Surviving an Arab writer's conference

It was only two days, yet my legs are left angry, complaining of walking for what seemed like a week and a few hours. It must have been my nervous cyclical circling of tables and groups chatting seeking a way in. I paced unevenly between the various discussions and paneled my interest with smiles and smirk filled nods as that odd incoherent question to a hero who I couldn’t release unquestioned.

Few knew who I was or am or who I may be or become, a fact truer than my knowledge of that fact or current fiction, And who I was seemed to come forth and drown who I thought I was becoming because of what I lacked. I left too wide a slit in the door for that not to occur. I was a timid awkward geek who feared too much.

A poet read and I paced the distance she had traveled here. When would my legs carry me close enough to…to…I wasn’t quite certain of why I was hoping to get close? I knew I would babble and I walked on as the woman with the blue Marcel-style scarf looked at my passing with pity, not pity that I couldn’t approach but pity to a man who seemed relieved in failure and she took my spot and shook hands with the poet. I didn’t need an autograph or expected her to know my name the next year we meet, I needed to meet.

As Wadsworth and Keats wrestled over my use of I, I prepared for my presentation. It was a last minute drool with no time for revision as was my style. I was looking at the few who sacrificed sleep to attend and do their best to present an interested face, giving them loosely linked words. The interest didn’t seem that contrived the more I went on. Perhaps I was making some sense. If only I could listen to my own words instead of those voices of imprisoned grappling writers who mocked me and undermined any coherent proclamation. The poet came to me as destiny rehearsing her game. Surely she couldn’t have meant that my presentation was as fantastic as she announced. Was it just the product of the customary congratulatory comment native to conference camaraderie? She smiled again to confirm her delight and promised to visit my blog. My blog? This triviality?

The conference broke for lunch. Feeling a bit more confident that I would not suffer any bites, I gave my legs some rest and struck limited conversation with the woman sharing my table. Although I felt it her table by the way in which she snuck a wondering peak of “why is this awkward unpublished man here?”
She did her best to politely end the conversation and I worried. As I saw her the next day, I sent a passing greeting as casually as I could to avert any awkwardness and misrepresentation. Her uneasy smile damned me back to 9th grade.

Marching into a peaceful exercise unarmed rendered me battle worn.

And I was an outsider again. The second day felt like a sentence of no performable tasks giving demons exercise. What venture undertook me?
My desire to become what each of them has become, a published Arab writer, kept me confined comfortless.

The two-day self-inflicted anguish ended, but I had questions left unasked and heroes unapproached. I survived…regretfully.

Allahyirhamak ya Sayed

(Jiddi with my uncle during a dinner in his honor in March)

My grandfather has passed after a long and difficult battle in the hospital. He came to the U.S. when few Arabs lived here, and raised his children without compromising traditions or faith. He survived two world wars as a child and a soldier. After gaining in years he returned home to Tibnine. He missed his children and their children and wanted to see their children's children and play and tell them stories. So he returned to the U.S. in early spring this year. My grandmother was stuck behind and never had the chance to say good-bye. He was 99 years-old. Alhamdullilah he lived a long, productive, clean life. He was a good, religious man who raised nine families. He leaves behind wonderful memories and enough great-grand children to tell his stories for generations to come. I just wish I could have been with him a bit longer to hear one more story.

May Allah grant you his mercy

RAWI this weekend

RAWI 2nd National Conference at the Arab American National Museum May 17 - 20-- Please join us! Check out our schedule at www.rawi.org REGISTRATION AND TICKETS Full registration $120-includes one year membershipStudent registration $75-includes one year membership1 Day Pass $35-includes panels and lunch Thursday Night Reading $10Friday Night Reading $10Friday Night Party $10Saturday Azouma & Awards Night $35

I'll be part of a panel Fri 9am

May the chips lay where they fall.

So, if it wasn't enough to be teased by co-workers endlessly about what we Muslims can and can not eat, now we discover that that list is growing. Say Kosher and everyone understands and is supportive, but say Halal and you get confused looks and ignorant statements. I don't mind the ignorance as much as the deck being stacked against us. It becomes more and more apparent that this world is oblivious to our concerns.

Perhaps that is the way Allah created it, we are constantly tested. Certainly the concern of a few food products not being Halal is trivial compared to the wars being waged and the daily oppression millions face, but it is a concern none-the-less, especially when you have children.

The reason for this topic is because I keep getting emails about a new popular food that is now found to be Haram. I've heard of McDonald's fries (beef flavoring), then Wrigley's gum (animal based gelatin) , then Altoids (pork based flavor crystals), then Doritos and other chips (pork based seasoning) and even recently about Burger King and their practise of frying Fish in the same fryer as pork and other meats. The list goes on and on. The crazy part is that you won't find this information from reading the ingredients and that is the part the gets me mad the most. Burger King says they fry in vegetable oil, but said nothing about using the same fryer as pork and other meats. McDonald's says they fry in vegetable oil but didn't say the fries are seasoned with beef. I'm slightly concerned about not being able to eat most of the chips made by Frito-Lay anymore, but I'll live.

The products that I'm most concern with are products like Advil, Tylenol and Motrin, they use a pork based coating of all things. Now that's the three most popular pain killers. (only Advil relieves my headache) Where will Muslims turn in that department? Anyone have alternatives?

I won't list every product I've found, there are sites that do this. I'm just frustrated. I expect companies to use whatever product makes their food taste addictive and cost less. I can't blame them for doing so, but can blame them if they hide these products as McDonald's did for years. Right now I'm not sure if this is worth an uproar, I'll just have to be more careful and less trusting (with corporations).

Anyone want to recommend sites that track this issue?

What about alternative products?

Am I wrong about any of these?

Spread the word

First Boston Palestine Film Festival coming this fall.

Make plans to attend and pass along to filmakers.

Call for Entries 2007
http://www.bostonpalestinefilmfest.org
The Boston Palestine Film Festival (BPFF) is now accepting entries for its first annual festival to be held in September-October 2007.

Criticisim of Contemporary Arab Society or Just a Divergent Rant

The drive, the evolution, the creativity, the progress is all at a standstill. A stagnant existence cripples us like a drug addiction.

It seems the Arab masses have rested too long. We have developed an aura of arrogance based on our previous historical accomplishments. We have contributed nothing of value in the past century other than sitting on oil. All we have become is the purveyors of perpetual pop.

Sure we can say things like we invented the numbering system, algebra, the two-stroke engine and the torpedo 800 years ago, the ice cream cone or whatever, but what has been our contribution lately is a knack for mimicking. The strive is long dead and we didn’t even mourn since we are in denial. To be like others and to blend seems to be only saving us from temporary destruction. We quickly give up the things that make us who we are.

This is not meant as an attack on our society (and by no means is this an academic work) rather, a venting in hopes of sparking some revival within myself and others.

There are several issues I have on our perception, our reputation and our future.

The perception is that we are special. Others' perception of us is disturbingly negative.
Why such a chasm? Is there something we don't see or is this a product of years of propaganda purposing a divergence of truth staging our demise? It appears to be a combination of both.
We see our selves above all with no fault, resting on the weight of past glory. And we are victim to centuries of unjust attacks. Our reputation is a violent and decadent one, certainly unjustified to the extent propagated, yet clearly we have lost our way. This is not to say that we all are guilty but when there is this grim cloud covering our movement we all suffer, therefore we all need to act to reignite our evolution into a perpetual positive progression. The future is not bright by any means, in fact the reality is that we are headed into our darkest hour since the time before Prophet Mohammad. And there may not be a recovery. There is a correlation between the rise of Islam and the dawn of a great Arab civilization, one which rescued vital ideas of justice and philosophy. Now it is believed that most of Europe's advancements were merely inventions copied from the Arab world centuries earlier. I mentioned the torpedo, but weapons of destruction aside, there was the creation of the library, university and hospital. And the advancements in irrigation and the time piece and so on.

Where is that knowledge now? I'm assuming it all went into the abyss to replace the oil that was drawn out. the majority of Arabs do not have oil but this has cursed us all, since the powerful have taken us down with them. There is no shining light leader to bring us back up. and we wallow in a mucky swamp of pop culture imitation trying to fit into a new society. We graze the diseased fields like sheep. And like sheep we find ourselves behind fences and walls. To what end, a violent catastrophic one?

When do we take control of our own lives, lead ourselves, create our own track, represent ourselves, draw our own boarders, embrace our own culture, protect our brothers and sister and not kill them to serve others?

I'm not sure I even had any coherency or direction in this, but I am tired and frustrated and unwilling to go on in this present state.

A wall is a barrier, a form of oppression, just ask the Palestinians.

Iraq It seems that Iraqis don't want a wall after all. after the US military started building a wall to divide Sinni and Shi3a neighborhoods based on "granting the Iraqi's wishes" They protested and stopped the wall...for now. There will be other ways to divide and conquer.

Palestine

Mexico

An Interview with Marcel Khalife

An interview on the state of music today with Marcel Khalife from the Arab International Festival in 2002. Interview by Transient and IBJ
(Sorry audio is low, don't forget to turn off music at bottom of page)

Fire them all

Radio Idiot Don Imus was fired for his racial remarks.
Ok, this sounds good; people held responsible for thier actions and their racist words.
But why only him, and why not until now?
Shouldn't he have been fired directly after those remarks, did his employers have to wait until they were threatened? or until the sponsors started pulling their money?
And why wasn't he fired years ago after many racist statements about others?
The claim that this firing is the right thing to do is BS.

Why isn't every post-911 journalist, reporter, shock-jock, pundit, news anchor, TV host, and so on fired, since almost every single person with an audience has made inflamitory, derogatory, racist, stereotypically bold statements about Muslims and or Arabs since 911. They should all have been fired, or are Muslims and Arabs not due the same respect and dignity as other human beings?

The problem is, Imus could call me a terrorist or any thing else he like and not one person would call for his job. If he says "nappy-headed hos" he gets fired. Both are bad, but being called a ho may not hurt you, stereotyping Arabs and Muslims makes them targets.

You'd think that this double-standard is bad enough.
Then the thought of this being a racist country that uses money as a moral guide sounds a bigger alarm. I am under the belief that not one person would defend what's right if the price was too high.

So, why have there not been any firings after much worse remarks aimed at Arabs and Muslims? There have been arrests, firings, deportations and violence towards Arabs and Muslims as a direct result of some of these comments, and not one media member has been fired. Why is this? Is it because the sponsors believe in the same aniti-Arab and Muslim agenda as people like Bill O'Rielly, Don Imus, Howard Stern, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and so on? Or are they the ones who dictate what should be said?

Either way the issue of racism in this country cannot be solved with one firing and a diversity session, especially when the biggest target is left unprotected.

(Minor lines found along the way in my writing while writhing of words in search of that story I long to hear)




Either, other, or, no not me.
I am sentenced here to pleasing demons,
rising fire-winged from the depths of my ill remorseful soul,
bleeding my heart into submission,
taking no care in banishing my identity into the abyss of that dark sea I over flew many decades ago.
The wide sea tears away at the flesh of my being as crashing waves crash endlessly about for my self-lost identity.






By the light of improbability
The other stakes the claim of passion in verse as stakes pluck his eyes.
Seeing by not seeing, as now truly has light shone his way and all things clear,
a vision of what's to come. Let me be blind to this world and hence traverse
the endless wild of being.

For when my others falter,
I sit sipping my muddied drink and swirl the smoke taken in and taken out.
By lit darkness my eyes swell a tear or two, one from the smoke that infests my lungs
and the other for the days that should have come.
The studio creaks out its asbestos skin as it lay silent.
No strokes brush the coarse canvas with their customary passionate hues.
No voices break with laughter the silence that becomes my days ever more.
The doors must close a final time and I sit longing for the days that should have come.