Adonis Diaries

Posts Tagged ‘Paris’

Trip to Paris and Oklahoma?

Posted by: on: April 7, 2020

Trip to Paris and Oklahoma?

Note: Re-edit of “Numb at the Magnitude of the Unknown (Part 1, June, 2004)”

It was May of 1975.  I had just graduated in Physics from the Lebanese university.

I secured a student visa to the United States of America. I was to study English for the summer at a university in Oklahoma.

I did not know then that there was more than one university in Oklahoma. It turned out there were several and the university I applied for graduate study was Not the one I landed for English summer schooling.

The trip was not that urgent, but the civil war in Lebanon started to look serious and I dreaded Not be doing anything for the duration..

My inborn stubbornness clenched the deal and off I left.

Logically, my destination should have been France for graduate studies, but I was tired of theoretical education.

I figured that the US educational system was more hands on, practical… with upgraded labs and “stage” at factories…

I was wrong. It was mostly of the theoretical stuff.

It was my first trip away from family and home. I learned later that my mother played the fundamental role of convincing my father that it is time that I learn to be on my own and fly with my own wings.

My mother told me that the night I flew away my father cried his eyes out in his bed.

My father offered me $5,000. Two Lebanese pounds at the time was worth one dollar (Now, a single dollar is worth 1,500 LP)

I stayed in Paris for a couple of weeks, supposedly to visiting a student cousin of mine. My cousin Nassif happened to be vacationing in England with a girlfriend.

At the airport, no one searched me or welcomed me.

Before I exited the airport, an agent asked to search my luggage. Why me? No, it was Not a random search. I had to rearrange everything in my beaten suitcase.

Even then, France pinpointed specific passengers to be searched.

I met my friends Ghassan and Moussa who helped me rent a room where they stayed at a university complex for foreign students.

I toured Paris alone in metro and mostly on foot. Paris was gorgeous.

Strong with maps of trains and buses routes, I crisscrossed Paris from Mont St. Michel to the Louvre, and almost everything in between. Alone, all alone.

I walked Champ Elysee, Quartier Latin, Pigale…When I get tired walking I would join the closest train station and hop to another destination.

Breakfasts were delicious at the university low-ceiling breakfast restaurant .

Breakfast was the time to see all the various international students. The smell of fresh coffee, milk, bacon, eggs and fresh bread was appetizing.

The buffet was scattered with many varieties of fruits and drinks.

( I still dream of waking up to such a breakfast environment)

There was another restaurant for lunch and dinner, but the menu was dismal and Not tasty.

I landed first at New York at Laguardia airport. We were flying over the Oklahoma Territory, 22 hours after leaving Paris. We still had one hour to land.

It was pitched dark outside and I might have been feeling cold in the plane. One stewardess might have realized my haggard quietness.

An angel, no more than twenty years old, blonde, blue eyed, beautiful with a refreshing smile, and compassion transparent in her welcoming face.

She brought me a blanket without any request on my part and suggested to bring me some orange juice.

I felt then that it is okay to live in America and to know Americans. I wished I told her that I was scared, terrified, and numb at the magnitude of the unknown waiting for me.

I wished I told her that I needed to throw myself at her mercy and be helped.

I was lacking conversational skills and lacking practice in English.

I was not basically a social guy, though I enjoyed being among crowds.

Friends suffered me on account of my quietness: I painfully resigned myself for their impression of my “aura of bookish knowledge“.

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Paris: The geometry recounts the principal episodes of its development

Posted by: on: April 5, 2017

What the orientation of the streets in Paris do tell us of its history?

La géométrie de la capitale nous raconte les principaux épisodes de son développement

Ceci est une carte visant à révéler l’orientation des rues de Paris. Si elle paraît sophistiquée, sa matière première n’en est pas moins sommaire: les tracés de voies du projet OpenStreetMap.

La couleur d’une rue dépend de son angle sur une échelle de 0 à 90°: deux teintes ont été utilisées, jaune-orangé et magenta, et elles sont d’autant plus claires que l’on se rapproche de l’axe méridien (Nord-Sud) ou parallèle (Est-Ouest).

Cet éventail de couleur est organisé de façon à ce que deux rues perpendiculaires aient la même couleur et à ce qu’une rue qui «perturbe» un quartier bien ordonné ait une couleur différente.

Mathieu Rajerison, Smart Cités posted this Jan. 19, 2015

Certaines formes sur la carte, par le jeu des couleurs et des juxtapositions, ont éveillé ma curiosité. Simple géomaticien, peu rompu à l’histoire et à l’urbanisme, je me suis réduit à détailler le procédé de fabrication de la carte sur mon blog.

Plus tard, je me suis lancé dans un travail d’investigation afin de tenter de la comprendre.

De manière générale, Paris s’est développée par à-coups.

Ses différentes enceintes en sont la trace. Un réseau de rues peut se développer progressivement à partir d’un axe de circulation en de multiples ramifications, tel les nervures d’une feuille. Il peut aussi être bousculé par des évènements politiques, historiques.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10519370@N04/15654896891/">Voir la carte en grand.</a>

1.La carte, regardée de loin

Convergence

À l’instar d’un tableau, une carte dévoile des choses différentes selon la distance à laquelle on la regarde. Voyons ce que nous réserve une vision globale de la carte.

Cliquez pour agrandir la carte. Source: Bibliothèque en ligne Gallica

Par son jeu de lignes, l’ossature de Paris nous rappelle constamment à son berceau, l’île de la Cité.

Cette île vit la naissance de Lutèce, en 52 av. J.C., après la victoire de Jules César sur Vercingétorix. À mesure que l’on s’en éloigne, les voies semblent régies par d’autres polarités. Le déplacement dans l’espace suit celui du temps.

Parallèles

Les rues épousent souvent des parallèles aux voies navigables: la Seine et ses canaux. Ces derniers ont constitué une épine dorsale à partir de laquelle s’est développée la ville.

L’historien du XVIIIe siècle Jules Michelet qualifiait d’ailleurs la Seine de «grande rue»: ses rives accueillaient, jusqu’au XIXe siècle, moulins, abattoirs, tanneries, établissements de bains, blanchisseries, pompes à eau, activités de pêche.

Jusqu’à l’arrivée du chemin de fer, les deux tiers environ de l’approvisionnement de Paris arrivaient par la Seine.

Cardo Maximus

A l’intérieur de l’enceinte Charles V (XIVe siècle) et de l’enceinte de Philippe-Auguste (XIIIe siècle), dont les périmètres figurent sur l’image ci-dessous, le réseau de rues est largement perpendiculaire.

Cliquez pour agrandir.

Lutèce était construite autour du Cardo Maximus, l’actuelle rue Saint-Jacques de l’île de la Cité, selon un plan quadrillé typique des villes neuves coloniales. Paris s’est souvent reconstruite sur elle-même, conservant en son centre ce schéma romain.

2.Quand on parcourt la carte latéralement

Perspective

Nous discernons sur la carte un axe Est-Ouest.

Cliquez pour agrandir

Préfiguré par l’avenue Victoria, cet axe ne cessera de s’étendre à partir du XVIIIe siècle. Il lie aujourd’hui l’avenue des Champs-Élysées, la rue Saint-Honoré, la rue de Rivoli et la rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

Les hauts lieux de pouvoir et de culture, le Louvre, le Palais Royal, sont mis en scène de façon magistrale par cette perspective monumentale.

Dichotomie

Voir sur le GéoPortail (OpenStreetMap + Carte État-Major 1820 + Carte Topo 1906 + Photos Aériennes)

Les voies à l’Ouest forment des figures plus alambiquées qu’à l’Est. À partir de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle, l’Ouest est le lieu d’opérations de prestige, prestige que reflètent des places rayonnantes, telles celle de l’Etoile, où se rejoignent pas moins de douze avenues. L’Est, lui, se spécialise dans les activités industrielles et artisanales.

3.Percées

L’avenue de l’Opéra

Sur la carte, des rues se superposent à un réseau préexistant.

Auparavant, les quartiers se développaient en faubourgs le long d’axes de circulation.

Sous Napoléon III, au XIXe siècle, Georges Eugène Haussmann aura pour mission d’assainir et d’embellir la ville. C’est ainsi qu’il détruira, rebâtira sans compter, afin de tracer des voies larges, salubres et somptueuses. On lui doit en grande partie le visage actuel de la capitale.

Boulevard Magenta

Comparaison carte et OpenStreetMap. Voir sur le GéoPortail

La gare de Lyon date de 1855 et celle de l’Est de 1865. Le boulevard Magenta est une traversée importante qui permettra de les relier, ainsi que la place de la République et les boulevards «extérieurs».

Boulevard Raspail

Voir sur le GéoPortail

Le percement du Boulevard Raspail, décidé en 1866, s’étalera sur plus de 40 ans et se fera par tronçons.

Avenue de l’Opéra

Voir sur le GéoPortail

L’Opéra Garnier a été inauguré en 1875. Le percement de l’avenue de l’Opéra, en plus d’offrir un cadre grandiose à ce dernier, connecte le Louvre à la gare Saint-Lazare. Ce chantier prendra dix ans, de 1864 à son année d’inauguration. Il entraînera la destruction d’un quartier ancien, populaire et dégradé.

4.Singularités

Sur la carte, on peut s’étonner de la présence d’îlots de couleur différentes, indiquant un développement a priori singulier.

Un lotissement: le village Orléans

Dans le XIVe arrondissement, la carte comporte une petite tache.

Cliquer pour voir en grand.

À partir de 1820 commencent des opérations de logement très importantes en périphérie de Paris, en réponse à une pression démographique importante. 1830 verra celle du lotissement du village Orléans, visible ci-dessus.

Comme il est possible de le voir sur la carte d’État-Major (1820-1866), le quartier comportait deux rues, qui ont subsisté ajourd’hui: les rues Hallé et Couedic. Le bâti ne suivait pas leur axe mais celui des deux rues environnantes. Désormais, les immeubles suivent l’orientation des deux rues précitées, comme l’indiquent la carte de 1906 et celle d’OpenStreetMap.

Montmartre

Une «anomalie» apparaît au nord de Paris.

CC BY-SA 2.5 par Sam67fr

Il s’agit de la butte Montmartre. L’orientation Nord-Sud de la montée qui mène à la Basilique du Sacré Coeur, édifiée en 1875, et celle de son réseau d’allées, correspond à celle du monument.

Les édifices religieux suivent généralement une orientation Est-Ouest, mais Pie V dira qu’il importe davantage que la façade de l’église soit bien orientée par rapport à la ville.

La basilique offre un promontoire idéal duquel admirer Paris. Réciproquement, son orientation lui permet d’être admirée de face depuis de nombreux endroits de la capitale.

Square du serment de Koufra

En suivant la ceinture verte, on aboutit, vers la porte d’Orléans, à un square dont les allées tracent des obliques.

Photographie Aérienne Géoportail IGN © sur fonds OpenStreetMap MapQuest. Voir sur le GéoPortail

Il s’agit du square du serment de Koufra, créé en 1930. Le général Leclerc prêta ce serment à l’issue de la bataille de Koufra, en 1941. L’emplacement du square est symbolique car c’est par la Porte d’Orléans que ce même général entra le premier à Paris avec les unités alliées. Le parc, en faisant face à la place d’Orléans, rappelle ce moment historique.

5.Renouveau

Parc de Bercy

Voir sur le GéoPortail

Voies d’OpenStreetMap superimposées à une photographie aérienne de 1929 issue du Géoportail IGN ©

Une forme circulaire est de nature à intriguer quelqu’un d’étranger à Paris. Il s’agit du Parc de Bercy et de son dôme.

Ce parc a été réalisé dans les années 90 et son emprise reprend à peu près celle des jardins des demeures du petit château à la propriété des frères Paris. La carte topo IGN de 1906 indique des magasins généraux à cet endroit. Cette prise de vue aérienne de l’IGN de 1929, à laquelle j’ai superposé les données actuelles OpenStreetMap, atteste également de la présence d’entrepôts.

Bassin de La Villette

Voir sur le GéoPortail

Une forme blanche, évoquant un bateau, apparaît dans le quartier de la Villette.

La treemap du MOS indique là une zone d’équipements en 1980 et une zone d’activités en 2000. En allant sur Google Street View, on peut deviner qu’il s’agit là d’entrepôts reconvertis en bureaux.

Le canal Saint-Denis accueillait jadis des activités de fret. Ce secteur est emblématique de la transformation qui a vu, le long des canaux, la disparition progressive des ateliers, usines et entrepôts au profit d’activités de services.

Une fresque trouvée au hasard d’une promenade dans le quartier témoigne effectivement du passé industrieux des bâtiments considérés.

Levallois-Perret

Voir sur le GéoPortail

Dans le sillage de Paris, à Levallois-Perret, on repère des rues bien ordonnées. La commune, classée dixième au niveau de la densité de population, augure d’une nouvelle vision de l’urbanisme. Elle absorbe ses habitants au sein d’un tamis régulier. La fiche communale du MOS nous informe qu’un peu plus de 80% de la surface de la commune est occupée par des espaces construits artificialisés.

Dans la recherche, un bagage scientifique mène à toutes sortes d’expériences. Dans mon cas, l’expérience scientifique, à savoir la conception de cette carte, a amené un travail d’investigation au cours duquel je parcourais l’espace cartographique en même temps que la Toile.

Cet article, bien plus que de vouloir affirmer quelque chose, a pour but d’illustrer que chacun peut mener son enquête à son niveau, grâce aux logiciels et données libres disponibles sur le web.

Ainsi, vous aurez peut-être pu prendre connaissance grâce à lui d’outils géographiques très utiles tels que le GéoPortail, OpenStreetMap ou le MOS île-de-France.

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Why Paris shows that ISIS is losing and we who maintain the Grey-zone (welcoming Moslem refugees) are winning

Posted by: on: November 20, 2015

Why Paris shows that ISIS is losing and we who maintain the Greystone are winning

At first I had nothing. Nothing at all. The second mass murder of civilians in a year in the same city by homicidal maniacs inspired by the same ideology.

A strategy of multiple, coordinated killings by people hell-bent on their death in addition to that of others, which by its nature is near impossible to stop.

The usual catch-all claim/excuse from those claiming to be the perpetrators that it was “because” of a foreign policy (this time Syria, but it might as well be the rebel attack on the Death Star in the original Star Wars so desperate is the search for justification), AND that it was immoral Western values they were attacking.

November 14, 2015 by Paul Goldsmith

Then the polarized reaction, particularly on social media, of those hell-bent on using this to attack Islam, and those hell-bent on insisting that ‘Western Foreign Policy’ causes these things. Nothing new then. So I had nothing new.

Eventually, stumbling around intellectually as if I were drunk, I tripped over Iyad El Baghdadi (here), an Arab Spring Activist who was expelled by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in response to his activities. He had something. It certainly gave me a lot more clarity.

El-Baghdadi tends to use a series of tweets to make his point, and then engage in reasoned debate with anyone willing to engage with him in a sensible way.

Two of the threads that have resulted can be found here and here.

The first of these is really important. In it, El-Baghdadi argues that ISIS want to eliminate any sense that it is possible for Muslims and non-Muslims to co-exist, because if that is possible, then the binary world of “believers” and “non-believers” can’t exist.

Any sense of a “Greyzone” in between, where, in the words of ISIS, the Muslim and the Kufar co-exist must therefore be destroyed, so that, in El-Baghdadi’s words, the world becomes as black and white as ISIS’s flag.

ISIS have quoted Osama Bin Laden’s view that “The world today can be divided into two camps. Bush spoke the truth when he said ‘Either you are with us, or with the Terrorists’. Meaning, either you are with the crusade, or you are with Islam.”

So, El-Baghdadi argued, the worst thing that we in the Western World can do is give ISIS what they want.

Which would be to turn on the Muslim world, giving them no choice but to align themselves with ISIS.

Given the ability of ISIS, who represent a tiny percentage of the Muslim World to terrorise us, imagine, asks El-Baghdadi, a situation where they get a lot more support.

The answer therefore is to find authentic Muslim ideological allies against ISIS, as only Muslims can eliminate ISIS.

We should remember that the vast majority of Muslims already regard ISIS as their enemy (but the silence ones? Anyone performed a study on them?).

After all, ISIS kill more Muslims than any other group. So, we in the Western World MUST ensure that the greyzone is maintained.

Which is why, according to El-Baghdadi, the attacks took place yesterday. They were an act of desperation in response to the West’s help for refugees fleeing from Syria and Libya. All those Western democracies lining up to say that they welcome refugees? That didn’t fit the narrative.

“You know what pissed off Islamist extremists the most about Europe?

It was watching their very humane, moral response to the refugee crisis.

Seeing Europeans line up to help and embrace Muslim refugees infuriated and shattered the worldview of so many Islamist extremists. 

The Islamist extremist worldview says that we’re separate, different, hate each other and are eternal enemies. 

Wanna shatter the Islamist extremist worldview? Show them we aren’t separate or different and don’t hate each and can be eternal friends.” 

(But France was lukewarm on accepting refugees. Germany should have been the prime target. But again, Germany is more prepared security wise and the Moslem there, mostly Kurds are Not going to make incursion of terrors in Germany.)

So, ISIS realised they had to do something to stop us taking in refugees. They had to do something to remind us that Muslims are supposed to be our enemies.

They had to do something to make us fear these ‘strangers’ in our midst.

That they had to resort to what they did on Friday night, and according to the latest reports, they trained and sent 15 to 18 year old boys to carry out these murders, shows that the West is winning, not losing.

Whatever we do now, we must not stop winning. We must be brave and maintain the greyzone.

Yes, people died last night. But the alternative is going to be a war in which millions more could die. So we must show the same courage as the French people are showing today.

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In which Stronghold the attacks took place in Paris? Cut out the craps belittling terror victims in Middle-East

Posted by: on: November 15, 2015

In which Stronghold the attacks took place in Paris?

Cut out the craps belittling terror victims in Middle-East, North Africa, Afghanistan, Iran, any non-western countries

Many smart-ass media wanted to show-off their rudiment knowledge of Lebanon and labelled the terror attacks on Burj Barajneh as occurring in a Hezbollah Stronghold.

Is that a way of sending the message that these attacks were legitimate and acceptable? Because the USA Black-listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization?

Are the point blank killing of Palestinian stone throwers a civilized order in an Israeli State that proclaim to be a democratic system?

Are the civilians bombed every day by terror attacks in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Egypt… less of valuable victims who need protection and security and safety?

Habib Battah shared this post of
 Annia Ciezadlo posted on FB

Yesterday my feed was full of articles describing the 45 civilian people killed as taking place in a  a “Hezbollah stronghold.”

Today everyone is posting an article describing the civilian Paris neighborhoods where ISIS killed 128 people as the city’s “young, progressive core.”

And another one talking about how this was an attack on “liberal, multicultural Europe.”

And everyone is exhorting everyone else to recognize our common humanity, to answer the attacks with compassion rather than hate, and sharing inspiring memes and tweets.

Lina Mounzer makes an important point:

When Paris or New York or Madrid are attacked, we don’t refer to them as “strongholds” of American militarism, or Western imperialism, or neo-colonialism.

We talk about how diverse and tolerant they are.

Nobody is talking, today, about how Paris police ban pro-Palestinian demonstrations on principle, or how liberal and multicultural that is.

We don’t talk about the cops and security cameras everywhere, or how certain kinds of people get harassed or killed in the streets.

We don’t discuss the experience of moving around a Western city without the protections of whiteness, or maleness, or money.

We don’t talk about Muslim women being stabbed, beaten, or arrested in Paris and the UK, bastions of “multicultural Europe,” or in the United States. (Google it.)

We bring a different standard to the discussion.

When the city attacked is a Western one, we don’t criticize the cultural values or the security measures of the place that has just been targeted.

We see the city’s security measures as vindicated by the killings—not as subtle justifications for them.

We do not cite them as evidence that the victims were living in a “stronghold” of militarism.

We focus on the victims, not on the security regimes of their rulers.

We don’t assume that if they live there, that means they have chosen to support and be complicit in those security regimes.

And if you think that by “we,” I mean white people, or Westerners, or that meaningless abstraction “the media,” think again. I mean us. All of us.

Think carefully about language, and abstractions.

Don’t participate in dehumanizing people who have just been bombed.

Think about why we discuss some people and places in terms of security and checkpoints, and others in terms of human lives.

Look up definitions in the dictionary. Don’t think you won’t make these mistakes yourself, just because you’re the right kind of person with the right kind of politics. You will. I will. We all will.

 Note: The terror attacks in Beirut was planned on a larger scale: 8 suicide bombers were to blow a large hospital and a Mosque. The security dissuaded the attackers and two of them waited for the adjoining street to get crowded and blew themselves.

Apparently, Lebanon with its modicum of budget for its security services is highly more professional in taking seriously the frequent planning and execution of terror attacks. (Funded and planned by the USA and Israel, as everyone in Lebanon know)

In Lebanon, 41 foreign States have their own intelligence gathering agencies. Most probably, they gather their pieces of intelligence from Lebanon’s security services  and lax communication control.

Annia Ciezadlo's photo.
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BuzzFeed journalist David Perrotin attacked by far-right Jewish extremists in Paris

Posted by: on: October 27, 2015

 

BuzzFeed journalist attacked by far-right Jewish extremists in Paris

Police protect David Perrotin after incident that took place as LDJ activists protested against news agency AFP’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict

The protest outside AFP's offices in Paris
The protest outside AFP’s offices in Paris, with the LDJ flag visible. Photograph: Peter Allen/Twitter

Friday 23 October 2015

A leading French journalist working for BuzzFeed was attacked by far-right Jewish extremists as a mob tried to storm the offices of the country’s national news agency in Paris on Thursday.

David Perrotin was protected by police after being surrounded by a dozen masked men brandishing batons.

The Ligue de Défense Juive was protesting against Agence France Presse’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Trouble broke out soon after 8pm when about 100 people brandishing flags and letting off flares tried to storm AFP’s offices.

As the crowd approached the entrance to the building, opposite the Paris stock exchange, tear gas was sprayed in their faces, and skirmishes with CRS riot police broke out.

Some of the demonstrators were shouting “We’re coming to get you!” at journalists, while others screamed: “Islamic terrorists!”

The words “AFP collabo” were also shouted in reference to the French collaborating with the Nazis during world war two.

Perrotin was covering the violence using Twitter, and at about 8pm tweeted: “A demonstrator told me ‘I warned the LDJ that you’re here Mr Perrotin.’”

The journalist has frequently exposed the work of the French branch of the Jewish Defence League, which is banned in both Israel and the US.

Perrotin was set upon by the gang, some of whom were masked. After being attacked, he managed to shelter behind police lines.

In June last year two LDJ members in Paris were found guilty of placing a bomb under the car of an anti-Zionist journalist. They were given prison sentences, but one absconded to Israel.

Despite the group’s reputation for violence, police on Thursday allowed LDJ flags – a black clenched fist against a yellow background – to be brandished openly.

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“Breakdown of the senses” by Mouss Benia

Posted by: on: November 29, 2009

Breakdown of the senses (Panne de sens) by Mouss Benia; (Nov. 27, 2009)

Note:  I will insert in parenthesis the French/Algerian slang for the corresponding word.

Jilali Benhadji was born and raised in France and going to public school in Paris; his Algerian father (daron) immigrated to France at the age of 17 and has been working in construction as crane operator.   The daron has been sending money for 30 years to his brother in Algeria in order to finish building his house in the city of Oran but everything takes time to finish there. Four years in France, the father tore up his ID and military card because they mentioned his religion. The mother (daronne or yema) barely can speak French and misses her relatives in Algeria.

Jilali is 15 years old and has silky blond (18 carat) hair, milky skin, and blue eyes like the pictures of Jesus in Europe. At the start of each school year teachers would get upset thinking that Jilali is answering “present!” for another student. Jilali is Jilou for his intimate friends and Jil short for students. Girls (meuf or gadji) never suspect his origin until he mentions his name; then the castle of cards collapses as if mistaken by the merchandise.

Jilou can enter supermarket without attracting the attention of the private guard: he could rob the shop dry without being suspected. Thus, when he enters a place then Jilou splits with his darker complexion friends. Jilou is a Troy Horse who can penetrate the hearts and minds if he would change just his name.  Jilou has the pale face with the heart of an Algerian native. Jilou two elder brothers are not the pride of his father: Nourdine prefers to celebrate Christmas with his parents-in-laws and never shows up for the Moslem’ Eids such as Ramadan or al Adha.  Youcef teaches France history, a job that his father commented on “It is not an Arab (rebeu or bicot) who will teach France history to the francaoui”

Immigrants are relegated to quarters in the suburbs with names taking to birds, animals, fruits, or vegetables.  “I am a man not ashamed of looking ridiculous” expressed  for the occasion of accompanying his father to purchasing a live sheep for the Adha Eid to be slaughtered in the afternoon.  It happened that, on the way back, the sheep was licking the rear window and his French girl friend was mimicking the sheep as she was driving with her father. Jilou had to avoid the girl for three days.

Life is boring in these prison-like quarters and Jilou goes on a three-week vacation to the Ocean shores with his friend Stephan. Obviously, he has to lie and says that he is staying at Stephan’s folks. The second week both friends are penniless; Jilou for the first time decides to attempt stealing hard liquor to sell at half price; he is caught and put in jail. The police (keuf or kepi) would not let Jilou out until a close relative personally takes responsibility of his discharge. Nourdine has to drive from Paris to the Vandee to let him out but refuses to intercede with his father on Jilou’s behalf.

When Jilou finally arrives home the family members are ordered to ignore him as an invisible ghost (djinn): he was the shame of the family (hrchouma).  For punishment the father banished Jilou to Algeria to continue his education there; Jilou is to live with his uncle’s family in the city of Oran by the sea-shore. Jilou has seen Algeria at the age of 7; he had to be circumcised and the ceremony celebrated among relatives; at the Paris airport, Jilou took out his sore penis (quequette) and said to his uncle “See what they have done to it?”

In Algeria of the 90’s water is rationed and tap water is received once every three days; families have to go to main water sources and fill Jeri cans. Jilou had to learn to clean his ass with water instead of toilet paper; he had never to forget to bring an empty bottle for that purpose when he goes to a private school that teaches in French and reserved just for “Algerian immigrants” coming from France, the mixed bread or the “noss noss”. The Algerian “nationaux” want to acquire the “flow” of the immigrants: their accents, their slangs, their expressions, their style in dressing and music.  In France, the location of these same immigrants, whether in the Old Port of Marseille or in Paris, is irrelevant: they are all considered living in the “suburbs” and potential trouble makers or “racailles”.

Jilou learned that terrorist acts are mostly perpetrated by the military in order to maintain the public illusion that the Moslem fundamentalists are the culprit.  Private entrepreneurs instituted collective taxis because public buses are rare and not schedule reliable.  He experienced the “hammam”, sort of sauna and public bath, and all his “fancied French” cloths and sneaker (basket or Adidas) were stolen; “you don’t wear fancy attires if you have to remove them in public places”.

The sons of the bourgeois (tchitchi) and high-ranking military officers throw luxury private parties in their homes.  From the outside, things are normal and blend with the environment; all windows are closed.  Inside, it is a different world and all is permitted; booze of all kinds “a volonte” and lovers find private rooms to do mostly the “brushing” of mutual sex parts; Jilou was lucky in one of these parties and discovered that he is a master painters. Jilou cannot get into dancing unless “sex machine” of James Brown is on.

Jilou came to realize that the Algerian/French immigrants are creating their own problems in France as seen by foreign media.  As long as we, the kids, witness our parents feeling as if in inferior status, then the kids will develop a displaced sense of pride that keep us prisoners in the wider society. Our cultural resistance model is lacking foundations: we all dream of financial success but shun away serious education and the hard work to exist as serious consumers.  Finding decent jobs (taf) to secure financial independence is the way out to integration and not State social aids.

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“The abbot will be very pleased with his new environment…”

Posted by: on: September 10, 2009

“… Today he will dine with Mr. The Viscoun”; (August 21, 2009)

 

            Abbot Mugnier lived very well; he was dined by noble families and the illustrious writers and personalities of Paris; and his diary (Journal) was very funny. Abbot Mugnier’s maid servant was even funnier; when he died at the age of 91 the servant said: “The abbot will be very pleased with his new environment.  Today he will dine with the Viscount (meaning God)”

            Abbot or priest Mugnier was famous before WWII for his words and sentences on society, art, literature, love, rapport among people were recounted in conversations among the families in Paris and France.  He was not elegant; his shoes were square and his black frock was threadbare; he wore a tricorn hat but his behavior was ultra-mundane.  Abbot Mugnier was a snob; when his mother died he said “the aristocracy in my hometown behaved very nobly. Dukes and princes came to her funeral”.  He was aware of being a snob “Nobody ate outdoors in Paris as much as I did. I dissipated my soul in full dishes.  What a life that I am carrying on; cars, lunches, and dinners.”

            Abbot Mugnier said “I am the priest of the wedding of Cana (where Marie invited Jesus to attend); I am not the one who fast in desert.  I live among people of contradictory opinions. I have to keep a supple role but how can I preserve unity? Thus, I am Abbot Plural.  What I love in this world is the frame, the names, the beautiful residences, the reunion of fine spirits, the contact with celebrities.”  At the end of his life he wrote: “I lived at the expense of others. I am a born parasite but I managed to develop my little personality”

            Abbot Mugnier has no illusion about the prestigious personality who invites him. He says “An aristocrat can never have original talents to be a writer.  He is too satisfied. He has many servants between him and reality. He never fraternizes with things. There are no communions.”  To a certain writer he notes down: “Bloy shouted to me his misery, too much maybe.  He is conscious of his talents, too much maybe”.  With respect to Mauriac he wrote “He has not healthy enough to be a pagan”.  He confessed the countess of Noailles at her deathbed and he confessed “She told me beautiful things…What do you want, I risked giving her absolution”.  Cocteau told him “the future of literature is limpidity enriched of all the anterior complications”

            Abbot Mugnier dreaded most losing his sight “My life was reading. I am dead” (that would be my case too if I get blind).  “My job is to offering communion, reciting the rosary, and giving my blessings. Any priest can do it. The minor corner in nature seems to me closer to God.  How tiring and trying is my task.  I tell all these young women coming to confess their sins: go, go. Enough sermons and guidance, what do I know!” Abbot Mugnier married many couples and wrote: “Most of these couples do not realize that when they approach the sacred they lose their liberty”

            Malraux said “Excepting Memoirs, Journals, and diaries, what book is worth the pain of writing?”  I have published a draft of my autobiography; it should be titled “Biography of an unknown confused man”.  You may stick reading biographies of celebrities; that would please me hugely: my revenge would be that you exacerbated your regrets with packs of lies.

 

Note: The topic is from “Smell of time” (Odeur du temps) by Jean d’Ormesson.

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“Be Free is all that I am”

Posted by: on: April 17, 2009

“Be Free is all that I am” (April 18, 2009)

 

Marguerite Porete was burned live in 1310 in Paris at the “Place de Greve”.  She wrote a mystic book “The Mirror of the simple souls”; the manuscript was in the vernacular French language, not Latin mind you, in a narrative and poetic mode, and worst, did not follow the prescribed Aristotelian logic of the theological canons. The Church did not like what it read and censured the manuscript and burned it in 1306.

Published about 1296-1305, the book describes the conquest of soul via divine love and the yielding of the soul to the total love of God. The technique is a dialogue between Love and Reason; Reason is overwhelmed and fails to comprehend truths. Marguerite claimed that when we conquer our wants and desires then the soul would be freed and would not need any kind of faith to be saved.

The freed souls cannot but express in paradoxes and scandalous propositions. The freed soul know the depth of its nullity and let humility reign and guide it to the highest sphere of kindness because the freed soul needs no intermediary. The freed soul reaches a state of innocence and indifference and allows God to act on it as He pleases. The freed soul is liberated of sins and thus, has no need to be dominated by virtue. The freed soul does no longer worry to accomplishing works of charity with purpose to be saved and has no inclink for sacraments.  As the freed soul let God will for it then nature will cater to its bodily wants.

The “Mirror” pointed the way to liberating morality and thus, a rejection to sacerdotal mediation.   Marguerite beseeched the scholars to “humiliate their knowledge” before attempting to read her manuscript.  Marguerite was accused of persevering in disseminating her message and was incarcerated by the inquisition.  She refused to talk in her defense.  The Church didn’t like Marguerite anyway.  The message of Marguerite Porete was a source for medieval mysticism. The manuscript survived because it was not written in Latin, the sole monopole language of the sacerdotal caste and scholars.

 

In a previous post “The Meaning of Life” I stated: “Most religions have to erect an ideology and sometimes slightly update it to face changes; the sacerdotal castes main job is to pressure you to accept their set values and morals as the best that characterize you.  In fact, religions do not want you to exercise introspection and learn your own characteristics; they want to “save you that hassle” and show you the proper way; they want you to be the man among all same men with preferred set of passions instead of realizing your individuality.  Only those following the preferred “type” are selected in heaven as on earth; the black sheep of strong individuality are not recognized in heaven because only the mediocre, the humbled, the naïve, the simple minded can be saved.  The sacerdotal caste doesn’t care if you have faith or if you believe in One God; the caste wants you to obey its guidance and follow blindly its daily guidelines”.

 

I tend not to exaggerate; when I do then you quickly realize that I am in a humoring mood.  Look in the sky, the vast oceans; look around you the insects, plants, and pets.  I have a question: do you think that what you have seen is man-made and created by man?  If you are an optimist then who created all that wonder?  Do you need a sacerdotal caste to tell you the obvious?  Do you need a special caste to making a career reading in the same Book or what amount to the same Book and think that they are in a position to guide your steps and meddle in your daily life?  If you are a pessimist then whatever you will hear or see is naught anyway.

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Introspection: Paris

Posted by: on: January 9, 2009

Introspection (continue 20)

Something about my university years in the USA from 1975 to l979

I had written in details about many events on my stay in the USA and in many files; this section is basically a compendium and a coherent time line account. I lived in the USA for about 20 years; the first trip extended from 1975 to 1979 and I received a MS in Industrial Engineering with emphasis on production; the second stay stretched uninterrupted for 15 years from 1985 to 2000 and I returned to Lebanon without even applying for a residency status and didn’t save anything worth financially.

I graduated in Physics from the Lebanese University in May 1975 and decided to continue my graduate studies in the USA, just to get out of my stagnation and the closing of any horizon in Lebanon with the beginning of the civil war.  This decision was taken before the civil war started in the same year but it gelled when the situation aggravated.  I had no idea what to specialize in but the label of “Industrial engineering” as one of the fields offered in a few US universities struck me as a viable alternative, especially that I had no practice whatsoever that related to manual or mechanical work, and I was under the impression that the US universities would provide valuable hands on experiences.

Thus, I had no idea about the curriculum in industrial engineering and I would not be the wiser if I read it.  There were no facilities at the time for orientation meetings or internet or group help.  Actually, I was not even accepted by any university for graduate studies by the time I left Lebanon but I was admitted for an advanced English language program for foreigners for a summer session which permitted me to obtaining a visa.

Paris

My first leg was a two-week visit of Paris where I intended to having a few good days with cousin Nassif. Unfortunately, Nassif was in London spending a vacation with a girlfriend and I used his room at the International dormitory in the university.  I mostly spent my time all alone roaming Paris and using the metros to visiting the historical sites, the Latin Square, Notre Dame, the Louvre, and on and on. Although I knew a few Lebanese students in Paris and who lived at the Lebanese International House, nobody felt like wasting time on touring with me or showing me around or even inviting me to any place or to introducing me to anyone.

I loved best the breakfast ceremony in the International House; it smelt of fresh breads, fresh coffee, fresh fried eggs, fresh milk, and a vast variety of fruits, cheese, and jelly.  I think that an ideal life is to be lucky having a cozy bakery at walking distance; a bakery that actually bakes bread and croissant and serves fresh coffee, fresh milk, and fresh eggs. Starting a day with the aroma of primeval time is worth a whole day of whatever is “produced”.

I left Paris before Nassif returned but it was my first adventure overseas and I got proficient with the metros of Paris.  After the delicious breakfast I went out to get lost in Paris and walking, walking all alone and discovering Paris.  It was a good month to see Paris and the weather was mostly fine.  I had never had another opportunity to see Paris again.

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adonis49

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