Big ups for the well-written & enlightening post, though it dampened my spirits since it seems our ” Arab crisis” will always remain a vicious cycle:(

Fad, thank you for sharing the poem.

this is not simply a self-criticism, and if i stated it was i don’t think you should ever have to reduce it to mere nonsense simply because you don’t like it or agree with it. similarily i can reduce your entire comment into say, jibberish, but instead i choose to read it and make an attempt at understanding your point.

that’s how we progress in this world.

that being said:

when i use the collective “we” of course i am generalizing. this post is not based on the individual nature but an observation on what i feel is the majority of “us” Arabs. and it’s not just a feeling, it’s not sketchy, it’s real (I would go so far as to call it a fact based on the numbers). the action and reaction of the arab street is as predictable as the seasons and there’s a reason for that.

as for a mosque. as a Muslim I care more about the half a million muslims killed in Iraq and the half a million killed in Darfur and the thousands dead in lebanon and palestine and somalia. i care more about the threat of alqueda and takfiri culture. the blood of these people are worth more than the stones of the ka3ba itself, which has been rebuilt several times.

when “we” start to care about the little things a lot more than the larger things, then there’s something to be said about that.

and with an emphasis on “We”

but feel free to excuse yourself from the picture.

What eludes me, is collective accusation!

And in the case of this article you have written in your blog, all symptoms of collective accusations are found !

when some people like you insist on using the word “Arab” as if talking about some two dimensional symbol made of ink on paper!

In reality as opposed to propaganda, and other forms of nonesense, peoples are individuals, and I have yet to see,

what makes an Arab man diffirent in individual character and content from a Hindu, Chinese, European, or African man.

Is it so that a self-imposed racism (WE) is allowed and good, but peer-imposed racism (YOU) is sin and bad?

Neither Self-Criticism , nor Free speech and opinion is not a vehicle of nonesense.

I just do not trust speakers who overuse collective words like masses, crowds, generation, anyone, everyone, and also like (we) and (ourselves).
Civilians ,soldiers, audience
And if you think a mosque is a colletion of stones , then please explain to me what are your concepts of “respect”, “reverence”, “sacredness”, …

I hope you can see my point !

والسلام

the common enemy theory is valid. but in our case what i’ve noticed is that such a theory can be applied once or twice but when its done a variety of time for a variety of what i sometimes perceive to be ‘not as important’ thing, then to me it says that we are looking for something to focus our anger on.

every little controversy becomes cathartic.

a chance for emotional release.

i suppose its a mix of reasons, that’s just the one i feel is the most applicable sometimes.

I just found your website through a link from Drima (@the Sudanese Thinker) and read the post with great interest.

I hope you don’t mind when I jump right into the discussion..

After I read Markus’ last comment I thought that maybe this is exactly (one part of) the explanation why the ramp at the aqsa mosque or the pope are chosen as reasons to protest and go to the streets where “internal” fights are not (even though they might have much bloodier results).. If there is no clear identity (and maybe even the fear of loosing the identity) a fight against a common enemy will stabilize. Protests against one’s “own” people endangers the identity even more. Sometimes it is important to have an enemy… (And I am sure that this is not only true in this case, but whenever a society feels threatened it its identity).

Fad: I actually thought of hollow men, i just went with ginsberg instead. thanks for the poem though.

Markus: thanks for the comment. you have some valid points but i dont the problem is so much the regime. like you said they’ve been around a very long time, which has lead me to conclude a long time ago that in the environment we’re in, changing a regime and replacing it with another only has the same results. i’m more interested in the way we choose to unleash our frustrations. i’m more interested in the things we feel are worthy of fighting for.

as an example: i personally find the deaths of thousands in iraq, darfur, palestine and so on, to be more appalling than israel building a ramp at the aqsa mosque or the pope badmouthing the prophet pbuh. and so on and so forth.

it’s the choice. maybe we’re all psychologically scared.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer –

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

but while on the subject i kind of remember this yakov smirnoff joke where he says: “in soviet russia we have two channels. the first is propaganda and the second consists of a kgb agent ordering you to switch back to channel one at once!”

maha: lol well at least it’ll feed the needy right?

i tried to find your old entry about records but couldn’t find it because i have no time to look long enough

“The mass media serve as a system for communication messages and symbols to general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires a systemic propaganda.”

Thus,

â??Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state” Chomsky: Media Control