in her everyday life.
“Race in this country is very, very evident. It can’t be denied,” she said. “As African-Americans, we are raised to know that we don’t always get the best hand. We’ve been in this same stage for decades. We can’t expect it to change overnight.”
Although it hurts deeply, Walker said her experience with racism has made her more motivated.
“It can’t be used as an excuse. You can’t use it as a crutch,” she said. “Be the best person you can be; keep your head up.”
Lessons learned
The teenagers said they were taught by their families the challenges of being black in America. They were told they need to be aware that they will, at times, be treated differently in school, by authorities and by society.
“My parents didn’t have to tell me every day,” Walker said. “You are not them — that is something I know.”
“We definitely have these talks with our children and their friends, what it is to walk out of the house and be judged differently than when you’re in your house,” said her father, Chris Walker.
“As a black man in America, we have so many stigmas and stereotypes against us,” Covington said. “We’re supposed to be the guy who doesn’t know what we want to do. … You don’t have it like other people in society. You have to work harder.”
Humber said “you tend to get numb” when being judged because of your skin color.
“You don’t want to respond to ignorance with ignorance,” she said.
“If you dwell on it, it will cripple you,” Covington said.
“Success is the greater thing. That is the way to overcome,” Humber said.
“We’re so immune to it. We’re not surprised by society anymore,” Walker said. “We are motivated.”
“We develop a tougher skin,” John said.
‘A slap in the face’
The teens said they were disappointed by the Trayvon Martin case. The killing of the Florida teen and not-guilty verdict for George Zimmerman was hard to take.
“The victim was made to be the aggressor,” Walker said. “The justice system we have now looks at society in one way — it looks at color.”
Walker said she feels Zimmerman judged “a book by its cover” when it came to Martin.
“That happens too much in society,” she said.
“If George Zimmerman didn’t break the law, then the law is broken,” Covington said. “He got off on killing someone. It was almost like a slap in the face.”
Chris Walker said he believes society views race issues too much based on when something tragic happens. The successes, such as Obama being elected president, are as important and evidence that progress has been made. It’s important to keep perspective, he said.
“You don’t let another person define you,” Walker said of the lesson he teaches his kids. “You don’t allow someone else to control and define your destiny.”
Hope for the future
The teens said they hope there will be productive discourse about race issues in America. And they know that all races need to be a part of the discussions. From those discussions, they hope progress can result.
Temple University professor Karen Turner believes the media need to play an important role in the discourse about race if any progress is to be made.
“Media contribute to our inability to have a robust conversation about race. Stereotypes are perpetuated,” Turner said. “This is clear from the (Martin) case — a situation where jurors and some segments of the public could rationally see an unarmed African-American teenager as a thuggish black boogeyman. … If journalists are going to have the capacity to report and not repeat … to frame this important conversation into a meaningful context, they must first be willing to step outside their comfort zone and be honestly introspective. This is what the president is challenging all of us to do.”
“If we focus on how different we are, there will be no progress in the near future or anything for that matter, because everyone will be focusing on themselves and not the world as a whole. And that, I think, is self-destructive,” John said.
Covington believes all need to come together for the common good.
“We need to awaken that sleeping giant. Our generation is somewhat lackadaisical when it comes to these type of movements and actions and protests,” he said. “Martin Luther King, our great forefather, said: ‘Evil triumphs when good sits there and does nothing.’ We have to stand up and do something, as a people, as a nation, to promote the human race … not just different factions of races.”
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Adonis Diaries 
Comments and notes on FB: part 3
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 21, 2016
FB comments: part 3
Jean-Christophe Rufin, member de l’Academie Francaise, accuillit Amin Maaluf en Juin 14, 2012 par ces mots: “Entrez ici avec vos noms, vos langues, vos croyances, vos fureurs, vos egarements, votre encre, votre sang, votre exil… mais surtout, restez vous-meme…” Est-ce que Amin a dernierement oublier ses racines?
Quoi de plus objective que de se rappeler ses origins a un moment ou Israel fait fi de toutes les pressions et continue a humilier les Palestiniens quotidiennement?
Puisque la plupart de l’humanite est devenu des “companion de voyages“, racontons plus souvent les histoires personnelles de chaque émigré et immigrant: ce sont ces histoires individuelles qui peuvent eclaircir ce que l’humanite souffre
“Les homme font ce qu’ils peuvent, le destin fait le reste” (Renauld). Le destin intervient quand la generation future n’a pas étée prise serieusement pour valable de continuer la bataille des ideaux de liberte, de transparence dans le processus democratique, de l’ égalte des droits et des opportunites
Le silence est le dernier refuge de la liberte des vaincus. Continuez de parler et de crier et tu ne sera jamais considerer comme vaincu,
Every morning, I find that somebody has just discovered some general and eternal law that I never heard of. General ideas that pack a lot into a small volume. And the “professionals” who are researching details and facts on the ground are rare because Not paid to do these dirty fundamental jobs. What irks me most is that scientific papers fail to extend additional hypotheses and conjectures to what they have researched in order for the rest of us to follow up and demonstrate them
Dans la vie, on n’est jamais a un calvaire pres
A quel instant “pas maintenant” se transforme en “jamais”? Martin Luther King
With equal opportunity to learning and training, people in each profession will focus more on examining the details and fact sheets and steer away from the laziness of basing decisions on general ideas
“The exaggerated social system based on general causes is a source of consolation for mediocre historians ( and current reporters). It invariably provides them with a few grand explanations, useful for quickly extricate themselves from any difficulties they encounter in their work. And it favors weak and lazy minds to garner a reputation of profundity (Tocqueville in the 18th century). How fitting for current times.
If we have to rely on the Torah, many times the Syrians allowed the Jews to take refuge in Palestine. Once during Abraham immigration from Ur in Iraq, another time for Moses and his successors, next after their return from Babylon, next after the Romans expulsed them from Jerusalem… and lately after the Europeans expulsed them from Europe in order to create Israel. During all this history, The jews basically lived in Jerusalem and the desert southern part of Palestine. Israel can resume digging for artefacts for another century and dig deeper under the Dome, they will Never find any artefacts related to their culture or any State: They had none. All their stories are manufactured history. The Jews were a minority fraction of the Syrian culture and civilization. Jesus was Not a Jew or recognized as such by the Sanhedrin. Jesus was born and lived in Upper Galilee, administered and under the jurisdiction of the province of Tyr, throughout the various foreign dominion of this land.
Petition de principe: Tous les hommes doivent jouir des meme opportunites pour s’egaliser dans chaque communaute.
The US can provide Israel with all the latest weapons of destructions. Germany, England and France can extend to Israel all the pieces of intelligence and trade facilities. The monarchs in the Arab world can link up with Israel any which way they like. The tide has turned: The people in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine have crossed the barrier of fear for continuing the existential fight. No weapons can subjugate a resisting people again occupation and an existential enemy.
In “The Disoriented”, Amine Maaluf let Nidal (a Moslem) says to Adam (a Christian, and represented by Amine Maaluf opinions: “You says that the historians must remain neutral? Giving equal weight to the butcher and victim, the occupier and the subjugated, the predator and the prey…? You should Not appear as the defender of your own people and your roots? Is that what you consider as intellectual honesty?”
Traditions of classes, professions, family and social structure, and religious beliefs… have been initially drawn from observations of human nature and establishing general notions, before the politicians (men of actions) in each sphere of influence in life organized them to self-serve the interests of the elites. If we seek reforms by bringing up human nature then we are following the wrong direction.
What is needed is to develop a belief system based on that all born people have the rights to enjoy equal opportunities to learning, getting training, health and due processes with a fair justice system. This new belief system or petition principle is feasible because in transparent democratic processes people rely on the majority opinion to extend any rational excuses for their attitudes. Equal practical opportunities circumvent the wrong implication that opinions are reached independently of their surrounding. The effects of community sanctions to deviation attitudes from the belief system can then formalize the equal opportunities rights to everyone.
Every belief system is Not to arrive at the “truth”, but to guide action. Daily routine actions form the basis of our decisions in major matters.
“In the rare centuries of doubt (rational trends dominate), people cling stubbornly to his belief systems. People are Not ready to die for their opinions, but they do Not change them. And you find both fewer martyrs and fewer apostates” Alexis de Tocqueville. The problem in this period of doubt, certain categories of communities are transforming it into a century of horror stories of faith.
Beware of the tyranny of the majority in “democratic republics“: “The Master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free Not to think as I do. You may keep your life, properties, retain your civic privileges… but the majority in your community will ostracize you and refuse to esteem you, or to demand your vote. Those who believe in your innocence will steer away from you lest they are shunned in turn” A de T. Isn’t what happens to Whistler blowers? At the doors of Abortion clinics, or gay marriages…? In France they even deny him the citizenship.
“It may be plausibly asserted that there is an infant-school ignorance which precedes knowledge and another doctoral ignorance which comes after it” (Montaigne). This is the state of education affairs in the Arabic speaking Islamic countries: coranic schools and doctors in fikh and other religious degrees… Ignorance lies at the ends of knowledge
Adelard de Bath (1080-1160) translated into Latin the scientific works written in Arabic (it was the scientific language at that period). Adelard is the first English scientist, a Benedictine moine and an arabophile. He wrote: “J’ai appris quelque chose aupres des Maîtres Arabes, qui m’ont guide par la raison. Toi, tu est mene par la bride de l’autorite”
In Lebanon, we have common conditions of daily strife to survive in any dignified level. What we need is to spread a unified common pragmatic reform model that share common rights for education, health, opportunities and transparent democratic processes
“When an opinion takes hold in a “democratic” nation and establishes itself in a majority of minds, it becomes self-sustaining and can perpetuate itself without effort: Nobody will attack it. No one combat the doomed belief openly. This hollow ghost of public opinion is enough to chill the blood of would-be innovators (in political sphere) and reduces them to respectful silence” A de T in Democracy in America
China is #1 exporter with 13% of world market share. Next the USA with 9% and then Germany with 8%. If we discount the weapon sales, Germany becomes #2. France, England and Canada barely hold 2%: No wonder why these countries are kissing the asses of Saudi Kingdom and the Gulf Emirates to them weapons.
Replace Arabic scientific works” by “scientific works” written in Arabic (the scientific language in the period of Arabic caliphate empire) and the expression is set right. In the first century of the empire, Syrians were the foundations of scientific work, all the way to the Tigers River. During the Abbasid dynasty, the Persian took over the scientific works and dominated the culture from the Tigers to Afghanistan, India and central Asia. During the strong centralized administration periods, the hundred of religious sects wrote in their own slang language (except in science) and few revolts emerged to launch any military campaigns. The Romans were frequently on the march to squash relentless revolts, though all the peoples adored the same idols under different names. No wonder that the Syrian and Persian civilizations were well routed in the region and were Not considered cultural occupations.
Le Christianism est tombé entre les mains masculines, devenue sanglantes. Alors que Jesus avait parle d’une voix feminine: les valeurs de tendresse et de compassion. C’est ce que nous essayons de vivre, meme si on l’a rate (Romain Gary)
The American life-style is to taking short-cuts by adopting general, all-purpose ideas: They are bombarded with so many individualistic responsibilities that they lack the necessary leisure time to indulge in reflective time-consuming periods (A de T in the 18th century) An observation that was valid 2 centuries ago and worsening. Worse, spreading like wild fire all over the world and in Asia.
The Americans seldom admit that they give in to selfless altruistic endeavors: They are pleased to explain all their actions in terms of self-interest properly understood. They will obligingly demonstrate how enlightened their behaviors regularly lead them to help out one another and makes them ready and willing to sacrifice a portion of their time and wealth for the good of the State.
The norms make a difference and they cannot be switched at will: either your norms are of the “honor kinds” or of the “material interests”
“Politicians have this capacity to manage the creation of ephemeral convictions in accordance with the feelings and interests of the moments: They can, with a tolerable good conscience, do things that are far from honest” A de T
Individualism is a recent expression, a reflective and tranquil sentiment achieved by creating a small community (modern tribe) for his use. he gladly leaves the larger society to take care of itself” A de T
“Prisoner’s Dilemma” of two persons involved in the same crime:
1. If you inform on the other, and the other refuses to inform on you, you are set free
2. If both inform on one another, both get 5-year prison term
3. If both refuse to inform, both get a year prison term.
The rationale of this Dilemma is used to explain:
1.The weakness of public institutions: people want strong institutions but refuse to pay the necessary taxes
2. The case of lobbying interest. Ironically, the more the number of lobbies, the more the central power imperceptibly expand, which the lobbies don’t want
3. The more frequent the number of private bankruptcies (risk takers) the more the State/casino win.
“In order to reap the priceless good that derive from the freedom of the press, one must learn to accept the inevitable evils that it breeds.”
“Americans want the Union, but reduced to a shadow: they want it strong in few case and weak in most case, particularly in period of peace” Is that why the US government launch frequent pre-emptive wars outside its boundaries?
“”The aristocratic families would willingly preserve the democratic habits of the (political system) if only they could reject its social state and laws” Actually, the elite classes always succeed in circumventing the few laws that theoretically could have been applied to them.
“Ce qui rend la religion forte, ce n’est pas sa verite reelle, mais bien l’ historique (the stories retold, embellished, re-edited according to different periods, le retour du refoule, les reminiscences de processus archaique disparus et hautement effectifs” Freud in a letter to Lou Andreas-Salome, 1935)
“Moise n’avait jamais entendu parler de Jehova (an idol of war adored by tribes living in the desert region between Palestine and the western part of Arabic Peninsula, the Midian), les Juifs n’ont jamais traverse la mer rouge, jamais ete jusqu’au Sinai. La religion de Moise, un Egyptian qui adore le monotheism d’Anon d’Egypt, avait fini par s’imposer sous forme d’une tradition a demi-eteinte” (Freud in a letter of 1935)
Les femmes, survivantes de l’inceste, regnaient le monde, et le régnent encore. La mobilite dynamique dans certain pays n’a fait qu’augmenter the rate of les survivantes. Ils one maintenant de facilities modernes pour fuir leur isolement. Cette fois-ci, les survivantes ont tendance a se vanger de n’impote quelle maniere avec les opportunites et les lois en applications
Je prefere qu’une femme belle et intelligente m’admire et ne m’aime pas. La compassion m’etouffe et je renacle devant une tendress mal meritee.
Si je dois publier un receuille de poem, le titre serait: “Pas d’amour. Mais tout le reste”
“La guerre n’est qu’une rechute temporaire dans un etat primitive”? Ca ne veut rien dire. Un état primitif est une bonne connotation. Les armes modernes et les guerres trop frequentes (pre-emptive wars and civil wars…) doivent avoir un term trop fort revelant de “the Evil state of affairs” in human conditions
La ou Freud passe, l’herbe tender de l’innocence ne repousse pas? Many of Freud’s disciples quit his teaching, or mostly were discarded by him, because they had problems with their sexuality and couldn’t bare a psychanalysis disciplines mainly based on sexual fundamentals. Adler had to say: “Une broutille, la sexualite” Women can get rid of sexual passions et problems in mid-age, but it is the males who suffer from these difficulties most of their lives.
Have you read or seen Lolita of Nabokov? I read sections of this book, standing in one of Barnes and Noble bookstore in Montgomery County (Maryland), because there were no facilities to sit. The book sounded more erotic than the chaste movie, and I was glad in was directed that way. I saw the movie twice. I saw it again last night and was happily surprised to notice that it was Lolita who was running the show from beginning to end. The times she got angry was calculated: She was seeing Clare (Peter Sellers) from the start before meeting James Mason (who played a difficult and convincing part of a middle-aged man, total in love with Lolita but managing to retain his responsibly as a father-in-law.) Lolita (with all her instinctive smartness as an enticing girl) was duped by Clare who intended to use her in porno movies and she refused and was kicked out to survive on her own. They overcrowded funny Sellers in his role, even when he knew that he was about to die. How could Mason be duped by Sellers in so many occasions if he didn’t care that much about Lolita?
Have you seen Basic Instinct? I saw it at least twice. Last night was wonderful because I saw it again before they showed Lolita. I loved this film that was packed with plenty of erotic scenes and a smart content. Who do you think was the killer? Until the last second, showing the ice pick under the bed of Sharon Stone, you would side with everybody that it was the psych professional woman who was the killer (another great body). Apparently, after finishing a book about a targeted killer, Sharon made sure to kill the real life character of her story. Douglas is to be ultimately murdered by Stone since she had finished the new book about him: she was totally clear about it when she told him so: he refused to believe her because he started to believe in her innocence.
Do you think that every belief system pre-suppose that there is a fact of the matter in the mind of the community? That people gravitate toward the position they would like it to be true? And attach any supposed facts to it in order to satisfy any rational process? Belief systems such as an afterlife, causal link between minimum wage legislation on unemployment, affirmative action elevate the civilized culture, human rights legislation is typical of our species…?
Laziness of the mind adopts conformist dispositions and accepting the authority of others. For example,
1. Heuristics and cognitive short cut biases
2. Reflecting and perpetuating the economic and political system under which they live, by following what is dangled to them as a majority opinion
Tout cela, les mals d’amour, la honte de sa faiblesse, les letters non repondues, les echeques… continueraient a la devorer, de la consumer jusqu’a la fin de sa vie.
Tout cela, c’etait l’experience. Elle pourrait ecrire un livre. Elle pourrait ecrire une chanson. Se metre a la musique. Faute de se tuer (Rosamond Lehmann)
“The authority that rests on instinctive respect is absolute, as long as nobody contests its right. It is reduced to almost nothing, the day it becomes an object of discussion” A de T
“The spirit that guided the French Revolution was the books and pamphlets written in the abstract. The same fondness for general theories, complete systems of legislation, and exact symmetry in the laws. The same taste for the original, ingenious, and novel in institutions. The same urge to remake the entire constitution in accordance with the rules of logic and a uniform plan… What is meritorious in a writer is more often than Not a flaw in a statesman.” A de T. Isn’t the same path that Lenin undertook in the soviet revolution? Isn’t what happened in 1848 when the republicans failed to deliver what the people demanded after ousting Louis Phillip from power? Is the EU Constitution based also on abstract notions?
Botros Maaluf, grandfather of Amine Maaluf, an enlightened man throughout his life, wrote in 1923, a year before his death: “I am tired, tired of decrying the sate of affairs in our countries of the Orient. Replace country by calamity. Replace Orient by malediction. You’ll have an accurate idea of what I’ am talking about”
Botros opened schools where the students in higher levels taught student in lower levels because of shortage in adequate teachers after the years of famine and mass immigration.
Another proposed Senate institution in Lebanon (Majless Shouyoukh)? Why, have we started generating oil revenue to sustain more of these redundant characters? These militia leaders have gone way beyond showing their despising behaviors toward the citizens
This parliament is Not going to elect a president to the Republic, until the system is ripe to fall. The Parliament will then elect any symbolic President to fool the people that the system has been repaired. Even a reformed election law will Not save this system: Lebanon is surviving on a daily basis and the citizens can long forgotten what public planning means. What the youth movement should be doing is to accelerate its investigative reporting on all the institutions, gathering facts on the ground for pragmatic reforms and laws.
You are bored when in good health. When you become senile, you stop feeling bored, but people observing you feel bored for you. Accumulated feeling of boredom. The innovating person is the one who can break a breach (une fente de perspective) in the fort of boredom. An alternative is to carry a light backpack and start walking: hoping that one of the media will discover you dying of hunger of totally dehydrated. Better yet, just dead: Let them investigate on you for 15 minutes.
Bacteries sans odeur: ils repoussent les bacteries puantes.
Wa dawini billatti kanat hiya al da2ou.
It works almost all the time if you know the taxonomy and experiment with the opposing functions of the same entities
Le nerf vague, la plus importante voie de communication entre l’intestin et le cerveau, raconte tout un tas de nouvelles au cerveau: les molecules des repas, les hormones dans le sang, les status des cellules immunitaires et les types de bacteries.
Une frequente stimulation de ce nerf ameliore le bien-etre et bloque l’angoisse.
Manger toujours
Le muscle le plus puissant (80 kilos de pression) est fait pour le broyage et le concassage: la langue est le coach qui distribue et guide les particules et puis attrape une bouchee de 20 ml et la propulse vers le palais mou.
Sans ces passe temps, l’homme mourrait d’ennui
It does Not matter what is your religion, gender, race, color… If you don’t carry a colonial passport, your death in any assassination attempt will go invisible
“Free access to tools that permit private and individual power to tailor-made education, find inspiration, model our environment and share our adventure with all who need them…”(Stewart Brand in his Whole Earth catalogue, 1968) Sound that the less fortunate can make good use of these opportunities. That was half a century ago, many are applying this opportunity when available, though only the elite class is mainly profiting from any of these facilities.
La formation durait 6 mois chez LF Rothschild (the richest family ever and dominating all the other financial multinationals). J’etais un connector: J’avais a place 500 coups de fil par jour pour essayer de franchir le barrage des secretaries. Quand je reusssis a en avoir un “client” au bout du fil, j’avais a dire: “Boujour Mr, Machin, Ne quittez pas. Je vous passé Scott, mon patron” Wall Street c’est fait pour les tueurs, les mercenaires. C’est la meme procedure pour commencer en Real Estates: J’avais a placer 50 coups de telephones par jour et dire “Do you want to buy or sell your property?”
In Canaan mythology, the body (basar) was the domicile of 2 kinds of souls: The vegetative nephesh (nafess) and the spiritual rouah (rou7).
Betyle (Beth El), the stone of God, les obelisques. Byblos, book, gebel, Gobel, Giblet. Reschef: Maritime God of war.
My greatest pride and achievement in my life so far is when I publicly dared to condemn the Saudi Kingdom in its savage pre-emptive war on the Yemenis (Hassan Nasr Allah)
Women who were engaged in the emancipation of women in Lebanon and their human rights since 1947: Ibtihaj Kaddoura, Laure Tabet, Eveline Bustros, Julia Tohme Dimachkiyeh, May Ziadeh, Najla Sa3b, Emilie Fares Ibrahim, Myrna Bustani, Laure Moghaizel, Alia Berti Zein, Leila B3albaki…
Regret: There was a French girl student in my class of Physics/Chemistry at the university. We spent 2 years in that program and I don’t recall I have ever talked to her. She was slim, slightly red-headed, hair cut a la garcon, rather flat-chested and elegant in her sober attire and wore the same flat shoes. I think she was pretty. It would have taken a forceful determination from any girl to take the initiative and lead me to utter a few sentences.
Don’ try to make me scale any piece of art from 1 to 10. It is either I like or I better Not offer an opinion. Artistic talents and knowledge are acquired in your early years and I was Not educated on these matters.
This parliament is Not going to elect a president to the Republic, until the system is ripe to fall. The Parliament will then elect any symbolic President to fool the people that the system has been repaired.
Even a reformed election law will Not save this system: Lebanon is surviving on a daily basis and the citizens can long forgotten what public planning means.
What the youth movement should be doing is to accelerate its investigative reporting on all the institutions, gathering facts on the ground for pragmatic reforms and laws.
Lebanese Women who were engaged in the emancipation of women in Lebanon and their human rights since 1947: Ibtihaj Kaddoura, Laure Tabet, Eveline Bustros, Julia Tohme Dimachkiyeh, May Ziadeh, Najla Sa3b, Emilie Fares Ibrahim, Myrna Bustani, Laure Moghaizel, Alia Berti Zein, Leila B3albaki
In Canaan mythology, the body (basar) was the domicile of 2 kinds of souls: The vegetative nephesh (nafess) and the spiritual rouah (rou7).
Ni heros, ni bourreaux. Un peu de douleur, un peu de plaisir. Je ne lui aurait donne que cela (Colette)
Another regret. She occasionally paid her grandmother visits, from the other part of the continent. I occasionally wrote her letters in the name of her mentally handicapped grand mother. One of the letter included a convoluted sentence that she picked up as a confession of love. And it was. A couple of weeks later she showed up. She went jogging and rubbed her feet with lotion. She then asked me to go for a walk. She wanted a verbal confirmation. I was in a rot with my PhD dissertation and lacked the spirit for such kinds of conversation. I couldn’t master enough craziness to blurt out: ” I find you lovely, natural and compassionate woman…” I didn’t see her again: I moved out to another old lady house whose son wanted someone to live with.
Qui repondrait en ce monde a la terrible obstination du crime, si ce n’est l’obstination du temoignage? (Abert Camus)
Mind you that we live in a world of appearances amid symbolic unassimilated meaning. We are sleepless creatures howling in our night dreams
Most probably, we are linked to the invisible: everything that our senses captured but failed to interpret it for our survival sake.
مدير عام الامن العام اللواء عباس ابراهيم صاحب الرؤية الوطنية والثاقبة والاستباقية في قوله ان توطين النازحين “يساوي مباشرة الحرب”، وان المطلوب هو الكف عن الرهانات الخارجية واستجداء الحلول المستوردة.
The Global Footprint Network also encourages people to eat vegetarian meals, shrink their energy use, and reduce their paper waste
Australia and the U.S., use a lot of resources in a year.
Others, like Brazil and India, use far less.
Many factors contribute to a country’s ecological footprint, including population size, standard of living and eating habits
The exact date of Earth Overshoot Day is determined by a simple formula.
Global Footprint Network takes the planet’s biocapacity (pdf), or the amount of natural resources available, divides it by humanity’s ecological footprint, or how much of the planet’s resources we use up, and then multiplies it by the days in a year
Enjoy the game. We are born to be suckered, and more times than we cared. This is the attribute of an addictive normal person: The harder we resist, the harsher we succumb.
360,000 foreign fighters were engaged in Syria since 2012. Currently, 90,000 are still on the ground, mostly fresh central Asians.
And more than 90,000 of them were killed and disappeared in thin air, never to be recognized.
Over $45 bn were spent with the objective of destabilizing the Syrian society.
Turkey, Saudi Kingdom and Europe contributed each 25,000 extremist fighters
Anyone can provide me with a link to a taxonomy for pains? A table, a graphics, an article that include a table of various pains and aches…names of the various pains, scale levels, sources of the pain… I have a day dream project of constructing a machine that delivers all sort of pains and to physically initiate the youth of what to expect as they grow up in life. I read that every contraction when delivery a baby, the mother feels like suffering from heart attack. Maybe by being subjected to pains, youth will desist from their absurd behaviors in inflicting pain, and decrease in number of wars, and pre-emptive wars.
Recently, there is a flurry of articles trying to give the connotation that the Near-East and the Middle -East is a Jewish region by its civilization or culture. For example, whenever there is a tribe anywhere else in the world, like “the Cherokees of North Carolina Mountains spoke an ancient Jewish language that was nearly unintelligible to Jews from England and Holland” or a “savage” tribe in New Guiney, or Ethiopia… researchers try to attach a DNA originating from a “Lost” Israeli tribe with unknown language related to an archaic Hebrew. If there were ever any Jewish tribes outside the Tora, whatever lost tribe was lost in our melting pot. After more than a century of excavation, Israel couldn’t find any proof of Jewish civilization, Not even a tablet written in Hebrew. The Jews were located around Jerusalem and the southern desert. They never took to the sea to spread any of their DNA
If there is a single stable theory of the spread of homo sapiens in the Mediterranean Sea Basin or the Black Sea, like in Europe, North Africa, Turkey and the Caucasus regions… is that the varieties of homo sapiens in the regions flocked to Egypt and the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) and constituted a melting pot for thousands of years before immigrating every which way.
70 Republican leaders are demanding to stop funding Trumpcampaign.
I am sensing that the Zionist lobby in the USA is scared shit of the political positions of Trump on many critical matters that hurt their interests financially and politically.
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