مفخرة لنا أن تعرف كل الشعوب العربية والإسلامية أننا نسجن ونعتقل لأننا نقول ربنا الله ونصغي إلى الله سبحانه وتعالى الذي يأمرنا أن نكون إلى جانب إخواننا في فلسطين وفي قطاع غزة

حسن نصر الله 4/2010

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Ya Rayeh - Rashed Taha Oud Aws يا رايح - رشيد طه عود أوس

Continuing my Algerian theme for this week, here's a clip for a guy playing one of my favourite songs, Ya Rayeh, by Rachid Taha. I'd give my right arm to play oud like him, but that would kind of defeat the purpose wouldn't it? oh well...

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Yesterday I went to grab a coffee with a friend of mine who works in one of the bookshops in Edgware Road. The one near where all the Kurdish restaurants are. Whilst waiting for him to close up he gave me a book to browse through, written by Saddam's lawyer. The book seemed to be crap, but what amused me was on the very part of the book that I opened it, I found glaring out at me a line of poetry written by al Mutanabi -

اذا جائتلك مذمتي من ناقص فهذه شهادة باني كامل

I almost laughed out loud. al Mutanabi, a poem for every feeling. You've got to love that guy. Apparently he was murdered by some tribal chief he had pissed off a few years earlier for some reason or other. Guess he was a smart-ass as well as a brilliant poet. .

Super Mario سوبر ماريو على العود

Unbelievable...some people have too much time on their hands. Like these guys from Qatar...

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Kamel Messaoudi- Chemaâ

Not many of my friends or family know this, but I have had a fascination with Algeria ever since I first heard that famous song by Cheb Khaled in the mid-nineties. For a long time I knew very little about this place except for Cheb Khaled, but I imagined what it must be like in those far off places - it just seemed so exotic with that strange way they spoke. Syria has a strange connection with Algeria, Sheikh Abdul Qadir al Jaz'airi came here after putting up a brave fight against the French invaders and he saved thousands of Christians from a massacre during an outbreak of riots in the city. Many Algerians came to settle with him in Damascus and today there are many families with the surname "al Jazairi" there. In fact Syria's connection with the land of the Maghreb and Algeria goes as far back as the days when Arabs were still in Andalucia. So I guess the connection is a throwback from those old days. In that tradition, I too dream of walking through Algeria's beautiful mountains or strolling through her delightful olive groves.

Here is a beautiful song by the late Kamel Messaoudi called Chemaa. It is in a wonderful style called Chaabi (popular) music in Algeria, and is different from the Rai music that Cheb Khaled is famous for, which is apparently from a region in Algeria called Wahran. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

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Some comments on "The Virginity Industry"

A friend of mine posted a link recently on this story that was run by the BBC. It is about the ridiculous sums of money that Arab women are prepared to pay in order to have their hymen reconstructed so that nobody realises that they are not a virgin on their wedding night. The fact is, this is all true. There is nothing I can deny or be outraged about in the story apart from that this is utterly and totally the result of stupid and stifling traditions in the Arab world which make marriage an almost unattainable goal. I have immense problems with the increasing sexualisation of popular culture - many Arabic satellite channels are virtually unwatchable - but this is not what the issue is here. As a veteran of two engagements so far - long story - I can state from experience that this project can be a far from pleasant project to undertake if you are crazy enough.

But returning back to the subject, the reason many women are doing this is obviously because of the stigma of having sex outside of marriage. The westernised Arab liberals can be heard howling with indignation at this stage. They would be going blue in the face as they argue that we have far more urgent things to worry about, that what people choose to do is their business. Well, this argument is wrong, although it is also true on one level. The fact is marriage should not be the mammoth monstrosity it is today, it should be simplified and re-evaluated. I say this about a society which is predominantly Muslim - and I believe that prior to the "modern" era, our forefathers married with remarkable ease. There was no stigma, no protocol, no fancy presentations or pretentious relatives and family. It was just a man and a woman, a sheikh, two witnesses and something of nominal value, a ring, a Qur'an, or a gold or silver coin perhaps. As soon as you were old enough, off you go.

This is not the case today. Today there are still hiccups about priority to cousins, though less than before from what I hear, there are issues of status, wealth, reputation, etc. All this means that marrying the person you want to can often times become incredibly difficult and in some cases impossible. Let us forget about the dire economic situation which means men are unable to have the typical flat, car and well paying job before anybody would let them even look at their daughter. Then there is the media pressure, which truth be said, originated with Western pop-culture satellite stations, that it is ok and in fact admirable to have sex to somebody you are not married to. For males, it is the "stud" image, for girls not yet out of high school, they muse over who is "the one", as if losing their virginity is the new rite of passage.

I remember when I was younger a friend of mine was at a party with a girl he really liked. This was in Syria. Apparently he walked her home, and then in the dark entrance to their building they began to kiss. He then, according to his bragging later, pulled down her jeans and did the deed. Naturally the girl started to get paranoid she was pregnant, neither of them was over 18 yet. She confided in an understanding aunt who took her to the doctor who surprisingly told her that she was still a virgin. So everybody was relieved except Mr Stud-muffin, who became a laughing stock amongst the friends he had bragged with.

Humour aside, this is sad, truly sad - and wrong. In fact we have a label for it, Eyb as we say in the Arab world. We are not Europeans or Americans and this is not our way. Apart from the fact that they both needed to be educated on biology, sex and relationships, they also needed to be educated properly in how to deal with each other according to what Allah told us to do. Get two witnesses, a sheikh, pay her a dowry. You two are together. Of course it is nicer if the parents are supportive and it is highly likely her and his parents would have screamed bloody murder if this idea was proposed to them, but is the above scenario really preferrable? Does anybody really wish for their daughter or son to lose their virginity in a dark corridor in a building, or in a park, or in a backroom in somebody's house party?

I suspect most right-minded people would not. I know how I will be educating my sons. The daughters of other families are not playthings, if you like a girl tell me. Let's talk about it, let's see if we can work something out with her family and get you two hitched. I don't care if they are even only eighteen, sex is a natural instinct they will explore and if the halal option is not available then they will find other ways. I will not raise my sons, if I have any, to be "studs". They have to know how to deal properly with women and I would rather be involved myself than let some music video producer or film director and screenwriter do that for me.

The BBC story is tragic and I know people will be up in arms about it for all the wrong reasons. Ultimately, the real reason behind it is that vaste swathes of our Arab societies are lost, confused and ignorant. We have forgotten our true ways and clung to blind tradition, the antithesis of what Islam is, and have made the halal difficult and the haram easy. This is now the absurd result.

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يانا يانا صباح ورشدى اباظة

Exam revision has now begun in ernest so I will be blogging a bit less, still, you can enjoy these classics I listen to in my breaks. This one is by Sabbah aka "The Cougar", it's called "I do, I do" - (I think?!). It's my favourite song by her in fact. Apparently she married Rushdi Abaza (the actor in this clip) shortly before he died. Well, she's been married to practically everyone so I guess that isn't really news.

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عبد الحليم حافظ بحلم بيك

Classic by Abdul Halim Hafez - "I Dream of You"

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عودي - للشاعر السوري عمر الفرا

عودي إلىّ ... أجنُّ في ملقاكِ
وأعيشُ فيكِ عبادة ألنساكِ
في كلَّ ثانيةٍ أحمًّل زفرةً
فلعلها ... في صُدفةٍ تلقاكِ
رُحماكِ عودي .. ما نطقتُ بمثلها
لو كانَ غيرُكِ .. لم أقلْ رُحماكِ
***
أبحرتُ فيكِ وقد بعدتُ برحلتي
حينَ انثيتُ تكسرتْ أفلاكي
حاولتُ أن أنجو بكلَّ طريقةٍ
من حيلةٍ وشراسةِ الفُتاكِ
فأنا وقلبي والهوى وقصائدي
غرقى نمارسُ عيشةَ الأسماكِ
لا شاطئاً نحو الأمانِ يجرُّنا
لا رحمةً قد تُرتجى ... بشباكِ
هذا مصيري فارحمي أو فاهجريْ
في الحالتينِ جميعنا ... نهواكِ
ما زالَ يذكرُ ساعدي رعشاتنا
في لهفةِ المشتاقِ حين طواكِ
حقُّ الشفاهِ عليَّ دينٌ لم يزلْ
قد ينقضي ... لو أنصفتُ شفتاكِ
أسكنتِ حُبكِ ... في جميعِ جوارحي
سهلٌ عليكِ .. تكهرُبُ الأسلاكِ

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Do or do not - Syrian style

My grandfather once told me, "Do or do not - أفعل أو لا تفعل.". I've tended to follow that rule throughout my life and it has given me mixed results in terms of what I'd liked to have happened, but at least I avoided the agony of being indecisive. I once had the misfortune of sharing a flat with a friend of a friend who happened to be Syrian. This guy was a genius in playing the guitar in the flamenco style but also utterly and completely annoying. He had a picture of himself on his own phone, posing with a guitar while staring melodramatically upwards. My cousin, whose room I had taken over, failed to warn me of the interesting character traits of this person. The night I moved in he had knocked on my door and asked me a favour. I said of course, what is it? He asked me to rub a cream on his back as he has a back condition. I agreed, and there I was in a dark room lit by the glare of my computer screen, rubbing cream on this guy's back when, 24 hours earlier, I had been happy in my life, didn't know this person and my future just seemed so bright and happy.

One thing this person loved to have was a dilemma. On one night out where he unfortunately joined me, I spent the entire evening listening to his love story with some Japanese girl he met, how he loved her utterly but that he left her because his parents would never accept her. Also about how much he loved music but his parents would never let him follow his dream to be a musician. Oh, his parents are filthy rich by the way, old school Damascus Shwam. He kept going on and on, and I nodded and pretended to be interested. Finally, he asked me what I thought. I told him, "do or do not. The pain you are suffering is because you have not made a decision. If you make a decision, stick with it and two thirds of your agony will be wiped out". He blinked at me confusedly, "That's a very direct answer". I said yes, it was. I then didn't speak to him for the rest of the evening and ignored him from then on. Life is too short. Follow your instinct and rely on Allah, if something will work out it will even if you don't want it to, and if it won't work out then it won't even if you want it to.

ما كان ليصيبك ما أخطأك و ما كان ليخطأك ما أصابك

What hits you would never have missed you and what missed you would never have hit you

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Another thing I would like to have in my future farm is lavender. Lots of lavender plants the smell of which can waft into the house when there is a strong breeze. I'll have a central Arabic style fountain in the middle of the house and jasmine growing on one side of the walls. The house will also have lots of potted green plants, a house without greenery just doesn't seem to be habitable in my opinion.

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وا حر قلباه

واحـر قلباه مـمن قلبه شبم
ومن بجسمي وحالي عنده سقم

مالي أكتم حبا قد برى جسدي
وتدعي حب سيف الدولة الأمم

إن كـان يجمعنا حب لغرتـه
فليـت أنا بقدر الحب نقتسـم

قد زرته وسيوف الهند مغمدت
وقد نظرت اليه والسيـوف دم

فكـان أحسن خلق الله كلهـم
وكان أحسن مافي الأحسن الشيم

فوت العدو الذي يـممته ظفـر
فـي طيـه أسف في طيه نعـم

قد ناب عنك شديد الخوف واصطنعت
لك الـمهابة مالا تصنع البهـم

ألزمت نفسك شيئا ليس يلـزمها
أن لا يواريهـم أرض ولا علـم

أكلما رمت جيشا فانثنـى هرب
تصـرفت بك في آثاره الهمـم

عليـك هزمهم في كل معتـرك
وما عليك بهم عار إذا انـهزموا

أما ترى ظفرا حلوا سوى ظفـر
تصافحت فيه بيض الهند واللمـم

يا أعـدل الناس إلا في معاملتـي
فيك الخصام وأنت الخصم والحكم

أعيـذها نظرات منك صادقـة
أن تحسب الشحم فيمن شحمه ورم

وما انتفـاع أخي الدنيا بناظـره
إذا استوت عنده الأنوار والظلـم

أنا الذي نظر الأعمى إلى أدبـي
وأسـمعت كلماتي من به صمم

أنام ملء جفوني عن شـواردها
ويسهر الخلق جراها ويختصـم

وجاهل مده في جهله ضحكـي
حتـى أتتـه يد فراسـة وفـم

إذا نظـرت نيوب الليث بارزة
فلا تظنـن أن الليـث مبتسـم

ومهجة مهجتي من هم صاحبهـا
أدركتهـا بـجواد ظهره حـرم

رجلاه في الركض رجل واليدان يد
وفعلـه ما تريد الكف والقـدم

ومرهف سرت بين الجحفلين بـه
حتى ضربت وموج الموت يلتطـم

فالخيل والليل والبيـداء تعرفنـي
والسيف والرمح والقرطاس والقلم

صحبت في الفلوات الوحش منفردا
حتـى تعجب مني القور والأكم

يا من يعـز علينا أن نفارقهـم
وجداننا كل شيء بعدكم عـدم

ما كان أخلقنا منكم بتكرمـة
لو أن أمـركم من أمرنا أمـم

إن كان سركم ما قال حاسدنا
فما لـجرح اذا أرضاكم ألـم

وبيننـا لو رعيتم ذاك معرفـة
إن المعارف في أهل النهى ذمم

كم تطلبون لنا عيبا فيعجزكـم
ويكـره الله ما تأتون والكـرم

ما أبعد العيب والنقصان عن شرفي
أنا الثريا وذان الشيب والـهرم

ليت الغمام الذي عندي صواعقه
يزيلهـن إلـى من عنده الديـم

أرى النوى تقتضيني كل مرحلـة
لا تستقل بـها الوخادة الرسـم

لئن تركن ضميـرا عن ميامننـا
ليحدثـن لـمن ودعتهم نـدم

إذا ترحلت عن قوم وقد قـدروا
أن لا تفارقهـم فالراحلون هـم

شر البـلاد مكان لا صديق بـه
وشر ما يكسب الإنسان ما يصم

وشر ما قنصتـه راحتي قنـص
شهب البزاة سواء فيه والرخـم

بأي لفـظ تقول الشعر زعنفـة
تجوز عندك لا عرب ولا عجـم

هـذا عتابـك إلا أنـه مقـة
قد ضمـن الدر إلا أنه كلـم

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Memories of Nasser, Syria and Cyprus

It is one of the ironies of life that many of us would only appreciate our parents or grandparents the older that we get. There are so many things that I would like to have spoken about with my grandfather and so many things I would have liked to share with him or ask him, but when he died I was far away and still more interested in chasing skirts - not that anything has changed - and partying than I was in sitting with some old man and talking religion, politics or just about life in general. Still, thankfully I still have my father and last night we had the longest conversation we have had in years over the phone, where he reminisced about life in Syria as he was growing up. He told me of the times when Nasser would stand on the balcony of the old official visiting palace, that one behind the Meridien when school children would stand outside and shout "بدنا كلمة يا ناصر" (We want a word oh Nasser). Sometimes he would oblige them and come out to wave - to their delight. My father saw him do this about three times.

Nasser is problematic for my father. On the one hand, he did much which was amazing, but he failed spectacularly in others. My late grandfather had been, along with many men in Syria, furious that Nasser hung Sayyid Qutb in 1966. I had never known that my grandfather liked Sayyid Qutb, or that he had the entire "In the Shades of the Qur'an" collection which he would read studiously when he had the time. In other areas, Nasser was instrumental in splitting Yemen in two. Nasser was vigorously against monarchism, but ironically Egypt's Mubarak today is grooming his son for power. In fact many parts of the Arab world that had intense nationalist and anti-monarchical sympathies are now "Presidential monarchies". See Libya, where Mu'ammar al Qadhafi uprooted the Sanussi King and is now preparing his son to rule, Syria has done the same and Iraq was on the same road before the toppling of Saddam. So nothing really changed in the Arab world with regards to monarchism, it has remained albeit under a different guise.

My father reminisced about how, in the eighties, the Arabs were accusing the Soviet Union of easing Jewish immigration to Israel at a time when the USSR was supposed to be our ally. He and another person from the embassy in Cyprus would go to Larnaca airport to watch planes from the Soviet Union disembarking, and count how many people in traditional Jewish garb would come down from the plane. At the same time, Mossad would be in the airport watching them, and the Syrians watched the Mossad and they both avoided each other. Apparently the Mossad people were known because they always carried little bags which when thrown to the ground would open and reveal a sub-machine gun. My father noted that these people would always move away from him quickly and worriedly whenever he approached, this was funny simply because in those days my father's usual apparel was a pair of flipflops, shorts, an open shirt to show off the typical hirsute Middle Eastern chest and a cap. So they would stay at the airport and try to profile these passengers, then send off a report.

In those days the Embassy was involved with many things, I remember coming to play there in the eighties when I was old enough to walk there on my own. The Greek policemen there all new me and were friendly and I remember a wonderful man there whom I would call Amo Abu Tareq. He was an incredibly erudite man, dark skinned with a handsome face, always immaculately dressed, and he always had time for me. He would call me his buddy and when I visited I would go sit in his office and we would have tea or Coca Cola and talk about things. He gave me a plant as a present once and I was so upset when it died a few months later in spite of my best efforts. He disappeared one day and I never saw him again. Many years later I would be told by my father that he was "summoned" for some reason back to Damascus and was imprisoned. Nobody heard from him again and I don't know if he is still alive today. Apparently he knew what his fate would be and was warned, but he told my father that he was not a coward and that he was a Syrian. Very sad story.

There was a man at that embassy who I was also friends with, it turns out he had certain "security" connections. He once gave my father a canary and my father joked with him that he wanted him to take it back. On being asked why, my father told the man that every time people started talking the canary would stop singing and tilt its head to the side to listen. The man laughed intensely. On another occasion, my father took me with his friends on a day trip to the beach. Barbeque, lots of beer, sun, sand and sea. I felt so grown up because there were no other children and I was with the guys. This man was a great laugh, but he kept annoying me because every few minutes in the car he would ask me "keefak Amo?" (How are you son?) and I would say, I'm good. At the end of the day I got a bit annoyed and when he asked me "Keefak Amo?" I told him "Ahsan Minnak" (Better than you). My father went completely red but everybody in the car roared with laughter, including the man.

One day this man walked into the embassy and walked into a secure locked room used to keep weapons. My father asked him what the matter was and the man told him "Now you'll see how the real men work" as he tucked a pistol behind his back. The next day the news carried a story of a Palestinian operative who was shot dead in Larnaca by two men on a motorcycle. At the time Cyprus was not yet filled with the Russians and the biggest immigrant community were Lebanese or Palestinians. No questions, no answers. This was the murky world of Cyprus in the eighties.

Another thing we recalled was how manky and tiny the flag at the embassy was in the eighties. It was pathetic. One day, all the wives got together and decided to sew a new flag and in a short while, a beautiful big flag was fluttering on its mast. It made such a big change! In a way, times were simpler then, and there was a certain innocence, though my father thinks I say this because I was a child. That some things were just as scummy and rotten then as I think they are now. I'm glad my father and I talked about these things and reminisced. There is still so much I'd like to talk to him about.

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There are many places I would like to visit, but I feel that sooner rather than later I might be visiting Mecca and Medina...there have been far too many reminders for me and it might be that the time has come. More on that later.

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Silence is the true friend that never betrays - Confucius

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حالي حالي حال

I don't like posting a second clip to my blog in the same week, but listening to these guys play makes me wish I was in Syria right now. I feel so nostalgic right now.

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الموسيقار- سيد مكاوي - مش كنت تعلمني العوم

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When you ask"Why?" and it is met by a deafening silence...

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Syrian Independance Day - some thoughts

What does it mean to be independent? Today we take it for granted that most Arab countries have an independence day of sorts. It is a kind of unifying symbol for the people, a day of reaffirmation of what it means to belong to this or that particular country. On television and on the radio, we are blasted with nationalist songs and our streets are festooned with beautiful decorations or flags. It is also a day which people can take off from work. But there is very little in contemplation of what something like this means. In our busy modern lives we just take it for granted that something is the way that it is with little thought of why it is the way that it is.

Almost all Arab countries, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, celebrate an independance day because they were occupied by European countries. That means that those streets you walk on today were once patrolled by French, English or Italian jackboots, and men with guns would have rounded you up and put you in trucks to be placed in concentration camps or worse. Today, two Arab countries are still under occupation, Palestine and Iraq. But just as there were good men resisting back then, there are good men resisting the occupation today. But we must not forget that the reason we have independence days is because we failed to defend our countries properly. Also, why independence? What kind of term is this? In the modern sense, independence is given a political, judicial and cultural meaning. But importantly, that means that an entity which has gained 'independence' had its sovereignty suspended whilst under occupation. Therefore independence can be used only for one and the same entity. Can we say the same for Syria?

A little bit of history first. There was no "Syria" as a political entity we could recognise today in 1914. Syria was part of the Ottoman empire. But we were not just part of the Ottoman empire, we were Ottomans. We were Muslim Arabs who, just like the British under Victoria were Victorians, were Ottomans. It was when the Ottoman empire became weak that a new, secular movement called the Young Turks tried to Turkify the empire that we then decided to Arabize ourselves. King Faisal of the Hashemites (who ruled Saudi Arabia before the Saudi bit was added) was our King when the Turks were kicked out by the British led revolt. It was King Faisal's Arab Kingdom of Syria which was occupied by the French, but it was the Syrian Arab Republic which "won" independence from France in 1948. This is like a fictional Nelson Mandela going into prison and twenty years later coming out a white man. Can you really say he was freed?

The Americans were British subjects who formed their own lands, they belong to the Anglosaxon tradition and they were men and women who decided to be independent from their former king. Syria, on the other hand, had moved from being an integral part of an Ottoman, Muslim, empire that dated back five hundred years, which was the heir to the Islamic caliphate in Baghdad, to being the Kingdom of a Hashemite King. It was then quickly occupied by a French Army and then when the French left there was something new there. Something that had not existed before. The French occupation formed a break in our history, in that laws, culture and society were drastically changed in a way that King Faisal's rule did not do. King Faisal was an Arab and a Hashemite, descended from the Prophet Muhammad. He was from that same social-cultural-historical makeup that we as Syrians come from.

It would be a brave man indeed who today would argue that we can somehow erase all traces of our colonial past, but it would be a foolish man who could seriously argue that Syria is now independent when in fact Syria as a republic is a creation of the French occupation. Even after the creation of the S.A.R. the inhabitants of this new republic still did not feel that the artificial borders which had been drawn between them and other lands were real, these would ossify later through bitter political rivalry. In essence, as the old generation died out, the collective memory of Syria became confined within these borders that we today celebrate as symbols of our independence. They are in fact our prisons. You are not independent, you just got moved into your own cell so you can be managed properly.

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