A Dayton, Ohio mosque was gassed on Friday night–as in three days ago. The attack affected young children as the gas was “sprayed into the room where the children were playing while their parents were praying.” Again, three days ago, and to this day the national mainstream media has no mention of the incident. For if this was done by Muslims, the label “Terrorist” would’ve been thrown about haphazardly, but in this case it’s an attack on Muslims.

A contributor to the Daily Kos posted an email from a friend of the victims of the attack. Excerpt below, read the full post here.

She told me that the gas was sprayed into the room where the babies and children were being kept while their mothers prayed together their Ramadan prayers. Panicked mothers ran for their babies, crying for their children so they could flee from the gas that was burning their eyes and throats and lungs. She grabbed her youngest in her arms and grabbed the hand of her other daughter, moving with the others to exit the building and the irritating substance there.

Question:

Why do people insist on calling the meal at the end of the daily fast in Ramadan ‘iftar’ instead of ‘fitar’? First I thought the reversal of the ‘i’ and ‘f’ letters came from that pseudo-Arabic language that American and South Asian Muslims seem to speak with sometimes (i.e. ’salaat’ vs. ’salah’). However, recently I’ve noticed the word used by Egypt-based blogs.

Is ‘iftar’ now the official English equivalent to the Arabic ‘fitar’?

Last week we had to sit through the Democrats trot their clowns up on national TV while essentially putting on a show for themselves. As painful as that was to watch, this week’s show is much worse; the Republican Circus is in town.

Here’s an excerpt of what just polluted the TV screens. Governor Mitt Romney, the former Republican Presedential candidate is at the podium:

Last week, did you hear any Democrats talk about the threat from radical violent jihad….George Bush labeled terrorist sponsor states exactly what they are, the Axis of Evil….John McCain hit the nail on the head, radical violent Islam is evil and he will defeat it!

To which the rest of the clowns in session started chanting “USA! USA!”

Of course, we’ll leave it to the Republicans to define what “radical violent Islam” is, because after all, they’re such experts on Islam.

This is what happens when one tries to avoid Ramadan dramas, this is one of the few times when watching Yusra’s overacting would’ve been preferred to Romney’s delusional words.

Tags: mitt romney, republican national convention, 2008 elections

Marcel Khalife released the following statement on Thursday regarding the death of Mahmoud Darwish.

For many years, my music has enjoyed a special, and especially gratifying, association with the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. Our respective corpora have grown to be reminiscent of each other, so that the name of each of the twain, instantly and without reflection, would evoke the name of the other. How very appropriate, for all of my musical milestones that punctuate my thirty-year career, beginning with Promises of the Storm and culminating with The Doves Fly, are graced with the lyricism and poignancy that are uniquely Darwishian. Even before we got to know each other personally, I felt as though Darwish’s poetry, with its divine assertiveness and prophetic cadences, had been revealed to me and for me. I could nearly savor his mother’s bread that has become iconic to his readers. I could feel the eyes of his Rita as deeply as I could feel the pain that his Joseph suffered at the hands of his treacherous siblings, and I could identify with his passport, which I fancied carried my picture, just as personally as I could identify with his olive grove, his sand, and his sparrows. They were all, at a personal level, mine.

“And I adore my life because if I die I will be ashamed of my mother’s tears”- Darwish

Perhaps, this is the only time that Mahmoud Darwish felt ashamed and it is because he departed before his mother. He left her the tears to shed but not a poem to eulogize him with. I am the one who carried his poetry and traveled with it to far away places. I am the one who carried his soil and longing to his mother, his Rita, his olive tree and grape vine. Would you believe me when I say to you that poets do not die, but only pretend to?

- Marcel Khalife

Photo Credit: Reuters © 2008

Tags: mahmoud darwish, marcel khalife

Mahmoud Darwish 1942-2008

One cannot use mere words to describe or remember he who was a master of words. All that can be said is that the world has lost one of the legends of Arabic poetry that, as with Arabic music and Sayed Darwish, many will try to imitate and follow in his footsteps, but all will fall short. Inspiration and love are words incapable of describing what the Arab world owes to and feels towards Mahmoud Darwish.

Marcel Khalife often uses Darwish’s words as lyrics for his compositions. Below is a clip of Khalife from his album Ahmad Al-Arabi (Ahmad the Arab) based Darwish’s Ahmad AlZa’tar.

Although translations never do justice to Arabic poetry, the translation can be found below if interested. (more…)

Youssef Chahine 1926-2008

Egyptian cinema legend and icon Youssef Chahine passed away on July 27, 2008 after being in a coma for some time. Chahine was the most well known Egyptian director of the 20th century and his work always offered something unique. In an era of increasingly talentless, classless and unimaginative directors, producers and actors, Chahine was always a breath of fresh air.

Thank you for the many years of dedication to the art, and the inspiration to the millions of fans and future artists. Thank you for the films and the reputation, and thank you for never selling out or giving in to pressures. It’s sad to see you go in a time where your creative mind and independent spirit are needed most.

Tags: youssef chahine, egyptian cinema

The Tate Britain Museum is having an exhibition about British Orientalist painters through the rest of the summer. The exhibition features works by the likes of David Roberts and others.

From the Tate Museum website:

British Orientalist Painting will explore the responses of British artists to the cultures and landscapes of the Near and Middle East between 1780 and 1930, offering vital historical and cultural perspectives on the challenging questions of the ‘Orient’ and its representation in British art.

Many of the paintings can be seen online on the exhibition’s website.

Watch Jon Stewart comment on the three presidential candidates recent visit to the AIPAC conference. It’s one of those funny but true pieces. A personal favorite is when Stewart comments on the fact that McCain mentions that he last visited Israel with Senator Joseph Lieberman:

You know, when you go to Israel you don’t need to bring your own Jew.

And on the candidates non-existent criticism of Israeli policies:

Oh, I forgot, you can’t say anything remotely critical of Israel and still get elected president, which is funny, because you know where you can criticize Israel? Israel.

Watch below or here:
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In contemporary society, a class that owns property dominates a class that does not own property. There is a class of workers and a class of owners, and because there exists a basic contradiction in the interests of those two classes, they are constantly struggling with one another. Now, because things do not stay the same we can be sure of one thing: the owner will not stay the owner and the people who are dominated will not stay dominated….We can be sure that if we increase the intensity of the struggle, we will reach a point where the equilibrium of forces will change and there will be a qualitative leap into a new situation with a new social equilibrium.

- Huey P. Newton, 1971 meeting of social theorists at Yale

Thirty-seven years later, the quote can be applied to struggles such as the Mahallah protests and overall class in equality in Egypt and other countries with US backed crooked regimes.

Tags: huey p newton, mahallah, egypt, class struggle