Obama Mania

Made in back to Egypt just in time to catch Obama’s ‘historic’ speech. Must let my children know that I saw the great man in person, y’know?

Unfortunately, my brother’s graduation from CAC (can you believe they graduate the senior class at the pyramids?! RIGHT at the pyramids) was infinitely more fun to attend.

I am not an idealistic optimist, but more of a cynical pessimist, so forgive me in advance for not gushing over the beauty of the speech. It’s a speech, people! It was written—probably by many, many smart people—to target ‘Muslim’ hearts and minds.

Like many people, I wasn’t exactly on top of the world when Obama chose Egypt to speak from. Oh, of course, prestige, we’re the best country in the world, blah blah, but what about all the abuses and less-than-democratic procedures we have here? Coming here = send a message that the US supports the regime whatever it does. But I accept that America’s number one will always be America, and that’s how it should be. Egypt is a strong US ally and we have huge sway in the “Arab/ Muslim world”—if we’re happy, there’s a strong possibility others will follow. But it’ll be interesting to see how Obama—who’s always prided himself on speaking to the normal citizen—can appease both the Egyptian government and the people, who are not exactly in harmony.

After Obama’s Visit (Upper left hand corner and clockwise):

1) Return [the palm] tree to the storage area.

2) Of course the exams get postponed for the guests, do you think we’re at Harvard?

3) The governor left?

4) I saw someone practicing politics in the university sir, his name is Obama!

5) We must return everything to it’s place.

Before he even came, I had reservations about the title of the speech: Muslim World? If he’s talking about number of Muslims, wouldn’t Indonesia have been a better place? Arabs are only about 300 million. And um, where exactly is this Muslim world located? It’s back to the same ol’ point we have to constantly reiterate: Muslims are not a monolithic entity and by saying “America is not—and never will be—at war with Islam (which is most definitely not a geographic location)” you inadvertently paint the two sides in binary opposition.

I was also very wary of all the excitement: Hello? T-shirts saying “Obama: New Tutankhamun of the World?” Turns out they were ordered by NBC and CNN. This kind of excitement means hearts, and not minds, would be judging the speech.

I knew that expectations of the speech were so high and Egyptians so wary (A Brookings institute study says that 41% of Egyptians—the highest statistic in all the Arab countries surveyed—are neutral about Obama) that there was no possible way Obama would be able to live up to those expectations.

And I was kind of right.

Oh, he said all the right things. He quoted verses from the Qur’an. He said al-salamu Alaykum. He said Islam contributed a lot to western civilization. He proudly said he had Muslim roots. He appeased wounded pride and bolstered egos. His words were sincere, said in the right tone, masterfully written to evoke all the right emotions, respectful, and phrased to appeal to the normal man on the street—but they rung empty.

The rhetoric was beautiful. So beautiful that many people missed—or chose to ignore—the fact that nothing much has changed. It’s like instead of a dad telling his kid “no, you can’t go out,” he’d say “It’s pretty late and the driver’s gone home, and I promise to make it up to you. How about I take you out tomorrow?” It’s the same ‘no’ but the latter way appeases the kids. US policy has remained the same. America’s interests are still number one, and that is to be expected.

Obama’s discussion about Israel-Palestine is a perfect example. Israel’s bond with America is “unbreakable.” We get a lecture on the suffering the Jews have been through. Everyone cheered when he said Palestinians have also suffered. But hello? They haven’t suffered in “pursuit” of a homeland, they already had one. And if he’s going to quote numbers about the Jews and Americans that died why not about the Palestinians who died? (Likewise that 3,000 died in 9/11 but nothing about those who died in Iraq)

He said America is against new Israeli settlements. But when he told the Israeli prime minister not to build any more, Netanyahu went ahead and announced—on the same day Abbas was visiting the White House—that they were still going to build. And what about existing settlements? The way he addressed the Israeli-Palestinian saga is perhaps best summarized when you consider that (according to Gallup studies) 73% of Palestinians didn’t care who was elected president—they said it didn’t make a difference.

Sigh.

So that’s my two cents. The question remains, is Obama really and truly sincere in his words? Or is he, as this editorial puts it, simply another Napoleon, a man who “appropriated Islam in order to advance [his] own material interests at the expense of local populations?”

But even though I’m a cynical person, that doesn’t mean I’m still not hopeful. We’ll have to wait and see, as everyone is saying, if Obama can walk the talk. Intentions matter, but without actions, they don’t mean squat.

I miss Lebanese labneh already.

PS: Interesting editorials on the visit from Egyptian Chronicles, Sandmonkey and Islam Online.

The Myth of Arab Unity

It’s a beautiful thing.

Prophet Mohammad, Peace be upon him, said:

“Believers are like a structure, parts of which support one another. The believers, in regard to mutual love, affection, fellow-feeling is that of one body; when any limb of it aches, the whole body aches, because of sleeplessness and fever.” [Sahih al-Bukhari & Muslim].

So basically, all Muslims should act as one–a united ummah–and when one group of us are in trouble we should feel it and help them out.

Dreams are sweet.

On the dreaded treadmill today, right after Haifa’s mini-porno video clip Ibn Al Halal (English subtitles available btw) and before one of Nancy Ajram’s many ads for Damas jewelry’s Farfasha line that masqurade as video clips, I watched Tamer Hosni’s supposedly heartbreaking new song, Kolena wahed [We are all one]:

The lyrics go something like “Please Arabs, we only have each other..wake up. Your dust Palestine, is a crown on my head. I see my brother being tortured and all I do is watch. We need an Arab stance to fix this. We can’t shut up when our siblings are being killed” etc etc. Lot of truly heartbreaking images and footage, and Hosni tearing up. Sniff.

Perfect timing really. Just like he manges to pop out a song right after we win the African Cup of Nations, he managed to write, sing and produce a song (along with its video clip) in a couple of days. Now, I’m not cynical enough to say he’s capitalizing on the situation to earn some money, but I still find it loathsome.

What does it say about us when all we can do is sing? I can’t remember what’s it’s called, but a year or so ago this one hugely famous song with about half a dozen famous singers was all anyone could talk about. And what was it about? How our brothers and sisters were being killed in Palestine, Iraq etc, and we were all silent. Its aim: to make you feel all depressed and patriotic and mixed up and goose-bumpy. Then 10 minutes later, you’re back on facebook.

But wait, no. We weren’t silent. We sang!

And we complain. And we shout. And we try and make our voices heard. My entire facebook mini feed is dedicated to people posting links, notes, and pictures all about Gaza. I’ve received at least a dozen messages today asking for prayers, money, aid etc. But we don’t really change anything.

But what should we do? Should we really go to war? Or cover our own asses? (ehem second biggest recipient of US Aid in 2008, ehem, lapdogs, ehem). As bad as this sounds, is it really our responsibility? Our country is screwed up as it is. We’ve already fought so many times for Palestine. We’ve lost thousands of Egyptian men.

And yet, I was disgusted when Mubarak announced that the Rafah crossing would remain closed until the Palestinian authority regained control of the Gaza strip (Any time now). Robert Fisk’s widely-circulated scathing editorial, The rotten state of Egypt is too powerless and corrupt to act, was spot on and hit home.

And yet I can’t help but feel that if Mubarak got up tomorrow and said “Let’s go to war,” all of Egypt will rally behind him. There’s a reason a prophet got sent to every tribe, but only Moses got sent to pharaoh: for if the pharaoh was convinced, Egypt would follow. Sheep, basically.

Then again, Arabs could all ‘unite.’

I hate the term ‘Arab Unity.’ It’s so wishy-washy. What does that really mean, anyway? We hear it all the time. We’re told stories of the wonderful days when Arabs were united, and of the wonderful days we’ll have when we’re reunited. Just unite, and all our problems will be solved. Like magic.

No, they won’t. Arab states are all so fragmented. If we ‘unite’ (whatever that means) we’ll just be diluting ourselves even further. We won’t get stronger. We can’t get stronger when we’re still fighting amongst ourselves. When our only aim for uniting is to fight Israel.

Then again, we can always sing.

Gaza Woes

So I had decided not to write about what was going on, but I can’t not anymore.

What the fuck is happening?

Quite simply, the situation is heartbreaking, intolerable, and gut wrenching.

It’s the worst carnage we’ve seen since the 1973 war, and that’s not the worst part: the worst part is that we’ve become so used to the fighting, it doesn’t really mean anything to us anymore. Oh, hundreds of Palestinians have died? How sad. Let’s switch the channel to Mazzika.

I can’t watch TV anymore. I can’t watch the almost gleeful anchors showing footage of dying Palestinians as if to say: “You see! It’s those bloodthirsty Israelis who are doing this!”

I’m not going to say that Hamas is faultless, of course it isn’t. But neither can I say that the Israeli reaction is, in any way shape or form, justifiable. The longer this attack goes on, the more disproportionate the reaction is. I mean, come on:

Since the massive aerial attack was unleashed on Saturday, at least 373 Palestinians, including 39 children [and 22 women], have been killed and 1,720 wounded.

Palestinian militants have also fired more than 250 rockets and mortar shells, killing four people inside Israel and wounding around two dozen more.

That’s in 72 hours. Over 250 Airstrikes occurred in the first 24 hours, 7 mosques were destroyed, and universities were attacked by Israeli F-16 fighter planes.

225 Palestinians were killed and 600 were injured in the first FIVE MINUTES of Israeli airstrikes. Hamas’s home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in EIGHT YEARS.

But, you know:

According to the Israeli military, some 640,000 people live within range of Hamas’ rockets. The missiles are crude and inaccurate, but they wreak a devastating psychological toll on the civilian population there.

So yeah, even though no one is dying, the poor Israelis are going to need therapy. Self defense, my ass. Does Israel really think it’s going to wipe out Hamas? More like turn them into heroes. Ehem, 2006. Lebanon. Hezbollah. Ringing a bell? As Robert Fisk says:

Is Hamas going to say: “Wow, this blitz is awesome – we’d better recognise the state of Israel, fall in line with the Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner and locked up indefinitely and support a new American ‘peace process’ in the Middle East!” Is that what the Israelis and the Americans and Gordon Brown think Hamas is going to do?

Yes, let’s remember Hamas’s cynicism, the cynicism of all armed Islamist groups. Their need for Muslim martyrs is as crucial to them as Israel’s need to create them. The lesson Israel thinks it is teaching – come to heel or we will crush you – is not the lesson Hamas is learning. Hamas needs violence to emphasise the oppression of the Palestinians – and relies on Israel to provide it. A few rockets into Israel and Israel obliges.

I don’t understand how the blood of Palestinians has become so cheap it’s considered a just cost to advance Israeli politicians ahead of the elections. So cheap that Hamas, Palestine’s so-called leaders, are spilling it to garner sympathy for themselves and cement their leadership role. These are people we are talking about. Humans. Civilians.

How is this going to benefit anybody? How is this going to help peace negotiations?

And of course, the media on both sides is painting their side as the victim. English media continues to skew what’s happening as ’self-defense’ (uh-uh, 110 rockets fired on the first day with 1 dead proves those Palestinians are deadly shots alright), and Arabic media isn’t reporting on the fact that there are Israelis protesting against what their country is doing.

But as usual, we might as well be talking to a wall.

And I’m sick of the sudden “let’s blame Egypt” mentality, and not only by Hamas. I mean, good on you Arab leaders, for taking a united stand, but one against Egypt?! Storming the Egyptian Embassy in Yemen? Considering an Anti-Egypt protest in Johannesburg? Hamas killing an Egyptian border officer? Nasrallah asking Egyptians to revolt against their leaders for another country, when they aren’t even doing it for themselves?

I don’t know if y’all have realized this, but Egypt has signed an international agreement with Israel, violating it would mean war. And Egypt can’t open the borders except by agreement with the Palestinian authority, which, I’m sure you also haven’t noticed, were kicked out by Hamas!

And as Mona El-Tahawy so clearly points out:

Has Hassan Nasrallah forgotten that while he rails against Egypt for aiding the blockade of Gaza that he lives in a country, Lebanon, [that] keeps generations of Palestinian refugees in camps that serve as virtual jails?

And the demonstrators in Jordan and Lebanon? Who reminds them that in 1970, Jordan killed tens of thousands as it tried to control Palestinian groups based there, forcing the Palestine Liberation Army into Lebanon where in 1982, the Phalangists, Christian Lebanese militiamen, slaughtered 3,000 Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camp?

No one is a winner here. In the end, we’re all losers.

But hey, no use crying over spilled blood, right?

Happy new year.

Coffee and Bush

I pulled an all-nighter to finish my work and still had to be at the office at 8am. Which means I had to resort to a calorie-laden vanilla latte, the only way I can mange to swallow down coffee. And lo and behold, what do I find? Starbucks has changed their coffee cup colors to red with a white snowflake design. How come they never changed their cup to a Eid design? Ok, so a sheep cup isn’t very festive, but you could have cloud-looking puffs of wool, right? Sigh. Even at work I have to stare at a Christmas tree all day.

Talk of the office today is Bush getting shoes thrown at him. I find it a just punishment that the end of his ‘reign’ will be marked by getting shoes thrown at himself. And I find it hilarious how by trying to joke about the incident, he actually revealed the extent of his ignorance: he had no idea just how deeply he’d been insulted. But damn, he has some fast reflexes!

I am loving all the gamemakers who have capitalized on the incident by creating games where you can (alternatively) hit Bush with a shoe/ save him from it, and the millions of people who have already hit him! Click here and here.